Auto-Lite strike (1934)

[4] The enactment of the National Industrial Recovery Act on June 16, 1933, led to widespread union organizing in the United States.

By March 1934, the AFL had established an FLU at Buick and Hudson Motor Car Company, and two at Fisher Body.

[6] But President Franklin D. Roosevelt, worried that an auto strike would harm the chances for economic recovery during the Great Depression, offered to negotiate a settlement.

The employees returned to work after management agreed to a 5 percent wage increase and to negotiate a contract by April 1, 1934.

Court of Common Pleas Judge Roy R. Stuart issued an injunction limiting the number of union and LCUL pickets to 25 at each entrance to the two-building plant.

On May 5, 1934, Pollock and Selander wrote a letter to Stuart declaring that the Lucas County Unemployed League would "deliberately and specifically violate the injunction enjoining us from sympathetically picketing peacefully in support of the striking auto workers' federal union.

Judge Stuart attempted to try the group, and noted corporate attorney Edward Lamb argued the case for the defendants.

City and company officials began to worry that the Toledo police, who were disaffected because of wage cuts and layoffs, were beginning to sympathize with the strikers and were no longer reliable.

The troops cleared a path through the picket line, and the sheriff's deputies, private security guards and replacement workers were able to leave the plant.

[13] During the late afternoon and early evening of May 24, a huge crowd of about 6,000 people gathered again in front of the Auto-Lite plant.

[13][4][25][27][29] A running battle occurred throughout the night between National Guard troops and picketers in a six-block area surrounding the plant.

[13][29] A smaller crowd rushed the troops again a short time after Hubay and Cyigon's deaths, and two more picketers were injured by gunfire.

A company of troops was sent to guard the Bingham Tool and Die plant, a squad of sheriff's deputies dispatched to protect the Logan Gear factory, and another 400 National Guardsmen ordered to the area.

[13][4][15] In the early morning hours of Friday, May 25, Auto-Lite officials agreed to keep the plant closed in an attempt to forestall further violence.

[27] Also on May 25, Clement Miniger was arrested after local residents swore out complaints that he had created a public nuisance by allowing his security guards to bomb the neighborhood with tear gas.

In the early evening, when the National Guard ran out of tear gas bombs, they began throwing bricks, stones and bottles back at the crowd to keep it away.

[13][15] That evening, local union members voted down a proposal to submit all grievances to the Automobile Labor Board for mediation.

Troopers began arresting hundreds of people, most of whom paid a small bond and won release later the same day.

Large crowds continued to gather in front of the Auto-Lite plant and hurl missiles at the troops, but the National Guard was able to maintain order during daylight hours without resorting to large-scale gas bombing.

[13][15][31][32] Although a crowd of 5,000 gathered in the early evening, the National Guard was able to disperse the mob after heavily gassing the six-block neighborhood.

[3] That morning, Taft led a round of negotiations involving the union, officials of all three companies, and National Guard leaders.

A company union calling itself the Auto-Lite Council injected itself into the negotiations, demanding that all replacement workers be permitted to keep their jobs.

Arthur Garfield Hays, general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, traveled to Toledo and represented nearly all those who came before Judge Stuart.

[13][34] Negotiations remained deadlocked, and Taft began communicating with United States Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins to seek federal support (including personal intervention by Roosevelt).

A local affiliate of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which had threatened to strike on June 2, reached a tentative agreement for a 20 percent wage increase.

As Taft secured final agreement on the electrical workers' contract, he also kept all sides in the Auto-Lite strike negotiating round the clock in the same hotel.

[41] Instead of a general strike beginning on Friday, June 9, the Toledo CLC held a victory rally at which 20,000 people paraded.

Now called the Labor-Management-Citizens Committee, the Industrial Peace Board became a national model for strike resolution in the post-World War II period.

After much pressure from local citizens to tear down the plant, the former Auto-Lite facility was demolished on August 30, 1999, and the site turned into a park.

Seattle sculptor Hai Ying Wu designed two life-sized bronze statues of picketers, which were placed on a plaza made of bricks salvaged from the Auto-Lite plant.