1919 Seattle general strike: For the first time in U.S., labor ruled a major city

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city automatically put control SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 1989 This month marks the 70th anniversary of the 1919 Seattle general strike. For five working days-from Feb. 6 to Feb. 11, 1919—the Seattle labor movement ruled a city. It was the first general strike in U.S. history.

The catalyst for this historic event was a strike by Seattle shipyard workers, who were fighting for higher wages after suffering under a wartime-imposed wage freeze and no-strike pledge.

During the First World War, the wages of the shipyard workers were controlled by a governmentappointed council known as the Macy Board. They kept the wages low, making appeals to the workers to make sacrifices for the "patriotic" war effort. By the beginning of 1919, the patience of the shipyard workers was pushed as far as it could go.

But once the war was ended, however, the government didn't need as much shipbuilding. It now saw a chance, in collaboration with the local bosses, to break the militant shipyard unions in Seattle-a city long considered a "hotbed" of labor unrest and radicalism.

When 30,000 shipyard workers struck on Jan. 21, 1919, their chances for victory were slim. The government could have cared less about the shipyards being closed; they had planned on closing them now that war production was down.

The ensuing stalemate—with the yards closed and the strikers "withering on the vine"—inflamed the rest of the Seattle labor movement into action. Agitation spread throughout the city for a general strike in sympathy with the workers. A showdown was inevitable.

"Red" Seattle It was no accident that the first general strike in American history ... Black (continued from page 16)

Rainbow Coalition prior to the 1984 presidential elections, the party was ill prepared to withstand the pressures of being swept into Jackson's Democratic Party coalition. By July 1984, NBIPP was essentially non-existent. Soon many of its leaders would become the main organizers for Jackson's Rainbow Coalition.

Purge of left wing In this light, it is not surprising that in 1983 the NBIPP leadership engineered the expulsion of a large number of NBIPP members who had "left-wing" affiliations, among them dozens of members of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

In the spring of 1982, the SWP press printed the charter that had been adopted at the NBIPP founding congress in 1980. This became the excuse for the NIPP leadership, which had refused to publish and disseminate occurred in Seattle. This area was rich with militant labor history. As the West Coast port grew by leaps and bounds during the shipbuilding heyday of the war, so did the unions. Of the 300,000 inhabitants in Seattle, over 60,000 belonged to unions.

The labor movement in Seattle had strong traditions of radicalism.

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) had forged a strong base among the loggers and longshore workers. Left-wing socialists, utopian socialists, and radicals in general, had deep roots in all the local labor organizations.

Socialist and radical publications proliferated as bitter battles were waged by both the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the IWW to organize unions in the face of vicious employer resistance. In fact, Seattle was the first city to have a daily labor-published newspaper.

Many trade unionists were inspired by the example of the Russian Revolution, which was then fighting for its life against imperialist intervention. In one incident, longshore workers refused to load ships that were delivering shutting armaments to the White Armies in Russia. The Seattle unionists were clamoring to come to the aid of the shipyard workers.

Under pressure from the shipyard unions, the Seattle Central Labor Council carried out a general strike referendum among all the unions.

The vote was overwhelming for a general strike.

At a Feb. 2 special meeting of union representatives, three from each union, a General Strike Committee was constituted, which elected an executive committee of 15. The General Strike Committee set Feb. 6 as the day for the strike to begin.

The employers predicted the strike would fail. The capitalistthe charter, campaign.

The leadership understood correctly that making the NBIPP charter available to radicalizing Black workers and youth would make it more difficult for them to implement their pro-Democratic Party orientation.

The expulsions were carried through on the premise that SWP members and others had divided loyalties and a conflict of interest; that they had their own agenda they were attempting to carry out within NBIPP.

The reactionary nature of this action is highlighted by the fact that NBIPP members who belonged to the capitalist Democratic Party were not considered to have "divided loyalties." They, in fact, were the ones behind the expulsion of the SWP members, who were very vocal in their stance against support to any capitalist candidates—i.e., they simply wanted to uphold and implement the NBIPP charter.

A political purge was then necessary to impose the leadership's "dual-strategy" line. The NBIPP leadership denied that it was engaged in any form of "red-baiting" and instead claimed that it was simply protecting the party from "outside takeover." to launch a "red-baiting" owned Seattle Times stated that a general strike was impossible: "A general strike directed at WHAT? The government of the United States? Bosh! Not 15 percent of Seattle laborites would consider such a proposition."

But to their surprise, when the fateful day of Thursday, Feb. 6 arrived, every trade unionist in Seattle dropped their tools, turned off their machines, and went home. The city was shut tight.

The General Strike Committee assumed the role of a dual government in the city. With all services shut down, it fell to the strike committee to determine what services would be run. The act of shutting down the city automatically put control in the hands of the workers.

The employers, the mayor, and the business-owned press ranted and raved about the "Bolshevikinspired" general strike, but they still had to present themselves to the strike committee, hats in hand, to ask for permission to "load a particular ship" or "keep a certain business open." [See box for text of labor proclamation on how Seattle would be run during the general Lack of clear focus Since this was the first time the general strike was used by labor, mistakes were bound to be made. The strike had no clear focus and its duration was never decided by the strike committee.

While the strike was, organized to solidarize with the shipyard workers, it made no clear demands on the government. There was also tremendous pressure being put on the strike committee by the national AFL, which was opposed to the action from the beginning.

Three days into the general strike, some unions began to return to work. The strike committee, seeing the writing on the wall, voted to end the city-wide walkout on Thursday, Feb. 11.

But the workers wanted to have the last word. In a gesture that was designed to "thumb noses" at the bosses, many of the unionists who returned to work earlier walked off their jobs again so they could march with the whole labor movement on Feb. 11. The unionists returned to their jobs as an organized body—with their heads held high.

Labor's Proclamation We do not need hysteria.

We need the iron march of labor.

LABOR WILL FEED THE PEOPLE.

distributed by the provision trades at low cost to all.

of linen for hospitals.

LABOR WILL PRESERVE ORDER.

stopping of the cars will keep people at home. pieces, as far as money alone is concerned.

like the taking over of POWER by the workers.

UNDER ITS OWN MANAGEMENT.

And that is why we say that we are starting KNOWS WHERE.

Less than a month later, the shipyard workers were forced to return to work under pre-strike conditions.

Many labor historians probably consider the Seattle general strike to be a defeat for labor. After all, in the end, the shipyard workers were defeated. But many unionists who participated in the first-ever American general strike felt differently.

It was during this period that many NBIPP members who wanted to uphold their charter became demoralized by the infighti ng and sectarianism and began voting with th eir feet, leaving what appeared to them to be an inactive organization.

No balance sheet On Dec. 2-4, 1988, 80 to 100 past NBIPP members gathered at Howard University in Washington, D.C., to discuss what NBIPP had accomplished, what errors it made in the past, and what lay on the road ahead. The meeting was organized by Ron Daniels, former national co-chair of NBIPP and more recently the national chair of the Jesse Jackson presidential campaign.

Sadly, according to reports received from this meeting, no viable political perspective was laid out there. No acknowledgement was made of the error committed by NBIPP's leadership of steering the party into the Democratic Party orbit.

And how could it be otherwise when the person convening the meeting was one of the people most responsible for taking NBIPP into the Democratic Party and for purging the party's left wing?

The vast majority of unionists saw the strike as a trial of tradeunion strength, and not a call for social revolution. Undoubtedly, they were surprised at how easily they could shut down the city, and on the other hand, run the city so efficiently. A scant 15 years later, many of these trade unionists led the way for the big labor upsurge in the 1930s. They had tasted the potential power of the working class, and it stayed with them.

At this point, many questions remain to be answered. Is there any sentiment among past members to reconstitute NBIPP? Is NBIPP still the formation under which a Black independent movement will be expressed?

One thing is clear, however. The key to any re-emergence of an independent Black party will depend on the adoption, popularization, and implementation of a program similar to the one contained in the NBIPP charter.

NBIPP represented an historic opportunity for the Black movement to break from the stranglehold of capitalist politics. The potential of an organization like NBIPP is the same untapped potential that lies within the entire working class and that must soon be realized in order to take political power out of the hands of the ruling rich. Only by direct political control of the government will it be possible for working people, including Blacks, to win our freedom.

The method of lobbying for Democratic Party "friends of labor" or "friends of Blacks" has proven time and time again to be a deadly trap. A Black party striking out on an independent course can point the way forward for all working people.

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