Today in Labor History June 10, 1937: The mayor of Monroe, Michigan organized a vigilante mob of 1,400 men armed with baseball bats and teargas to break the picket line at Newton Steel. As a result, eight strikers were injured and hospitalized. The vigilantes also vandalized sixteen of the workers’ cars dumped eight of them into the river. During this same strike wave in the steel industry, there was a Memorial Day Massacre, in Chicago, in which the police beat and shot scores of people, including men and women, killing at least 25. There was also the Women’s Day Massacre, in Youngstown, Ohio, in which 2 workers were killed. 10% of the union at that time was made up of African American workers. Although few women worked in the industry, they played a pivotal role in the strike, walking picket lines with the men, risking life and limb in confrontations with the police.
