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Revolutionary Teamsters: The Minneapolis Truckers' Strikes of 1934
http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/1052/palmer.htmlDate Written: 2014-09-19 Publisher: Workers Vanguard Year Published: 2014 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX16991 Minneapolis Teamster strikes overlapped with a similarly hard-fought 83-day strike by West Coast longshoremen and maritime unions, a battle that culminated in a four-day general strike in San Francisco. Both strikes were part of a wave of labour struggle that swept the country as the working class, shaking off the paralysis that had accompanied the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, began to fight. What distinguished these two strikes, along with one by auto parts workers in Toledo, from other 1934 labor battles is that they won big, establishing union representation for masses of previously unorganized workers and opening the road to the upsurge later in the decade that forged the industrial unions of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Key to the victory of all three strikes was the leadership provided by "reds" -- labour militants who considered themselves socialist or communist. |