Strike action in the context of "Aden Colony"

Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from mandate building in a community (including writing letters to newspapers), petitioning elected officials, running or contributing to a political campaign, preferential patronage (or boycott) of businesses, and demonstrative forms of activism like rallies, street marches, strikes, sit-ins, or hunger strikes.

Activism may be performed on a day-to-day basis in a wide variety of ways, including through the creation of art (artivism), computer hacking (hacktivism), or simply in how one chooses to spend their money (economic activism). For example, the refusal to buy clothes or other merchandise from a company as a protest against the exploitation of workers by that company could be considered an expression of activism. However, the term commonly refers to a form of collective action, in which numerous individuals coordinate an act of protest together. Collective action that is purposeful, organized, and sustained over a period of time becomes known as a social movement.

The August Agreements (Polish: Porozumienia sierpniowe) was a set of four accords reached between the government of the Polish People's Republic and the striking shipyard workers in Poland. The accord, signed in late August 1980 by government representative Mieczysław Jagielski and strike leader Lech Wałęsa, led to the creation of the trade union Solidarity and was an important milestone towards the eventual end of Communist rule in Poland.

In summer 1980, faced with a major economic crisis, the Polish government authorized a rise in food prices, which immediately led to a wave of strikes and factory occupations across the country. On 14 August workers at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk went on strike after the sacking of Anna Walentynowicz, five months before she was to retire. The Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee, headed by Wałęsa, issued a list of 21 demands to the government. Thanks to popular support within the country, the workers held out until the government gave in to their demands, and an agreement was formalized on 31 August.

Anarcho-syndicalism is an anarchist organisational model that centres trade unions as a vehicle for class conflict. Drawing from the theory of libertarian socialism and the practice of syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism sees trade unions as both a means to achieve immediate improvements to working conditions and to build towards a social revolution in the form of a general strike, with the ultimate aim of abolishing the state and capitalism. Anarcho-syndicalists consider trade unions to be the prefiguration of a post-capitalist society and seek to use them in order to establish workers' control of production and distribution. An anti-political ideology, anarcho-syndicalism rejects political parties and participation in parliamentary politics, considering them to be a corrupting influence on the labour movement. In order to achieve their material and economic goals, anarcho-syndicalists instead practice direct action in the form of strike actions, boycotts and sabotage. Anarcho-syndicalists also attempt to build solidarity among the working class, in order to unite workers against the exploitation of labour and build workers' self-management.

The foundations of anarcho-syndicalism were laid by the anti-authoritarian faction of the International Workingmen's Association (IWMA) and developed by the French General Confederation of Labour (CGT). Anarcho-syndicalism was constituted as a specific tendency following the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam in 1907, which led to anarcho-syndicalism becoming the dominant form of trade union organisation in Europe and Latin America. After facing suppression during the Revolutions of 1917–1923, anarcho-syndicalists established the International Workers' Association (IWA) in 1922. Anarcho-syndicalism reached its apex during the Spanish Revolution of 1936, when the National Confederation of Labour (CNT) established an anarcho-syndicalist economy throughout much of the Spanish Republic. Anarcho-syndicalism went into decline after the defeat of the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War in 1939. The movement split into two factions: the "orthodox" faction, which held to traditional syndicalist principles in spite of changing material conditions; and the "revisionist" faction, which aimed to achieve a mass base and work within the framework of newly established welfare states. By the end of the 20th century, the rise of neoliberalism and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc had led to a revival in anarcho-syndicalism, with syndicalist unions once again being established throughout the globe.

Direct action is a form of activism in which participants use agency—for example economic power or political power—to achieve their goals. The aim of direct action is to either obstruct a certain practice such as a government's laws or actions or to solve perceived problems.

Direct action may include activities, that can be either violent or nonviolent, targeting people, groups, institutions, actions, or property that its participants deem objectionable. Violent direct action may include political violence, assault, arson, sabotage, and property destruction. Nonviolent direct action may include civil disobedience, sit-ins, strikes, and counter-economics.

The labour movement is the collective organisation of working people to further their shared political and economic interests. It consists of the trade union or labour union movement, as well as political parties of labour. It can be considered an instance of class conflict.

• In trade unions, workers campaign for higher wages, better working conditions and fair treatment from their employers, and through the implementation of labour laws, from their governments. They do this through collective bargaining, sectoral bargaining, and when needed, strike action. In some countries, co-determination gives representatives of workers seats on the board of directors of their employers.

• Political parties representing the interests of workers campaign for labour rights, social security and the welfare state. They are usually called a labour party (in English-speaking countries), a social democratic party (in Germanic and Slavic countries), a socialist party (in Romance countries), or sometimes a workers' party.
• Though historically less prominent, the cooperative movement campaigns to replace capitalist ownership of the economy with worker cooperatives, consumer cooperatives, and other types of cooperative ownership. This is related to the concept of economic democracy.

The labour movement developed as a response to capitalism and the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, at about the same time as socialism. The early goals of the movement were the right to unionise, the right to vote, democracy, safe working conditions and the 40-hour week. As these were achieved in many of the advanced economies of Western Europe and North America in the early decades of the 20th century, the labour movement expanded to issues of welfare and social insurance, wealth distribution and income distribution, public services like health care and education, social housing and in some cases common ownership.

The 2011 Egyptian revolution, also known as the 25 January Revolution (Arabic: ثورة ٢٥ يناير, romanized: Thawrat khamsa wa-ʿišrūn yanāyir;), began on 25 January 2011 and spread across Egypt. The date was set by various youth groups to coincide with the annual Egyptian "National Police Day" as a statement against increasing police brutality during the last few years of Hosni Mubarak's presidency. It consisted of demonstrations, marches, occupations of plazas, non-violent civil resistance, acts of civil disobedience and strikes. Millions of protesters from a range of socio-economic and religious backgrounds demanded the overthrow of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Violent clashes between security forces and protesters resulted in at least 846 people killed and over 6,000 injured. Protesters retaliated by burning over 90 police stations across the country.

The Egyptian protesters' grievances focused on legal and political issues, including police brutality, state-of-emergency laws, lack of political freedom, civil liberty, freedom of speech, corruption, high unemployment, food-price inflation and low wages. The protesters' primary demands were the end of the Mubarak regime. Strikes by labour unions added to the pressure on government officials. During the uprising, the capital, Cairo, was described as "a war zone" and the port city of Suez saw frequent violent clashes. Protesters defied a government-imposed curfew, which the police and military could not enforce in any case. Egypt's Central Security Forces, loyal to Mubarak, were gradually replaced by military troops. In the chaos, there was looting by rioters which was instigated (according to opposition sources) by plainclothes police officers. In response, watch groups were organised by civilian vigilantes to protect their neighborhoods.

The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, the country's first. The revolution was characterized by mass political and social unrest including worker strikes, peasant revolts, and military mutinies directed against Tsar Nicholas II and the autocracy, who were forced to establish the State Duma legislative assembly and grant certain rights, though both were later undermined.

In the years leading up to the revolution, impoverished peasants had become increasingly angered by repression from their landlords and the continuation of semi-feudal relations. Further discontent grew due to mounting Russian losses in the Russo-Japanese War, poor conditions for workers, and urban unemployment. On 22 January [O.S. 9 January] 1905, known as "Bloody Sunday," a peaceful procession of workers, led by Georgy Gapon, was fired on by guards outside the tsar's Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. Widespread demonstrations and traditional strikes spread all over the empire and were brutally repressed by the tsar's troops. In June, sailors on the battleship Potemkin undertook a mutiny, and in October, a strike by railway workers turned into a general strike in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. The striking urban workers established councils, including the inaugural St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies, in order to debate their course of action. The influence of revolutionary parties, in particular the Socialist Revolutionary Party and Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, quickly escalated. At the same time, the reactionary pro-monarchist Black Hundreds began attacks on intellectuals, revolutionaries, and the Jewish population.

Mieczysław Zygmunt Jagielski (12 January 1924 – 27 February 1997) was a Polish politician and economist. During the times of the People's Republic of Poland he was the last leading politician from the former eastern regions of pre-Second World War Poland.

Jagielski became a communist deputy to the legislative body of Poland, the Sejm, in 1957, and he would continue to serve in that capacity for seven consecutive terms until 1985. In 1959, he was posted to be a member of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party and appointed to be the Minister of Agriculture. After he left his position as Minister of Agriculture in 1970, Jagielski became a Deputy Prime Minister, and the next year, a member of the Politburo of the Polish United Workers' Party. In August 1980, Jagielski represented the government during talks with strikers in the city of Gdańsk. He negotiated the agreement which recognized Solidarity, a Polish trade union, as the first officially recognized independent trade union within the Eastern Bloc. Between August 1980 and August 1981, Jagielski continued to interact with representatives of Polish workers, though his health was declining during this period. In late July 1981, Jagielski was fired from the Deputy Premiership, reportedly because he failed to produce a recovery program for the economic crisis Poland was experiencing at that time. The same year, he left his membership of the Political Bureau of the Polish United Workers Party and the Central Committee. He died in Warsaw, Poland from a heart attack at the age of 73.