San Francisco's GENERAL STRIKE!

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union wages and conditions in order to win the war (Hitler had invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941). But the ranks and local leadership didn't agree. The 1934 longshoremen's and seamen's strikes and the general strike that had made San Francisco a "union town" was fresh in history—only eight years awayand fresh in the minds of its participants.

"No streetcars, no taxis, no nothing! It was real quiet. I put on my Sunday-goto-meeting clothes and walked down the streetcar tracks, from Dolores to the National Guard's barbed wire on the Embarcadero."

The 1934 strike was an ever-present thing, a guide to action, and a frequent topic of conversation. As we stood by, waiting for a ship to tie up, or during the lunch hour, a veteran would start it off: "Remember the time we derailed those scab boxcars?" And then they'd go on about the battles with the police, the funeral march up Market Street after two strikers were killed, the stillness of the streets of San Francisco on the first day of the general strike.

They told how the strikers had "run the city" for three days, closed the nightclubs and the bars, allowed only 19 restaurants to stay open, and how they blockaded the highways.

It was like the reminiscences of old soldiers—but different. These strike veterans knew they had written a glorious page in American labor history. They were a proud bunch.

I listened and learned a lot about how to run a successful strike. After work, I wrote things down. And on days off I hit the library to learn more.

The History American labor history between 1920 and 1934 was a story of broken strikes; strikers murdered by company thugs assisted, when necessary, by the police, the National Guard, and the U.S. Army.

On Black Thursday, Oct. 24, 1929, American capitalism came apart at the seams. The Great Depression arrived. Within a few years, it was estimated that Minneapolis (continued from page 8: “1952 speech— The story of Minneapolis”)

This day has become known as Bloody Friday. At the funeral of Henry Ness, one of the pickets killed on Bloody Friday, an estimated 50,000 people marched four abreast and tied up all city traffic for hours.

Two government mediators were attempting to settle the dispute on any terms. They finally gave us a proposal providing for recognitión of the "inside workers." The union accepted but the employers turned down this agreement. The governor then declared martial law.

Early one morning the military surrounded the strike headquarters with who worked regularly) comprised about 25 percent of the workforce and averaged $40 per week. But the remaining three-quarters averaged only $10 a week or less. "Not enough to live on and not enough to die on." Fifty percent were on relief.

The Embarcadero was known as the "slave mart." Longshoremen were hired in the waterfront poolrooms, saloons and cheap restaurants where they gathered between ships. Often it would be the proprietore ship decided would be the work. Favoritism and discrimination— against "trouble makers"—were common. Páy-off, in various forms, was the rule.

As a first step toward gaining union recognition, a coast-wide rank and file convention was called in February 1934. The delegates represented 14,000 men. The demands were $1 an hour, a six-hour day, a 30-hour week (to equalize work opportunity), and all hiring through the union hall. This last demand was the key issue. And the convention went on machine guns and took it over. Bill Brown, Ray Dunne, Miles Dunne were thrown into a stockade. Attempts were made during that day to call in secondranked leaders and settle the strike. They refused to meet until the headquarters and the leaders were released.

Finally, after eight weeks of hardship and suffering a settlement was agreed on which provided for all the important issues that the union had been battling for.

In brief, these are some of the highof events during the strikes of 1934.

Socialist Action plans to publish the full transcript of Carl Skoglund's talk in the near future, along with other materials on the 1934 strikes. police were on hand, fully armed. Several thousand pickets faced them. A row of ambulances stood by. When two boxcars were shunted out of the pier, the battle began-nightsticks, teargas and guns against two-by-fours and bricks. The battle raged all morning, with many injured on both sides. The strikers were forced to retreat. Then, at 1 p.m., the police raided the ILA headquarters at ...Toledo (Continued from page 7) gas and the workers were giving them everything they could get their hands on. Through the windows they kept shouting, "If they want an open shop, we'll give them one." They broke every window in the plant.

Now there were 1500 [scabs] inside the plant. So we were there all night. A couple of strikers went behind the plant, found telephone poles, and with 20 or 30 men on each pole they rammed the steel doors. And when they got the doors open, they got into a hand-to-hand slugfest with the deputies and the scabs just inside the doors.

Well, these 1500, with no light, in total darkness—we had knocked out every light on the street, so there was total darkness-they were scared to death. And they were all there all night until the National Guard came flowing into town, a thousand of them, and escorted them out.

Then the battle started with the National Guard. For six days we gave them everything we could get our hands on. After six days of battling the National Guard, the strike ended.

Now, Toledo Auto-Lite employees were making 35 cents an hour. They were being paid less than the NRA code. When the strike ended, they got a 5 percent increase over the code, which and out of San Francisco. Without a union permit no cargo moved. Hospital supplies, school supplies and milk trucks were excepted. Gasoline was rationed. For three days the unions controlled the city.

Newspaper headlines screamed, "Red Revolution." The San Francisco Chronicle printed a story that a communist army was marching on San Francisco from the North-west. Vigilantes, backed by police, raided the Communist Party's Western Worker and even homes of strike supporters; 450 persons were arrested.

The general strike was ended after only three days by the conservative union leadership of the Labor Council although no strike issues had been settled. Nonetheless, the employers and the government of Roosevelt knew they were beaten. The union and the employers both now agreed to federal arbitration of all longshoremen's and seamen's grievances, with the understanding that all the maritime unions would be recognized and the ILA would get the hiring hall. The strike was over.

In the award the ILA gained almost all its demands: 95 cents an hour, sixhour day, 30-hour week. However, the union hiring hall was to be jointly operated.

Posteript: Now began the real battle-to establish union control over hiring and firing throughout the maritime industry. Within the next few years militant job actions by longshoremen and seamen had under new leadership gained job control. And the maritime unions were firmly established.

brought them up to about 42 cents an hour. But the winning of that strike set off a tidal wave of union organizing in Toledo. Nineteen plants were organized before the end of the year.

One year later we organized the strike of the Chevrolet workers. We set up a progressive workers" group. That was a real strike! Art Preis was very active in that strike—he wrote the first strike bulletin. And that picket line was so tight that when Knudsen [President of General Motors] came down from Detroit, he had to get a pass from the strike committee to get into the plant.

That was the first GM contract, the first successful GM strike. These strikes started the ball rolling. They laid the groundwork for what eventually became the biggest and most powerful tradeunion movement in the world-the AFL-CIO.

In closing, I just want to address a few remarks to the youth here, the young people, and I'm going to use the last few lines of Art Preis' last public speech.

He said, "The class struggle goes on. We will see another upsurge. We can't fix the day or the hour just as we could not see the rise of the CIO. But this generation's socialist youth will get its chance. You must study, work, prepare, and organize. Your chance will come and you will finish the job that our generation started"

Socialist Action March 1984 9

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