of the United States.”
So spoke historian, Anna Louise Strong then a "progressive" reporter for the union-owned Seattle daily, “The Union Record”, about the Seattle General Strike of 1919 in a pamphlet she wrote to document it shortly after it was over. The History Committee of The General Strike Committee originally published
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/seattle1919_p2.html">the pamphlet in March of 1919.
A movement had started in the Seattle shipyards among the craft workers because of a discrepancy in wages that happened during World War I. The workers had expected cost of living adjustments that weren’t forthcoming. Although, they protested, they didn’t strike then and were putting out 26% of the ships built for the United States Shipping Board during that war.
After the war, and after many appeals that were lost on the unconcerned, the workers voted for a strike by referendum. The shipyard owners agreed to the wages for the skilled workers, but not the unskilled ones in an attempt to get the skilled workers to leave the lower scale workers behind. They refused. Then a Charles Piez, Director General of the Emergency Fleet Corporation threatened to withhold steel from the ship owners if they agreed to pay the wages.
Later as appeals were heard, Mr. Piez threatened the shipyard owners with the withdrawal of government contracts. Throughout the strike he refused to deal with the workers as long as they would not return to work. It was then that the Metal Trades Council asked the Central Labor Council for a general strike in sympathy with the shipyard workers. The response was overwhelming even to the union leaders as many of the weaker unions stood to lose a lot of ground in this action, yet they didn’t back down in their resolve for this general strike in solidarity with their fellow workers. Government workers could also face jail time if they went on strike.
On Sunday, February 2, 1919, the first meeting started of four days of hammering out the details and forming committees to oversee the various areas that needed to be addressed. This editorial explains what was accomplished!
Editorial from the Union Record*
On Thursday at 10 A.M.
There will be many cheering, and there will be some who fear.
Both these emotions are useful, but not too much of either.
We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by LABOR in this country, a move which will lead--NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!
We do not need hysteria.
We need the iron march of labor.
*****
LABOR WILL FEED THE PEOPLE. Twelve great kitchens have been offered, and from them food will be distributed by the provision trades at low cost to all.
LABOR WILL CARE FOR THE BABIES AND THE SICK. The milk-wagon drivers and the laundry drivers are arranging plans for supplying milk to babies, invalids, and hospitals, and taking care of the cleaning of linen for hospitals.
LABOR WILL PRESERVE ORDER. The strike committee is arranging for guards, and it is expected that the stopping of the cars will keep people at home.
A few hot-headed enthusiasts have complained that strikers only should be fed, and the general public left to endure severe discomfort. Aside from the inhumanitarian character of such suggestions, let them get this straight:
NOT THE WITHDRAWAL OF LABOR POWER, BUT THE POWER OF THE STRIKERS TO MANAGE WILL WIN THIS STRIKE.
What does Mr. Piez of the Shipping Board care about the closing down of Seattle's shipyards, or even of all the industries of the northwest? Will it not merely strengthen the yards at Hog Island, in which he is more interested?
When the shipyard owners of Seattle were on the point of agreeing with the workers, it was Mr. Piez who wired them that, if they so agreed he would not let them have steel.
Whether this is camouflage we have no means of knowing. But we do know that the great eastern combinations of capitalists could afford to offer privately to Mr. Skinner, Mr. Ames, and Mr. Duthie a few millions apiece in eastern shipyard stock, RATHER THAN LET THE WORKERS WIN.
The closing down of Seattle's industries, as a MERE SHUTDOWN, will not affect these eastern gentlemen much. They could let the whole northwest go to pieces, as far as money alone is concerned.
But, the closing down of the capitalistically controlled industries of Seattle, while the workers organize to feed the people, to care for the babies and the sick, to preserve order--this will move them, for this looks too much like the taking over of power by the workers.
Labor will not only Shut Down the industries, but Labor will reopen, under the management of the appropriate trades, such activities as are needed to preserve public health and public peace. If the strike continues, Labor may feel led to avoid public suffering by reopening more and more activities.
UNDER ITS OWN MANAGEMENT.
And that is why we say that we are starting on a road that leads--no one knows where!
On Thursday, February 6, 1919 at 10: OO A. M., the strike began. By evening the city was at a standstill. Most commerce ground to a halt. Twenty four hours later, Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson threatened to bring in troops to put down the “Bolshevik Revolution”. He demanded to see the representatives and announced that if they didn’t call the strike off he would reopen the affected industries with soldiers and declare martial law. Twice he tried to get them to end the strike and twice he threatened to declare martial law. Twice the representatives refused and twice Hanson backed off and didn’t declare martial law. The end of the strike was officially declared on February 11, 1919.
After the strike ended, the shipyard workers didn’t get their raise in wages and a witch hunt for Reds by police and unsympathetic vigilantes began in earnest. Socialist Party and IWW leaders were arrested and their headquarters raided and vandalized. The Federal government closed the “Union Record” arresting some of the staff. But the workers themselves felt that they had accomplished their goal of standing beside their fellow working brothers.
On the other hand, Mayor Ole Hanson claimed, “Americanism had triumphed over Bolshevism.”
Even though the strike seems like a failure from a short term view, it was the catalyst for a decade of labor disputes affecting our nation’s major industries with huge strikes and unrest in working class populations.
Now to bring us to the present, I can’t help feeling that the immigrant workers’ protests across the nation this past weekend, are going to be the start of something big. We will probably see a resurgence of labor taking its place in the political landscape and a labor revolution may be on the brink of happening.
References:
http://faculty.washington.edu/gregoryj/strike/http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/seattle1919_p2.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_General_Strike_of_1919
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