A modest uptick in the local economy during the Great Depression sees a corresponding wave of strikes, including by previously unorganized workers and those rebelling against conservative union leaderships

‘St. Louis–Hotbed of Strikes’ by Ralph Martin from The Militant. Vol. 6 No. 37. July 29, 1933.

St. Louis, Mo. Six months ago the majority of St. Louis working class tongues were wig-wagging; “Just wait till the breweries open up.” Every other worker tempered his impatience to enjoy a decent standard of living with the rose-colored vision of the “good old days”. Today every worker knows from bitter experience that even 99 percent beer in 2 for 5c steins could not solve our situation–that of 17,000,000 unemployed because of “overproduction”.

Rising prices have stimulated production, temporarily at least, in certain of the local industries: Clothing, shoes, boxes, etc. The increased cost of living has driven the St. Louis workers forward–to union organization and to militant strikes for higher wages, shorter hours, etc.

The local AFL organization committee has organized over 3,000 workers into their various craft unions within a relatively short period of time, printers, shoe-workers, metal-trades workers, clothing, etc. The Needle Trades Workers’ Industrial Union seems to have passed out of existence.

The International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union, within four weeks’ time, has a rapidly growing membership that will soon have the mass of shops in St. Louis organized. This is an important achievement, even though the ILGWU is a Right wing union, when one considers that the St. Louis needle trades have been notoriously open shop for many years. Already many of the smaller factories are organized 100 percent; and inroads are being made on the larger clothing companies.

The count-em-on-your-hand membership of the sectarian NTWIU has, correctly, individually joined the ILGWU.

Efforts are being made by the L.O. to organize Left wing bloc inside of the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union, with the co-operation of the Stalinists. A mutually agreed upon Left wing slate has been tentatively accepted and is going to be fought for at the coming union elections.

The organization campaign has forced the larger shops to make gestures of NIRA liberality to their employees–concessions to stay the workers’ enthusiasm for union organization. Ely and Walker, for example, increased the wages of their 2500 workers an average of 11 percent just last week; following a 10 percent increase granted a short time previously. These “free will” wage increases naturally only make up for a small part of the reductions of the past three years.

Minor strikes, medium strikes, monster strikes–all sizes in various industries concretize James P. Cannon’s words at his Last months’ lecture here–“the next period of American business will usher in a reign of strikes, strikes on a larger scale, a change in the psychology of the working class and an increasing interest in revolution.” The temporary spur to production, due to inflation, has ushered in a wave of both spontaneous and planned strikes in the proverbial open shop town of St. Louis.

The minor strikes include: Restaurant workers at a fashionable night club organize and picket for higher wages; the socially acceptable lorgnette hostess believing their labor to be worth only $4.60 a week. The butchers toddle over the sidewalks of St. Louis demanding union recognition.

The Food Workers’ Industrial Union, which recently gained wage increases of approximately 100 percent in four Funsten Nut Companies, conducted another successful strike at Hoffman Bros. Nut Company. Mass picketing meant mass arrests, militancy meant police clubbings, but the solidarity of the militant nut pickers became the talk of the town. After fizzled attempts to use scabs, Hoffman was forced to accede to the wage demands of the nut pickers. 90c for picking a 25 lb. box of pecans is not a high wage by any method of computation, but it will nevertheless result in nearly 100 percent increased pay checks.

The Left Opposition offered organizational aid to the nut and company strikers, saying that we were ready to help in any way we possibly could. The rank and file Stalinists were naturally pleased at the offer of support. One, Al Rosener, promised to meet the writer and come with a plan for utilizing our help. But, poor chap, he promised before looking up to those who were looking down. The bureaucrats stopped holding their noses and thumbed-down the whole “counter-revolutionary” proposal. Rag-pickers striking at G. Mathes and at Aaron Fere and Sons have been on the picket line for over two weeks. Mass arrests, brutal police clubbings, the determination of the $3.00 a week “rag-pickers” to win or die, has finally forced the democratic mayor to appoint an “investigating” committee. The committee reported back, recommending no discrimination in matter of wages to white and colored doing same work, and wage increases of not less than 20 percent. Mayor Dickman will undoubtedly do his darndest to settle the strike, in his customarily picturesque manner, of appointing an “arbitration” committee and then soap-boxing to the strikers, telling them to accept the offer like good little children and “sin no more”.

Several hundred workers have been striking at Jackes-Evans. Mfg. Company for almost a month. They are demanding recognition of their union, the United Metal Stampers and Assemblers Union, in addition to wage increases. This strike has the support of the Socialist party and the Young People’s Socialist League, who are now having a rebirth in St. Louis. So far the manufacturer’s attempts to use strike-breakers has not succeeded in crushing the strike.

The Shoe Strike

The strike situation that is the most important at the present time is a “wild-cat” spontaneous rebellion of boot and shoe workers. St. Louis is a shoe town. The organized shoe workers have taken wage cut after wage cut (50-75%) since the beginning of the depression. The Boot and Shoe Union officials are such perfect agents of the bosses that they endorsed the wage-cuts, every time. Indignant, the shoe workers would vote en-masse against accepting the cut and spontaneously walk out of the meeting. The union officials would then “over-rule” the voting and would call another meeting and another and still another until finally the rank-and-file rebellion would change to a sickening disgust. No leaders, no program, everything looked hopeless. So the shoe-workers throughout St. Louis periodically drew in their belts a little tighter, retaining the bosses’ sugary words of “as soon as business picks up, you’ll get back the same scale”.

Inflation—increased production of shoes–and the over-worked, under-paid shoeworkers began to demand the former scale. The workers just had to get higher wages, the cost of living was rising terrifically. The shoe companies accordingly offered wage increases–but not large enough to offset their previous reductions. This reneging of the bosses promise was the match that made the shoe workers see fire.

A Rebellion in the Union

750 Milius Shoe Company employees met last Monday (July 17th) to consider the wage increases. The union officials, McMorrow, International Boot and Shoe representative, and Phillips, business agent, urged acceptance of the company’s “liberal” offer. The workers militantly denounced both the company and the union officials. They demanded, and insisted they were going to get, 33 1-3 percent increase on grade B shoes, 12 1-2 percent increase on fancy shoes, a forty-hour week, and no overtime. The chairman fingered the speakers: “You strike and you get fined $25.00.” The workers unseated the chairman, walked out of the union hall, and went out on strike. They rented a separate hall and announced their intentions of striking for their demands till hell froze over.

McMorrow, the union representative, immediately telegraphed the National Industrial Recovery Administration that the union officials regarded the strike as a “violation of the arbitration agreement and against the spirit of Roosevelt’s administrations recovery plans.”

While this was happening, 1000 shoe workers employed at Wolfe-Tober Shoe Mfg. Co. voted down the offer of a 10 percent wage increase and came forward with their own demands: 20 percent increase on B shoes, 12 1-2 percent increase on fancy, 40-hour week, no overtime. The shoe workers ran the union fakers out of the hall and conducted their own meeting. They decided to strike with the Milius workers. Wolfe, the owner of the shoe company, however, immediately got in touch with them and asked them to give him a week to reconsider. The shoe-workers decided to wait the seven days.

The week ends July 24th, the Wolfe employees are holding a “secret” meeting to consider their action. The indications are that Wolfe will accede to their demands without a strike struggle. The Milius strikers have, in the meantime, gained every one of their demands, over the heads of the Boot and Shoe labor fakers.

Now Briar Bros. workers are considering “wild-catting” for their demands. The resentment against the Boot and Shoe Workers’ Union officials is so great that both Milius and Wolfe-Tober shoe workers, en-masse, all agree to rent a separate hall for the purpose of holding “committee” meetings, separate from the Boot and Shoe. What will happen within the next few weeks is hard to foretell.

The Militant was a weekly newspaper begun by supporters of the International Left Opposition recently expelled from the Communist Party in 1928 and published in New York City. Led by James P Cannon, Max Schacthman, Martin Abern, and others, the new organization called itself the Communist League of America (Opposition) and saw itself as an outside faction of both the Communist Party and the Comintern. After 1933, the group dropped ‘Opposition’ and advocated a new party and International. When the CLA fused with AJ Muste’s American Workers Party in late 1934, the paper became the New Militant as the organ of the newly formed Workers Party of the United States.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/themilitant/1933/jul-29-1933.pdf