1937 Minnesota timber strikes led to regional leadership role for union

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2014/01/1937-minnesota-timber-strikes-led-regional-leadership-role-union

By R.L. Cartwright | 01/07/14


Michigan strikers reading bulletin board at strike headquarters, Marenisco, Michigan. The Minnesota Timber Workers Union sent its organizers to coordinate the Michigan strike.


Eight years into the Great Depression, timber workers had had enough. Their work days were too long, their wages were too low, and their living conditions were squalid. They went on strike in January 1937 and again in October, and their peaceful organizing won union recognition, higher wages, better conditions, and a central role in regional and national timber worker movements.

Timber workers had attempted to organize before 1937, but their efforts at collective bargaining were unsuccessful. Large-scale logging in Minnesota began in the mid-nineteenth century, and workers tried to organize for better conditions almost immediately, beginning in 1858. But without union support, spontaneous strikes were ineffective.

For many decades, established unions like the American Federation of Labor (AFL) refused to organize timber workers. Men who worked in the logging industry were typically single and had to move from camp to camp as the logging industry's needs changed. Only the most militant labor organizations were willing to work with such men. The largest timber worker union drive before 1937 was led by the International Workers of the World (IWW) in 1916 and 1917, but it was violently repressed.

As logging conditions worsened in the 1930s, labor agitation was sweeping the United States. In 1934, Teamster truckers led a major strike in Minneapolis, and Midwestern strikes among steel and auto workers followed in 1935 and 1937. In 1936, Minnesotans overwhelmingly elected the Farmer-Labor candidate, Elmer Benson, as governor.

FULL story at link.