In Step 3, just check the box for "I request to have an absentee ballot mailed to the address where I live (residence) before each election in which I am eligible to vote."
On this day in labor history, the year was 1934. That was the day known as the “Battle of Deputies’ Run.”
The Minneapolis Teamsters strike was in full swing. For three days, the city was peacefully paralyzed. The wealthiest had kept the city an open shop for decades through their ‘Citizens’ Alliance,’ and now assembled an army of strikebreakers.
Strikers had been seriously injured on Saturday the 19th at the City Market. They fought police and deputized ‘specials’ in an attempt to keep produce trucks from moving out. Later that evening, flying pickets were ambushed in Tribune Alley after having been dispatched by an agent provocateur.
Strikers were beaten mercilessly, including several from the women’s auxiliary. The sight of the bloodied women enraged strikers. Another fierce confrontation was inevitable.
Hundreds of strikers waited at the Central Labor Union near the Market until Monday, when scab trucks were expected. Fighting continued throughout the morning. No trucks moved. Hundreds of women marched to the mayor’s office demanding, “Take your hired thugs away!”
Anti-union violence so outraged building tradesmen that 35,000 walked off the job in sympathy. Electricians, painters and ironworkers all reported to strike headquarters.
Then, on this day, that Tuesday, the decisive battle began. Tens of thousands amassed in the Market on the side of the Teamsters, as ‘deputies’ would attempt to move the produce trucks out. Strike leader Farrell Dobbs noted, “It became a free-for-all.” The police stayed back as strikers and deputies battled it out until finally, the deputies dropped their clubs, turned tail and fled.
Union forces cleared the Market of every last scab, cop and deputy. Historian Bryan Palmer notes, “An intense and deadly confrontation was over in short order. And it left the union in command.”
May 16, 1934: Teamsters initiated a General Strike (5/16-8/21) for union recognition in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, which was, then, the main distribution center for the upper Midwest. The worst violence occurred on Bloody Friday, July 20, when police shot at strikers in a downtown truck battle, killing two and injuring 67. Continuing violence lasted throughout the summer. The strike formally ended on August 22. The strike was led by the Trotskyist Communist League of America, which later founded the Socialist Workers Party (United States). While this General Strike was going on in Minneapolis, there was an equally violent General Strike going continuing on San Francisco’s waterfront (5/9-7/31), with much of the West Coast dockers joining them (Everett, WA; Portland, OR; Seattle, WA; and Los Angeles, CA). 9 workers were killed in the West Coast waterfront strikes, along with over 1,000 injuries and over 500 arrests. At the same time, there was also a General Strike going on in Toledo, OH, the Auto Lite Strike (4/12-6/3), in which 2 workers were killed.
Today in Labor History April 12, 1934: The Toledo (Ohio) Auto-Lite General Strike began on this day. Initially, 6,000 workers struck for union recognition and higher pay. In late May, there was a five-day battle between the strikers and 1,300 members of the Ohio National Guard. The militia fired on workers. They shot tear gas, which the workers threw back at them. They attacked with bayonets and the workers retaliated with bricks, injuring several soldiers. The “Battle of Toledo,” left two strikers dead and more than 200 injured. The strike lasted for two months and resulted in a win for the union. It was one of the most important labor struggles of the 20th century. During that same spring, there were also General Strikes in San Francisco and Minneapolis.
Today In Labor History March 27, 1912: Start of the 8-month Northern railway strike in Canada by the IWW. Over 8,000 construction workers, led by the IWW, walked off the job at Northern Railway workcamps Wobblies picketed employment offices in Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Tacoma and Minneapolis in order to block the hiring of scabs.
Fellow workers pay attention to what I'm going to mention,
For it is the fixed intention of the Workers of the World.
And I hope you'll all be ready, true-hearted, brave and steady,
To gather 'round our standard when the red flag is unfurled.
CHORUS:
Where the Fraser River flows, each fellow worker knows,
They have bullied and oppressed us, but still our union grows.
And we're going to find a way, boys, for shorter hours and better pay, boys
And we're going to win the day, boys, where the river Fraser flows.
For these gunny-sack contractors have all been dirty actors,
And they're not our benefactors, each fellow worker knows.
So we've got to stick together in fine or dirty weather,
And we will show no white feather, where the Fraser river flows.
Now the boss the law is stretching, bulls and pimps he's fetching,
And they are a fine collection, as Jesus only knows.
But why their mothers reared them, and why the devil spared them,
Are questions we can't answer, where the Fraser River flows.
(Lyrics by Joe Hill, 1912, to the tune of “Where the River Shannon Flows.”)
A bill just passed in the MN House to prevent corporations or LLCs from owning more than 10 single family homes. Apparently about 3,000 single family homes in MN are owned by just four out-of-state corporations. And a quarter of all homes in NE are owned by corps. #Minnesota#Minneapolis