The 1934 Minneapolis
Teamster Strike
by Mark Harris
The
article below was written by Mark Harris, and first appeared in the
February 1986 issue of Socialist Action newspaper.
There’s
an old tradition among employers in the United States. When push comes to shove,
and a company’s strikebreaking tactics fail – call on your friends in
government to come down hard on striking workers. And if that means
crushing a strike by military might – so be it.
But it is not a hopeless situation, even when faced with armed troops in
the service of management. The history of the Minnesota labor movement testifies to
that.
In fact, the famous events that made Minneapolis a union town – the 1934
Teamsters strikes – are a case history of how to overcome all kinds of
obstacles, including a strikebreaking National Guard and double-dealing
politicians.
As 1934 began, the labor movement was in a sorry state. The Depression
was at its worst, unemployment was rampant, and organized labor was
taking one body blow after another.
Things changed that year. The Depression still wore on, but in Minneapolis and other cities (most
notably Toledo and San Francisco) working people began to
organize against their desperate situation.
During the winter of 1934, General Drivers Local 574 International
Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) initiated a strike in the coal yards to
win union recognition. This strike proved successful, and inspired the
local to move full steam ahead with its plan to organize every truck
driver and warehouse worker in Minneapolis.
The leaders of Local 574, Carl Skoglund, V.R.
Dunne, Miles Dunne, and Grant Dunne, were union leaders of a different
stripe.
No friends in government
As socialists (they were members of the Communist League of America, a Trotskyist group that had been expelled from the
Communist Party for opposing Stalinism), they
had no illusions about “friends” in government. Rather, they said,
workers must rely on mass picket lines, militant struggle against the
employers, and the support of all the workers in Minneapolis and throughout the state.
To this end, they undertook a number of measures. After the coal strike,
they set up an organizing committee that consciously sought to organize
all the transportation workers – drivers, platform workers, helpers, and
carriers – into one industrial union.
The employers refused to recognize the union, and the leaders of Local
574, who had already organized 3000 new members by May, called a strike.
This they did in spite of strong opposition from the national leaders of
the Teamsters union.
The 5000 members of Local 574 quickly and effectively shut down all
trucking operations in the city. They understood that the employers would
resort to any and every means to break the strike – and they prepared for
every possible eventuality.
To ensure that no scabs were being used anywhere, Local 574 organized
“flying squads” of pickets who patrolled the city streets in trucks and
cars.
,br> The strike leaders understood that the
ranks had to call the shots, and to this end the general-membership
meeting became the highest decision-making body during the strike.
The day-to-day decisions were coordinated by a strike leadership called
the “Committee of 100.” From the ranks, such men as Farrell Dobbs, Harry DeBoer, and Jake Cooper emerged as leaders during the
strike.
Local 574 knew, too, that support from the public was crucial to their
success. That is why they published a daily strike newspaper, which
explained the workers’ demands and kept the union and the public informed
of every development.
Local 574 also enlisted assistance from farmers, and formed an affiliated
organization of the unemployed. This proved crucial in undermining the
employers’ efforts to break the strike by using jobless workers as scabs.
These, and other measures, all worked to keep the ranks tight, enthusiasm
high, and support from the community solid.
The Citizens’ Alliance, the employers’ council, knew
it could rely on the Farmer Labor Party Gov. Floyd B. Olsen, despite his
election as a “friend of labor,” and on the mayor of Minneapolis. And they were not
disappointed. When the strike began in May 1934, the police were
mobilized, volunteers were deputized, and strikers were arrested and
beaten.
When the police tried to open the city market, where farm produce was
brought, a major battle broke out. The pickets kept almost every truck
out, and the mayor responded by tripling the police force. Two hundred
arrests were made, and a group of women supporters were beaten
unconscious by cops and hired thugs.
The next day 35,000 building trades workers went on strike in solidarity.
The employers had a private army of 2200 “special deputies” ready to
crack those skulls the police missed. But the union mobilized thousands
of strikers and supporters – and a pitched battle was on.
For two days the union took on all the scabs, police, and hired thugs.
And they won. No trucks moved. On May 25, the strike was settled and the
union recognized.
Taking on the National Guard
The employers, however, stalled on complying with the new agreement and,
once again, a strike was called on July 16. The police and employers
planned to ambush and shoot isolated strikers (as the governor’s
investigation later proved), which would provide an excuse to call out
the National Guard to break the strike.
On July 20, “Bloody Friday,” the plan was put into action. The police
opened fire, two strikers were killed, and 55 were wounded. Within the
hour, the National Guard was in the streets.
Gov. Olsen declared martial law, and soon thousands of trucks were being
operated by scabs. The National Guard occupied the union’s headquarters,
and arrested some 100 leaders and members of the local.
Still, the ranks persevered, and a mass march of 40,000 forced the
authorities to release the imprisoned unionists. Finally, after five
weeks of intense struggle, the strikers won.
Harry DeBoer, a veteran of that strike, (and
who also worked at Hormel’s Austin plant in 1927) recalled some
of the lessons of the 1934 strikes for Socialist Action. They are
worth considering in light of Hormel’s union-busting drive.
“Look at what the workers faced,” DeBoer
recalled. “They faced thousands of special deputies, they fought them
head on. They fought the police when they killed two of our strikers. The
governor brought out the National Guard and they even fought them. I
recall we had enough injunctions to paper a wall.
“As for the lessons of the strike . . . It is a big thin to have the
public on your side. Without that we could not have won the strike. And,
of course, we had a leadership that understood that capitalist system.”
The strikers defeated the National Guard. They stoop up to police
violence. They defied martial law. And they placed no faith in their
“friends” in the Farmer-Labor Party.
Above all, they relied on the power of the union and the entire working
class. The odds were against them, but they won.
As the Aug. 24, 1934, issue of the Minneapolis Labor Review said:
“The winning of this strike marks the greatest victory in the annals of
the local trade union movement . . . It has changed Minneapolis from
being known as a scab’s paradise to being a city of hope for those who
toil.”
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