Latest / Pionerd / The 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters Strike & Bloody Friday
Transcript
- Pionerd’s Episode 21 covered the Battle of Deputies Run. This is a continuation of the Minneapolis Labor Strikes of 1934. The Citadel of Minneapolis Power in the city of Minneapolis once belonged to a secret group of rich bosses. This elite group, known as the Citizens Alliance, ruled the local economy with an iron grip for three decades. They kept wages low, broke up strikes with private thugs, and forced a strict non-union rule on every business. By the summer of 1934, poor laborers had finally had enough of this economic blockade. One union, Teamsters Local 574, rose up to break the citadel, shutting down the city to demand basic human dignity. The Decoy and the Trap Late in the afternoon on July 20, 1934, the air in the Market District of Minneapolis was hot with a high temperature of 104 degrees fahrenheit. A large force of police officers cordoned off the Slocum Bergren Company warehouse lot. These men carried shotguns, rifles, and automatic riot weapons under the direct command of Police Chief Michael Johannes. For years, the Citizens Alliance had suppressed local pay; while national wages rose eleven percent in the twenties, Minneapolis workers saw just a two percent increase, leaving drivers to survive on eighteen dollars a week. Local banks even blocked loans to any firm that negotiated with workers. Within the industrial North Loop, the authorities prepared a cold-blooded setup. The Citizens Alliance met at the Radisson Hotel to ensure that private commerce would move by force. To counter the corporate press, the union launched The Organizer, a groundbreaking daily strike newspaper produced by the Trotskyist leadership around James P. Cannon and Farrell Dobbs, alongside other Local 574 organizers. To draw the strikers out, Chief Johannes deployed a single non-union delivery truck as a decoy. This vehicle carried only a half-dozen small cardboard cartons as it pulled away from the loading dock. Cruising pickets from Teamsters Local 574 quickly swarmed the nearby passageways in their own truck. These workers intended to block the delivery and keep the transit shutdown completely intact. By attempting to stop this single truck, the unarmed laborers drove straight into a carefully prepared trap. As the union truck cut ahead of the delivery vehicle at Third Street North, the armed police line closed in fast from every angle. Firepower in the North Loop Down in the dirt ruts of Third Street North, the police opened fire without warning. To break the union's total transit blockade, dozens of officers leveled double-barrel shotguns and automatic Thompson riot guns directly at the cruising picket truck. Fresh news photographs captured the exact moment the squad car doors flew open to emit the firing line. The blue-coated force swarmed the vehicle, discharging a lethal fusillade of buckshot into the open truck bed. Strikers fell instantly under the intense, close-range barrage before they could even descend to the pavement. On the floor of the riddled vehicle, unarmed pickets lay trapped like animals. Young union driver Jack Maloney took a direct blast to his chest, believing he was instantly killed as the lead tore through his ribs. Within seconds, the warehouse district echoed with the clatter of gunfire. Pickets who attempted to flee the perimeter were systematically shot in the back and the legs. Uniformed police actively kicked the wounded as they lay face down on the cobblestones. Thirty-one-year-old union organizer Harry DeBoer stepped forward to assist his failing comrades. A police officer aimed a riot gun at close range and shot the leg right out from under him. The buckshot completely shattered DeBoer's knee joint, leaving him bleeding in the street. From nearby alleys, a second wave of unarmed workers rushed directly into the line of fire to rescue the fallen. These men possessed no guns, clubs, or sticks to defend themselves against the onslaught. By the time the ambush finally ceased, sixty-seven unarmed citizens lay bleeding in the North Loop. The Toll of Bloody Friday By late afternoon, the wounded workers streamed into the strike headquarters garage at nineteen hundred Chicago Avenue. Inside, the air was hot and thick as volunteer university nurses and Dr. McCrimmon worked fast to treat the bleeding men. This temporary hospital wing became a frantic triage zone as the scale of the police attack became clear. One primary target of the gunfire required immediate, extreme care. Henry Ness, a forty-year-old veteran of the Great War, had been shot at point-blank range. An independent public commission later testified that police took direct aim to kill, firing into Ness even as he fled. Contemporary accounts report that Ness was shot twice, including once while lying on the ground, before succumbing to his severe wounds. Despite the intense efforts of the surgical team, the union loyalist died from his deep wounds the next morning. Another striking picket, John Belor, lay in a nearby cot with critical gunshot wounds to his body. He lingered in severe pain for days before passing away in early August. From his hospital bed, Harry DeBoer strictly ordered the workers to hold the line, telling them that the union must focus solely on stopping the trucks to win the contract. Martial Law and Institutional Shifts Six days after the shootings, Governor Floyd B. Olson took drastic action to end the street warfare. He declared strict martial law measures across the city and mobilized the National Guard to occupy key districts. Military forces immediately banned all picketing, blocked open-air rallies, and set up a prison camp at the state fairgrounds known as "Olson's Resort." To show solidarity, the citywide transport union launched a massive one-day protest strike, while five thousand federal project workers walked off their jobs. On August 1, state troops raided the union garage, arresting Bill Brown, Miles Dunne, and Vincent Ray Dunne. When this failed to break the strike, the National Guard executed a parallel raid on the headquarters of the Citizens Alliance, confiscating secret files that proved the bosses were actively plotting to subvert federal mediation. Meanwhile, strikers quickly set up a decentralized network of secret control points in friendly filling stations, using pay phones and scouts to launch quick guerrilla-style blockades against non-union trucks out of the sight of the National Guard. To break the corporate deadlock, federal power stepped in from Washington. Jesse Jones of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation placed a regulatory warning directly to regional bank bosses. He warned Northwest Bancorporation and allied banks that federal loans could be called in if they continued using credit threats to block settlements with the Teamsters. Faced with this immense pressure on their credit lines, the Citizens Alliance finally fractured. The bosses gave in, signing a final mediated contract on August 22. This historic deal granted official union recognition, extended representation to inside warehouse workers, and significantly increased driver wages. This massive conflict became a highly influential example in a wider upsurge of 1930s labor struggles that helped set the stage for the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which strengthened and formalized collective bargaining rights nationwide. The Heritage of 1934 On July 24, the city of Minneapolis fell completely still for the funeral of Henry Ness, drawing a crowd estimated by the labor press at up to one hundred thousand citizens marching in silent protest. We hope to cover this event and the strikes aftermath in this Friday’s Pionerd episode. Their strict street-level discipline broke the Citizens Alliance's dominance and helped transform Minneapolis from a notorious scab town into a strong center of union solidarity. Civic leaders launched the Aquatennial festival in 1940 to showcase the city and shift public attention away from past labor conflicts. Yet the grit of the 1934 rank and file could not be erased, establishing the baseline for modern working-class rights across the nation.