Today in Labor History July 3, 1936: Striking workers battled scabs and undercover cops outside the Remington Rand plant in Norwood, Ohio. The riot last four days, as the company repeatedly tried to bring in scabs on buses, without uniformed police protection, in hopes of provoking violence they could exploit to discredit the union. On July 7, strikers boarded the buses and drove off the scabs. On August 12, police shot 2 Remington Rand workers in Syracuse, NY, provoking the governor to threaten calling in the National Guard. Much of the violence in this strike was instigated by undercover cops, posing as scabs. The strike had begun in May and lasted through April of 1937. During the strike, company president James Rand, Jr. devised the "Mohawk Valley formula" a corporate plan for strikebreaking that was utilized by many corporations since. The plan included strategies for discrediting union leaders, frightening the public with threats of violence, use of local cops and vigilantes to intimidate and bully the strikers, puppet organizations composed of of "loyal employees" to influence public debate, fortified workplaces, the hiring of strikebreakers, and threats to close the plant and ruin the local economy if work was not promptly resumed. One example from this formula was when Rand lied to the media that the strike was over. This led to an uproar amongst the rand and file, who accused union leadership of selling them out. In another dirty trick, the company told the picketers that many of their fellow workers had decided to come back to work. They had 85 security guards dress up as workers and armed them with bricks and clubs. When they “came back to work,” picketers attacked them. The media photographed and printed images of these “labor goons’” unprovoked attack on “honest working men.”