March 28 -- Union Communications Services, Inc.
Members of Gas House Workers’ Union Local 18799 begin what is to become a 4-month recognition strike against the Laclede Gas Light Co. in St. Louis. The union later said the strike was the first ever against a public utility in the U.S. - 1935
Martin Luther King, Jr., leads a march
of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn. Violence during the
march persuades him to return the following week to Memphis, where he
was assassinated - 1968
(All Labor Has Dignity, by Martin Luther King, Jr.: People forget that Dr. King was every bit as committed to economic justice as he was to ending racial segregation. He fought throughout his life to connect the labor and civil rights movements, envisioning them as twin pillars for social reform. As we struggle with massive unemployment, a staggering racial wealth gap, and the near collapse of a financial system that puts profits before people, this collection of King's speeches on labor rights and economic justice underscore his relevance for today. They help us imagine King anew: as a human rights leader whose commitment to unions and an end to poverty was a crucial part of his civil rights agenda.)
Working Class Heroes -- via -- www.unionist.com
Members of Gas House Workers’ Union Local 18799 begin what is to become a 4-month recognition strike against the Laclede Gas Light Co. in St. Louis. The union later said the strike was the first ever against a public utility in the U.S. - 1935 ~De
The gas workers went out on strike at 6:00 a.m. on the twenty-eighth of March. The strike was wholly the decision of the Local’s negotiating committee. Martin Wagner, the President of the Gas House Workers’ Union Number 18799, and Thomas Morley, the Union’s Secretary, had written President William Green on the A.F.L. in December of 1934 asking for support if a strike had to be called, but had received no confirmation. William Brandt, secretary of the Central Trades and Labor Union, had not been consulted. The strike came as a complete surprise to Laclede Company. The first that the company officers knew of the strike was when they reported to work and were greeted by pickets around the Laclede Building.
The union, however, did not call the strike without advanced preparation. They had invited a man by the name of Mike Dunn from Minneapolis, Minnesota to publish a daily strike bulletin. Dunn and his two brothers had put out a daily bulleting called the Organizer during a successful Teamster strike in Minneapolis from June to September of 1934. The gas workers quietly brought him and a man named Satir from Chicago in from out of town and they, along with David Burbank, a local member of the Workers’ Party, published a daily bulletin from the very first day of the strike until June 18th – when they began to print only three times a week.
On Friday March 29th, Mayor Bernard Dickmann tried to intervene and offered a proposal that would have recognized the Union as the exclusive bargaining agent, but did not guarantee a closed shop-nor did it deal with the new demand of the strikers that a seventy-five cents charge for service calls that was to go into effect on April 1st be dropped. The company pointed to the rising costs as the reason for the service charge but the Union opposed it because they saw it as a way to reduce the service calls, and thereby reduce the labor force in the service department. The Union rejected the Mayor’s proposal on March 31st, and voted to maintain demands for a closed shop and free service calls. This rejection and restatement of demands apparently set the tone for the rest of the strike that was to last until July 15th. The lines were sharply drawn with each side at the other’s throat and neither side willing to conciliate or temper their demands.
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