 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hello and welcome back to Around the World in 8 Minutes, where we bring you stories of working class struggle from across the globe. Since April 28th, hundreds of thousands of Colombians have been participating in mass mobilizations as part of a national strike. The strike has seen widespread participation of diverse social sectors from students, feminist and LGBTQ groups, peasant indigenous and Afro organizations, to street vendors and trade unionists. One of the key motivations for the strike was a tax reform bill that would increase taxes for the working class on goods of basic consumption. But demands are much broader than that and include the demand to respect the Havana peace agreements and end to the violence against social movements and more investment in guaranteeing basic rights like housing, education and health care. The strike is making history not only for the violent crackdown faced in cities and towns across the country by state forces, but also because of the size and popular support. Today on our show we want to discuss another historic strike in Colombia's recent history. The national civic strike of 1977, where hundreds and thousands of workers rose up for many of the same reasons we see people on the streets today. The rejection of tax increase on goods and public services and end to authoritarian measures of the conservative government and demands for better working conditions. At the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, Colombia entered the first phase of neoliberalism. The last National Front Coalition government of the liberal and conservative oligarchies in Colombia had ended in 1974 and Alfonso López Miquelisín had taken office as president. His slogan was convert Colombia into the Japan of South America, prioritizing the development of an export-based economy to benefit local and foreign monopolies. In 1974, in order to address the fiscal deficit, López Miquelisín decreed an economic emergency which hit the working class hard. Inflation skyrocketed, subsidies were eliminated and prices on public services increased. The government of López Miquelisín was popularly called the expensive rule. Social protests and labor strikes began to multiply. In May 1977, during a trade union protest march, the trade union center of Colombian workers led by the workers sector of the Communist Party called for civic strike. The growing unrest and economic hardship meant that the proposal received widespread support from political and social sectors that historically did not align. The four major trade union federations at that time joined forces and called for a general strike with a list of eight key demands which went beyond the demands of the trade union sector and was able to massify the strike and the support behind it. The demands were a wage increase of 50%, price freezing of items of basic necessity and on fares for public services, suspension of the state of emergency and respective liberties, financing and demilitarization of the universities, abolition of the administrative reform, turning over land to peasants, the eight hour workday and basic income for transportation workers and the suspension of decrees that called for the reorganization of the Social Security Institute. Strike preparations were underway in the streets and plazas of major cities for weeks. At the same time, the government of President Alfonso López Miquelesen attempted to stop it from happening. The government started to arrest people that were organizing mobilizations and at the beginning of September, public concentrations were prohibited. The government ignored the list of demands presented by the trade unions and popular sectors and declared that the strike was a subversive action. These repressive actions, far from discouraging the people, heightened tensions and anger at the government. On the night of September 13th, fireworks were set off across the streets of Bogota and people prepared for the blockades of the major roads of the city. On September 14th, workers, trade unionists, teachers, students, housewives, informal workers, members of the community action boards and more took the streets, above all in the capital Bogota, organizing road blockades and effectively paralyzing transportation in the city. For historians and activists, one of the most impressive elements of this strike was that what began as a trade union mobilization became much, much more. On the streets of Colombia, people saw popular unity, the mobilization of unorganized sectors and the emergence of the urban subject that lives in the city's periphery. The strike had become a social outburst, channelizing popular discontent with the government. Such levels of mobilization had not been seen since the 1948 Bogotaso after the assassination of Jorge Elisar Caetano. During the day of September 14th, road blockades were seen across the city marked with burning tires and vehicles and very early on, the police began to carry out violent repression. The anger at the regime and the desperation with the economic situation saw many taking items from large stores which gave more justification to repressive forces to violently attack the protests. Thousands were detained on September 14th alone and brought to the Campín Stadium and Plaza de Toros. Blockades remained throughout the night and police repression intensified at night as well. Estimates vary on the number of injured, but many alleged that the number was around 500 while the number of dead from violent police repression on just that day was 33. The national civic strike has remained in the legacy and historical memory of Colombia's social and political movements. The social uprising and outbursts managed to achieve a never-before-seen level of popular unity on the streets. Beyond achieving certain demands, it was a turning point for movements in urban centers which only grew in size and importance in the following decades. In the national strike this week and in the protests over the past couple of years, we see many continuations of this legacy. The protagonism of the popular urban subject over the traditional worker and the importance of building organization and carrying out political education in the periphery of the urban centers has become vital. We will continue to follow the latest developments with this strike which has already made history. That's all we have time for today and keep watching People's Dispatch.