These are the voices of the early labor movement in Minnesota the voices of the men and women the immigrants and native-born the radicals and reformers who were in The Forefront of modern industrial unionism. They were the strikers in picketers the strategists agitators and orators. They risk their jobs their livelihoods and sometimes even their lives in pursuit of a better life in the process. They helped reshape conditions for all working people in Minnesota. Our times are clearly playing since the miners voted to walk out the iron rain across the ice. The strike is on 85 days ofSpirits are hurt and sold like open wounds the pits of blood-red. But I heard it was on the great Iron Range where large numbers of Minnesota workers first mass to press their demands. It was a logical beginning Point perhaps an inevitable one up until the 1880s. The range had been a virtual Wilderness and expansive forests stretching as far as the eye could see but in the two decades after the discovery of iron or the range had been transformed into one of the largest mining complexes of its time producing fully half of America's iron ore. This was an industrial Miracle made possible by the tremendous wealth and power of the great capitalists Andrew Carnegie James. Jhil John D. Rockefeller each played a critical role.All so too did the thousands of immigrants who fled poverty and persecution in their native lands in search of a better life in Minnesota's Northwoods. Sam'l uni came with his parents from Italy. I wish net quite 14 years old and when we got here was so cold and I had heard about civilian, you know, so I asked my father's be Cepeda that no. No, this is Minnesota. Siberia is called a yet less than a week after arriving in Duluth Samuel uni, and his father were deep in the underground mines of the Iron Range digging out the or June 6 a 19-7 and I wasn't wasn't 15 years old yet. I was telling the cars that take him down and everybody come down. I'm out the car that dumped and they got pay for what I did turned in and my salary was dollar and a half for 10 hours working side-by-side with Sam and his father were immigrants from nearly aIn other countries, there were swedes and Norwegians Germans and austrians but dominating this classic American Melting Pot were the fins they dominated both in their numbers and in their cultural influence the Immigrant fins. It seems were social minded folk, they built Community halls and opera house has hosted lectures political discussions and more often than not the political talk was about socialism. Andy Johnson was among these fins who came to the Iron Range. You see the the finge or they came from Finland they wereWell, it's the poorest people, you know that had no future there. So naturally they brought their Marxist ideology along with them because it was they learned it over there the hard way but something happened to the socialism these fins brought to the Iron Range the miners poverty level wages dangerous working conditions and substandard living conditions radicalized and intensified their politics many embrace the Revolutionary vision of the syndicalists strongly class-conscious Rebels who hope to build one great Union of all workers to take control of the means of production the range became fertile ground for the early syndicalists. It's not surprising then that the First Union to arrive on the Iron Range was a militant industrial Union espousing just those ideals it was the Western Federation of miners which began organizing range minors in 1905 within a year. The Federation was pressing the Mind companies forOur wages and an eight-hour day the largest of the company's us steel Oliver Mining Company responded by firing several hundred union members, the miners in returned walked off their job very nearly shutting down. The range sam'l uni is one of the last survivors of the 1907 strike starting August and I was working the mine and the people quit it is truck and the fuck fucked hard true. Didn't know they were taken this first walk out on the Iron Range spread quickly that summer soon between ten and fifteen thousand miners were on strike but despite the workers Unity. The company has had little trouble breaking this strike. They brought in replacement workers strike Breakers by the thousands most were new immigrants Greeks Italian, slovenians and montenegrins relaxed, but terribly and it was terrible for the Finnish people because the mining company not the small mining company, but they stillJustin blackmail him and they wonder where strong force even the other two firemen the blacklisted him and they can get no job by day. He was a really disaster for the Finnish people. It was a crushing blow for the young industrial labor movement in Minnesota with a black listing of the strikers, especially the finished socialists. Most of the union agitators and leaders had been banished from the mines. They were replaced by the strikebreakers the new immigrants for whom low-wage dangerous jobs in the underground mines were much preferred to the alternative no job at all for a times as Hannah Johnson many of these miners were content. My dad came from Yugoslavia. And of course, you know, they're kind of submissive their kind of so glad they were glad to get a good job in the mine and they're kind of careful what they said or did because they were they wanted their jobs, you know, they want told the mark, you know to keep their jobs because it was so much better than where they came from. But of course it wasn't that much better in the long run the push for industrial useISM did not end in 1907 and even more serious attack on the fiercely open shop anti-union policies of the mining companies would come little more than a decade later and the next attack would not be so easily repelled leading that second big Union offensive on the Range was one of the most militant and controversial labor groups ever in America. The industrial workers of the world wobblies. They were called by friends and foe alike though largely forgotten today. There was a time between 1910 and 1920 when the industrial workers of the world was the largest and among the most powerful unions in Minnesota. It led nearly every important labor Battle of the decade their first big success in the midwest came with Harvest workers organized by the Union's agricultural worker organization based in Minneapolis historian, Donald Winters, the American agriculture workers organized a fairly successful agriculture strike in the early part of the 20th.Sorry, it was so tight the organization was so tight that people jumping trains to travel from one field to another we're quickly thrown off if they weren't able to show their little red card many people before that in the midwest had really not heard of the iww with the the 1915 agriculture workers strike suddenly in the midwest the name of the iww became feared and known and as word of this new Union spread membership grew particularly in the timber camps in mining communities of northern Minnesota finish socialists like Andy Johnson flock to the movement. It was there almost compulsory in my case. I was staying at the boarding house and everybody in the boarding house joined.And I would have almost have to leave the boarding place and I didn't want to do it wasn't a good place to eat. But there's more to it than that time. I was class conscious and the industrial workers of the world was very much a class-conscious union wobblies rejected any sort of negotiation or cooperation with employers. They call instead on the workers of the world to unite to take control of the means of production. It all sounded just a bit like some sort of Communism similarity that caused the union no end of trouble with local authorities and the labor establishment, but too many Minnesota working men like Duluth spat McMillan the wobbling message made lots of sense. I heard about them on a railroad you at all. They will believe in good working conditions and good wages and short hours. And I favor that there's no harm against that anybody don'tThat's something wrong with him and the wobblies didn't stop with those standard bread-and-butter issues. Their ambition was to incite a worker Revolution a revolution to take control of the workplace through what the wobblies called direct action iww historian. Donald Winters has opposed to working for a contract. The iww is interested in working for gains for workers through direct action, which included on the job strikes sabotage direct action is workplace related action, the wobbly Reliance on direct action rather than negotiation is indicative of just how different this new Union was before the iww about the only organizing done in the region had been carried out by the small craft unions of the old American Federation of Labor. The AFL unions had been quite active in the state since the 1850s organizing skilled workers printers plumbers in the like into small quite limited unions.For the wobblies emerged unskilled and semi-skilled workers had been almost completely ignored the iww had nothing but disdain for the afl's old line approach. You got one Union thinking against another look at it here Building Trades you got engineers. You got mechanic she got machinist. You got painters lathers Carpenters electricians. I don't know what the hell kind of how many crafts you haven't got ones out the rest of my working the wobbly approach was to mass workers into one big Union Union organized by industry rather than job classification. The idea gained fast acceptance among the previously ignored industrial workers like Iron Range my nurse am a loony agreement good because they had one Union she not to Splinter you and your one Union you are minor you belong to One Union. It's still not like the American Federation of Labor wobbly organizers spread their vision of one big Union with a Zeal rarely matched in American labor history a wobbly job action was a no-holds-barred all-out conflict and the battle was rarely confined to just the workplace the It had a definite pension for soapboxing Strikers would often take their cause to the street corners preaching their message to anyone who happened by according to the late Frank Ellis. One of Minnesota's most influential wobblies. This street corner or raishin was a valued weapon in the wobbly Arsenal. Well, it just go down and hold meetings. See they carry a take a soapbox with them or a box of some kind and they get started an argument and get a bunch together to starting together around them. Then they set the soap box down get up on a soapbox and start preaching unionism, you know. And then the first thing, you know here to come a cop and knock one off the soapbox and take him to jail. Another one would get up and he'd knock him off several wobbly soapboxing campaigns escalated into massive Free Speech fight spitting the iww is Army of itinerant workers against local authorities. Several smaller campaigns were waged in Minnesota Duluth wobbly Patrick McMullan participated in one of the Union's biggest Free Speech fights in Spokane, Washington, please follow something like that and the guy grabbed me with both legs and you got arrested in that. Yeah. I got 30 days and never saw a judgment. That was my sentence. But of course Landing in jail was exactly what the wobblies wanted. Then when we build a jails a battleship in jail and holler through the bars of everybody on the street and get them together and we'd hold meetings chuckling. What do you mean Battleship on the bars? Well, Can you know Robert along on the bars and it gets people on the outside to hear as well as the inside then a gang of gather one know what the hell's going on up there and then you get some mouthpiece to get up there and start talking then to the wobblies. Could Mass so many so boxers that Jill's would overflow faced with the expense of finding space for all the radicals local authorities capitulated, of course throughout it all the wobblies enjoyed considerable local attention further spreading the union line, but perhaps the most important organizing tool the wobblies had was a small red book of songs written by such folk Heroes is Ralph chaplain T-Bone slim the legendary Joe Hill the pages of the wobblies little red songbook were filled with some of America's great and not-so-great labor anthems. Are you cold forlorn and hungry are there lots of things you lack? If your life made up of misery, then dumped the bosses off your back. Are your clothes all torn and tattered? Are you living in a shack? Would you have your troubles scattered then dump the bosses off your back? Are you almost split asunder loaded like a long Year Jack boob? Why don't you Buck like thunder and dump the bosses off your back olly agonies you suffer. You could end with one good whack stiffen up you ornery dumper and Dom the bosses off your back. It would be difficult to imagine an industrial setting more receptive to the wobblies agitation than the mining communities of the Iron Range in the mid-teens. There had been little Improvement in wages or working conditions since the strike of 1907 the exploitation of immigrant miners persisted worker dissatisfaction ran high Samuel uni, And it was working 10 hours. It was terrible. Yeah, and when they work in 1916 for the mine, I worked in a big dump. I had to walk one hour in the morning one hour in the evening to the job and home and one are we got for dinner? So I was gone 13 hours for $2.80 compounding the miners discontent working on the Iron Range was a dangerous business each year the list of dead and disfigured miners grew my father got killing a my 99. January 28 1919 and I was working tell avoid down there and I saw its place all caved in took three days to take him out to sea. There was no secret your 2191 and so men get killed very often the hard-working miners the dangers are great. So many of our money in admit they're sad face while doing their Duty as on minors do shut up from the daylight and darling ones do he's only a minor been killed in the ground only minor and one more is gone gilben accident. There's no one can tell his mighty fangs all over poor minor farewell. There was a minor blasting in the open pit. My dad was working there, but then you know, they had a big blast and they never notify or they do not understand each other's and the people were eating lunch or something by the bank and they got blast the kill a lot of people that time he's only a minor been killed in the ground. He's only a minor and one more is gone. He'll bonneted and there's no one can tell his mighty Angel over poor minor farewell company company. You didn't pay nothing for life of a man than this. Lucky for they give me enough money to bury your guy. So no safety, you know anything them base should be there was lots of men looking for a job the more you kill the more they come minor is gone will see him no more Rodney let the minor wherever he goes God pity. The minor protect him is well Shield him from danger while down in the ground. He's only your minor been killed in the ground only a minor and one more is gone killed by an accident. There's no one can tell is mighty poor minor farewell, perhaps the most distasteful part of working in the Iron Range Minds was the corruption particularly in the contract wage system under which the Were paid their pay was determined by the amount of or they dug rather than the number of hours. They work it could vary widely from day to day week to week. It was remembers Andy Johnson a very unstable way to make a living they were making about between two and three dollars or something like that. There's this one guy was in a place where they had heart or and and all he could make was a dollar 75. He had a family, you know, I forget how many kids he had he had a rough time and we know those bosses at the mind they could be bribed, you know. and either with a jug of wine or Otherwise there are many others. I don't even care to mention them among those other bribes were Kickbacks on wages and a variety of personal services. Some crew chiefs reportedly demanded an evenings companionship from a Miner's wife or daughter in exchange for a better place in the mind that shift them over to where they are soft where they could scoop it up, you know and didn't have to drill so blessed so much and those are the kind of things that causes people to go on strike in the summer of 1916. The Iron Range miners again did walk off their jobs, but this was a rather unorganized haphazard job action, sam'l uni happening one mine and I wrote writing spontaneous and wound up like a house afire from those modest Beginnings the strike spread rapidly fueled by the underlying discontent of the range workers. The miners of the Iron Range know there was something wrong they banned it all together. Areas, and one big Union strong the steel trust got the Shivers and the mine guards had some fits miners didn't give a damn but close down all the pits. It's a long way to monthly pay day. It's a long way to go. It's a long way the monthly pay day. All the miners need the door. Goodbye steel trust profit the Morgans they feel blue. It's a long way to monthly pay day for the miners want to they work like hell on contract. Yes and got paid by the day whenever they got fired. Yes. The balls is held their pay, but now they want a guarantee of just three bones a day. And when they with their lousy jobs, they must receive their pay. It's the wrong way to work by go. Most of the strikers were recent Southern and Eastern European immigrants The Finnish people once again played a major role in this strike. They provided much of the local leadership finished socialist Halls quickly became local strike headquarters and the finished brass bands marched front and center before strike rallies in a particularly impressive show of solidarity the fins LED striking miners in a massive March throughout the range Andy Johnson. They started marching from from Aurora. They went through all the Mining Company locations. Trubel Arabic through Gilbert through McKinley through Eveleth and as they went the crowd the crowd grew bigger and when they got to Virginia and the county sheriff was there than to stop him. So they're coming for a brister the with the street. I don't know just what it was but Sheriff he was standing in the middle of the street and he had a long pistol, you know his hand and when he ordered the strikers to stop the front rank stopped. And but the people in the back, they weren't so anxious to stop so they they push the head the shares pistol start going going like this. He's getting pretty nervous. Yeah, you know, it's nervous. Yes this time the sheriff fortunately back down. No doubt realizing. He was rather seriously outnumbered but unlike the earlier 1907 strike. This walkout would not remain peaceful for long. Some of the shooting happened in Avec. Some of it was up in the other end of the range Hibbing area or something. There was a, you know, those soft drink bottle bottlers ligand driver. He was shot and killed and And I think there was another fellow killed and at the same time Mining Company plugs, you know, did the shooting those Mining Company thugs as Johnson calls them were special deputies recruited and armed by the mining companies according to historian Donald Winters. There were perhaps 3,000 of them on the company's payroll during the strike. They according to Winters are blamed for much of the violence which surrounded the 1916 strike. They surrounded the picket sites. They intimidated the strikers many times. There were there were reports of Strikers when they left for a break or for for food or something being surrounded by by several the guards and beaten up the Fierce and often violent anti Union activities of the mining companies today may seem a ruthless attempt to keep the workers in line. But at the time it was very much the accepted corporate policy in this country. These were still the Is of the great entrepreneurs The Rockefellers and Carnegie's any attempt by workers to control the workplace was seen as a dangerous challenge to the capitalists god-given entrepreneurial Liberty. So the companies went to Great Lengths to keep the workers in line Andy Johnson, it was difficult because the iron hand and the steel. He loved the Steel Corporation because Mining companies. They had their police forces. They had their spies and steal. You never know who you were talking to. if a person really said what he thought always why he couldn't work in a mine though. The wobblies had attempted to organize Iron Range miners as early as 1913. They actually came to the 1916 strike after it had begun after the first spontaneous walk out local finished socialists put in a call to help at the iww headquarter in Chicago the wobblies quickly mobilized to take control of the strike dispatching several of their best national organizers at its peak. This Trek involves some 8,000 miners an estimated 5,000 of them carried the red Union cards of the wobblies mine worker local despite the apparent support among the rank and file miners the range newspapers business groups, even the state's labor union establishment depicted the strikers as unfortunate dupes of the dangerous and cynical wobbly agitators historian. Donald Winters the wobblies provided employers with a satanic personification that they could always point to they could say and in fact many of the cartoons in the The employer press showed the bearded Anarchist, you know holding a bomb under one hand. I mean it was kind of the personification of evil without the outside agitation company officials figured the Iron Range Strikers wouldn't have a chance not surprisingly the authorities jumped at the opportunity to put the wobbly leaders Behind Bars. The occasion was the shooting deaths of two mind guards. The incident was hadn't had nothing to do. It was strictly a spontaneous act against the mine guards after the wobblies version of the story and no one knows for sure is that they have been taking potshots at workers. They had been threatening these strikers for a number of months. They were to the Mind guards that were fairly notorious among the the the strikers and they were in a and I believe a brawl that was the version that has surfaced that are in a brawl they were they Killed though. They were reportedly nowhere near the site of that shooting several key wobblies were arrested and charged with murder. The loss of Union leadership was too much for the strike to withstand in September the strikers gave in voting to return to the mines without first receiving a single concession from the company's ironically though according to Samuel uni conditions did improve soon after the miners return to work then last but the game the team got better. See after well-conditioned aware better. We got eight hours. I don't want to give it to us eight hours. That was a great game. The miners also got a raise that winter and within a year the contract wage system had been modified to end the most serious abuses it was not however a complete turnaround by the company's several important reforms of the late teens were reversed in the 1920s and in the years that followed conditions changed little for the miners Patsy Serano came to the Iron Range mines 1923. His story is strikingly similar to those of the miners who derive 20 years before I came here 1923 in July sometime three days after I started to work at the Margaret mine over here, but my when I have from here, there was my first job then in the fall. I got layoffs and I went to work another mind they call Dean mine up here. I work all winter there was pretty tough job was underground part to underground part outside. We take the or from inside part where it was warm and take them outside and Fries, you know had a shovel put in here everything out of the car to dump. It won't stick. You know, when there was 30 40 50 below zero that sounds like awful tough work. I'll say for for 16 year old guy, but as before quiet underground Union talk persisted on the Range and as before the dangerous to those involved were considerable. We had to hide even you know, when the We had a meeting, you know in the basement somebody's basement somebody someplace because they turning you in some stupid region and the and and then they fire you and you didn't have a foot to stand on. So that's the way he went to them. They soon the failed Iron Range strike of 1916 was the first of many serious post World War One setbacks for the American labor movement throughout the country employers sought to win back concessions made during the previous decade for most American workers conditions deteriorated historian High Berman pay was generally what the market would bear essentially hovering in and around the subsistence level individual bargaining was a was the norm but a sham individuals could ask for a raise or grieve for some reason, but with find that they'll be marked down for troublemaker and fired throughout the postwar years labor unions lost battle after battle Minneapolis Transit workers in 1917 railroad workers in 1922. The flour mill workers in 1920 and Again, in 1923 now people in the year nineteen and twenty the Mills run good. Everybody had plenty. Lots of people with a good free will so Long's and moved we'll have lots of money but everyone got hell instead. It's funny in the mountains role now in the suit size people and serves and Bible thinking that a male was a thorn gold mine now in the year 19 and 30, they don't pay nothing ever do us dirty. If we ever do manage to get ahead of it seemed like a lot of the Mills go dead. We're down in the hole getting deeper every day. We ever get even it'll be judgment. They know used to call again. There's no use the shirt causes more people will remember since I was people answers that 5 thinking that a new was a darn gold mine. With the arrival of the Great Depression one-third of the American Workforce was thrown out of work for those lucky enough to keep their jobs conditions and wages often deteriorated, but there was no fuel behind the union movement more and more workers found. They had little to lose by joining a union pressing for better conditions. Then to the political climate had changed the Roosevelt administration in Washington and the farmer-labor Olsen Administration in Saint Paul were openly supportive of Labor as the depression deepened the labor movement gained momentum workers joined unions by the hundreds of thousands. The numbers of strikes doubled in 1933 alone. Nearly a quarter million workers walked the picket lines one of the first significant labor victories that year came in the Meatpacking town of Austin and Southern Minnesota. John Winkles was among the dissatisfied workers employed at Austin's family owned Hormel company. One of the country's largest meat packing concerns. You only made about eight ten dollars a week. In the summertime and then in the wintertime, maybe get up to $25 a week. You can't live on that. You know you charged in the summertime in a wonder if in the fall you start paying your debt and by the time we got your debts paid up why it was a spring again. See I start charging again as the Depression hit most American Meat Packers cut wages. Hormel was the last to do so, but that was little Comfort to the Austin workers six of us. We get together doing noon hour and talk plan. We didn't know nothing about a union and one of what we could do by then we just found out about Frank Ellis. The late Frank Ellis is one of the legendary figures in American labor history. He was a wobbly and experienced labor organizer who'd worked in packing houses, since the age of eight. It's ironic though that he came to the Hormel plant not as a laborer but as part The management team to his dying day Frank Ellis got more than a bit defensive when that fact came up. No. Listen, I was looking for a job and I wasn't particular what kind of job it was because it was broke. And so this was a chance for me to make a few dimes and I took it and even though I was manager of the department, it didn't mean that I'm a big shot. Nevertheless Ellis's management job provided a strategic position from which to wage an organizing campaign. Well what I was doing three, I'd send out and get Rebels that are new from other towns. To come in and go to work. And I'd work them during the Race season see then when it come to lay off time instead of laying them off. I'd go to some of the boss and say here. I've got a good man and I hate like hell to lay more. Can you use him and I'll take him back soon as business starts up when we start killing hogs again. And I'd placing in the plant and Scatter him out. Well, he was an old Union man. He knew what to do. I didn't have to tell him he knew his idea was to get in there with the gang and get them emotionally moved. So they'd be ready to organize when the time came. The Hormel plant in Austin was fertile ground for Ellis in his Rebels. The Cutting wages had Unleashed a barrage of worker complaints finally in the fall of 1933. The Austin workers were ready to make their move again under Frank Ellis is leadership. Here's what happened that caused the strike see we took a strike vote up to Union Hall and they voted unanimously to walk out, but they was to leave it up to me when they should go see. But after meeting is over, we have a bunch of guys that have got too much to drink, you know, and so they go up on the night gang up on the sheep Hill and they pull the Sheep kill out get them to go out right there. Oh, we didn't want the damn strike. Then we want to use this bargaining leverage to see but when they got them to go out the only thing to do was to call the whole game because if you're forced him to go back to work. And then didn't accomplish anything. The rest of them wouldn't have went out. So we had to call a strike right there. But this was no ordinary strike rather than closed down Hormel by walking out. The strikers walked in taking over the plant again, John Winkles. We give them to 11 o'clock at all. Get out of packing house. I'll get out of your nose because if they don't we'll come in after them. So 11 o'clock. Come away one Bunch went into plant and one punch one in the office Lyman Halligan was working as a plant guard that morning when the strike began. Well, they can run G horrible out of there, you know, he was in the office and even carried the attorney out of here. I think of the office he wasn't about to go so he's picked him up and carried him up. The origins of this plant takeover have been obscured by the years, but the tactic has earned the Austin Union a place in American history. This strike was the first Total plant takeover ever in America the first successful sit-down strike at the time reaction to the tactic ranged from disbelief to discussed the st. Paul Pioneer Press called it not a strike at all. But an ugly something else regardless, it worked after just three days the governor Floyd Olson engineer to settlement the union received recognition in the workers got a small raise, but it didn't stop there as it turns out. this was no ordinary Union what Frank Ellis had organized in Austin was the sort of Union that the wobblies had long tried to form an all-inclusive Mass industrial Union saying I was working under the wobblies at that time carrying credentials for the wobblies, but I was afraid to put them in the wobblies because we'd been wrecked so many times, you know, so I'm going to come as near to it and under the same pattern and see what happens. And so we set it up as independent Union of all workers and we got them organized solid and when we were once tour organized we were the power the Union's power went well beyond the Hormel plant Ellis. It seems had a rather broad definition of who belonged in a food workers union anyone who eats he figured was part of the industry and should be eligible for membership. John Winkles. We organize truck drivers Clerks of bartenders and everything all-in-one see independent Union of all workers from the Austin workers the independent Union of all workers set its sights on other Meatpacking towns part of the impetus according to several early union members actually came from their Austin boss Jay. Mel and then J says after he settled that strike. He said now I want you guys to be get smart. You can't be coming to me every once in a while or once a year or whatever it is and strike for more money because you got to get out and organize the other packing house. Otherwise your choke me. He was right John Winkles veteran of the 1933 Austin strike and the independent Union of all workers. Come on, all of you. Good workers. Good news to you. I'll tell OF how the good old Union has come in here to the world. Which side are you on? Which side are you on? Which side are you on? Yes, which side are you on all my daddy was a minor and I'm a Miner's son. I'll stick with the Union until every battles won. Which side are you on? Which side are you on which side are you on tell me which side are you on? My daddy was a minor at I'm a miner's daughter and I'll stick with the Union through hell and high water. Which side are you on which side are you on which side are you on tell me which side? The legacy of the wobblies in Minnesota doesn't stop with the big Austin strike of 1933 though. The radical unions influence in power had declined greatly since its pre World War One Heyday many of the old wobblies had deserted their Union to join up with new radical groups. Particularly. The growing Communist Party such was the story of two former wobblies in the City of Minneapolis Carl skoglund and Vin's done had left the wobblies in favor of the Communists. And then when the Communist Party split between the establishment stalinist sand the more radical followers of Leon Trotsky, they went with the leftists in 1934, these two dedicated trotskyites led the workers of Minneapolis in a Revolt beginning in February and Lasting through that summer. They waged a series of strikes remembered today as laborers turning point in Minneapolis. This was a brutal City. There was no fair play here. Jack Maloney was among the strikers in 1934 his demand the demands of the workers were basic recognition of the Union higher wages better working conditions. The conditions were from can seal can't see you started in the morning at seven o'clock when you worked you got paid and you come down in the morning young around all day. If you got an hour's work, you got an hour's pay which varied from 25 to 40 cents an hour depending on the commodity or the type of cargo those wages were low even by depression standards. And at the same time the cost of living in Minneapolis was high in many Industries underemployment was the rule and for many workers. It was a hand-to-mouth existence Don thorough worked in the city's coal yards. If you working for two bits or 40 cents an hour, you're lucky if you can buy what on that kind of money, huh? How would you like to eat on that stuff with a family? Only wanted was a living wage for god sakes. It was in the coal yards word on thorough work that the workers First Press their demands a cold drivers Union had been organized the preceding fall in February. They Struck it was a short and successful strike labor historian. George celes The crucial thing that they got out of that was really one thing only and that was Union recognition. Now that may not sound like much but at the time Minneapolis was very much a non-union Town. Thanks in large measure due to the efforts of a business group called the citizens Alliance the alliance used a carrot and a stick carrot and stick type of policy which involved on the one hand running a free employment Bureau on the other hand. They maintained for example on a very extensive spy Network in addition the focal point of the Alliance strength lay in several of the major Banks one of the most prominent of which was the Northwestern National Bank which utilize the threat of denial of credit to any businessman or Merchants who were inclined to cooperate in any way whatsoever with unions in the 1920s and early 30s. The alliance was the dominant institution in Minneapolis controlling the mayor's office the city council the police force often acted like the alliance's private strike breaking force the February coal strike marked the First Union victory over the alliance in several decades in Minneapolis Union Leader, Harry Deboer. The contract was no more than settled in the word got out that we had one conditions and we had to say we had two men. I was one of them but spend time with nights at the union hall signing up members. They all come down there. And they wanted to join that coal drivers Union and they signed up by the hundreds by April perhaps 3000 had enrolled. It was just the sort of Union the leaders of the February coal strike had in mind matter of fact, we took the slogan make Minneapolis a union town and every man an organizer for Harry Deboer and the other strike leaders the coal strike was just the beginning their intent was a Citywide Union in may they called a Citywide strike the employers were stunned. They didn't believe we could tie the city up and we had it tied up the union had prepared. Well for this strike pickets were organized into special teams legal and medical help had been secured Arrangements were made with Farmers to get their produce to local markets the unemployed potentially a source of strike breakers for the companies were organized into their own Union. Auxiliary. The strikers wives were recruited for strike kitchen and office duty, one of the most Innovative tactics involved the use of cruising squads of To patrol the city looking for trouble spots on May 19th several days into the strike. Jack Maloney was on cruising picket Duty when orders came out to go to the market district when we got there the trucks were already backed up in front of Bierman fruit and produce and they were going to load the perishables. So we got up to the more the trucks were and suddenly practically on a without warning but obviously with a given signal they started clubbing us. And we were dumbfounded. It was the first of many clashes between Strikers and police. The strikers had clearly been beaten in this first battle, but they learned a valuable lesson after a day planning new tactics, the strikers armed themselves with ax handles pipes and clubs the citizens Alliance recruited special deputies to back up the police force a striker Jack Maloney tells it that recruitment took several forms. Now some of them were in Earnest some had the real American Legion Klu Klux Klan attitude, we're going to kill them bastards, but there was a lot of people that were driven into that thing because it was a battle of survival with them if they didn't go they were fired and they didn't know what they were getting into. And they line them all up and they give him a badge and give him a big night stick. And they come marching into the market. And believe me there were thousands and thousands of people there. It was just completely blocked and I tell you for about a half an hour down there. It was a goddamn to layout and these poor Devils that have been sucked in down there. They were running trying to get away and they were getting clobbered on the way out. They threw away their badges. They threw away their sticks. They didn't have no taste for that. There was 400 special deputies wounded and two of them killed that morning among the dead that day was Arthur Lyman president of a local manufacturing firm a director of the citizens Alliance soon after was remembered as the Battle of deputies run Governor Floyd Olson intervened in a sort of shuttle diplomacy. The strikers called it bicycle negotiations after several meetings with each side a settlement was reached in the trucker's went back to work historian. George celes the governor. In effect wrote a settlement containing ambiguities on key points, which he allowed each side to believe that their interpretation would Prevail what happened at the end of it simply was after the strike that ended work as a gun back to work this the agreement began to fall apart though. The settlement was doomed to failure. It did give each side time to reorganize to care for the wounded and planned new strategy. The citizens Alliance used the time to step up its propaganda war against the strikers much of that propaganda revolving around the fact that the strike leaders were Communists done in the skoglund. They charge were subversive they were off to destroy the United States. They were only using the Minneapolis truckers said the alliance as Pawns in their communist plot. The attacks have little effect on the strikers. Most of them had never been in a drivers Union. Most of them had an average education and it was not a sophisticated political education. And they were not aware that there was a difference in stalinism and trotskyism. They were not they didn't know about any other isms that went on and they didn't know rheumatism from communism about half of them so that Red Scare thing never washed and I don't think today it ever was a successful thing in Minneapolis public opinion to was little suede by the alliance's attack according to University of Minnesota historian High Berman. The people were behind the strikers Farm holiday Association and other Farm groups, not only the farm holiday Association generously contributed foodstuffs to the commissary the small businessman Grocers and so on kept the strikers on their credit books made sure that they got what they needed the strikers. Couldn't pay rent for their Apartments had their small landlords. Keep them going without throwing them out of their flats or apartments. So it had a wide wide wide support by the time the May strike settlement fell apart in mid-july. Both sides were ready to resume the battle the first stage though were relatively quiet. No serious attempts to move Trucks Only sporadic skirmishes between Strikers and police but then on July 20th were to reach strike headquarters that a large police force had assembled in the Market District the strikers feared they'd mobilized to Convoy trucks Could Captain Harry de bourgh was dispatched to investigate I got there. I had over five 600 place and they had guns. So I reported back and they sent all the pickets down there. We had at least 500 pickets and a dozen or so of those pickets arrived in an open box truck when a produce truck pulled out under police escort. The strikers truck as planned moved into intercepted. The unarmed Strikers had not counted on what happened next all of a sudden him and the cops got their guns and step back better. Word City you step back and the shooting started all they were doing was shooting. They were just standing there from all directions. Everything we had was just bullets flying bang bang. Boom. Boom. There was bullets coming from the roof and the windows on the third floor second floor. I wouldn't say anything the guys would have had guns to it had been a different story. But with the guys with a with a large, he's kluber stick, you know, and then they require nature with shotguns and slugs all of the members in the truck were shot from one member was shot right fell right before me and I stopped over to help him and I got shot the better part of Harry deboers left leg was smashed by that gun blasts. Jack Maloney was hit in the stomach the police deliberately shock to kill the facts. Are they shot 67 people with the exception of myself and Harry Deboer and been Koski and maybe a couple of others. They were all shot in the back to of the strikers shot that day died. The strikers called it Bloody Friday. The wounded Strikers were rushed back to the makeshift hospital at strike headquarters, Leona Sunday was a Hospital volunteer. They had all my gosh. I can't remember what it was a big building and they had just rolls and rolls the cops that they set up for the beds. Well they had some Busted arms and some busted heads and and leg injuries and ribs really busted up some of them ever all bloody. It was a mess. It was really a gruesome sight to see and it was all these men moaning and groaning, you know, and but when they heard of different things of the strike no matter how sick they were how beat up they'd huh cheer and holler reasonable and cheers our Strikers on public reaction to the police action came swiftly labor historian. George celes even in middle class neighborhoods. Pull petitions were circulated which got 10,000 signatures in the matter of a few days calling for the removal of the mayor and the police chief because of their actions leading resulting in Bloody Friday condemnation resolutions of condemnation of this action came from all kinds of organizations including When's that one would not other strike situation normally expect to be sympathetic veterans groups condemned it even the retail Grocers Association composed of small Merchants ended up issuing a statement of Sympathy for the strikers and condemnation of the authorities for his part Governor. Floyd Olson responded to the events of Bloody Friday with an ultimatum either the strikers and employers agreed to a federal mediator strike settlement or he declare martial law the strikers agreed the employers refused National Guardsmen took over the city on July 26th. The strike settlement came in August following a meeting between Governor Olson and President Roosevelt the president. It seems very much wanted this strike over High Berman. What we do know is that subsequent to that discussion with the governor, they Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which was of course the major federal Agency responsible for giving loans to Banks and corporations to save them from bankruptcy the Reconstruction Finance Corporation or at least its director was in constant communication with the directors of the citizens Alliance here in Minneapolis. And we do have reason to believe that what the communications had to do with was a kind of open threat that if the strike were not ended the Reconstruction Finance Corporation would call in all the outstanding loans to the Twin Cities corporations and Banks particularly of those who were directors of the citizens Alliance within a matter of days the employers capitulated the union had one in the Victory and Minneapolis that summer had implications. Well beyond the city limits. This was a summer of worker unrest and labor agitation Nationwide many other fledgling unions found encouragement in the Minneapolis Victory proof that To could succeed the violence that marred this strike had been front-page news from coast to coast combined with violent clashes later that year in Toledo and San Francisco the Minneapolis trucker strike caused many in Congress to take seriously the need for labor reform less than a year later Congress passed. The Wagner labor relations act. It was as historian High Berman a landmark piece of Labor legislation. It was the passage of this act which in fact ushered in the modern system of collective bargaining and which made Union organizing and unions generally a legitimate part of the American socio-economic and political system in the City of Minneapolis that trucker strike of 1934 marked the beginning of a new era for working people many call it Labor's turning point in Minnesota. The strike had crushed forever the powerful citizens Alliance put an end to its repressive tactics. Discouraged others to take such a vehement Lee anti-union stance in the years that followed industry after industry signed its First Union contract in the 1920s. Minneapolis was known as the model open Shop City. By the 1950s and 60s and 70s Minneapolis is known as one of the most solid Union cities in the country. I think that would in a nutshell give you the difference University of Minnesota historian High Berman for the Striking Teamsters in Minneapolis the victory that summer in 1934 brought more tangible results the working man now had a voice although he wasn't the master which I'd like to think we were at least we had a share in what was going on and you had confidence and you had dignity and you had Security on the job check Maloney veteran of the Minneapolis trucker strike of 1934. The strike is on 85 days are gone. Our times are clearly playing since the miners voted to walk out of the iron rain across the iron. The strike is on 85 days are gone Spirits are hurt and sold like open wounds the pits of blood-red, but I blood-red way.