On this day in labor history, the year was 1934.
That was the day Minneapolis Teamsters walked off the job.
It was an historic strike that coincided with the pivotal Toledo Auto-Lite and West Coast Waterfront strikes.
Local Teamsters, many of whom later founded the Socialist Workers Party, had been riding a wave of success, having organized the coal yards in February.
Especially important was the development of the ‘Cruising Picket Squad.’
It became a standard in later CIO battles.
That spring, union leaders were determined to organize all the truck drivers and warehouse workers in Minneapolis.
By May, Local 574 had over 5000 members.
The trucking bosses refused to deal with the union and so they walked.
The flying pickets toured the city and shut down all trucking.
Strikers enlisted the support of the unemployed councils.
They also provided the structure for a Women’s Auxiliary that produced important strike literature and bulletins, ran soup kitchens that fed thousands of strikers daily, fought scabs and police on the picket lines and drove picket trucks.
Historian Bryan Palmer, author of Revolutionary Teamsters: The Minneapolis Truckers’ Strikes of 1934,notes that strike leaders looked to the example of Illinois’ Progressive Miners of America when it came to building the women’s auxiliary.
They too sought to make women an integral part of the strike, thus “encroaching on the male world of waged work.”
Strike headquarters were established and as Palmer describes, was a beehive of activity on the eve of the strike “as union carpenters and plumbers installed stoves, sinks and serving counters. Union electricians installed communications wiring.”
Donations of money, food, vehicles, and gas rolled in as the strike revved up.
Local 574 was poised to make Minneapolis a union town.
March 1 - The Hoover Dam Goes Public
February 28 - Fighting for Equal Pay
February 27 - The 1937 Woolworth Sit-Down
February 26 - The Battle at Bethlehem
February 25 - The Paterson Silk Strike Begins
February 24 - Muller v Oregon Decided
February 23 - Black Workers Lead Historic Strike at UNC
February 22 - Labelling Teachers as Terrorists
February 21 - The First Female Telephone Operator
February 20 - Angelina Grimke is Born
February 19 - Philly Street Car Workers Spark General Strike
February 18 - Anti-Slavery Begins in America
February 17 - Standing Up By Sitting Down
February 16 - The Wisconsin Uprising Begins
February 15 - The Uprising of the 20,000 Comes to a Close
February 14 - Kansas City Laundresses Walk Off the Job
February 13 - Martial Law Declared to Crush the UAW
February 12 - The NAACP is Founded
February 11 - Cutting Corners on Safety at Sequoyah I
February 10 - Forty-Three Workers Buried Alive
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