Goodyear Strike, 1936

What happened in Akron, OH?

"'Rubber companies.  They got mountain people in 'cause they'd work cheap. An' these here mountain people up an' joined the union.  Well, sir, hell jes' popped.  Al them storekeepers yellin' "Red!" An' they're gonna run the union right outa Akron.  Preachers git a-preachin' about it, an' papers a-yowlin', an' they's pick handles put out by the rubber companies, an' they're a-buyin' gas.  Jesus, you'd think them mountain boys was reg'lar devils! [...] Well, sir--it was las' March, an' one Sunday five thousan' of them mountain men had a turkey shoot outside a town.  Five thousan' of 'em jus' marched through town with their rifles.  An' they had their turkey shoot, an' then they marched back.  An' that's all they done.  Well, sir, they ain't been no trouble sence then.  These here citizens committees give back the pick handles, an' the storekeepers keep their stores, an' nobody been clubbed nor tarred an' feathered, an' nobody been killed. [...] They're gettin' purty mean out here.  Burned that camp an' beat up folks.  I been thinkin'.  All our folks got guns.  I been thinkin' maybe we ought to git up a turkey shootin' club and' have meetin's ever' Sunday."  (345)

"On February 17, 1936, workers struck at the 14,000-employee Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Akron because 137 men had been laid off the third shift after the work day was increased from 6 hours to 8 hours.  Although only about 200 of the 14,000-member workforce were labor union adherents, thousands of workers left the plant to establish an 11-mile picket line around Goodyear's fences--the largest picket line in history.  By the second day, 10,000 workers had joined the picket line.  When a "Law and Order League" was formed among local citizens, the union's war veterans began regular military-type drills to prepare for vigilante attacks.  In March of 1936, Goodyear recognized the workers' union, reinstated the laid off workers, and cut the work-day hours back to six." ~GoW "Notes" (p. 436)

Akron, OH--1936