An early strike of the T.U.U.L.-affiliate Cannery and Agricultural Workers’ Industrial Union in an industry almost untouched by labor organizing.

‘2,000 San Jose Cannery Workers Spread Strike’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 8 No. 190. August 8, 1931.

CANNERY WORKERS SPREAD STRIKE IN FACE OF BRUTAL POLICE TERROR

5,000 Workers March to City Hall, Demand Release of Jailed Organizers; Cops Attack March With Clubs and Gas

(By a Worker Correspondent) SAN JOSE, Cal. Two thousand striking cannery workers and 3,000 strike sympathizers marched on the city hall today and demanded the release of eight prisoners arrested for attempting to further organize the workers in the Agricultural and Cannery Workers Industrial Union, affiliated with the Trade Union Unity League, which called the strike here in four large canning factories.

The eight workers with many more arrested in today’s demonstration will be charged, according to the word of Chief of Police Black, with criminal syndicalism. At the mass meeting of the cannery workers held in St. James Park 2,000 members of the union pledged their solidarity to the working class struggle and fought successfully the attempt of an especially recruited police force of over two hundred armed men to break up the meeting.

Tear Gas.

Tear gas bombs, night sticks and fire hoses failed to disrupt the meeting though scores of workers were brutally assaulted by the police and though several speakers were dragged from the platform and arrested. Minnie Carson, strike organizer and militant leader of the exploited cannery workers who are out on strike against starvation wages of twenty-five and thirty cents an hour took the speakers stand after one of the other strike leaders had been pulled from the platform and arrested.

In a dramatic appeal to the thousands gathered in the square she asked the workers to pledge themselves to fight for the solidarity of the union and the working class struggle. With her hands outstretched to the workers she said:

“You have seen them arrest our speakers. You have seen the police attack our men and women on picket duty. You have seen the flunkies of the bosses drag your fellow workers to the jail over there for attempting to organize you into one great union. Fellow workers, let us show the bosses our strength. Let us march to the jail and demand our men. But let us show the bosses that workers can also be dignified and orderly, but let us show them by this vast demonstration our fighting strength. There are a great number of us here. How many of you will march with us?” A tremendous shout rose from the thousands of workers.

No sooner had she stepped from the platform than police rushed her and struck her with a night stick and threw tear bombs among the workers, one of which struck the girl leader in the face, seriously burning her. Two strikers picked up her crumpled body and rushed her to a hospital.

Strikers March.

The strikers, undaunted by the vicious attack of police, began their march on the city hall, the strike committee leading the procession. Thousands of other workers and working class sympathizers joined the march. The line was several miles long and by the time they had reached the city hall the assemblage had grown to five thousand. There theyfound the police barricaded behind doors of the jail. In a few minutes hundreds of policemen newly recruited from the fire department arrived with guns and fire engines. More tear bombs were exploded, and more workers were badly burned. Powerful streams of water were turned on the masses surrounding the jail. Women and men were swept unconscious to the ground. The police fired shots at the crowd and swept them away from the doors of the station.

A striker stood up on the steps and cried: “We do not want tear bombs and bloodshed! We want our men! We only want justice!” He with others were seized by the army of the police and thrown into jail. They were thrown into jail to be held for criminal syndicalism! They were thrown into a jail that is recognized state-wide as being the foulest and filthiest dungeon on the coast—the jail that has been the subject of investigation upon investigation by prison reformers and liberals—the jail that has been the subject of expose upon expose—rat infested, dark and lousy! For two hours the battery of police attacked the workers—the thousands cat-calling, hooting and booing them.

Strike Just Begun.

The strike has just begun. Thousands of workers revolted by the police atrocities are joining the strike and the picket line. One cannery has completely shut down, and two others are making a sham at running with squads of police guarding all entrances, and the forces of the remaining canneries have been so badly crippled as to make continued operation a financial loss.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n190-NY-aug-08-1931-DW-LOC.pdf