The strike is notorious for spawning the "Mohawk Valley formula," a corporate plan for strikebreaking to discredit union leaders, frighten the public with the threat of violence, use local police and vigilantes to intimidate strikers, form puppet associations of "loyal employees" to influence public debate, fortify workplaces, employ large numbers of strikebreakers, and threaten to close the plant if work is not resumed.
The Mohawk Valley formula was described in an article by company president James Rand, Jr., and published in the National Association of Manufacturers Labor Relations Bulletin in the fourth month of the strike.
[citation needed] In a landmark decision, the National Labor Relations Board called the Mohawk Valley formula "a battle plan for industrial war.
[2][3] Worker anger had built high by May 1936, when the company spread rumors that its plants were being bought by an unknown firm that would no longer recognize the union.
Although no one died during the strike, both sides[need quotation to verify] engaged in beatings with fists and clubs, rock and brick throwing, vandalism, threats and physical intimidation.
The record before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the scholarly literature show that the level of violence in the strike was deliberately manipulated by Remington Rand, and was several orders of magnitude higher than it would have been had the company not taken the actions it did.
The tactics used were not merely inventive (although some had been used by employers before), but, as the NLRB argued, were specifically designed and utilized to undermine the democratic process, manipulate public opinion through deceit and terror, and violate federal law.
Remington Rand contracted with millwrights several months before the strike began (discussions which courts and federal agencies later interpreted as a sign of the company's bad-faith bargaining) to dismantle the plants.
Within days of the strike's commencement, Remington Rand contractors began crating plant machinery in Middletown, Syracuse and Tonawanda.
[18] Announcements of plant closures were designed to demoralize striking union members and frighten workers who had remained on the job into staying.
[7][10][19][20] Remington Rand also hired very large numbers of private security forces to protect its property and attempt to re-open some facilities.
In discussions with these firms, the company clearly conveyed the attitude that it had every intention of provoking a strike in order to break the union, and would not engage in good-faith bargaining.
[2][7][22][23] Local law enforcement personnel played a particularly important role in terrorizing the population of Ilion and turning public opinion against the union.
Remington Rand paid Herkimer County to deputize 300 special sheriff's deputies to provide protection for company and town property.
At first, Remington Rand gave security guards a $5 a day bonus if they successfully made it past the picketers and into the plant, where they pretended to be workers.
[26] But the company soon began offering large bonuses for replacement workers, and in the depths of the Great Depression few people could afford to turn down work.
[28] Two weeks later, Remington Rand announced that workers in Ohio had returned to work under a new collective bargaining agreement which offered highly favorable terms.
[29] A few days later, Remington Rand officials falsely claimed that 5,300 of the company's workers had crossed picket lines and were back at work.
The company shipped the security guards out of town that night and turned the photos over to the local newspapers—which duly printed them as "proof" that "labor goons" had attacked "honest working men.
The company used relationships and ex parte communications with judges prior to the strike to ensure that strikers would be dealt with harshly, although the number of these cases appears to be limited.
In Middletown, local judges handed down six-month prison sentences to a large number of picketers based solely on the testimony of two Remington Rand security guards.
Unaware of the true nature of these committees, the media often reported their demands for an end to the strike or denunciations of union "violence" – which encouraged the public to turn against the strikers.
In other cases, groups of company employees posing as "concerned citizens" would mass in front of strikers' homes and demand that the worker abandon the picket line, leave town, or return to work.
These activities were often coordinated with company back-to-work campaigns and reinforced by mistaken media reports of large numbers of picket-line crossings.
In mid-June, Remington Rand threatened to close its plants in Middletown, Norwood, Syracuse, and Tonawanda unless workers returned to work immediately.
U.S. district court Judge John Knight lifted the temporary injunction and ordered the NLRB to proceed with its ULP hearings.
Evidence of the extensive anti-union campaign in the Remington Rand strike became public in late November 1936, and made national headlines.
[43] The NLRB's ruling, however, placed the company in a difficult legal position, and Remington Rand quickly reached an agreement with the union after a short session mediated by Perkins.
But on February 14, 1938, Judge Learned Hand, writing for a unanimous court, ruled in National Labor Relations Board v. Remington Rand, Inc. 94 F.2d 862 (1938), that the company must obey the terms of the NLRB's decision.
[54] The June 1936 issue of the NAM's Labor Relations Bulletin[citation needed] immortalized the "Mohawk Valley formula" as a classic blueprint for union busting.