On May 16, 1934, a mere week after longshoremen in San Francisco walked off the job and roiled the West Coast, truckers in Minneapolis went on strike in an action that would lead the way for the Teamsters to represent truckers across the nation and help lay the groundwork for the organization of industrial workers across the nation during the 1930s.
In the early 1930s, the Teamsters were already a conservative and often corrupt union, particularly in the upper echelons of leadership. But the locals were a different story. Because they organized truck drivers, the workplace of Teamsters was the road. They saw a lot of worksites and talked to a lot of different people. They developed a strong sense of solidarity with other workers and their struggles. On the local level, this atmosphere could help generate radicalism.
Such was the case in Minneapolis, where members of the Communist League of America took control of Local 574. By working in the coldest, harshest conditions, they organized the coal drivers in the winter of 1934, forcing employers to cave so that coal could be delivered. This success led truckers to join Local 574 in droves.
Minneapolis was a vociferously anti-union city. Knowing that the employers would absolutely refuse any of their demands, the most important of which was union recognition and the sole right as bargaining agent, as well as the ability to represent workers inside the distribution centers, the Trotskyite leaders of 574 prepared for this strike well. They had discussions with local farmers about how not to hurt them with the strike. They rented a large building for strike headquarters and organized a Ladies’ Auxiliary to help feed and support the men on strike through any number of actions that included daily demonstrations.
Local 574 called the strike for May 16, despite opposition from the national leadership, a group that the radical leaders of the local ignored whenever possible. The strike escalated quickly, as police responded with typical violence. On May 19, strikers stopped scab drivers from unloading a truck. The cops started beating them. An all-out brawl erupted that left two cops unconscious on the street and many injured workers.
The powerbrokers of Minneapolis responded by expanding the Citizens Alliance. This was a quasi-vigilante group that had existed in Minneapolis since 1903, dedicated to creating “industrial peace,” which means union-busting. They served as armed strikebreakers in 1934. Combining with the cops, the forces of order cracked heads on May 21, attempting to open the major distribution center for deliveries. Cops attacked strikers who were trying to stop a truck from moving. Hundreds of strikers ran over to help them, cops pulled their weapons, and it’s possible that the only reason large numbers of people didn’t die that day is because the Teamsters drove a truck into the middle of it, splitting the cops into two sections and creating a scenario where they’d have to shoot at each other if they shot at the strikers. The next day, fighting resumed, leading to the deaths of one cop and one leader of the Citizens’ Alliance.
One thing I appreciate about many strikes from this period is the sophisticated understanding of how to gain support for strikes by allowing certain kinds of economic activities to take place. For instance, the Teamsters could have shut down all trade within Minneapolis. But these guys, well-versed in tenets of solidarity, saw that in doing so, they would hurt local farmers. So they allowed local farmers to trade their goods in the city, but directly to stores rather in the big market area targeted by the strike. This helped build support around the region.
At this point, the governor of Minnesota, Floyd Olson, took a leading role in mediating the strike. He mobilized the National Guard but did not call it in because he didn’t want to alienate the labor unions who had voted him into office. Instead, he negotiated an agreement on May 25. But the strike only ended briefly because the employers reneged on much of the agreement by early June, refusing to allow the IBT to organize the distribution center workers. The union ordered its members to not carry weapons of any kind at this point. The cops, on the other hand, armed themselves to the teeth.
On July 20, 50 armed police escorted a truck to make a delivery. The strikers, wielding clubs and other homemade weapons, stopped the truck. The police opened fire with buckshot. Two strikers died and sixty-seven were wounded. On July 26, Governor Olson declared martial law and ordered the markets open for business. Olson called 4,000 members of the National Guard and began escorting trucks into the marketplace. On August 1, the National Guard seized the strike headquarters and placed all the leaders into a corral at the state fairgrounds.
But even though the declaration of martial law and the weakened financial strength of the union placed the strike in extreme jeopardy, the Teamsters managed to win. Thirty-five thousand members of the building trade unions walked out in solidarity. Public opinion turned harsh against the mayor and police chief of Minneapolis with widespread calls for impeaching both. The strikers stated repeatedly that they would not return to their jobs without an agreement. On August 21, the employers submitted a proposal to a federal mediator that incorporated most of the union’s demands and the strike ended. The strike gave the union great power in the city and destroyed the Citizens Alliance.
That wasn’t the whole story though. The international hated Local 544 for its leftist leadership and radical ways. In March 1935, Teamsters President Daniel Tobin expelled Local 544 from the IBT, though rank and file anger forced him to let them back in a year later.
The employers eventually got their revenge against the radicals. In 1941, 18 leaders of the Socialist Workers Party (which the Communist League of America had become), including some members of the strike leadership, were sentenced to federal prison for violating the Smith Act of 1940, the first people prosecuted under its unconstitutional provisions.
Over at marxists.org, there is an excellent repository of primary source material about the strike, which I recommend reading when you have time.
Elizabeth Faue, Communities of Suffering and Struggle: Women, Men, and the Labor Movement in Minneapolis, 1915-1945
Bryan D. Palmer, Revolutionary Teamsters: The Minneapolis Truckers Strikes
William Millikan, A Union against Unions: The Minneapolis Citizens Alliance and Its Fight against Organized Labor, 1903-1947
Donna T. Haverty-Stacke, Trotskyists on Trial: Free Speech and Political Persecution since the Age of FDR
The preceding links give Wonkette a small commission!
