http://www.socialistpartybristol.org.uk/2009/04/teamsters-rebellion-notes-from-meeting-14th-april/
In 1934 workers in the US were stirred by a series of dramatic strikes in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The union involved was the General Drivers Local 574 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), an American Federation of Labor affiliate, the principal union of workers in the US at that time.
In those fights, Local 574 went from a being a small “business union” unit that focused on organising a few skilled workers, to being a mass organisation that drew in hundreds of previously unorganised workers.
This change, recounted in Farrell Dobbs’ book ‘Teamster Rebellion’, resulted from the emergence of a new, militant leadership that gradually gained control and proved its competence in the eyes of rank-and-file members who wanted to use the union’s power in defence of their class interests.
It is this feature of the strikes that makes them relevant for us today.
As the economic crisis deepens and attacks on ordinary people’s living standards accelerate, the question of how to fight back will be posed more and more to a growing layer of workers.
For many workers the union is often invisible in the workplace, or not seen as a vehicle for defending workers’ interests. How to change that situation around, is an important question for socialists today and the 1934 strikers offer some useful lessons in that task.
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