The Toledo Auto-Lite strike was a strike by a federal labor union of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) against the Electric Auto-Lite company of Toledo, Ohio, from April 12 to June 3, 1934.
The strike is notable for a five-day running battle between nearly 10,000 strikers and 1,300 members of the Ohio National Guard. Known as the "Battle of Toledo", the clash left two strikers dead and more than 200 injured."New Peace Plan Drawn at Toledo As Riots Continue," Associated Press, May 27, 1934. The strike is regarded by many labor historians as one of the three most important strikes in U.S. history.Pakulski, "As Auto-Lite's Labor Battle Became a War, Union Seeds Took Root," Toledo Blade, October 24, 1999.
Background The enactment of the National Industrial Recovery Act on June 16, 1933, led to widespread union organizing in the United States.Phelan, William Green: Biography of a Labor Leader, 1989.Taft, The A.F. of L. From the Death of Gompers to the Merger, 1959.
AFL president William Green decided to focus the federation's organizing efforts on automaking because organizing in that industry had received more attention from the national press. The problem for the federation remained its commitment to craft unionism. Auto workers, like many of the new mass production workers, were specialists rather than craftsmen, and industrial unionism appealed to them. The AFL, however, remained ardently committed to craft unionism. To balance the need to organize workers on an industrial basis without compromising its commitment to craft unionism, the AFL had early in its history settled on federal labor unions (FLUs). FLUs were temporary unions which organized workers on an industrial basis. Once the majority of workers in an industry were organized, the federal labor union would be disbanded and the workers parceled out to the AFL's unions on a craft basis.Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States. Vol. 3... 1964.
The AFL began its organizing campaign in the auto industry in September 1933, by assigning an AFL national organizer to Detroit. By March 1934, the AFL had established an FLU at Buick and Hudson Motor Car Company, and two at Fisher Body. Roughly 32,500 auto workers had joined the federation.
The Automobile Labor Board agreement March 1934 proved to be a difficult month. On March 4, the four automotive FLUs voted to strike unless management recognized their union, instituted a 20 percent wage increase and reinstated all workers fired for union activity. Green, committed to labor peace and fearful that the FLUs were too weak to withstand a strike, attempted to persuade them to rescind the strike notice. But President Franklin D. Roosevelt, worried that an auto strike would harm the chances for economic recovery during the Great Depression, offered to negotiate a settlement. Roosevelt ordered the National Labor Board to hear the workers' grievances, and the FLUs postponed the strike.Morris, The Blue Eagle at Work, 2004. Roosevelt himself stepped into the negotiations. On March 25, Roosevelt announced the creation of an Automobile Labor Board composed of one representative from management, one representative from labor, and a "neutral third party" to review allegations of anti-union activity. Roosevelt endorsed management's proposal to permit the recognition of company unions and the principle of proportional representation.Schlesinger, The Age of Roosevelt: The Coming of the New Deal: 1933–1935, 1958.
Green avidly endorsed the settlement, in accordance with his belief in the social gospel and lifelong refusal to endorse militancy in labor relations. But in doing so, he lost the confidence of the auto workers. Membership in automobile FLUs dropped by more than 14,000 to just 18,244 by the spring of 1934.
The Great Depression The city of Toledo was financially devastated by the Great Depression. The Willys-Overland automobile company, the city's largest employer, declared bankruptcy. The Ohio Bond and Security Bank, the city's largest bank, collapsed, along with most of the city's banks and savings and loan associations. Near bankruptcy, the city of Toledo laid off hundreds of workers, including 150 police. Unemployment in the city reached 70 percent.Messer-Kruse, Banksters, Bosses, and Smart Money: A Social History of the Great Toledo Bank Crash of 1931, 2005.
The Auto-Lite strike Against this background, workers in Federal Labor Union 18384 began agitating for management to recognize their union and increase wages.
FLU 18384 had been organized differently than other FLUs. It was a multi-employer union, and its members were employed not only by the Electric Auto-Lite Company but also by the Bingham Stamping and Tool Company and the Logan Gear Company (both subsidiaries of Electric Auto-Lite) as well as the Spicer Manufacturing Company.Bernstein, The Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933–1941, 1970. Because of this diverse membership, workers at one employer could strike and the union would remain financially solvent. This encouraged militancy among the FLU's members, and on February 23, 1934, the Auto-Lite members engaged in a recognition strike and attempted to win a 10 percent wage increase. Nearly all FLU members at Auto-Lite walked out. The strike lasted only five days. The employees returned to work after management agreed to a 5 percent wage increase and to negotiate a contract by April 1, 1934. Both parties agreed to negotiate further over wages (the union demanded an additional 20 percent wage increase), seniority rights, the closed shop, improved working conditions, union recognition and an end to discrimination against union members and supporters.
Management declared itself unwilling to sign a new contract in early April. FLU 18384 authorized a second strike, to begin on April 12, 1934. This time, only a fourth of the Auto-Lite workers walked out. The AFL's Central Labor Council (CLC) formed a "Committee of 23", a council of the largest unions in the Toledo area, to support the strike. But the Committee of 23 proved ineffective, and the strike began to collapse."Threat of General Walkout," New York Times, May 26, 1934.
The American Workers Party immediately entered the strike on the FLU's behalf. The American Workers Party (AWP) had been formed in 1933 from the Conference for Progressive Labor Action by A.J. Muste, a Dutch minister and non-dogmatic Marxist. Louis F. Budenz served as its executive secretary. In part, the AWP organized the unemployed so that they would not act as strikebreakers. In Lucas County, the AWP's offshoot was the Lucas County Unemployed League (LCUL), led by Ted Selander and Sam Pollock.Hentoff, Peace Agitator, 1982; Robinson, Abraham Went Out, 1982; Budenz, "Strikes Under the New Deal," Challenge to the New Deal, 1934. The LCUL had been organizing jobless workers for nearly a year, leading demonstrations and other public actions, and was well-poised to take over the strike.Selander, "The 1934 Toledo Auto-Lite Strike," Socialist Action, March 1986. It is not clear how or why the AWP became involved in the Auto-Lite strike. But by the end of April, its leaders (Budenz in particular) were deeply involved in planning strike strategy.
The AWP's first step was to ring the Auto-Lite plant with thousands of unemployed workers, effectively sealing off the grounds.
Electric Auto-Lite sought a court injunction prohibiting any pickets in front of its plant. Court of Common Pleas Judge Roy R. Stuart issued an injunction limiting the number of union and LCUL pickets to 25 at each entrance to the two-building plant.
Budenz subsequently instructed the local leaders of the AWP to defy Judge Stuart's injunction. On May 5, 1934, Pollock and Selander wrote a letter to Stuart declaring that the Lucas County Unemployed League would "deliberately and specifically violate the injunction enjoining us from sympathetically picketing peacefully in support of the striking auto workers' federal union."The letter in full is quoted in Selander, "The 1934 Toledo Auto-Lite Strike," Socialist Action, March 1986. It may be found online at http://www.socialistaction.org/1934toledo.htm (accessed April 7, 2007).
On May 7, picketing resumed outside the Auto-Lite plant. At first, there were only four pickets. Selander and Pollock were arrested for contempt of court the same day, but released on May 8 with suspended sentences. The day of their release, the picket line returned—although this time nearly 40 picketers marched before the plant gates. On May 11, Selander, Pollock and all the picketers were arrested. Judge Stuart attempted to try the group, and noted corporate attorney Edward Lamb argued the case for the defendants. During the short trial, the League continued to put 30 to 60 picketers on the line every day, and the police continued to arrest large numbers of them. The League, meanwhile, packed the courtroom with hundreds of supporters, who cheered, sang and disrupted the trial. Stuart finally released the entire group of arrestees after a few days without issuing a decision.Lamb, No Lamb for Slaughter, 1963.
As Judge Stuart attempted to try the picketers, the Auto-Lite company decided to break the strike. The firm hired approximately 1,500 strikebreakers as replacement workers to re-open the plant and start production. The company also hired armed guards to protect the replacement workers, and the Lucas County sheriff's department deputized large numbers of special deputies (paid for by Auto-Lite) to assist the company's private security personnel. Additionally, Auto-Lite purchased $11,000 worth of tear and vomit gas munitions and stored them in the plant.Auto-Lite was one of the top five purchasers of gas munitions in 1934. Only General Motors spent more money on gas munitions. Auto-Lite's gas munitions purchases were 57 percent larger those of the Chrysler Corporation. Industrial Munitions, S. Report 6, Part 3, Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. Senate, 1939.
When the AWP learned about the strikebreakers, it engaged in mass picketing. On May 21, Budenz spoke to a group of 1,000 pickets in front of the plant. The next day, the pickets swelled to 4,000. By the morning of May 23, the number of picketers rose to 6,000. City and company officials began to worry that the Toledo police, who were disaffected because of wage cuts and layoffs, were beginning to sympathize with the strikers and were no longer reliable.
The "Battle of Toledo" On the afternoon of Wednesday, May 23, the sheriff of Lucas County decided to take action against the picketers. In front of a crowd which now numbered nearly 10,000, sheriff's deputies arrested Budenz and four picketers. As the five were taken to jail, a deputy began beating an elderly man.Many accounts claim that the rioting began when an iron bar was hurled from the roof of a nearby building by a sheriff's deputy or company security guard, and that the iron bar struck a woman in the crowd. But the best accounts of the strike, such as Bernstein's and Fine's, point to the arrest and beating as the incident which sparked the riots.Auto-Lite claimed that 90 percent of the strikers were not workers but Communist agitators bused in from out of town by the AWP. See Stershner, "Depression and New Deal in Ohio," Ohio History, Autumn 1977, p. 262.