Rioting Across America - The Great Depression (video)

[V.C. Brunswick]

Nice watches above. Most of my favourite watches are Russian, especially the Vostoks. As reliable, sometimes moreso, as much more expensive stuff I've had, and very affordable. I likethe aesthetic, myself, though some are more subtle than others. Rarely as gaudy as the likes of a modern Rolex.

The one at the top I recently won on eBay and am awaiting delivery from the Ukraine -- it takes a month for it to get here from there. And to get back on topic, the conditions of those times also explains the popularity in many parts of the Midwest of Bonnie & Clyde and John Dillinger who were seen by many -- especially those who lost everything -- as sort of Robin Hood-like figures.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

There was plenty of thuggery on both sides, both labor AND capitol. And when the bosses hired thugs, they had no compunction about just killing innocent bystanders.
This is why FDR had such a HUGE challenge. Folks on the right called him a socialist and a communist, but there are many others who realize that he very possibly saved us from communism, which was his objective all along.

Today one of the things people associate with the Mob is Jimmy Hoffa and labor racketeering. What many don't realize is that the Mob originally started out on the other side supplying the bosses with goon squads and strikebreakers until they discovered that it was just as profitable (if not more so) to be a "friend of the workingman."

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Private Security" was often a euphemism for "Mob goons." Ford took this one better -- Harry Bennett, Ford's chief of security, would recruit for his "Service Department" operatives in the Michigan State Prison itself -- looking for the most violent ex-cons he could find, the better to keep UAW organizers at bay, and to purge the company of employees even suspected of harboring union sympathies. At its height, the "Service Department" numbered over 2000 men, answerable only to Bennett himself, who in turn reported directly to Henry Ford. During the infamous "Battle Of The Overpass" in May 1937, Bennett's men threw one UAW man thirty feet off a concrete ramp to the pavement below.

 

[Travis Lee Johnston]

The one at the top I recently won on eBay and am awaiting delivery from the Ukraine -- it takes a month for it to get here from there. And to get back on topic, the conditions of those times also explains the popularity in many parts of the Midwest of Bonnie & Clyde and John Dillinger who were seen by many -- especially those who lost everything -- as sort of Robin Hood-like figures.

Can't forget Charles Floyd, "The peoples bandit". Who would throw handfuls of money out of the sacks of bank robbery scores to the public. Tore up mortgages that most likely couldn't be paid, and was very generous to anyone who would aid him.

Though people will marginalize John and Charles as just being sociopaths and criminals. If those folks bothered to pick up some of the biographies written not just about them but that time period and general attitude towards banks and the political and povertous state of the country. It would give a better understanding of why people did what they did in those desperate times, and why those guys were seen as folk heros by a faction of the public.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

And since Ford has been discussed, Fords were Clyde Barrow's preference when it came to get away cars that he even wrote a letter of appreciation to Henry Ford praising the reliability of his products.

 

[4spurs]

My grandfather, born in 1867, was a railroad worker, Southern Pacific, starting in 1887. He became a pro-union organizer. My father, born in 1904, told me that several times goons came around to beat up my grandfather as he was walking home, and shortly after the fracas would ensue the cops would arrive to arrest my grandfather for creating a disturbance. That's how it was done, but, the rails were eventually organized, and my grandfather lived into the late 1940's.

Today people in the streets have Youtube and Twitter and other forms of electronically communicating images of what is occurring, very useful tools.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

My Dad's experience with unions left a bad taste in his mouth. In the '50s he worked at the GM plant in South Gate, CA and the shop stewards used to constantly hassle him for working too hard. "You're making us look bad," they would tell him.

Edit: A couple more of my Dad's stories about his days at GM. When the cars came off the assembly line there were drivers whose job was to drive them to the storage lot for inspection and final shipment. It was not unusual to have drag races with the cars and sometimes they would crash. The damaged cars would merely have some cosmetic repairwork done and they'd be shipped out with the rest. And as a corollary to the first story, sometimes management would get on the loudspeakers and admonish the assembly line for doing shoddy work whenever there were defective units. Now how do you think these assembly line workers took this news? A chastened stunned silence perhaps? Nope! They would start clapping and cheering as if they won the World Series!

"There were two more defective units from this shift. Let's be more careful."
"YAAAAAAAAY!"

As a final irony, some 30 years later when my Dad retired from Hughes Aircraft, the company had been acquired by GM.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

That mentality exists now, too. They constantly say 'you don't get paid more for working harder'

My Dad's experience with unions left a bad taste in his mouth. In the '50s he worked at the GM plant in South Gate, CA and the shop stewards used to constantly hassle him for working too hard. "You're making us look bad," they would tell him.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Not all the labor actions of the Depression era were successful -- the General Textile Strike of 1934 managed to shut down pretty much the entire Eastern textile industry, with over 400,000 mill workers from Maine to Alabama walking out in a fight for industry-wide recognition of the United Textile Workers Union. The strike was crushed by National Guard troops called out in many of the affected states, by hired thugs brought in by mill owners in other states, and by the failure of the National Labor Relations Board to take decisive action to mediate the dispute. As a result, thousands of workers were blacklisted for life from their jobs, and the Southern textile industry, especially, continued to operate in a state of feudalism, where even the towns where employees lived were owned and controlled by the mill owners, until well into the 1960s.

 

[SGT Rocket]

Oh yes, the good old days of violent American Socialism.

If you want to know what a bunch of the "behind the scenes" happenings of the unions back then, I would recommend:
Farrell Dobbs, Teamster Rebellion (New York: Pathfinder Books, 2004).

It was required reading for a class I took last semester on the Great Depression. Man, Mr. Dobbs and most of the union leaders of that time seemed narcissistic and kind of a megalomaniac, from what I get from the book. I had to wrote many papers in this class, and with each paper I could only use information for the specific book as source material. It was weird! All the books in the class were extremely pro-communism and pro-socialism.

Edit: This is not intended as a political comment, just a comment on a book about the era in a class I was taking.

 

[sheeplady]

If you want to know what a bunch of the "behind the scenes" happenings of the unions back then, I would recommend:
Farrell Dobbs, Teamster Rebellion (New York: Pathfinder Books, 2004).

It was required reading for a class I took last semester on the Great Depression. Man, Mr. Dobbs and most of the union leaders of that time seemed narcissistic and kind of a megalomaniac, from what I get from the book. I had to wrote many papers in this class, and with each paper I could only use information for the specific book as source material. It was weird! All the books in the class were extremely pro-communism and pro-socialism.

Edit: This is not intended as a political comment, just a comment on a book about the era in a class I was taking.

I'm curious as to what the professor's justification of only having you cite the course material was (for writing your papers)?

Edit: I'm wondering because if the material seemed that biased it seems the instructor would want you to cite other stuff...

 

[SGT Rocket]

I'm curious as to what the professor's justification of only having you cite the course material was (for writing your papers)?

Edit: I'm wondering because if the material seemed that biased it seems the instructor would want you to cite other stuff...

I still have the syllabus. Here is what the competence statement and learning objectives were:

"Competence Statement:
Knows the history of America during the Great Depression and can analyze and evaluate historical interpretations of this period.

Learning Objectives:
• Knows major events, key individuals, institutions, political struggles and government policy initiatives during the Great Depression, as demonstrated through written essays.
• Understands the experiences of different groups in American society—including wage-earning workers, farmers, African Americans and women—as they struggled during the Great Depression, as demonstrated through written essays.
• Can analyze and evaluate the comparative impact of multiple forms of social identity and oppression—for example, gender versus race or class versus gender—in the experiences of people struggling during the Great Depression, as demonstrated in through written essays.
• Can analyze and evaluate differing representations of social movements and struggles during the Great Depression contained in both fiction and nonfiction accounts, as demonstrated through written essays."

Also, here is what it says about outside sources:

"• Do not cite outside sources. I will grade you on how well you analyze the assigned reading, and citations to other materials will gain you no credit (and will create the impression that you cannot follow simple instructions)."

I guess he just wanted to make sure that we could read and analyze only what was given to us. Perhaps he was seeing if we could focus on a particular set of data?[huh]

 

[1961MJS]

There was plenty of thuggery on both sides, both labor AND capitol. And when the bosses hired thugs, they had no compunction about just killing innocent bystanders.....

Hi

Interesting comment. One of my great uncles was supposed to have been shot in the leg by the Ohio or Kentucky National Guard while walking past where his Dad and brothers were picketing a coal mine back in the 1930's. He eventually became a Baptist preacher.

On a second subject, read "Bloody Williamson: A Chapter in American Lawlessness". Some Chicago mobsters were hired by a local coal mine owner to work at his mine, the UMW (precursor?) killed them all. The jury from Williamson acquitted the miners.

later

 

[LizzieMaine]

United Auto Workers Demands, 1937.

The wave of sit-down strikes that paralyzed General Motors in early 1937 and led to military-scale violence were based on the following list of demands:

1. National conference between responsible heads of G.M.C. and chosen representatives of international union, United Automobile Workers of America. Such conference to discuss and bargain collectively on the following points as a basis for national agreement between General Motors Corporation and its employe[e]s, as represented by international union, United Automobile Workers of America. (The right to collective bargaining had been guaranteed under the National Labor Relations Act, and GM's refusal to meet with union officials was a contravention of the law.)

2. Abolition of all piece work system of pay, and the adoption of straight hourly rate. (Piecework pay was commonly abused in the auto industry, with rates frequently being changed after the fact, so that increased production often meant less net pay.)

3. A 30-hour week and six-hour work day and time and one-half for all time worked over the basic work day and work week. (This was to ensure jobs for more men, and a fair schedule for all.)

4. Establishment of a minimum rate of pay commensurate with an American standard of living. (At the very least, auto workers felt they should be able to afford to purchase the products they manufactured.)

5. Reinstatement of all employe[e]s who have been unjustly discharged. (This applied to employees who had been summarily fired for expressing union sympathies. GM's spy network was the equal of Ford's, and employees were commonly dismissed for even the suspicion that they were sympathetic to the union cause.)

6. Seniority, based upon length of service. (Self explanatory.)

7. Recognition of the international union, United Automobile Workers of America, the sole bargaining agency between General Motors Corporation and its employe[e]s, for the establishment of joint tribunals and joint rules of procedure for the adjusting of any and all disputes that may arise from time to time between employe[e]s of General Motors Corporation and the management. (Self-explanatory.)

8. Speed of production shall be mutually agreed upon by the management and the union committee in all General Motors plants. (This was the most egregious abuse at GM -- production lines were routinely sped up to meet arbitrary daily quotas, or as a disciplinary measure. It was common for foremen to stand over individual workers with a stopwatch and penalize them on the spot for failure to keep up with the mandated pace.)

These are the demands that GM workers put their lives on the line for -- and some died for.

 

[rue]

These are the demands that GM workers put their lives on the line for -- and some died for.

And God bless them for that. Thank you Lizzie for opening my eyes, as well as, I'm sure, quite a few others

 

[HoosierDaddy]

United Auto Workers Demands, 1937.

These are the demands that GM workers put their lives on the line for -- and some died for.

I retired from GM 12 years ago after 34 yrs. I respect and honor those who laid it on the line before me. However..although I do reap many benefits now...I got a first hand look at how management and the union changed over the years. In the end..it wasn't pretty. A blend that became quite despicable to say the least..IMHO.
HD

 

[Tomasso]

I find it amusing that blame for the loss of US manufacturing jobs is laid at the feet of greedy ownership as the unions slink away scot free. While unions were a godsend to workers in the early part of the century, they evolved into an entity whose primary goal was not to protect the worker but to amass political power. I recall an old time union man commenting on the strike which broke International Harvester in the 70s, " How the pendulum has swung."

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Just like many pieces of society, they're forgetting their roots and what they stand for.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Just like many pieces of society, they're forgetting their roots and what they stand for.

I think the operative term is "mission creep."

 

[SGT Rocket]

Unions are just like every other organization. For any organization to survive it must continually reinvent itself to make itself relevant. I dare say, that most union workers have it much better than their brothers in the 1930's, so the Union must keep thinking of "hmmmm, what is the next thing to do?"