Little Steel strike

The strike, which was one of the most violent labor disputes of the 1930s, ended without the strikers achieving their principal goal, recognition by the companies of the union as the bargaining agent for the workers.

Rather than sign, Little Steel representatives met, debated, dragged their feet, sent spies to infiltrate SWOC, and prepared for actual battle.

The companies bought poison gas and other weapons, hired private police, donated weapons to official law enforcement, encouraged law enforcement to hire more deputies, stocked their plants with food and bedding, installed search lights and barbed wire, and fired hundreds of union workers.

Within days of SWOC's authorization of the strike, 67,000 workers were off the job and the scattered violence that began to erupt was a harbinger of more dire things to come.

The hope was to hit the powerhouses early in the movement to send a message throughout the industry for negotiations with smaller companies.

After the contracts were rejected, CIO and SWOC immediately began planning to organize the smaller steel companies.

[4] It was due to the black support that the SWOC was able to gain momentum so quickly, allowing whole mills to be involved in the movement.

Union representatives were able to lay down enough groundwork and spread the word well enough for a seamless beginning to the strike across a total of eight states.

The Republic Steel South Chicago mill was home to largest arsenal and police force involved in the labor dispute.

Some reported that protesters in the back of the crowd began throwing sticks and stones and whatever else they could get their hands on, hitting several officers.

"[8] Scores of club-wielding police were beating people, men and women, black as well as white, and firing gas weapons and firearms, striking down dozens.

Of the twenty-three people killed or seriously injured in the Memorial Day Massacre identifiable as steel workers, eighteen were married and eight were at least forty years old.

[1] Middle-aged family men were not the only victims of the Memorial Day Massacre: an eleven-year-old boy, Nicholas Leverich (or Leurich), was hit in the ankle, a baby was wounded in the arm, and as discussed below, two women were shot in the legs.

[1] Another thirty demonstrators were shot and sixty were otherwise injured, for a total of around one hundred significant casualties, of which around ten involved permanent disability.

Although the police brought in ambulances for their men, they did little to aid grievously wounded demonstrators and did not even bother to use their stretchers to carry the injured.

[1] One shooting victim, Earl Handley, probably died when the police removed him from a union car, marked with a red cross, which was trying to take him to a hospital, slipped a tourniquet that was stopping him from bleeding to death, and piled him, blood pouring from a severed artery in his thigh, with fifteen other people into a patrol wagon.

[1] After the incident, Little Steel's public relation team sent out multiple reports justifying the actions of the Chicago police force.

[9] With both local police forces and the National Guard on the side of Little Steel, the situation deteriorated for the strikers after the events of the Memorial Day massacre.

After a woman made a comment that embarrassed one of the officers on patrol duty about how to do his job correctly, things escalated quickly, leading to gas canisters to be fired directly into the crowd of protesters.

A massive riot then ensued, the "Women's day massacre", leading to a gunfight between the heavily armed officers and the protesters that lasted well into the night leaving dozens injured and two dead.

The police force completely destroyed the building, two unionists were killed, and one hundred and sixty five were brutally arrested, some still in their pajamas and held for several days without cause.

With almost all of the workers on strike coming from one of the main departments of the plant, that made it impossible for the other areas of the factory to operate.

With that backdrop, black union supporters, including Ben Careathers, a veteran organizer who had agitated on behalf of the "Scottsboro Boys",[1] Hosea Hudson, an Alabama steelworker later renowned as a civil rights pioneer,[1] Henry Johnson, the college-educated son of a union man,[1] George Kimbley, the first full-time black person on staff with SWOC,[1] Leondies McDonald, an organizer in the steel and meatpacking industries who had the ability to recruit people of all races to the union,[1] Jesse Reese,[10] discussed above, and Eleanor Rye, a journalist for a prominent black newspaper and one of a handful of black women organizers,[11] became important players in the 1937 Little Steel Strike.

They walked picket lines, led marches, and risked life and limb to press the union's cause.

As one protester put it, "They imported weapons, bombs, and what-have-you and had them all set though the plants with mounted machine guns, threatening, in case something would happen that they would kill thousands of us.

Youngstown striker Danny Thomas, a leader at one of Sheet & Tube’s plants there, recalled: "There was a group of us that was blackballed to the point that we couldn’t secure any positions or work anywhere.

"[1] It was through the blacklisting that the strikers were placed in an even worse situation, as many could not find work anywhere, and even if they did, they were soon fired when their employers were made aware of their position.

The argument was that the fact that Little Steel companies used unlawful tactics to provoke protesters and that fired workers should be reinstated.

[19] For several years, the Little Steel conflict seemed to settle down, workers returned to work, but the SWOC was not satisfied with the results of all their effort and eventually took their case all the way to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court then upheld the National Labor Relations Board’s ruling and told Little Steel to begin collective bargaining.