John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. was an American writer and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception". He has been called "a giant of American letters."
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), nicknamed "Wobblies", is an international labor union founded in Chicago in 1905. The nickname's origin is uncertain. Its ideology combines general unionism with industrial unionism, as it is a general union, subdivided between the various industries which employ its members. The philosophy and tactics of the IWW are described as "revolutionary industrial unionism", with ties to socialist, syndicalist, and anarchist labor movements.
The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962.
Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when mass labor became important in factories and mines. As striking became a more common practice, governments were often pushed to act. When government intervention occurred, it was rarely neutral or amicable. Early strikes were often deemed unlawful conspiracies or anti-competitive cartel action and many were subject to massive legal repression by state police, federal military power, and federal courts. Many Western nations legalized striking under certain conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Picketing is a form of protest in which people congregate outside a place of work or location where an event is taking place. Often, this is done in an attempt to dissuade others from going in, but it can also be done to draw public attention to a cause. Picketers normally endeavor to be non-violent. It can have a number of aims, but is generally to put pressure on the party targeted to meet particular demands or cease operations. This pressure is achieved by harming the business through loss of customers and negative publicity, or by discouraging or preventing workers or customers from entering the site and thereby preventing the business from operating normally.
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 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.
On April 21, 1920, during a miners strike in Butte, Montana's copper mines, company guards fired on striking miners picketing near a mine of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, killing Tom Manning and injuring sixteen others, an event known as the Anaconda Road massacre. His death went unpunished.
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.
Samuel Pollock was an American labor union activist and leader. He helped lead two important strikes in 1934, the Auto-Lite Strike and the Hardin County onion pickers strike, before becoming district president of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America.
The Salad Bowl strike was a series of strikes, mass pickets, boycotts and secondary boycotts that began on August 23, 1970 and led to the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history. The strike was led by the United Farm Workers against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The Salad Bowl strike was only in part a jurisdictional strike, for many of the actions taken during the event were not strikes. The strike led directly to the passage of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975.
The California Agricultural Labor Relations Act (CALRA) is a landmark statute in United States labor law that was enacted by the state of California in 1975, establishing the right to collective bargaining for farmworkers in that state, a first in U.S. history.
The 1926 Passaic textile strike was a work stoppage by over 15,000 woolen mill workers in and around Passaic, New Jersey, over wage issues in several factories in the vicinity. Conducted in its initial phase by a "United Front Committee" organized by the Trade Union Educational League of the Workers (Communist) Party, the strike began on January 25, 1926, and officially ended only on March 1, 1927, when the final mill being picketed signed a contract with the striking workers. It was the first Communist-led work stoppage in the United States. The event was memorialized by a seven reel silent movie intended to generate sympathy and funds for the striking workers.
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The California agricultural strikes of 1933 were a series of strikes by mostly Mexican and Filipino agricultural workers throughout the San Joaquin Valley. More than 47,500 workers were involved in the wave of approximately 30 strikes from 1931-1941. Twenty-four of the strikes, involving 37,500 union members, were led by the Cannery and Agricultural Workers' Industrial Union (CAWIU). The strikes are grouped together because most of them were organized by the CAWIU. Strike actions began in August among cherry, grape, peach, pear, sugar beet, and tomato workers, and culminated in a number of strikes against cotton growers in the San Joaquin Valley in October. The cotton strikes involved the largest number of workers. Sources vary as to numbers involved in the cotton strikes, with some sources claiming 18,000 workers and others just 12,000 workers, 80% of whom were Mexican.
The Little Steel strike was a 1937 labor strike by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and its branch the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), against a number of smaller steel producing companies, principally Republic Steel, Inland Steel, and Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company. The strike affected a total of thirty different mills belonging to the three companies, which employed 80,000 workers. The strike, which was one of the most violent labor disputes of the 1930s, ended without the strikers achieving their principal goal, recognition by the companies of the union as the bargaining agent for the workers.
The Harvest Gypsies is a series of articles by John Steinbeck written on commission for The San Francisco News focusing on the lives and times of migrant workers in California's Central Valley. Published daily from October 5 to 12, 1936, Steinbeck delves into the hardships and triumphs of American migrant workers during the Great Depression, tracing their paths and stories from crop to crop as they eked out a stark existence.
In Dubious Battle is a 2016 drama film directed and produced by James Franco, loosely based on John Steinbeck's 1936 novel of the same name, with a screenplay by Matt Rager. The film features an ensemble cast, consisting of Franco, Nat Wolff, Josh Hutcherson, Vincent D'Onofrio, Robert Duvall, Selena Gomez, Keegan Allen and Ed Harris. The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 3, 2016.
In 1933 there was a cherry strike in Santa Clara, California. The main overview of the events in Santa Clara was an agricultural strike by cherry pickers against the growers or employers. As the events of the labor strike unfolded, the significance of the strike grew beyond that of the workers themselves into a broader scope within America.
Pat Chambers was an influential labor organizer and Communist Party member in the 1930s in California. He was a key figure in some of the largest California agricultural strikes of 1933. Chambers was the inspiration for the character “Mac” in John Steinbeck's 1936 novel, In Dubious Battle.
The Associated Farmers of California was an influential anti-labor organization in California between 1934 and 1939. Agricultural and business leaders formed the organization to counter growing labor activism in California. The AF was responsible for substantial violence in reaction to agricultural strikes; the creation of anti-picketing ordinances; and spying on the activities of labor organizations. After a US Senate investigation into its actions and the advent of WW2, it lost influence and eventually disbanded. “The reign of the AF would only come to an end when the LaFollette Committee turned its scrutiny towards its activities in 1939 and 1940." The committee's attention short-circuited the AF's attempt to expand across the United States.”
