Monday, Jul. 15, 1929
New Orleans, et al.
Only by spectacular violence and bloodshed do local strikes attain national prominence. Last week a street car* strike in New Orleans attained that prominence. Two strikers were killed, five trolleys were burned to the trucks, a car barn was dynamited, trackage was destroyed, switches cemented. The only other strike so far this year to "go rough" in like fashion has been at Gastonia, N. C. (see below).
Eighteen hundred trolleymen struck in New Orleans as a result of a union contract dispute. New Orleans Public Service, Inc., imported strikebreakers from Buffalo, N. Y., attempted to run its cars. The first car out of the Canal Street barns was pelted with bricks and paving stones. The "scab" motorman quit in five minutes.
Four cars left the barn under police guard. Two, passengerless, crawled around the beltline. A third was driven back by angry strikers. A fourth was burned on Canal Street before a jeering multitude. Some policemen fired into the mob. Other policemen resigned rather than defend the strikebreakers.
Holders of New Orleans traction bonds went into Federal Court, asked for an injunction against the trolley union to save their property from further destruction.
Other minor strikes in progress last week throughout the land included:
New York City. In protest against "sweat shops" and outside non-union contract work, 25,000 women's garment makers quit work, picketed peacefully. Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt called both sides to Albany for personal conferences.
Haverhill, Mass. Demanding increased pay and a five-day week, 12,855 shoe workers remained away from their benches.
Kenosha, Wis. Still out of work were 235 hosiery mill operatives, mostly girls. Their demand: union recognition.
Gastonia, N. C. Some 1,000 textile workers continued to hold out for union recognition, following riots and charges of murder for the killing of a police chief (TIME, June 17).
Laporte, Ind. Against the Fox Woolen Mill, 300 employes continued their strike.
Buffalo, N. Y. 230 building trades workers.
New Brunswick, N. J. 500 General Cigar Co. workers.
Philadelphia. Needle Trades Workers Unionists, mostly girls, were out because of unsatisfactory working conditions. Four girls were jailed last week for violating a "peaceful picketing" injunction.
Threatened Strike. Locomotive engineers on the Missouri Pacific R. R. and the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis took a strike vote as the result of a three-sided dispute on the representation of grievances involving the carriers, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen. Similar strike votes were predicted for the Santa Fe, the Union Pacific, the Southern Pacific on the same issue, with the possibility of a spread of the trouble to eastern and southern systems. The U. S. Board of Mediation girded itself to prevent a big rail strike.
*In Pittsburgh last week the world's first aluminum street car, half as heavy as steel, permitting high speed with comfort, made its first run, revived lagging public interest in trolley transportation.