Labor strikes in the 1930s

Work stoppages and protests

The 1930’s stand out as a period in which strikes not only increased in frequency and severity but also became more successful in achieving their objectives, one of which was to earn recognition for industrial unions. As a result, unions became increasingly acknowledged formally and were granted unprecedented legal recognition. However, many of the successful strike tactics were outlawed, leading to a decline in labor’s militancy.

Strikes and work stoppages are a pervasive aspect of American labor history. The frequency of the use of the strike in all its varieties, but especially the sit-down strike, in which workers refuse to work or to leave their posts, has varied throughout American history. Historically, strikes and other such actions were declared illegal, and individuals who engaged in labor activity did so outside the law. Nonetheless, in certain periods of history, as labor conditions became intolerable, workers took to the streets in protest.

The Great Depression, the New Deal, and Labor

The onset of the Great Depression in 1929 was not an auspicious time for militant labor action. During the course of the 1920’s, labor unions declined in number and influence. At the same time, the American Federation of Labor (AFL), the most important labor body at the time, was becoming more conservative in its tactics while remaining reluctant to organize the growing number of unskilled workers. During the early years of the Depression, therefore, there were relatively few strikes or other labor actions, although there were numerous protests to resist eviction from homes and farms.

All of that changed with the ascension of Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency and the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) in 1933. The most controversial, and celebrated, element of the NIRA, section 7a, called for workers to have the right to organize and choose their own representatives for the purpose of collective bargaining, free from management interference and coercion, something that labor organizers quickly leaped upon to build and rebuild independent labor organizations. Many employers, however, refused to abide by, and in some cases actively fought, the provisions of 7a. In response, workers began an unprecedented wave of strikes. In 1933 alone, 1.2 million people went on strike, six times the number in 1930. The following year, 1934, the number of strikes jumped to two thousand and involved 15 million people. From 1933 to 1937, the number of strikes averaged 2,541 per year, reaching a peak of 4,740 in 1937.

Radical Politics and Early Strikes

During the 1930’s, communist and other leftist organizers played a prominent role in the labor activism and militancy of the period and aided in the creation of a militant alternative to the AFL, through the formation of the Trade Union Unity League (TUUL). The TUUL was instrumental in creating militant, industrially based labor organizations and led a number of strikes. Their radicalism alienated many, preventing more widespread support for the strikes they led, but the efforts of the TUUL and other leftist activists nonetheless played an important role in creating some of the major industrial unions and fomenting some of the most important strikes prior to the formation in 1935 of the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO), which eventually became the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Some of the first strikes took place in the Midwest, beginning with the strike against the Auto-Lite plant in Toledo, Ohio, which inspired and created the model for other labor actions that followed. The socialist-led Auto-Lite Strike, which began on February 23, 1934, started with a brief walkout that was ended through the intervention of the AFL and the use of the newly created National Labor Relations Board. On April 13, 1934, the workers regrouped, aided by the Unemployed Councils and other socialist activists, and struck again, forming picket lines in defiance of court injunctions. Even when the demonstrations were dispersed, by June 4, enough communal support for the strikers had been generated that the management gave in and signed an agreement, recognizing the union as the sole bargaining agent.

The first of the many actions inspired by the Auto-Lite strike was the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934. The strike began for two reasons: Workers felt they were forced to work too many hours, and the company had a history of cheating the miners of credit on the coal scales for what they had produced. The strike lasted three days and resulted in union recognition. However, when the manufacturers stalled on key issues during the first contract negotiation, a second strike erupted that lasted for a month. By this time, the strike had gained widespread communal support, which included a rally that swelled to twenty-five thousand people. On the East Coast, a strike wave among textile workers over poor working conditions and speedups began in Alabama in July, 1934, and soon approached the level of a general strike, shutting down production in twenty states and involving forty thousand people. President Roosevelt successfully authorized a mediation board, but the southern textile general strike was a clear indication of labor’s growing militancy.

Meanwhile, on the West Coast, the longshoremen’s strike began at the port of Los Angeles and grew into one of the largest general strikes in American history. At issue were not only the long hours and poor working conditions of the dockworkers but also the hiring system that placed all control in the hands of the management and left most longshoremen impoverished. The already-formed International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) began the strike on May 9, 1934, under the leadership of the Australian-born Harry Bridges, and within a couple of weeks, ten thousand workers in multiple West Coast cities had gone on strike. Soon, all the western ports except for Los Angeles were closed down. In July, workers succeeded in nearly shutting down the city of San Francisco in a four-day general strike. When shippers attempted to reopen the San Francisco ports, a battle known as “Bloody Thursday” ensued. Widespread public support for the strike led to eventual victory for the strikers, which led to vastly improved conditions and greater ILA control of the hiring process.

The Rise of the CIO and the Passage of the Wagner Act

These strikes and others that took place in 1934 not only achieved their immediate objectives but also inspired the growing number of semiskilled and unskilled workers in the increasingly mechanized heavy industries. They also inspired labor organizers such as John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers, which increasingly challenged the AFL leadership’s unwillingness to organize on an industrial rather than craft basis. When the leader of the carpenters’ union publicly objected to Lewis’s proposals for industrial organization at a November, 1935, meeting of the AFL leadership, Lewis punched him in the jaw and subsequently convened the Committee for Industrial Organization. When the AFL leadership tried to stamp out the CIO’s effects, Lewis and his allies broke away from the AFL and transformed the committee into a alternate federation, the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

The formation of the CIO and the passage of the National Labor Relations Act, or the Wagner Act, of 1935, which for the first time granted the full right of organization, mutually reinforced the growth of industrial unionization. Full legal recognition of the right to organize, however, did not mean that employers were ready to recognize the newly organized unions, and these conditions led to an upsurge in strike activity, with sit-down strikes the tactic of choice. During 1936 and 1937, an unprecedented wave of sit-down strikes occurred, such as the 1936 strike against the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, which moved the United Rubber Workers from the AFL to the newly formed CIO.

The Great Flint Sit-Down Strike and Beyond

The most notable of these sit-down strikes was the 1937 United Auto Workers (UAW) strike that began at the Fisher Body plants in Flint, Michigan. The Flint sit-down strike, as it became known, stood out for not only its length of forty-one days but also its transformative effects on the UAW, the CIO, and the American labor movement. The strike began on December 28, 1936, as part of an attempt to prevent the auto companies from breaking the fledgling UAW by moving plant equipment to nonunionized locations. A group of workers of the Fisher Plant 1 began the sit-down in protest over a delayed meeting with the General Motors (GM) management. Two days later, many more workers at the Fisher Body Plants 1 and 2 joined the strike. From the beginning, strike leaders imposed strict discipline on the rank and file, forbidding alcohol and damage to property or equipment, ordering the continued maintenance of the plants and machines, and sending all the women workers away to prevent accusations of impropriety. The women, however, stayed involved through the formation of the Women’s Emergency Brigade. In addition to bringing food and supplies and conveying messages, the women also coordinated protests, managed public relations, and helped defend the workers against the January 11, 1937, tear-gas attack on the plant that became known as the “Battle of Running Bulls.”

This combination of self-imposed discipline and militancy won the strikers unprecedented public support and, combined with the presence of Michigan’s progressive governor Frank L. Murphy, forestalled any state efforts to forcibly remove the strikers. Murphy instead chose to play both sides even as the strike spread to other automobile plants around the Midwest and President Roosevelt pointedly chose not to send the National Guard to break the strike. When GM workers attempted to take over other Fisher plants, however, and used careful ruses to evade both company guards and spies, Murphy attempted to force the strikers out by cutting off the power. In response, UAW leader Walter P. Reuther threatened to light bonfires in the plant to keep the workers warm in the Detroit-area winter. Finally, on February 11, 1937, the management agreed to bargain, and although the settlement was far from total, the symbolic victory for the UAW was incalculable.

Not all of the labor strikes of the 1930’s achieved success, and occasionally some ended in tragedy. A key example was the 1937 “Little Steel strike” against a group of the smaller steel corporations in the Midwest, including Bethlehem Steel, Republic Steel, and the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company that together were known as “Little Steel.” In this case, the mill owners sought to break the strike through a combination of legal measures and force, including air-dropping food to the strikebreakers, when the strikers attempted to stop the supply trains. Then, on Memorial Day of 1937, the supporters of the Steelworkers Organizing Committee (SWOC) gathered near the SWOC headquarters for a rally. When they then attempted a march toward the Republic Steel Corporation, they were attacked by the police. Ten people were killed in what became known as the “Memorial Day Massacre.” Little Steel refused to recognize the union until 1941.

Impact

The strike wave of the 1930’s had many effects on American workers and the American labor movement. In the short term, it led to improved working conditions, the full enforcement of the New Deal-era prolabor laws, and the growth and power of the industrial unions and the CIO. In the long term, these advances led to an increased voice and political power for American labor. However, the legal acceptance of the American labor movement was accompanied by increased regulation, some of which began the process of checking labor’s militancy and, in particular, prohibiting many of the strike practices that had been so successful during the 1930’s.

Bibliography

Boyer, Richard, and Herbert M. Morais. Labor’s Untold Story. Reprint. Pittsburgh: United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America, 1994. Union publication, providing a radical view of American labor and American history.

Brecher, Jeremy. Strike. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press, 1997. Sweeping history of the role of mass strikes in American history and their significance in telling labor’s story.

Cochrane, Thomas C. The Great Depression and World War II, 1929-1945. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1968. This general history of the Great Depression era highlights the increased labor militancy and relates it to the changes brought about by prolabor, New Deal legislation.

Lens, Sidney. The Labor Wars: From the Molly Maguires to the Sit-Downs. Reprint. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2008. Highlights the often under-recorded incidents in American labor history and attempts to reconnect the protest movements of the 1960’s with the militancy of labor’s past.

Selvin, David. A Terrible Anger: The 1934 Waterfront and General Strikes in San Francisco. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996. A complete account of the dockworkers’ and general strikes in San Francisco in 1934 that attempts to reconstruct the events as they happened.

Terkel, Studs. Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression. New York: Pantheon Books, 1970. Classic oral history of the Depression that includes firsthand accounts of some of the major labor actions of the era, including the Flint sit-down strike and the failed Little Steel strike.