Socialists help bring the union to Camden’s New York Shipbuilding Company in 1935.

‘The Heroic Story of the Camden Strike Of the Marine and Shipbuilders Union’ from Socialist Call. Vol. 1 No. 20. August 3, 1935.

CAMDEN, N.J. When the strike history of 1935 is written, the heroic Camden strike of 4,000 shipbuilders will rank among the most glorious.

For the history will tell a stirring tale of how these workers, newly organized in a young union, stood steadfast for many weeks before victory came. At this writing, the strike is still on, but so strong is public indignation and so solid are the picket lines that victory seems certain.

Two Years Old

It was two years ago that Socialists and progressive trade-unionists in Camden and its sister-city, Philadelphia, began talking union organization among the shipbuilders in the plant of the New York Shipbuilding Company. The workers responded with enthusiasm, for they saw in a strong union their only hope against the misery and starvation wages that was their lot.

But the bosses trembled when they saw growing a powerful, militant industrial union that would check their greed for more and more battleship profits. Meetings of the American Shipbuilders Council, powerful national employers’ group, decided that the union must be broken. They chose Camden as the strategic point.

When the Camden workers first asked for their basic demands: a closed shop, 15% pay increase to cover the high cost of living and maintenance of the 36-hour week, the company countered with a proposal that they knew the workers would refuse. They offered an increase in hours to a 40-hour work week so as “to provide a weekly increase in income.”

The company, which had just signed a new United States Navy Department contract at a huge increase, which had made millions during and since the war, could not afford to pay an extra penny in wages.

Try Starvation

The workers struck. After futile attempts to open the shop, the bosses resorted to the old trick of starvation. But the workers stuck. Although hungry and with inadequate relief provisions, they refused to scab. Fake polls among the men “to go back to work” did not have the desired result; they would go back to work, they promised, when they got what they had asked for.

Meanwhile, public sentiment for the strikers grew. Pressure was put on Washington as to why they allowed a firm that was practically subsidized by the United States government to refuse to negotiate. Weeks dragged by.

The bosses felt secure and guessed that the strike was won. They proclaimed that only “a small, radical minority leadership” was for the strike; the masses wanted to return. They announced amid much publicity that the plant would re-open.

But they guessed wrong! When the gates were opened, exactly 22 out of more than 4,000 strikers entered the gate, accompanied by 30 other scabs who had not worked at the plant before. The company tried to operate for four days, then they gave up in disgust.

Congress Acts

Meanwhile, public indignation forced Congressmen to take action. Why, they inquired, does the Roosevelt administration (which had so often spoken of 7-A) continue to support a firm that would not even negotiate with its workers. The House of Representatives passed a resolution calling for an investigation of the Navy labor policies.

At the hearings, President John F. Metten of the company acted the role of Hamlet and a clown combined. The only thing he proved conclusively was that the stage lost a real genius when Metten went into the shipbuilding business.

Meanwhile, the strikers fight on–certain of victory.

Socialist Call began as a weekly newspaper in New York in early 1935 by supporters of the Socialist Party’s Militant Faction Samuel DeWitt, Herbert Zam, Max Delson, Amicus Most, and Haim Kantorovitch, with others to rival the Old Guard’s ‘New Leader’. The Call Education Institute was also inaugurated as a rival to the right’s Rand School. In 1937, the Call as the Militant voice would fall victim to Party turmoil, becoming a paper of the Socialist Party leading bodies as it moved to Chicago in 1938, to Milwaukee in 1939, where it was renamed “The Call” and back to New York in 1940 where it eventually resumed the “Socialist Call” name and was published until 1954.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/socialist-call/v1n20-aug-03-1935.pdf