The Minneapolis general strike of 1934 grew out of a strike by Teamsters against most of the trucking companies operating in Minneapolis, the major distribution center for the Upper Midwest. The strike began on May 16, 1934, in the Market District (the modern day Warehouse District). The worst single day was
Friday, July 20, called "Bloody Friday", when police shot at strikers in a downtown truck battle, killing two and injuring 67. Ensuing violence lasted periodically throughout the summer. The strike was formally ended on August 22.
With a coalition formed by local leaders associated with the Trotskyist Communist League of America, a group that later founded the Socialist Workers Party (United States), the strike paved the way for the organization of over-the-road drivers and the growth of the Teamsters labor union. This strike, along with the 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike and the 1934 Toledo Auto-Lite Strike led by the American Workers Party, were also important catalysts for the rise of industrial unionism in the 1930s, much of which was organized through the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
Leadup to the strike
Prior to the strike, in the early 1930s, Minneapolis was a non-union town, in part due to an "employer advocacy group" called the Citizens Alliance. The Alliance had power and sway over the Minneapolis economy and thwarted union organizing.
At the time of the strike, the governor of Minnesota was Floyd Olson, who belonged to the Farmer-Labor party. Olson was sympathetic to the union cause but also believed that he had gubernatorial responsibility to maintain law and order.
The Teamsters had a number of general locals; Local 574 in Minneapolis, which had no more than 75 members in 1934, was one of them. A number of members, including several Communist Party members who had gone to the newly formed Communist League of America (Left Opposition) in the internal split following Trotsky's expulsion, became members of Local 574 in the early 1930s.
These members – Ray Dunne, his brothers Miles and Grant, Carl Skoglund and later Farrell Dobbs – began by organizing coal drivers through a strike in February 1934
The union also began preparing for the strike in a number of ways. It rented a large hall that could be used as a strike headquarters, kitchen and infirmary. It organized a women's auxiliary to staff the headquarters. Finally, it entered into discussions with the sympathetic leaders of organizations of farmers and the unemployed to obtain their support for the upcoming strike.
Negotiations
The Central Labor Council, the Building Trades Council and the Teamsters Joint Council approached Mike Johannes, the Minneapolis Chief of Police, to propose a truce, under which the local would cease picketing for twenty-four hours if the police and the employers ceased trying to move trucks. The employers, the Teamsters and the building trades signed a formal truce agreement. Johannes, however, declared that the police would move trucks once the truce expired, leading the union to announce that it was resuming picketing.
At this point city government appealed for Governor Floyd B. Olson to mobilize the National Guard, the 34th Infantry Division (United States) under Adjutant General Ellard A. Walsh. Olson did, but stopped short of actually deploying them, unwilling to alienate his labor supporters. Olson had already been attempting to mediate the dispute.
On May 25, the employers and the union reached an agreement on a contract that provided union recognition, reinstatement for all strikers, seniority and a no-discrimination clause.
The police violence sparked a show of support from other unions and a one-day strike of transport workers. Each side stepped back from the confrontation: Chief Johannes and Mayor Bainbridge faced calls for their impeachment, while the union continued to urge its members not to give the police any justification for further attacks, disarming a number of picketers who wanted to return fire with fire. The union did not make any overt efforts to stop later trucks accompanied by convoys of up to forty police cars that tried to deliver goods, but sent so many cars with pickets to accompany those convoys that the police were never able to shepherd more than a few delivery trucks on any given day.
On July 25, mediators Francis J. Haas and E.H. Dunnigan issued a proposal that listed minimum wage rates and clearly defined insider workers; it also reaffirmed union recognition. Local 574 accepted the deal but the firms—many of them now represented by the Employers’ Adivsory Committee or EAC—rejected it. In 2024, the celebration included the grandchildren of Henry Ness, and involved local art exhibitions. In 1940, the Aquatennial was established and took place on the same day as the remembrance of the strikers.