General Strikes

Blame Sen. Robert Taft and Rep. Fred Hartley. Or thank them, if you prefer. Either way, their work helps explain why organizers in Minneapolis last week could call theirs the first general strike in the United States in eighty years. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 restricted union activity and made classic general strikes illegal.

Strikes began as a tool of the labor movement in the 1800s. Sometimes strikers in one industry were joined by others, either in sympathy or in pursuit of shared political goals. Philadelphia claims credit for the nation’s first general strike, held in 1835 to demand a ten-hour working day. It began in textile mills and spread to unions throughout the city. By the end of 1835 the ten-hour working day was largely standard across the U.S.

A wave of strikes broke out nationwide after World War I. In Seattle in 1919, over 60,000 members of various unions took part in a five-day work stoppage to support the city’s shipyard workers. The general strike collapsed in the face of corporate interests and fears of Communism. In an even bigger strike wave in 1946, the largest began in Oakland CA department stores. Women who had worked factory jobs during World War II were now reduced to retail clerks with low pay and few protections. More than 100,000 workers from multiple industries came out in support, shutting Oakland down for two days. Backlash brought the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947.

Eighty years after the Oakland general strike, how is Minneapolis different? It targets federal action, not employers. Its organization is grassroots. The Museum of Protest says labor unions are “navigating legal constraints through strategic ambiguity.” In sub-zero temperatures, what law forbids closing schools for safety or suggesting workers call in sick?

​Image: Seattle Union Record, February 3, 1919.