Local 2101 Lunch and Learn

All MAPE members are welcome to attend.  

Teams link: Join the meeting now
Meeting ID: 226 291 122 911
Passcode: QJ7Uf9YX

 Labor History Lunch & Learn – 1934 Teamsters Strike

In the summer of 1934, the Great Depression was grinding workers down. In Minneapolis, an employer group called the Citizens Alliance held an iron grip on power and used it mercilessly  against workers to stop them from forming unions and keep wages low.  Then the Teamsters struck, demanding union recognition, an 8-hour day, and fair pay for delivery drivers.  Minneapolis police violently retaliated against the striking workers: on Third Street North, they shot 67 unarmed strikers in the back, killing Henry Ness and John Belor. More than 100,000 people filled the streets for Ness’s funeral. His last words were, “Don’t fail me now, boys.”

But the Teamsters were not alone! They didn’t just organize workers, they organized their entire community – and found allies all over the city in women, Native Americans, farmers and the unemployed, who joined their fight to demand better pay and working conditions. Roving pickets effectively shut the city down. Organized workers and community members fed one another at strike headquarters, protected each other, provided medical care to injured strikers, and even put out a daily newspaper to keep the city informed about the strike. The deaths of their comrades were not in vain. Strength, solidarity, and community won the strike and made Minneapolis a union town.  A few years later, business leaders organized a festival, the Aquatenniel, to disrupt strikers’ remembrance events.

What was it the Citizens Alliance didn’t want our generations to know? Now’s your chance to find out! Join Local 2101 for a presentation and Q&A about this pivotal moment in our state’s history, led by Peter Rachleff, labor historian and co-founder of East Side Freedom Library, and Gladys McKenzie, retired union organizer and leader of the 1934 Collective Descendants project.