This is the one article to read on the 1913 I.W.W.-led Akron rubber strike. A classic of labor reportage, Leslie H. Marcy goes in depth on the Taylorist background of the strike and details life in the factories. The strike would be defeated, and heralded the recession of the I.W.W. wave in the east. An important pre-war strike involving thousands of workers, it would be another generation until the rubber industry was organized by the C.I.O. Marvelously photographed.

‘800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike’ by Leslie H. Marcy from International Socialist Review. Vol. 13 No. 10. April, 1913.

The Rubber Aristocrats are having “tire trouble” in Akron, Ohio. Their mammoth 75-acre, 25,000- man-power, profit-making machines -known as the Goodrich-Diamond, Goodyear, Firestone and Buckeye rubber factories, have been badly punctured by a strike of 20,000 wage slaves.

The workers who have slaved for years laid down the bosses’ tools, rolled up their greasy working rags and walked out, unorganized, on February 10, as a protest against tyrannical working conditions and repeated cuts in wages.

They are standing shoulder to shoulder in their first strike and their arms are folded. There is no fire under the boilers; nor smoke issuing from the hundreds of industrial spires; the belts are on loose pulleys and even the wheels refuse to run. The Rubber Barons refused to arbitrate with the state officials and threatened to move their plants from the city. Meanwhile the strike was rapidly being organized by militant members of the Socialist party working with the Industrial Workers of the World. The Socialist headquarters became the home of the strike committees while larger halls were secured for mass meetings, where thousands of workers hear the message of Revolutionary Socialism and Industrial Unionism. Comrades Frank Midney. “Red” Bessemer, George Spangler and fellow-workers George Speed, William Trautman, Jack Whyte and several more “live ones” are on the job speaking daily, organizing committees and strengthening the picket lines.

The home of Comrade Frank and Margaret Prevey was thrown open to the strikers and became a busy center of strike activity — sending out appeals for support, press notices and planning the work of taking care of those who were in need. Here was a hive that hummed twenty hours out of the twenty-four. Of course the Capitalist hirelings suddenly discovered that this was “an Agitators’ meeting place,” and made dire threats.

But the Rubber Barons in their palaces out on West Hill were also busy moulding public opinion through press and pulpit against this “foreign devil” called a strike. Were not collections dwindling on Sundays and business becoming “bad” during the week, and is not idleness the devil’s workshop?

Thereupon a great cry arose from the. Citizens’ Welfare League and the Akron Times, warning the honest, respectable, patriotic law-abiding American citizens against the strike as “an attack on the prosperity of our city,” and announcing that “the powers that be are ordained of God.” This league was organized by Rev. Atwater and the Rubber Heads have donated him an automobile for his services in organizing slugging crews.

As city, county and state governments are but committees to do the bosses’ bidding, so likewise the pulpit, press and bar are proving themselves ready to prostitute themselves for a few crumbs from the rich man’s table. The following item from the Cleveland Plain Dealer shows how eager are these lickspittles to do their master’s bidding:

“SWEAR IN CITIZENS TO PROTECT AKRON.

“Police Officials Arm Ministers, Lawyers and Business Men of City.

“Following the issuing of a proclamation by Sheriff David Fergusson today prohibiting parades and crowds congregating on the streets, 700 prominent Akron citizens, including merchants, lawyers and physicians, presented themselves at police headquarters and asked to be sworn in as special policemen.

“All were accommodated and with police badges and heavy police night sticks were assigned to duty this afternoon. Among the men made special police were: M. O’Neil, proprietor of the May Co. department store; Francis Seiberling, J.H. Adams and W.E. Smoyer, lawyers; Rev. George P. Atwater; W.C. Hall, insurance agent; W.B. Baldwin, postmaster; Dr. D. H. Morgan ; George Bates, banker ; George W. Cornuchael, contractor.

“For hours they were sworn in as fast as Mayor Rockwell could repeat the oath. Clubs and ax-handles were distributed among them and each man was given a yellow ribbon, designating his authority.”

The entire Young Men’s Christian Association was sworn in as deputies.

Tuesday evening March 13th, a squad of these thugs clubbed a group of girl strikers, as they were going up the stairs into the Socialist headquarters. On Friday, March 14th, Comrade Haywood was met at the depot by the Citizens’ Committee and the chief of police started to recite his little piece about no revolutionary speeches, etc., etc. But Comrade Haywood rudely interrupted with the query: “Have you a warrant to serve?” Upon the chief’s replying that he had none Comrade Haywood said, “Please step aside,” and passed through the crowd to the waiting strikers, who cheered him lustily. Thus the class lines have been drawn and the struggle is on in Akron.

Fifteen years ago the rubber industry was in its infancy, but during 1912 the wage workers of Akron, in the factories, produced commodities valued at $99,462,944 and the valuation placed on Akron plants, which were also built by the workers was placed at $46,966,509. One company which started with a capital of $100,000 is now capitalized at $10,000,000 and during last year dividends were declared by several rubber companies ranging from seven to eight hundred per cent. And one company paid 100 per cent dividend for the month of August, 1912.

But gradually competition became keener and the Rubber Barons began to install labor-saving machinery. A stock-cutting machine now does the work of ten men. Four years ago a beading machine was invented which completely wiped-out hundreds of hand bead workers. Four men operating a machine could produce as much as a whole corps of trained hand workers. Before the advent of the tire building machine a hand tire builder turned out ten three-inch tires in ten hours, receiving 35 cents per tire on piece work. Now the tire building machine produces 112 three-inch tires all trimmed and ready for the finishers in ten hours. In the Diamond factory alone the force of tire builders was cut down from 510 to 112. The coming of these machines has cut the force 75 per cent.

The machine process has cut the cost of manufacture in two and tire builders who formerly averaged $4.20 per day now make $2.70. But the Rubber Barons were not satisfied, so the Taylor Speeding-Up System of Exploitation was installed, which means that the company’s “stools” were sent around with stop-watches in the various departments and the fastest workers were timed. Then the piece scale was set according to what the pacemaker could turn out.

As the Rubber Barons grew in wealth they became more arrogant to their employees. Fines were levied for the most trivial mistakes. Mike Flynn, superintendent of the tire department of the Diamond plant “fired” fifty men because someone threw a small piece of rubber out of a window. Such is the way the free American rubber workers have been treated in Akron for years, and they have at last revolted.

Under the old hand-method of making tires, the cutting of “stock” or fabric was all done by hand. The tread-builders also worked by hand, rolling and pressing the duck fabric for the tire builders. In the builders’ room, an iron core, weighing from 100 to 500 lbs., the exact size of the cavity, was covered with glue, or cement, and a light fabric pulled over it. The core then went to the tire builders.

Starting the fabric which was held by “sewing-in” with a rotary wheel, the builder stitches his stock 1J4 inches to every foot. Stock is sometimes cut so close that the operator has often to release and restretch the fabric many times before the ends meet.

One of these photographs shows the builder putting on the third ply with edges trimmed. The last ply is carefully worked over the beads and “sewed in” ready for the gumming pits. After the final cut the tire is sent to a calendar room to receive a coat of composition.

One of the strikers informs us that very recently the Speeding-Up System has forced the tire builders to produce 2,000 more than the regular output of tires in a single night. The same man reported that while it formerly took three hours to “cure” a tire, the time had been cut to 55 minutes in one plant. And that the “curing process” depends altogether upon the quantity of rubber used in the compound.

Five hundred to six hundred pounds of compound are made up at a time. In the good old days THREE POUNDS of actual pure rubber was used in a batch; much less is used now. A gum plant is one of the ingredients, also old rope, rags, alkali and shoddy (old rubber, such as worn-out tubing, worn-out rubbers, etc.).

Although the price of pure rubber is lower than it was a few years ago, the rubber companies have cut down the quantity used steadily. Formerly tire curers earned $5.00 for curing five tires. They are now forced to cure 50 tires for the same sum. And there is NO LET UP IN THE SPEEDING UP SYSTEM. And the pay per worker goes steadily down.

The same is true of the girls in the hot-water bag and rubber goods departments. Everything is piece work. The companies offer premiums for the girl (or man) who produces the most bags, tires, or whatever it may be, and when the utmost limit has been reached, the maximum number becomes the basis for piece work pay. An old experienced operator may be able to glue together 40 hot-water bags in a ten-hour day, working at top speed for a cash premium. But she cannot possibly keep up this pace. But the day’s wage, for such work is based upon this record pace. Girls are compelled to get to work at 7:00 a.m. in order to cement hot-water bags and then are compelled to wait for hours at a time for them to be pressed and trimmed. The girls are paid 5 1/2 cents for making a $2.00 hot-water bag.

The girls making rubber shoes (rubbers) have been paid only 15 cents per 100 pair of tops. For every rubber that was imperfectly trimmed they were docked 5 cents. Three slips would force them to make 100 pairs of tops for nothing, while the companies sold the imperfect pairs at a good profit. We saw many time checks showing that girls had received as low as 45 cents a day. The reports of the rubber companies, of their salary or wages lists are very misleading because they include the high-salaried officials who refuse to make known ‘how much money they draw.

Many of the workers work in a poisonous compound wearing rubber gloves. Whenever a glove “springs a leak” they are burned to the bone. A “nurse” treats these burns and the worker returns to the job.

The following letter from one of the strikers printed by the Akron Press, is a telling picture of life in the factories:

“I am a worker in the Goodrich “pit” and the reason I do not go before the probe committee is because I feel like a great many others that I would become too prominent.

“I feel that what Mr. Pollock has told the probe committee is merely a circumstance to what we have to suffer in the Goodrich “pit.” We work thirteen hours in the night shift and eleven hours on the day shift, with no noon hour to rest and eat.

“We are allowed to eat any time between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. if the work permits. If the work comes out so that we are not able to eat our lunch during those hours, we are not permitted to finish the meal at any time during the rest of the day. If we are caught eating we are liable to be discharged, even though we may be idle at the time. We would not be eating on the company’s time for we work piece work.

“The cores upon which the tires are built are solid iron and a great many are so heavy they are all one man can lift. The cores are so hot that the men are compelled to wear two pairs of canvas gloves, one over the other in order to handle them at all.

“Some men have been there two years; some have to be changed because they are worn out in eight months. Some come down, look at the men and say, “I don’t want that job” and leave.

“During the night shift when the men get a few minutes to sit down, you will see their heads nod and they will fall asleep, utterly exhausted and unable to keep awake. I have seen men stand at the tables dazed for the want of sleep.

“I have seen these men walk over to the water cooler and hold their head under the faucet and let water run on their heads so as to revive them and I was one of them. One night I saw a “stripper” walk over to the night foreman and asked to be “fired.” The foreman told the man that he knew just how he felt, and advised him to go back and try and stick it out until morning.

“In conclusion I wish to say that thirteen hours is too long for that kind of work, or any kind of work, for that matter. We are too tired to even get out of bed at all during the day; it wears a man down; he has very little time to spend with his family and his life is a cheerless, endless struggle.

“A Worker.”

It is hardly necessary to inform the readers of the Review that the piratical rubber kings have always vigorously opposed any organization of the workers.

Eight years ago the American Federation of Labor organized 500 men. Shortly after, the union headquarters were broken into one night and the books, containing the names of the union men, secured. Mysterious as it may sound, the fact remains that EVERY SINGLE MAN who had joined the union lost his job.

Another unpleasant story is told of an A.F. of L. organizer who went to Akron three years ago, organized 1,500 men, whom he registered in his little book by numbers instead of names. This, he assured them, would prevent the companies from knowing who was who. He collected $1,500, and went away and that was the last of Mr. Organizer and the $1,500.

But the Akron rubber workers have learned much by experience. As soon as the A.F. of L. learned that there was a strike and the I.W.W. boys were on the job, eight organizers were rushed into Akron. They promised the strikers a $30,000 weekly strike benefit if they would join the A.F. of L. But being stung once was enough in Akron, and the strikers have stuck to the I.W.W. The Akron Central Labor Council of the A.F. of L. has backed up the strikers and the I.W.W. from the beginning. They are out to help their brothers and sisters WIN no matter what organization they are in.

The real cause of the strike probably originated in the $2,000,000 contract submitted by the Ford Automobile Co. to the tire manufacturers of Akron. We believe the Goodyear, the Buckeye, the Firestone and Goodrich-Diamond Companies all bid for the big job. Soon there arose a violent cutting of wages. Strikers say the Firestone Company declared a 35 per cent cut. The grade of tires was considerably reduced according to strikers, also.

The first walk-out occurred in the Firestone plant which had secured a part of the Melon contract. Soon there were 18,000 men and women out. As tire contracts are not made subject to labor difficulties, it is probable that unless the Akron companies speedily yield to the demands of the strikers the Ford contract will go elsewhere.

The following story printed by the Akron Press, a paper which has tried to give the strikers’ side some showing in this bitter struggle, is the general answer of the women and girls who joined the strike:

“Annie Fejtko, eighteen, joined the Akron rubber strikers Friday. She’s all alone in Akron — her own provider, house- keeper, washerwoman — and a mere child. This is Annie Fejtko’s own summary of what she pays and how she spends it:

“Average weekly pay, $4 to $4.50. Weekly board bill, $3. Left for dress, amusements, etc., $1 to $1.50.

“She came to Akron about a year ago and has been working for the B.F. Goodrich Company ever since. She started to work on 10-hour day work, for $1, a day.

“I only worked that way three weeks,” said Annie. “Then they put me on piece work. My average two weeks’ pay is $8 or $9. I can’t save anything and I haven’t seen papa or mamma or the little brothers and sisters since I came here.

“They only live in Pennsylvania, too, but I can’t save enough to go and see them.”

“The last day Annie worked she made 75 cents. Lots of days she said she made less.

“Some days I can make $1.25 and once in a while $1.50, but that’s only when I work on certain kinds of work, and just as fast as I can all day, without resting.”

“The highest Annie has ever been paid for a day’s work, was $2. She never made that much again, she says. That day she was cutting paper rings to hold the rubber bulbs in packing. When Annie went home that night her hands were blistered from the scissors.

“For some time before the strike Annie had been working in what is known as department 17-B, of the Goodrich. This is the rubber bulb branch. Her work is constantly changed, but for the most of the time she has been inspecting the hard rubber stems for the bulbs, she said. She is paid 9 mills a hundred for this work and makes around $1 when kept doing this all day. But there’s stamping of time cards to be done, and the work is passed around. “Two mills a hundred is paid for this work,” says Annie, “and if you don’t work all day you couldn’t make over 25 cents.”

“In some of the departments the girls make more,” Annie states. “The buffers (a line of rubber bulb work), make as high as $2 a day when they get to work all the time, but lots of times there isn’t enough to keep them busy. Sometimes they are sent home and other times they stay around all day expecting more to do and only get about 25 cents worth of work.

“But I can’t make that much,” the girl says. “I suppose I’m not fast enough or something. But I work hard, ten hours every day and I have to do my own washing in the evenings, and skimp awful.”

“When the strike started Annie didn’t quit- It ran from Tuesday until Friday. She wanted more money for her work, but she didn’t have anything saved and thought she couldn’t afford to lose a day.

“Friday Charlie, one of the pickets talked to me at noon. I decided I couldn’t be much worse off so I laid down my tools and four other girls in that department followed me out,” she explained.

“I haven’t any money and I have to pay board and— ” she looked seriously out of the window, “but I suppose they’ll help me.

“If I don’t get any more, though, when I go back, I don’t see how I can ever catch up out at Santo’s where I board.”

The general demands of the strikers may be briefly summarized as follows:

Universal 8-hour day. Abolition of piece work. Abolition of Taylor speeding-up system. Time and one-half for overtime. A general 25 per cent increase to the lowest and a 20 per cent increase to the highest paid workers.

One feature of the strike that was unexpected by the factory owners was the senatorial probe instigated by Comrade Margaret Prevey, and introduced in the state senate by Senator Wm. Green.

Comrade Allan Cooke ably represented the strikers in this probe. His questions gave proof to the public that the factory owners had put through some very mysterious deals in the way of what looks extremely like DROWNED (instead of “watered”) stock; also that unheard-of dividends had been declared even upon these inflated issues. He also brought out the real conditions of the rubber workers.

The following is the report of one of the strikers showing that the harder he worked to keep his earnings up to the old schedule, the Lower his wages seemed to go under the speeding-up process.

“Last summer Leonard Gowin, forty-seven, father of 13 children and a stuffer of hard tires in the Diamond plant of the ninety-million-dollar B.F. Goodrich Company, was earning about $4 a day.

“Through the winter, when there have been added coal bills, heavy clothes, school books and other things to buy, he has been paid only about $2.50 a day and sometimes as low as $2, he says.

“Gowin is a typical victim of the speeding-up, piece-work system which has led directly to the present rubber strike.

“It isn’t because Gowin works shorter hours. It’s been a 10-hour day ever since he started. “I’ve worked lots harder this winter,” he adds, “but I can’t make as much. And I tell you when a fellow has as many little tots as I have, he needs every cent he can get.

“Gowin has bought a little lot out at Shop 97 on the Barberton line. Working evenings last summer and on Sundays, he made the cement blocks, bought lumber and lone-handed built a home. He had visions of a cozy winter.

“My wife and I talked it all out,” he said. “But it hasn’t worked out very well. Seems like the pay gets less all the time, under the piece work system.”

“One of Gowin’s daughters, a girl in her teens, has gone to work. She’d have liked finishing school, but there were a half dozen little tots to clothe and buy medicine and milk for.

“Less than six months ago, the children had nice clothes for Sunday school. Now the dresses and little suits are bought for wear.

“Back under the day work system men made $4 to $7 for skilled labor,” said Gowin. “But this piece-work speeding has hit them all about like me — only most of them haven’t so many children.

“This strike hits me pretty hard. I’m not complaining, you understand. I went out on my own hook, even if I did stick till Monday because I thought I couldn’t spare the money.

“I hope it comes out right for us. If it’s the same when we go back, I think I’ll have to sort of start life over again — working at something else.

“It’s pretty late, when a fellow gets nearly fifty, but the pays keep shrinking and the children grow bigger and more expensive, and I guess it’s the only way.”

The strikers early opened a soup kitchen and the way the workers elsewhere are responding now show that they do not mean to have any of their comrades suffer. Several hundred rubber workers walked out in Cleveland and the bosses of the scab factories in Detroit are wringing their hands and “laying off’ men because automobiles without tires are about as useful as snow shoes on the sea.

One night early in March a stranger to Akron dropped off an evening train. He saw the groups of men gathered about the city and asked if there was some kind of a celebration going on. “Nope,” said one of the ex-rubber workers — “only a strike.” “Well, well,” the stranger said, “and I came here to get a job in one of the factories. I guess I’ll be beating it. I’m not so yellow that I have to scab, even if I AM broke.”

On Friday, Feb. 28, Haywood stopped off a day at Akron and several thousand strikers met him at the train and paraded through the factory and Business districts of Akron. Haywood spoke to two immense strike meetings. He said in part:

“The greatest weapon you can use against the rubber robbers just now is to keep your hands in your pockets. When you have your hands in your pockets, the capitalist can’t get his there, and unless the capitalist has his hands in your pockets, he has got to go to work. So during the time of this strike, let there be no violence on your part, not the destruction of one cent’s worth of property, not one cross word. You have got this strike won if you will but stand together in One Big Union.

“If the boss starves you back to work then you know how to win this strike on the inside of the factory. Don’t use the speeding-up, but the slowing-down process. This is an up-to-date organization, and we are fighting with modern weapons. The workers who understand the program and the policy of the I.W.W. will never again be defeated. We are organized now and fighting this battle for an eight-hour day.

“As I said to you this morning, if you work only eight hours that is going to make room for more men and more women, and as the unemployed come into work, then the wages are going up. Your wages are going up anyway; because you are going to stand together until we force them up. Four dollars per week or four and one-half is altogether too little for a girl to try and live on, and live decently, and every girl, or a large per cent of them; would live decently if they got wages enough. But it is not a question of girlhood or womanhood with the rubber trusts. What they want is cheap labor. Cheap labor means to them more profits.

“Just remember, men that we are the working class and it doesn’t make any difference what our nationality may be. My father was born in this state, I was born in this country and am an American.

“There are no foreigners in the working class except the capitalist. He is the fellow we are after and we are going to get him. We are going to get Mr. Seiberling. If he is too old to work, we will get his son, and put him right in the rubber factory alongside the rest of ’em.

“You simply get back enough to keep alive and in shape to work. If any of you fall by the wayside, and the undertaker visits your home, it doesn’t make any difference to Mr. Seiberling. Now workingmen, it is for you to organize. This strike is your strike. The success of this strike

depends on you. There is no one else to fight.

“If you had a picket line out every morning representing a crowd as big as this there would not be anybody going to work. You can influence enough to prevent them going to work. Get on the job in the morning in the picket line and visit these friends of yours at night in their homes.

“Get this organization so that it will be 100 per cent strong. We will try, as we did at Lawrence, to raise money enough to carry you through.”

“I have a warning to issue here,” he said. ”Those in authority must forget this proposition of wearing out their clubs on the strikers’ heads. They made the laws and there are proper processes for them to follow. Let them live up to it. If a striker violates law, let them arrest him and bring him before the court.

“But I want to appeal to you strikers to conduct this strike along the peaceful lines you have been. You built this city and the rubber barons are realizing that you are necessary to its prosperity. They are realizing that until you are getting better pay and better hours, their profits won’t increase.”

On March 8th when the strikers were peacefully picketing before the Goodrich rubber plant, 50 police and deputy sheriffs, with billies and black-jacks, responded to Sheriff Fergusson’s command to drive strikers off that side of the street, by clubbing men, women and young girls right and left.

Those who hesitated, heard the sheriff’s cry, “Wade in and get busy if you don’t want to lose your jobs,” and rallied to do the dirty work of the rubber kings. Fortunately one patrolman, Fred Viereck, in his zeal to nail down his meal ticket, made an attempt to mow down all those who stood in his way. His club beat the air in circular fashion like a huge scythe. He looked neither to the right nor to the left and so the gods decreed that as he swung wildly at the strikers, he should give the sheriff a vicious crack over the face. They do tell how the sheriff is now going about minus a few front teeth and wearing a face that looks like a piece of raw liver.

It is a comfort to know that he received what he had given. He cast his bread upon the waters and it was returned to him. We hope that Officer Viereck will receive a raise in pay for strict adherence to duty.

Local Elyria of the S.P. of Ohio, has a splendid plan for raising funds for the strikers. The comrades persuaded Mr. Georgeople, manager of the American moving picture theater, to donate the profits of his show for one evening to the strikers. When Mr. Georgeople came to turn over his profits, he went the whole way and donated the entire receipts, about $70.00. They then “held up” Fred Tunnington, manager of the Coliseum Rink, for one day’s receipts amounting to $133.62. This shows what a red local with its fighting clothes on can do.

The Cleveland reds cooperated with 20 girl strikers from Akron in pulling off a tag day and over $400.00 was collected in spite of the city authorities.

Comrade Josephine Bates, who has been actively engaged in the strike is out in the state on a collection tour with Celia Liptschitz, of Pittsburgh, and a squad of girl strikers to swell the war chest. Matilda Raboniwitz, who did splendid work in the Little Falls Fight is on the job at Akron.

The strikers are in need of funds. Every local in the country can raise $50 for their benefit, if the comrades so desire. When you send in your contribution, to Comrade J.W. Boyd, at 140 South High street, Akron, Ohio, don’t forget to send a letter of encouragement to the strikers and tell them just how you raised the money. It is an inspiration to them to know they have the backing of the working class.

This is the first big strike in Akron. Many workers there have been too busy trying to keep up with the increasing pace set by the new stopwatch timekeepers to realize the growing solidarity of the workers all over the world. This is a chance for you to show them.

Just a little help from each one of us and the strike will be won, and the workers of Akron will learn a lesson in class solidarity that is the first big step toward the abolition of the profit system.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v13n10-apr-1913-ISR-riaz-ocr.pdf