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A.S.

Rising Militancy Shown
in Growing Strike Wave

(September 1933)


From The Militant, Vol. VI No. 43, 16 September 1933, pp. 1 & 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).


Powerful strikes are again shaking the very foundation of the country. Following right upon the heels of the big walk out of Pennsylvania miners some weeks ago and that of the New York dress industry new strikes are popping daily setting workers into motion everywhere and enormously sharpening the class relationship which the NRA attempts to regulate. Yet what we witness today is unquestionably only a prelude to the much bigger battles coming tomorrow.

The rapidity with which workers now decide to strike and their walk out in splendid response makes an estimate of how many are involved at any given time almost impossible. But it can easily be said without any fear of contradiction that during the last few weeks there has been a continuous wave of strikes embracing several hundred thousand workers. We will attempt to list some of them as examples of the general movement.

Most furious is the battle now being waged in the textile industry, silk section, where police clubbings and tear gas has been employed in full force but without in the least shaking the solid ranks of the strikers. It started in Paterson, but has now spread to involve, total of approximately 60,000 workers taking in also the silk dying industry and extending to Lodi and Fairlawn, N.J. to New York City, to Phillipsburg, Port Jervis, Stroudsburg, and Allentown Pa., as well as the New England textile region. Throughout New Jersey and parts of Pennsylvania the silk textile and dying mills are practically completely shut down. In general the strike is in protest against the terms of the cotton code now in operation also for silk textile, but in particular it is for union organization and for shorter working hours and higher wages. The Associated silk workers in cooperation with the parent organization, the United Textile Workers conducts the strike as far as the overwhelming majority of the workers are concerned, but a section of them came out in response to the call of the National Textile Workers Union of TUUL.

Within a few days this mass movement may even be dwarfed by the new miners strike now looming on the horizon. Already 30,000 are out in central and Western Pennsylvania. These miners are losing patience with the quotatory promises made to them before that President Roosevelt and the NRA coal code would soon remove all their depression misery. They are returning to reliance upon their own mass force as the prospects of a code bringing favors to the miners recedes into the background. The efforts of the UMW officials to hold them tied to their job until the advent of the code seems to be of little avail.

An effective strike of 1,000 miners in the state of Utah has been in progress now for some time with all the means at the disposal of the capitalist state institution massed against them. Clubbings and jailings are on the order of the day with military control in the field almost amounting to a state of martial law. This strike is under the leadership of the National Miners Union. In both the Eastern and Western Kentucky fields members of the UMW have begun strikes. Even the anthracite miners are stirring. In Lackawanna county several shafts have been shut down and the “liberal” governor Pinchot has taken this occasion to instruct his sheriffs to prevent all mass picketing.

Outside of these two most important fields, mining and textile, innumerable strikes, some of considerable size are either in progress, or have just been settled or have so far reached the stage of a definite threat unless the workers’ demands are met. Notable, however, is the fact that in practically every instance where settlements have already been arrived at, or the threats averted, some positive gains have been scored by the workers involved.

In Now York City 10,000 cleaners and dyers have struck for shorter working hours and higher wages. The delivery truck drivers threaten to follow. 25,000 underwear workers have declared a strike. 4,000 button workers are already out. 10,000 neckwear workers are on strike. Several thousand embroidery workers scored important gains in their strike settlement just made. 25,000 millinery workers threaten to go on strike. 4,000 moving picture operators won against an attempted company union by the threat of a strike and picketing of many theatres.

An injunction against picketing has been issued against the New York bakery workers strike which is now running into several months duration. About 3,000 are still out. Similarly the Brooklyn Shoe workers strike, involving several thousand men is still in full force despite all the attempts to make it illegal under the charge of being a communist strike.

From St. Louis comes the report that the city is in the grip of many strikes, in the main it is the clothing shops which are hit, about 7,000 being out at the time of this writing. A total of 300 pickets have been arrested. In Cleveland a street car strike of 3,000 workers was narrowly averted by the company agreeing to recognize the union and to have the demands for wage increases settled by arbitration. In the Fresno, Calif., region a strike of 15,000 fruit pickers gained for them a 33 per cent wage increase. Fruit pickers in Jackima Valley, Wash., are on strike for better wages and working conditions.

These are just a few examples, culled at random, of strikes going on at this moment. A glance will convince the most sceptical observer that there is today a strike curve constantly moving upward. This is not accidental. Moreover, it is indicative for the future. The extremely low standard of living to which the American workers have been reduced demands improvements and the workers are showing determination to get it. As the now rapidly upward moving cost of living really begins to make its effect felt the workers will surge forward that much stronger.

The strikes in progress also prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the American workers do not rely merely upon the N.R.A., despite all its ballyhoo, to accomplish this improvement. Generally speaking the masses still believe that it will be helpful, but they also believe in reinforcement by their own strike power to actually obtain its benefits. Apparently we will be justified in saying: In the main the workers are striking today with the NRA with some signs of taking action regardless Of it. Tomorow, when their illusions disappear, they will be striking against the chains imposed by the N.R.A.


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