the injunction enjoining us from sympathetically picketing peacefully in support of the striking Auto Workers Federal U'nion."
10,000 pickets Within two weeks the picket line had grown to 10,000. The police faithfully escorted the scabs through the picket lines and continually attacked individual pickets. Finally, on 23 May, the pickets decided to put a stop to all this.
DAILY STRIKE BULLETIN
Men The First Martyr of 574 The Organizer: the morning after police opened fire on unarmed pichels.
Red Weekly 15 June 1973 Page 4 The rule of capital in America has always had a brutality and nakedness not often matched here in Britain, where high-flown ideas and polite manners serve to disguise the realities of capitalist exploitation. Thus the American labour movement has a richer fund of experience on how to deal with capitalist violeno: experiences from which we can learn much.
One of the most impressive struggles waged by the rank-and-file of the labour movement in the U.S. was the massive drive by Local 574 of the Teamster's Union in 1934 to organise the trucking industry in the commercial centre of Minneapolis. This city of less than half's million somewhere between Sheffield and Coventry in sire - chus became che site of a major historical battle beeween the united power of the working clams and the unfettered brutality of the bosses and their state machine.
Preparations This struggle was exceptional because it involved a plan of organising different from that practised by ober unions connected with the AFL (American Federation of Libour American TUC). The aim was not simply to organise a single factory, but to chailenge the power of the bosses throughout an entire key industry. The struggle had another major difference: the leadership of Local 574 was in the hands of revolutionaries, members of the Communist League of America, the American Trotskyist movement. It wus these two factors that gave the Minneapolis strikes their power and impact.
The union entered the struggle well prepared. It made contact with local farmer's organisaorganisation was forged to ensure that they could effectively deal with police attenipts to intimidate und crush the picket squads. In hu book Teamster Rebellion, Farrel! Dobbs, a leading participant in these events, shows how this operated in practice In the Monday confrontation... two organised and disciplined forces were to face each other, dub against club, in a battle fought along military lines. We didn't know bow many different attempts the bosses would make to threatened. During the 1911 Liverpool genemi strike troops were sent in against the strikers, Ine
begin moving trucks on Monday, but a major effort could be expected in the market district - Since, from the union's viewpoint, the market was a good battleground, we were not disturbed by the news. we simply concentrated on preparations for a fight there. * About 600 men had been concentrated in the AFL hall before morning, all armed with clubs. Around four aum, Monday smail picket lines appeared in front of the market houses, the wholesale grocery trade. For about a month a shaky peace was maintained between the union and the employem on the basis of this settlement.
But while local employers had been forced to recognise the union, they had no intention of conceding any demands for higher wages. A new round of struggle was clearly on the cards - and it broke out on lo July, under the thought you would separate the rank-and-file from their leaders. You only succeeded in cementing the bond that holds them together in an efficient fighting army, You thought you would alienate the labor morement from 574. You only succeeded in rallying every section of the labor movement to our cause. Such was the reply of The Organiser. on the morning of In the coming fights we must learn to carry out both these tasks and to carry them out well. And it is worth keeping in mind these words of Farrell Dobbs about the situation in Minneapolis: If a comparable situation had existed nationally, what began as a simple trade union action could bave broadened into a sweeping social conflict leading toward a revolutionary confrontation for state power."
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THE ORGANIZER The Fight Has Just Begu