USW Vice President Redmond Connects 1937 Republic Steel Massacre to Today’s Challenges
Staff Contributor, People's World
Steelworkers and allies convened on Chicago's Southeast side May 21 at a "Labor Fightback Festival" to look back at the historic 1937 "Little Steel" strike, remember the massacre that occurred that Memorial Day when Chicago police violently repressed demonstrators, and to apply the lessons learned thereafter to the current conditions facing the labor movement.
In 1937, the Congress of Industrial Organizations was a voice for industrial workers in the workplace. After years of bitter struggle, U.S. Steel -- "Big Steel" -- signed a contract with the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, precursor of the Steelworkers, on March 2.
But its competitors, including Republic, Bethlehem and Inland Steel -- "Little Steel" -- resisted and on May 26, the Little Steel strike began. On May 30, hundreds of strikers, their families and supporters gathered for a Memorial Day picnic in a field outside the plant before heading over to join the picket line. They never got there.
Brought in by Republic, Chicago police shot into the crowd, massacring ten activists and wounding scores of others. It would take four more years to get the companies that made up Little Steel to agree to a contract.
"It all started right here and today we stand on the shoulders of those ten demonstrators who stood for justice and fairness. Today, we honor their spirits," said Steelworkers International Vice President Fred Redmond.
"To be very direct, in order for our movement to survive and continue to be a force for building and sustaining a strong and vibrant middle class, the labor movement must once again become a part of a much larger movement for social and economic justice."
Redmond isn't just talking the talk; he's leading through example. He co-chairs the AFL-CIO's Labor Commission on Racial and Economic Justice, whose main goals are to facilitate discussion amongst labor leaders around disparities facing workers of color.
The commission also aims to make the labor movement more accurately reflect the diversity of the nation as a whole. And the CIO unions of the 1930s were integrated, as almost all American Federation of Labor unions then were not.
"There is a deepening authoritarian trend in the U.S. political environment," Redmond told the large crowd. "Authoritarianism can be found in the use of violence on the streets by law enforcement agencies...We cannot ignore the fact that African American males in their early 20s are 21 times more likely to be killed by the police when compared with whites of the same age...The implications appear to many to be nearly genocidal, particularly when combined with cuts in social services and jobs."
Redmond also spoke to the need to increase access to the polls for everyone, and to "stop the targeting of African-Americans, Latinos, youth, seniors, and, in some cases, military personnel, for exclusion from voting rolls."
His remarks also touched on the environment, a topic of some contention between unions. "It is not that black workers need a new labor movement, or Latinos need a new movement or that women need a new movement.
“Unless we are prepared to let global capital run wild, destroying both the environment and the lives of those of us on planet Earth, workers as a whole must heed the call of resistance that necessitates a transformed and reinvigorated labor movement," he stated.
The Steelworkers and their retiree organization, SOAR, sponsor the annual Memorial Day Massacre commemoration. Other speakers at this year's commemoration included local Alderwoman Susan Sadlowski Garza – daughter of a late reformist leader of the Mine Workers -- and Chicago Federation of Labor Secretary Treasurer Bob Reiter.
Redmond did not hesitate to connect the struggles of U.S. workers to working people around the world. "Workers need the United States to have a foreign policy that advances peace and justice rather than one perceived by the majority of the planet as being bullying and promoting global capitalism," he declared.
"We find ourselves in what appears to be a situation of perpetual war. Every conflict seems to move in the direction of sanctions or military action rather than efforts at negotiated settlements...Who suffers? Our young men and women, largely from working class families, place their lives on the line for causes, issues over which they have no input."
He concluded with a call for global responsibility and a radical working class movement for the 21st century: "Only if we renew and invigorate our movement will we be able to meet these challenges. What those workers knew in 1937, that we know all too well today, is that America does best when we say UNION YES."
