The “Little Steel” Strike was a 1937 labor strike called by the large and powerful union Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), specifically its branch the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), against a number of smaller steel producing companies, notably Republic Steel. The strike affected thirty different mills and a total of about 80,000 workers.
The name “Little Steel” derived from the fact that the largest of the steel-producing corporations, U.S. Steel (aka “Big Steel”), had signed a union contract in March of 1937. The agreement provided for a standard pay scale, an 8-hour work day, and time and a half for overtime. However, the smaller steel manufacturers (thus, “Little Steel”) refused to sign the contract, which led to the strike.
The strike was one of the most violent labor disputes of the 1930s: thousands of strikers were arrested, three hundred were injured, and eighteen died. The strike lasted over five months, and eventually the unions lost, but the conflict laid the groundwork for the eventual unionization of Little Steel five years later.
One of the darkest days of the strike came on Memorial Day 1937, when hundreds of demonstrators assembled at Sam's Place, the headquarters of the SWOC. As the crowd marched towards the Republic Steel mill, a line of Chicago policemen blocked their path. As the protestors asserted their right to continue marching, the police, allegedly feeling threatened, fired on the unarmed crowd, killing ten people, permanently disabling nine, and leaving 28 with serious injurious from being clubbed by the police.
No policemen were ever prosecuted, and a coroner’s report found the killings to be "justifiable homicide.” Newspapers decried the protest as a “red riot,” incited by communist forces. Today, the union hall of the United Steelworkers stands where Sam’s Place once stood, and features a memorial to the 10 people who died in 1937.
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