Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. Over the past several years,
Speaker 1: when there's been some frustration and anger over the state
Speaker 1: of the world or maybe the state of where we live,
Speaker 1: I've seen kind of a tide of people calling for
Speaker 1: a general strike, and whenever that happens, I find myself
Speaker 1: wanting to do an episode on a general strike. We
Speaker 1: have talked about some general strikes before, back in twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen in two different episodes, we talked about the Winnipeg
Speaker 1: General Strike and the Lemerick Soviet and both of those
Speaker 1: had happened in nineteen nineteen, but a lot of those
Speaker 1: calls for general strikes here in the United States in
Speaker 1: the more recent past. Those have happened in the years
Speaker 1: since we did those episodes, especially in the face of
Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen pandemic and the George Floyd protests. In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, we have gotten a ton of requests for
Speaker 1: an episode on the Icelandic general strike, known in English
Speaker 1: as the Women's Day Off, which happened in nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 1: and while I would really love to do an episode
Speaker 1: on that, it is hampered by my inability to read Icelandic,
Speaker 1: just the language that the vast majority of stuff about
Speaker 1: that is written in. So that has brought us to
Speaker 1: instead the nineteen forty six Oakland General Strike, which is
Speaker 1: today's subject. The nineteen forty six Oakland General Strike was
Speaker 1: part of a massive wave of strikes that took place
Speaker 1: in the US in nineteen forty five and nineteen forty six.
Speaker 1: For context, much of the federal law around unions at
Speaker 1: this point went back to the National Labor Relations Act
Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty five, also called the Wagner Act. We
Speaker 1: talked more about this law and the con text for
Speaker 1: its passage in our most recent Saturday classic on the
Speaker 1: Flint sit down strike. The Wagner Act gave employees the
Speaker 1: right to form unions and barred employers from interfering with
Speaker 1: that right. It also established the National Labor Relations Board,
Speaker 1: which supervised union elections and investigated allegations of unfair labor practices.
Speaker 1: Yeah Prior to the passage of this act, unionizing was
Speaker 1: seen as basically a criminal conspiracy. The Wagner Act was
Speaker 1: framed as diminishing the causes of labor disputes that were
Speaker 1: quote burdening or obstructing interstate and foreign commerce. It had
Speaker 1: been passed as part of the New Deal, which was
Speaker 1: the collection of policies, programs, and laws implemented during the
Speaker 1: Roosevelt administration to try to help the United States recover
Speaker 1: from the Great Depression. The Wagner Act had also followed
Speaker 1: a huge wave of strikes another labor unrest in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty three and nineteen thirty four. Overall, most business leaders
Speaker 1: and Republican politicians were not fans of the Wagner Act,
Speaker 1: but for more than a decade after it was passed,
Speaker 1: Democrats held majorities in both houses of Congress, and the
Speaker 1: President was also a Democrat, so for the most part,
Speaker 1: opponents of the Wagner Act were stuck with it. In
Speaker 1: nineteen forty one, as industries in the United States were
Speaker 1: gearing up for World War II, there was another wave
Speaker 1: of strikes. The US had not entered the war yet,
Speaker 1: but a range of industries suddenly became critical to the
Speaker 1: war effort. Workers in those industries and elsewhere saw this
Speaker 1: as an opportunity to secure higher wages and better working conditions.
Speaker 1: And took aggressive collective action to try to get that done. Then,
Speaker 1: in December of nineteen forty one, Japan bombed the US
Speaker 1: naval station at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the United States
Speaker 1: entered the war. The federal government saw an obvious need
Speaker 1: to put an end to the strikes and to keep
Speaker 1: production going. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration started
Speaker 1: negotiating with union leaders on how to do that. The
Speaker 1: two major union organizations Roosevelt was working with were the
Speaker 1: American Federation of Labor or AFL, and the Congress of
Speaker 1: Industrial Organizations or CIO. There was some animosity between the
Speaker 1: AFL and the CIO. The AFL worked with craft unions,
Speaker 1: which were considered to represent skilled labor, while the CIO
Speaker 1: was focused on industrial workers, who were seen as unskilled.
Speaker 1: The CIO had started off as a committee of the
Speaker 1: AFL before splitting off into its own organization. In late
Speaker 1: December of nineteen forty one, AFL and CIO leadership agreed
Speaker 1: to a voluntary no strike pledge for the duration of
Speaker 1: the war, but striking, or at least the th the
Speaker 1: threat of striking, was really the most powerful tool that
Speaker 1: unions had to try to improve their pay and working conditions.
Speaker 1: After union leaders agreed to this no strike pledge, union
Speaker 1: workers started wondering how or even whether their unions would
Speaker 1: be able to fight for them. Support for the AFL
Speaker 1: and the CIO started to wane among union workers, and
Speaker 1: then that led to concerns about whether the AFL and
Speaker 1: the CIO would be able to enforce that no strike pledge,
Speaker 1: like were people just going to go striking anyway without
Speaker 1: their approval? So the government took additional steps to try
Speaker 1: to reduce labor disputes, including establishing a National War Labor Board.
Speaker 1: Among other things. This board established a policy for union security,
Speaker 1: which meant that newly hired workers could automatically become union
Speaker 1: members after fifteen days of work, and their dues would
Speaker 1: automatically be deducted from their pay. Many workplaces were essentially
Speaker 1: closed shops in which union membership was required in order
Speaker 1: to work there, and as a result, union membership soared.
Speaker 1: These steps did not put a complete stop to striking
Speaker 1: or to labor unrest. In June of nineteen forty three,
Speaker 1: Congress passed the Smith Connolly Act, and that act allowed
Speaker 1: the president to take control of privately owned businesses that
Speaker 1: were seen as critical to the war effort if there
Speaker 1: was a strike or other labor unrest going on. This
Speaker 1: was passed over Roosevelt's veto on June twenty fifth, nineteen
Speaker 1: forty three. Meanwhile, the US was also trying to keep
Speaker 1: inflation from spiraling out of control, as it previously had
Speaker 1: during World War One. An Office of Price Administration was
Speaker 1: established in nineteen forty one to control the prices on
Speaker 1: a variety of goods. Food rationing was implemented both to
Speaker 1: make sure food was available for the war effort and
Speaker 1: to help offset the fact that food prices couldn't be
Speaker 1: used to influence consumer demand. Then, in nineteen forty five,
Speaker 1: the war ended the Office of Price Administration, the National
Speaker 1: War Labor Board, and the Smith Connelly Act were all
Speaker 1: supposed to be temporary wartime measures, and they were all
Speaker 1: dismantled and dissolved. Businesses also saw an opportunity to start
Speaker 1: rolling back wartime labor protections, including the National War Labor
Speaker 1: Board's union security policies, and maybe even to roll back
Speaker 1: some of those protections from the Wagner Act. At the
Speaker 1: same time, with an end to price controls, prices searched
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty six, inflation surged to eighteen percent. Prices
Speaker 1: doubled for bread and meat, and when Roosevelt re established
Speaker 1: price controls, increased demand for these products led to shortages.
Speaker 1: As soldiers returned from the war and wartime industry shut down,
Speaker 1: unemployment increased, and there was also a huge housing shortage.
Speaker 1: There was also a lot of pent up demand for
Speaker 1: goods and services. People had lived through the Great Depression
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties and then they had continued to
Speaker 1: make sacrifices during the Second World War, so people had
Speaker 1: gone from not being able to afford things to not
Speaker 1: being able to get them because of wartime rationing and shortages.
Speaker 1: This all became part of that cycle of inflation and
Speaker 1: scarcity as well. And in light of all of this,
Speaker 1: people were frustrated. Everyone had lived through years of sacrifice
Speaker 1: and this we're all in this together ideology, and people
Speaker 1: had lost friends and their loved ones to the war.
Speaker 1: Young people felt like they had spent years of their
Speaker 1: lives serving in a war when they should have been
Speaker 1: in school or starting a family or establishing themselves in
Speaker 1: a trade, and now that they were home again, wages
Speaker 1: were stagnant, prices were skyrocketing, and goods were hard to find.
Speaker 1: Women who had been able to get good paying union
Speaker 1: jobs in wartime industries were forced out of those jobs
Speaker 1: when men returned from service, mainly into industries that were
Speaker 1: lower paying and not unionized, like retail and domestic work.
Speaker 1: So with all of this going on, and with those
Speaker 1: wartime no strike pledges starting to expire, workers once again
Speaker 1: started going on strike. President Harry S. Truman had come
Speaker 1: into office when Franklin D. Roosevelt died in April of
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five, and that November he convened a labor
Speaker 1: management conference with the hope of heading off a crisis.
Speaker 1: This conference did not really reach any kind of resolution.
Speaker 1: As unions started negotiating new contracts, many were focused on
Speaker 1: better pay and working conditions, but some unions tried to
Speaker 1: take things a step further and influence society as a whole.
Speaker 1: For example, when United Auto Workers started negotiat with GM
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty five, they didn't want the cost for
Speaker 1: employee raises to be passed on to consumers through higher prices,
Speaker 1: because that would just continue to fuel inflation. The union
Speaker 1: wanted a thirty percent wage increase to make up for
Speaker 1: the year's workers had gone without raises and the rapidly
Speaker 1: rising cost of living, and thought that GM could afford
Speaker 1: this increase without increasing the price of its vehicles. GM's
Speaker 1: perspective was that, no, it could not afford that kind
Speaker 1: of wage increase without also having a price increase, but
Speaker 1: even if it could, the price of the product was
Speaker 1: up to the business and not the union. These talks
Speaker 1: broke down and a strike started on November twenty first,
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five, which lasted for one hundred and thirteen days.
Speaker 1: This was not at all the only strike, and this
Speaker 1: wave of strikes continued into nineteen forty six. That year,
Speaker 1: roughly a quarter of union workers in the United States
Speaker 1: went on strike at some point. That included two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand electrical workers, two hundred and sixty thousand meat packers,
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand coal miners, and seven hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand steel workers. In some cases, the federal government stepped
Speaker 1: in to seize control of industries that were seen as critical.
Speaker 1: This happened in the case of striking railroad workers who
Speaker 1: were threatened with military conscription, and with the meat packing plants.
Speaker 1: In addition to strikes across specific industries. There were multiple
Speaker 1: general strikes in nineteen forty five and nineteen forty six.
Speaker 1: These often started with a specific union going on strike,
Speaker 1: and then other unions and non union workers joined them
Speaker 1: in solidarity. For example, in Stamford, Connecticut, the International Association
Speaker 1: of Machinists was negotiating a contract with Yale and Town Company.
Speaker 1: They could not reach an agreement and a strike was
Speaker 1: called on November seventh, nineteen forty five. When local police
Speaker 1: refused to intervene, the governor sent in the state police,
Speaker 1: and people were outraged. Stamford had a population of sixty
Speaker 1: five thousand people, and an estimated twenty thousand participated in
Speaker 1: a one day general strike that shut the city down. Eventually,
Speaker 1: federal negotiators stepped in and the Iam and Yale in
Speaker 1: Town Company reached an agreement in April of nineteen forty six.
Speaker 1: Another general strike was in Rochester, New York. In May
Speaker 1: of nineteen forty six. City manager Lewis V. Cartwright fired
Speaker 1: almost five hundred municipal workers who were trying to unionize,
Speaker 1: and then fired more than sixty truck drivers who walked
Speaker 1: off the job to protest those firings. There was a
Speaker 1: mass demonstration in support of the fired workers who were rehired,
Speaker 1: but the city manager refused to recognize the union still.
Speaker 1: This led to a general strike on May twenty eighth
Speaker 1: that involved all thirty five thousand members of AFL and
Speaker 1: CIO unions in the city. There were general strikes in Hartford, Connecticut, Camden,
Speaker 1: New Jersey, and Lancaster, Pennsylvania as well, and in Oakland, California,
Speaker 1: which we will get into after a sponsor break. In
Speaker 1: nineteen forty six, retail workers in Oakland, California, were trying
Speaker 1: to unionize. Retail unions in the area included the Department
Speaker 1: and Specialty Store Employees Union Local twelve sixty five and
Speaker 1: the Retail Clerk's International Protective Association. The Department and Specialty
Speaker 1: Store Employees Union had already organized the Shcress Store in Oakland,
Speaker 1: as well as some of the city's shoe stores. Workers
Speaker 1: were also trying to organized at CON's Department Store and
Speaker 1: at Hastings Clothing Company, which were both in Laidtham Square
Speaker 1: across the street from one another. Workers at Cons and
Speaker 1: Hastings had learned that workers at the unionized stores were
Speaker 1: making about ten dollars a week more than they were.
Speaker 1: Retail workers also wanted to move away from a ready
Speaker 1: room system of getting shifts. Workers who didn't have an
Speaker 1: assigned shift for the day were expected to wait in
Speaker 1: a room in the store's basement, arriving in the morning
Speaker 1: and then waiting to see if they were needed. They
Speaker 1: often waited until lunchtime or later before being either called
Speaker 1: up to work or sent home, and they were not
Speaker 1: paid for their time while they waited in the ready room.
Speaker 1: About three quarters of the eight hundred and fifty employees
Speaker 1: at CONS had voted to unionize. Hastings was a smaller
Speaker 1: store than CONS, but almost all of its one hundred
Speaker 1: employees were on board. Most of the workers who were
Speaker 1: trying to organize were white women, and a lot of
Speaker 1: them were middle ag aged or older. Many of them
Speaker 1: had worked at the stores for years. Many had also
Speaker 1: had high paying union jobs in Oakland's shipyards during the war,
Speaker 1: and so they already had experience in being in a union,
Speaker 1: and they wanted a union at their retail job, but
Speaker 1: the stores refused to negotiate. The Retail Merchants Association, or RMA,
Speaker 1: united all the big department stores in Oakland and Berkeley.
Speaker 1: It was deeply anti union Cress and the unionized shoe
Speaker 1: stores had both been forced to leave the RMA after
Speaker 1: recognizing their employees' unions. Management at cons and Hastings did
Speaker 1: not want the same thing to happen to them. Management
Speaker 1: said they would only recognize the union if all twenty
Speaker 1: eight stores they were part of the RMA agreed to unionize.
Speaker 2: That was just not feasible.
Speaker 1: Workers at Hastings went on strike on October twenty third,
Speaker 1: nineteen forty six. About a week later, on October thirty first,
Speaker 1: workers at CON's went on strike as well. Although the
Speaker 1: leadership of the Teamsters union seems to have been kind
Speaker 1: of ambivalent about the retail workers' strike, Teamsters refused to
Speaker 1: cross the picket lines to deliver goods to the stores.
Speaker 1: Other unions in Oakland also encouraged their members not to
Speaker 1: cross the picket lines to go shopping. At this point,
Speaker 1: Oakland City Council, the police, and the Oakland Tribune were
Speaker 1: all tightly connected. Joseph Noland, who had previously served in
Speaker 1: the California State Senate and in the US House of Representatives,
Speaker 1: owned the newspaper, and a lot of other powerful people
Speaker 1: in California had personal or political connections to him. Noland
Speaker 1: had also supported Earl Warren in his bid to become
Speaker 1: governor of California, so he had a very wide network
Speaker 1: of very powerful political connections that stretched well beyond Oakland.
Speaker 1: In other words, while the retail workers had a lot
Speaker 1: of support from unionized workers in the city, the city
Speaker 1: itself and its Republican political machine were both entrenched and
Speaker 1: both very anti union. As December and the Christmas shopping
Speaker 1: season started to approach, workers at both stores were still
Speaker 1: on strike, even though a lot of shoppers were refusing
Speaker 1: to cross the workers picket lines. The stores had gone
Speaker 1: without deliveries for weeks, so their stock was getting low.
Speaker 1: Teamsters were not delivering merchandise, but the striking workers knew
Speaker 1: that it was possible that strike breakers would be brought
Speaker 1: in to deliver things in their place, so the workers
Speaker 1: were keeping an eye on the stores, and they were
Speaker 1: also parking their cars in the loading areas so that
Speaker 1: trucks could not get in if they did arrive. According
Speaker 1: to the strikers, they had a verbal ok from the
Speaker 1: police to park their cars at the loading docks and
Speaker 1: assurances that their cars would be safe there. On December first,
Speaker 1: the city and the RMA had police forcibly clear roughly
Speaker 1: five hundred picketing workers from around the stores. Some of
Speaker 1: the nearly two hundred and fifty police officers who were
Speaker 1: dispatched to the downtown area were armed with tear gas
Speaker 1: and gas masks, but they mostly did this by shoving
Speaker 1: people out of the way with their clubs, battering and
Speaker 1: bruising some of the strikers in the process. Some of
Speaker 1: the striking workers and their supporters were injured during all
Speaker 1: of this, mostly after being struck with officers clubs, but
Speaker 1: one man Newton's Salvage, had to be hospitalized after being
Speaker 1: knocked down by a police officer on a motorcycle. Police
Speaker 1: also towed the workers' cars out of the loading areas,
Speaker 1: and according to some reports, they left those cars in
Speaker 1: gear while towing them to intentionally damage their transmissions. After
Speaker 1: clearing people out of the downtown area, police established a
Speaker 1: cordon and escorted six trucks through it. Each of those
Speaker 1: trucks made two trips from a warehouse in Berkeley where
Speaker 1: the merchandise had been staged for delivery. It was clear
Speaker 1: to the strikers and their supporters that this had all
Speaker 1: been planned out and coordinated and that the city government,
Speaker 1: the police, and store management had all been involved. The
Speaker 1: trucks were from Veterans Trucking Company, which employed combat veterans
Speaker 1: and had been established by the Merchants and Manufacturers Association
Speaker 1: to deliver merchandise during strikes. This led to some altercations
Speaker 1: between the veterans who were breaking the strike and the
Speaker 1: ones who were on the picket lines. Newton Salvage, who
Speaker 1: we mentioned a moment ago, was a streetcar operator, and
Speaker 1: when the street cars and buses started arriving on scene
Speaker 1: just as part of their daily routes, a lot of
Speaker 1: their operators refused to cross the police cordon. Operators stopped
Speaker 1: their street cars and removed the control mechanisms which rendered
Speaker 1: them inoperable and immovable, and bus drivers also left their
Speaker 1: buses and just walked away. Al Brown, president of the
Speaker 1: Carmens and Drivers Union, was part of this action with
Speaker 1: the street cars and described the police cordon as a
Speaker 1: picket line he refused to cross. F I'm understanding his
Speaker 1: statement correctly, this sounds like the malicious compliance on his part.
Speaker 1: This action by the street car drivers and the bus
Speaker 1: drivers really snarled traffic all over Oakland for hours. Over
Speaker 1: the course of the day, people in Oakland became really
Speaker 1: angry about what was happening. It wasn't just that truck
Speaker 1: drivers had been hired to break the strike. It was
Speaker 1: at the police, which people had paid for with their taxes,
Speaker 1: were protecting the strike breakers, shoving around the strikers, many
Speaker 1: of whom were women, and keeping people out of the
Speaker 1: downtown area. In later interviews, Joe Showday of the International
Speaker 1: Typographical Union described this use of taxpayer funded place least
Speaker 1: to quote, beat us off our own streets was quote
Speaker 1: the first step toward fascism. The only workers actually on
Speaker 1: strike on December first were the workers at cons and Hastings,
Speaker 1: and then there were teamsters who were refusing to cross
Speaker 1: their picket lines in solidarity. On December second, union officials
Speaker 1: from the AFL and the CIO met to decide what
Speaker 1: to do. Ultimately, the AFL told its members in Oakland
Speaker 1: to quote take a holiday the next day to protest
Speaker 1: the use of police force to try to break the strike.
Speaker 1: A mass meeting had already been scheduled to take place
Speaker 1: that night in support of the striking retail workers. The
Speaker 1: general strike officially started at five am on Monday, December third,
Speaker 1: about one hundred thousand AFL workers across the county didn't
Speaker 1: show up for work or walked off the job. Between
Speaker 1: the retail workers and their supporters from other unions, there
Speaker 1: were more than five thousand people picketing front of the stores,
Speaker 1: with reports of much greater numbers in the surrounding area.
Speaker 1: Street Cars and buses didn't leave their yards after five am,
Speaker 1: so there were massive traffic jams all around Oakland. Union
Speaker 1: typesetters and press operators joined the strike, so this also
Speaker 1: stopped the presses at the Oakland Tribune. The Sailors Union
Speaker 1: of the Pacific walked off of three ships that were
Speaker 1: docked at the Port of Oakland, which were all loaded
Speaker 1: up and ready to depart. This general strike basically took
Speaker 1: over the whole downtown area. Teamsters patrolled to make sure
Speaker 1: things stayed peaceful, and since the city was decorated for Christmas,
Speaker 1: this turned into kind of a festival atmosphere. Bars were
Speaker 1: allowed to stay open if they only served beer but
Speaker 1: not liquor, and if they moved their jukeboxes onto the
Speaker 1: sidewalks and let people play them for free, especially into
Speaker 1: the afternoon in the evening, this really felt kind of
Speaker 1: like a party. But while there was immense support for
Speaker 1: the general strike among union members, there wasn't a lot
Speaker 1: of coordination or planning from union leaders. For example, a
Speaker 1: well planned general strike can keep basic critical services running,
Speaker 1: both to try to maintain goodwill with local residents who
Speaker 1: aren't striking, and to make sure the strikers have access
Speaker 1: to the supplies and support they need. In Oakland, virtually
Speaker 1: all the stores were shut down except for food stores
Speaker 1: and pharmacies. Unionized restaurants shut down, and picketers forced the
Speaker 1: non union restaurants to shut down as well. The milk
Speaker 1: wagon drivers union had objected to the general strike, and
Speaker 1: they were allowed to continue delivering milk, but before long,
Speaker 1: with all the restaurants closed, people were starting to get hungry.
Speaker 1: Strikers also realized that single men living in boarding houses
Speaker 1: in Oakland had no kitchens and relied on those restaurants
Speaker 1: for all their food, so as the day wore on,
Speaker 1: some of the restaurants were allowed to reopen. Night, about
Speaker 1: ten thousand AFL union members gathered at Oakland Auditorium for
Speaker 1: a mass meeting, with at least five thousand people listening
Speaker 1: to the address over speakers outside. This was especially a lot,
Speaker 1: considering that it was raining really hard that night. Speakers
Speaker 1: included James Galliano, who was attorney for the clerks and
Speaker 1: the Labor Council, and Harry Lindeberg, who was secretary Treasurer
Speaker 1: of the Sailors Union of the Pacific. This meeting was
Speaker 1: more like a rally than a planning meeting, with Lundenberg
Speaker 1: giving the most radical speech, which described the police department's
Speaker 1: actions as fascism in America. As the general strike stretched
Speaker 1: into December fourth, concerns were growing among the leadership of
Speaker 1: the AFL. Most of the unions that were participating were
Speaker 1: AFL unions, but there wasn't really anyone in charge on
Speaker 1: site at the strike or a clear set of demands.
Speaker 1: Demonstrators had started calling for the mayor in the entire
Speaker 1: city council to resign, which went well beyond the demands
Speaker 1: of a simple labor negotiation. International Teamster president Dave Beck
Speaker 1: also called the general strike quote a lot of foolishness
Speaker 1: and described it as more like a revolution than an
Speaker 1: industry dispute. There were some discussions of starting another general
Speaker 1: strike across the Bay in San Francisco. The CIO also
Speaker 1: started discussing whether its unions should join the general strike.
Speaker 1: Since the CIO's unions included workers at pretty much all
Speaker 1: of the city's basic utilities, this could have given the
Speaker 1: strikers an incredible amount of bargaining power. Most of the
Speaker 1: city's unionized black workers were also in CIO unions, so
Speaker 1: CIO involvement would have brought more of these workers into
Speaker 1: the strike as well. But on December fifth, the AFL
Speaker 1: Central Labor Council of Oakland called for an end to
Speaker 1: the general strike after a vote by business agents. Those
Speaker 1: are two the people who act as liaisons between the
Speaker 1: union and the management. Beck also ordered the Teamsters to
Speaker 1: resume their deliveries to the stores. City manager JF. Hassler
Speaker 1: had given verbal assurances that the Oakland Police would no
Speaker 1: longer protect in non striking trucks that were trying to
Speaker 1: deliver to the stores. The Labor council decided that the
Speaker 1: use of police to protect the trucks was what had
Speaker 1: prompted the general strike, and now that that was resolved,
Speaker 1: there was no reason to continue. Also, at this point,
Speaker 1: the mayor had been given emergency powers, although those had
Speaker 1: not been put into use, and there were rumors that
Speaker 1: federal troops were going to be deployed. Yeah, so there
Speaker 1: were concerns that things in Oakland were going to get
Speaker 1: a lot worse than the kind of peaceful party atmosphere
Speaker 1: that they had had. The general strike ended on December fifth,
Speaker 1: nineteen forty six, at eleven a m. Having lasted for
Speaker 1: fifty four hours. A lot of the actual strikers were
Speaker 1: furious at the decision to call it off, and many
Speaker 1: of the striking retail workers felt betrayed and angry. None
Speaker 1: of those workers' actual issues had been addressed, and store
Speaker 1: management was still refusing to negotiate with them or to
Speaker 1: recognize their union. In spite of the order for teamsters
Speaker 1: to return to work at the stores, a lot of
Speaker 1: them continued to refuse to cross the picket line. These
Speaker 1: picket lines also got a lot smaller after the RMA
Speaker 1: got an injunction to allow only five pickets at each
Speaker 1: store entrance. The city managers also did not keep their
Speaker 1: promise not to use police to protect deliveries to the store.
Speaker 1: After the general strike, the AFL, CIO and NAACP united
Speaker 1: to form the Oakland Voters League. The league tried to
Speaker 1: build connections between organized labor and the city, which was
Speaker 1: predominantly white, and the city's black voters and civil rights activists.
Speaker 1: The league also backed candidate for the five city council
Speaker 1: seats that were up for election in nineteen forty seven.
Speaker 1: Four of those candidates won. The fifth, Glenn Goldfarb, lost
Speaker 1: very narrowly. There is some speculation that this may have
Speaker 1: been due to the design of the ballot which made
Speaker 1: his opponent look like part of the labor ticket, or
Speaker 1: it could have been because of anti semitism. This council
Speaker 1: had nine members, so the ticket didn't have a majority,
Speaker 1: so this wound up being more of a symbolic win
Speaker 1: than an ushering in of change in the city. The
Speaker 1: Oakland Voters League was also short lived. It dissolved after
Speaker 1: not seeing similar successes. In nineteen forty nine, the retail
Speaker 1: workers strike ended the day before the city election, and
Speaker 1: a week later the Retail Merchants Association recognized Local twelve
Speaker 1: sixty five as the union for all of its stores.
Speaker 1: It took years for the workers at cons and Hastings
Speaker 1: to actually get a collective bargaining agreement in place, though
Speaker 1: this general strike, along with the other strikes in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty five and nineteen forty six led to changes in
Speaker 1: federal law, and we'll get into all of that after
Speaker 1: a sponsor break. The nineteen forty six Oakland General Strike
Speaker 1: took place after that year's general election, in the face
Speaker 1: of rampant inflation and massive labor unrest. Republicans had taken
Speaker 1: the majority in both houses of Congress. Although Democrat Harry
Speaker 1: Truman had been re elected as president, this was the
Speaker 1: first time since nineteen thirty three that Democrats had not
Speaker 1: controlled both houses of Congress, and for almost all of
Speaker 1: that time, the president had also been Franklin D.
Speaker 2: Roosevelt.
Speaker 1: When the new Congress was sworn in in nineteen forty seven,
Speaker 1: legislators immediately got to work introducing bills related to labor,
Speaker 1: specifically bills that would put in new limits on the
Speaker 1: Wagner Act. It wasn't just about the immense wave of
Speaker 1: strikes that had happened in nineteen forty five and nineteen
Speaker 1: forty six. This was at the start of the Cold
Speaker 1: War between the United States and the Soviet Union, and
Speaker 1: legislators had deep concerns about communism within the nation's organized labor,
Speaker 1: and communism had been a big part of the labor
Speaker 1: movement starting in the early twentieth century, with many union's
Speaker 1: most effective organizers also being Communist Party members. This wasn't
Speaker 1: the first time there had been heightened concerns about communism
Speaker 1: in the US. We've done several previous episodes related to
Speaker 1: the first Red Scare of the nineteen teens, including our
Speaker 1: two parter on the Palmer Raids. The nineteen teens, like
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen forties, had also been a time of
Speaker 1: widespread labor activism and strikes. As we said, a lot
Speaker 1: of the bills that were introduced were related to all
Speaker 1: of this in some way, but two really came to
Speaker 1: the forefront. One introduced in the Senate by Robert A.
Speaker 1: Taft of Ohio, chair of the Senate Labor Committee, and
Speaker 1: the other in the House by Representative fred A. Hartley
Speaker 1: Junior of New Jersey, the Republican chair of the House
Speaker 1: Education and Labor Committee. Broadly speaking, Hartley's bill was more
Speaker 1: restrictive than Tafts was, and the version that ultimately passed
Speaker 1: both houses of Congress included elements of both of their bills.
Speaker 1: The resulting law is the Labor Management Relations Act, but
Speaker 1: it's more commonly known as Taft Hartley, the AFL Central
Speaker 1: Labor Council had teamed up with the CIO to create
Speaker 1: a joint committee to combat anti labor legislation, and unions
Speaker 1: demonstrated against this bill. This included a Detroit rally planned
Speaker 1: by United Auto Workers, which had about two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: people in attendance. Workers, union organizers and their supporters called
Speaker 1: on Truman to veto this bill. Truman did, calling it
Speaker 1: quote completely contrary to that national policy of economic freedom.
Speaker 1: He said that it would encourage quote distrust suspicion, and
Speaker 1: arbitrary attitudes, and he also used words like drastic and
Speaker 1: unworkable in reference to it. Overriding the president's veto requires
Speaker 1: a two thirds majority of Congress, and the Republican Party
Speaker 1: had only a narrow majority in both houses, but the
Speaker 1: Taft Hartley Bill had bipartisan support, and Truman was not
Speaker 1: able to rally enough Democrats to stop Congress from overriding
Speaker 1: his veto. One thing working against him here was racism.
Speaker 1: Shortly after the end of World War Two, the CIO
Speaker 1: had launched Operation Dixie to try to unionize industries in
Speaker 1: the South, including black and white workers, and Southern Democrats
Speaker 1: were deeply opposed to this effort. The Taft Hartley Act
Speaker 1: became law on June twenty third, nineteen forty seven, amending
Speaker 1: the Wagner Act of nineteen thirty five. Legislators framed it
Speaker 1: as restoring the balance between labor and management, or unions
Speaker 1: and employers, while unions described it as a slave labor law.
Speaker 1: The Wagner Act had outlined a series of unfair labor
Speaker 1: practices that were outlawed for employers. Taft Hartly outlined unfair
Speaker 1: labor practices for unions as well. It outlawed secondary boycotts,
Speaker 1: meaning that unions cannot take action against neutral third parties
Speaker 1: in disputes with an employer. So, as an example, a
Speaker 1: retail workers union could not plan a boycott of a
Speaker 1: clothing manufacturer whose goods are being sold at their store.
Speaker 1: Sympathy strikes were outlawed as well, like the Teamsters striking
Speaker 1: in support of Oakland's retail workers, This essentially outlawed the
Speaker 1: type of general strike that had been carried out out
Speaker 1: in Oakland and several other cities in the United States
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty five and nineteen forty six, and it
Speaker 1: also outlawed wildcat strikes, or strikes undertaken by union members
Speaker 1: without the union leadership's authorization. Some of the other Taft
Speaker 1: Hartley provisions included a ban on feather bedding, that's forcing
Speaker 1: an employer to pay for work that wasn't actually done so.
Speaker 1: An example of that would be if a factory moved
Speaker 1: from a manually operated machine to an automatic one, the
Speaker 1: union could not force the employer to keep that person's
Speaker 1: job even though there was no longer work to do.
Speaker 1: It also outlawed closed shops that required workers to already
Speaker 1: be a member of a union before being hired, although
Speaker 1: it allowed union contracts that required workers to join the
Speaker 1: union after being hired. It also allowed states to pass
Speaker 1: open shop legislation, or what is known as right to
Speaker 1: work laws, which allow people to work at unionized workplaces
Speaker 1: with out being compelled to become a member of the union.
Speaker 1: These kinds of laws are currently on the books in
Speaker 1: twenty six US states, as well as Guam. The law
Speaker 1: also gave the US Attorney General the authority to use
Speaker 1: injunctions to prevent a strike if it would quote imperil
Speaker 1: the national health or safety and required unions to give
Speaker 1: employees and managers advanced notice of strikes. There were a
Speaker 1: lot of other Taft Hearty provisions as well, and we're
Speaker 1: not going to try to talk about every single one
Speaker 1: of them, but a major one that we have not
Speaker 1: talked about is that Section nine H required union officers
Speaker 1: to sign non communist affidavits. If union leaders did not,
Speaker 1: their union would not be allowed to have an election
Speaker 1: overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, and the NLRB
Speaker 1: also would not investigate any claims that the union filed
Speaker 1: about alleged unfair labor practices. This meant that unions had
Speaker 1: to per communists from their leadership if they wanted the
Speaker 1: protections and recognitions that exist under federal law. This caused
Speaker 1: a lot of unions, especially industrial unions, to lose some
Speaker 1: of their most dedicated and experienced leaders, who either refused
Speaker 1: to sign these affidavits or were ousted because of their
Speaker 1: ties to communism. The Taft Hartley Act had an obvious
Speaker 1: effect on things like sympathy strikes and secondary boycotts. The
Speaker 1: Oakland General Strike was the last major general strike in
Speaker 1: the United States for decades. There have been some more
Speaker 1: recent general strikes in the US, including the twenty eleven
Speaker 1: Oakland General Strike, the Essential Workers General Strike in the
Speaker 1: early months of the COVID nineteen pandemic, and the Strike
Speaker 1: for Black Lives on July twentieth, twenty twenty in some
Speaker 1: of these labor unions have expressed support for the strike,
Speaker 1: but without explicitly instructing their members to participate, which would
Speaker 1: be illegal under the Taft Hartley Act. Several unions were
Speaker 1: involved with the Strike for Black Lives, but this was
Speaker 1: framed as a one day walkout rather than an ongoing
Speaker 1: general strike. Beyond that, it's impossible to hit every detail
Speaker 1: of the Taft Hearty Act and its impact and legacy,
Speaker 1: and like the wrap up of a single podcast episode,
Speaker 1: there is an argument that a lot of its provisions
Speaker 1: legally codified decisions that the NLRB was already making, rather
Speaker 1: than trying to set a whole new precedent. Its weakening
Speaker 1: of union rights and protections was a factor in the
Speaker 1: AFL and CIO ultimately merging into one organization in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty five. This made the AFL CIO one enormous umbrella
Speaker 1: with sixteen million members, which could at least theoretically have
Speaker 1: a lot of power, But at the same time, Taft
Speaker 1: Hearty provisions meant that smaller unions had a lot less
Speaker 1: bargaining power, especially with the end of closed shops and
Speaker 1: the rise of right Now to work states. Taft Hartley
Speaker 1: also definitely had a chilling effect on the CIO's efforts
Speaker 1: to unionize the South. Those efforts were already being hampered
Speaker 1: by racism and discriminatory laws. There have also been other
Speaker 1: federal laws that have been passed since nineteen forty seven
Speaker 1: that have modified Taft Hartley in one way or another.
Speaker 1: To return to the Oakland Strike, Latham Square went through
Speaker 1: a three year renovation that was finished in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: The central Plaza area has six placards about the area's history,
Speaker 1: and one of them is dedicated to the general strike.
Speaker 1: Do you also have listener mail? I do have listener mail. First,
Speaker 1: very quickly we heard from Colin who had requested the
Speaker 1: episode on the Great Epizootic of eighteen seventy two, and
Speaker 1: Colin said, no, it was not because of the current
Speaker 1: Avian flu situation that we are all living through. Colin
Speaker 1: had just encountered the word epizootic somewhere and looked it
Speaker 1: up and stumbled across this eighteen seventy two epizootic. I
Speaker 1: thought that would be a great show topic. I agree
Speaker 1: that is a perfectly acceptable reason to come up with
Speaker 1: a show suggestion just randomly stumbling across a word one day.
Speaker 2: That's how shows get selected half the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I also have an email that I am going
Speaker 1: to read from Patty. Patty's email is titled Hominy Love.
Speaker 1: Patty wrote, Tracy and Holly, thank you for this week's
Speaker 1: episodes on pelagra. I had heard parts of the story before,
Speaker 1: but y'all talked about so much more that I did
Speaker 1: not know. With last month's epizootic episode, I am loving
Speaker 1: all the medical history info. I grew up eating hominy
Speaker 1: and thought everyone ate it too. My mom would also
Speaker 1: make a dish with spinach and scrambled eggs that was
Speaker 1: so good, just canned spinach, drained and cooked into scrambled eggs.
Speaker 1: She said she grew up eating it with poke greens
Speaker 1: instead of spinach, what she called poke salad. Now I
Speaker 1: just need a pork chop to go on the side
Speaker 1: with my hominie and spinach ultimate comfort food. I've been
Speaker 1: listening to your podcast since the beginning. I love the
Speaker 1: Halloween and holiday episodes, the unearthed and eponymous foods. Please
Speaker 1: see the pet tags of my two cats, Rocco and Penny.
Speaker 1: Rocco half main coon, half grumpy old man, and Penny
Speaker 1: a classic orange. I have seen her lick soap and
Speaker 1: eat plants that should be toxic to her.
Speaker 2: She is fine.
Speaker 1: Wishing you both the best. You're both so amazing, Patty.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Patty. Let's look at these kitty cats.
Speaker 1: Penny Penny, Hello, Penny Penny is a very very uh,
Speaker 1: loungey looking orange cat with a face that's just sort
Speaker 1: of like, yes, hello, I'm hanging out here in my
Speaker 1: lounging space.
Speaker 2: I'm looking for some soap to eat.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Rocco is so fluffy and is stretched out on a
Speaker 1: hardwood floor. Just I cannot, I cannot adequately describe how
Speaker 1: fluffy this cat is. I used to have a cat
Speaker 1: named Sestina, who I thought was very fluffy. This cat
Speaker 1: is fluffier than Sestina. I can see where the half
Speaker 1: main coon is coming in with the size of this
Speaker 1: kitty cat.
Speaker 2: And the fluff and the fluff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much, Patty. I am glad to
Speaker 1: hear about this. The hominie and just this recipe of
Speaker 1: spinach and scrambled eggs. I think that sounds really good.
Speaker 1: Poke salad its own cultural food. Also, I'm gonna need
Speaker 1: you to explain that one to me, which part I
Speaker 1: don't know what poke salad is. So pokeweed is a plant.
Speaker 1: It is a plant that people can forage. There is
Speaker 1: a specific way that it needs to be prepared in
Speaker 1: order to be eaten safely. So don't just go to
Speaker 1: Google a picture of pokeweed and go chomp on some.
Speaker 1: But it is a staple food and a lot of
Speaker 1: the places that it grows I've always associated it with,
Speaker 1: like life in the South. I would there would be
Speaker 1: poke weed growing all over the area around where my
Speaker 1: parents lived when I grew up. The berries that it
Speaker 1: grows very very recognizably distinctive to me. And there's a
Speaker 1: whole process of like preparing it and washing it that
Speaker 1: has to be done to make it safe to eat
Speaker 1: because of the toxic compounds that it just contains as
Speaker 1: it grows. So yeah, I like the idea of someone
Speaker 1: in place of that just using canned spinach. Frozen spinach
Speaker 1: can also be a great addition to stuff. I have
Speaker 1: some bagged spinach in my fridge right now that's gonna
Speaker 1: be cooked down tonight because it is no longer crisp
Speaker 1: and green. We've reached We've reached the time that the
Speaker 1: spinach must be eaten, and so it is going to
Speaker 1: go into something I'm making for dinner tonight. So thank
Speaker 1: you again, Patty for these pictures and an email about
Speaker 1: hominie and poke salad and all of that. If you'd
Speaker 1: like to send us a note about this or any
Speaker 1: other podcast or at history Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com,
Speaker 1: and you can subscribe to our show on iHeartRadio app
Speaker 1: or wherever else you like to get your podcasts. Stuff
Speaker 1: you missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.