General Strikes as Catalysts for Political Change: Historical Context and Impact

Grassroots organizing and civil disobedience can be effective strategies for policy change. The candidate organized a 'freedom caravan' to help Katrina evacuees vote in Louisiana when they were required to return to New Orleans to cast ballots. When organizing a sit-in at the governor's office to demand Medicaid expansion, the candidate was arrested and jailed, reflecting a tradition of using moral pressure to advance policy goals. The candidate contrasts his approach of making a difference in ordinary people's lives with opponents who have spent careers making deals in Washington. This demonstrates how sustained grassroots efforts and willingness to accept consequences can drive policy change.

Change in this country has not occurred through the Democratic Party but through grassroots demonstrations and civil disobedience. When African Americans went into the streets of Montgomery, Alabama, and closed down the bus system, and when blacks all over the country turned their backs on the Democratic Party and went into the streets and went to jail, that caused the Democratic Party to shift. Similarly, women's rights came not from the Democratic Party but from women standing up and demanding change. The most important vote one has is the willingness to say to the system that one is prepared to be arrested, not just to vote but to be arrested to block the agenda. This willingness to engage in civil disobedience is what changes politics.

The hosts discuss how grassroots organizing and civil disobedience can drive political change. They argue that movements built from the streets and through direct action can bring about meaningful policy changes, and that this spirit of resistance should be brought into the halls of power.

Meaningful policy change requires sufficient grassroots mobilization outside government. Franklin D. Roosevelt explained that he wanted to accomplish everything constituents requested but needed them sufficiently organized and energized to make it possible. Entrenched political interests lock down policy outcomes unless citizens actively push for change. When people express frustration that nothing happens in Washington, they must consider whether they are getting out of their bubbles, engaging with diverse perspectives, and organizing effectively. The Occupy and Tea Party movements reveal widespread anger and frustration about the game being rigged, with many feeling children cannot do as well as their parents. Restoring social solidarity requires leadership that asks citizens to commit to each other and the common good.

Organized collective action by workers and citizens can compel hostile or complicit governments to change their policies. Through sustained mobilization, boycotts, and protests, movements can achieve policy changes that stop complicity with harmful entities and build systems free from exploitation, oppression, and environmental destruction. This demonstrates that grassroots movements can successfully alter national policies and international relations.

The 1934 Minneapolis strike, sometimes called the 1934 general strike, began on May 16, 1934, and was resolved by approximately August 31, 1934. It occurred during the Great Depression and was part of a broader wave of successful strikes including Toledo and the West Coast ports. The strike was initiated by Teamsters Local 574, which attempted to organize the entire trucking and warehouse industry. The union environment was fragmented with craft unions operating separately. The trucking companies operated under an open shop system, making unionization less attractive. Teamsters Local 574 began with only 75 official members but grew through strategic organizing. A February 1934 coal driver strike demonstrated what could be gained by joining the union. Socialist and communist organizers played a crucial role, with many members being specifically socialist or communist organizers. The strike involved three key factions: Trotskyist Teamsters Local 574, the Minneapolis police and Citizens Alliance (representing business interests), and Governor Floyd B. Olsen of the Farmer Labor Party with 4,000 Minnesota National Guard troops. Floyd B. Olsen was a syndicalist who joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in Seattle before returning to Minneapolis to attend law school. He was elected governor in 1930 with a left-liberal working-class and middle-class coalition. Despite being labeled as a progressive or reform governor, these labels were misleading because he did not compromise his syndicalist views in office. He was often referred to as a radical who believed capitalism had failed and needed to be replaced through peaceful means. As District Attorney in 1920, he became known as a prosecutor against municipal corruption and the big business community, specifically targeting the Citizens Alliance and the Ku Klux Klan. He enacted progressive measures including forbidding mortgage foreclosures (codified into law for two years), establishing minimum wage scales for highway labor, and fixing a maximum 8-hour day, 6-day week. In his second inaugural address in January 1933, he stated that the United States had created the greatest industrial system in history but that this system had been concerned almost entirely with profit and had been blind to the welfare of the mass of the people. He declared that an army of unemployed, increasing mortgage foreclosures, and poverty were evidences of the failure of government and the social system. In April 1933, he threatened to declare martial law and confiscate private property if the legislature did not provide for sufferers. When the strike began on May 16, 1934, it shut down most commercial traffic in the market area of Minneapolis, though farmers were allowed to deliver goods directly to grocers. Local clashes with police and private security (Citizens Alliance members) and scabs immediately started. Within the first four days, hundreds of Citizens Alliance members were deputized by the police. The battle between pickets and strike breakers over trucks turned into general melees. Other trades started sympathy strikes, and the AFL provided both financial support and allowed strikers to organize at AFL headquarters. Police caravans escorted goods trucks, with ratios of up to 40 police trucks per goods truck initially. Governor Olsen attempted to mediate a deal in May that looked attractive to both sides until the companies tried to exclude warehouse workers (inside boys) from the agreement. This unacceptable exclusion kicked off the strike again on July 17, 1934, starting phase two, which was more violent. Bloody Friday on July 20, 1934, changed everything. Police opened fire on pickets, injuring 67 people and killing two: John Balor (an unemployed laborer in solidarity) and Henry Ness (a striking truck driver and World War I veteran). A governor's public commission found that police took direct aim at pickets and fired to kill, with no weapons in possession of the pickets. This violence led to increased worker solidarity and the eventual declaration of martial law.

The 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters Strike, led by Trotskyist organizers Ray Dunn and Carl Skogland, transformed Minneapolis from an anti-union bastion into a union town by employing democratic rank-and-file organizing tactics, including a 75-member strike committee, mass picketing, cruising pickets, and a daily strike newspaper called 'The Organizer,' demonstrating that theoretical preparation combined with grassroots mobilization can overcome powerful opposition and achieve lasting labor victories.

The 1934 Minneapolis strike was the Teamsters' most legendary strike, beginning when companies refused to recognize the union despite Local 574's membership growth. The strike brought all trucking across the city to a standstill, causing nationwide effects. The Teamsters established a daily newspaper, organized relief efforts, and created a women's auxiliary unit that demonstrated outside City Hall, ran food commissaries, and operated a hospital for injured strikers. Bloody Friday saw police open fire on protesters, killing two people. The governor declared martial law, but the strike concluded when employers agreed to meet union demands including pay increases, leading to new legislation acknowledging workers' rights to organize.

The Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934 represented a pivotal moment in American labor history and demonstrated the Farmer-Labor movement's commitment to cross-class solidarity. When truckers called a massive strike challenging the Citizens' Alliance—a big-business organization founded to keep unions out—strikers fought Citizens' Alliance members and police in hand-to-hand battles, with four lives lost. The Olson Farmer-Labor administration detained pickets and closed both sides' headquarters. When the Roosevelt administration threatened to call back federal loans to Citizens' Alliance banks, the strike ended. This conflict catalyzed pressure for the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, which made collective bargaining the law of the land. The strike also demonstrated how the Farmer-Labor coalition could support relatively small strikes, like those of hosiery workers, recognizing strategic pressure points in the political economy that could open cities to broader union organization.

The 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters Strike was a landmark victory against violent employer opposition involving 10,000 workers, National Guard, and strikebreakers. President Roosevelt's intervention secured settlement, establishing the Teamsters as a militant industrial union. The 1935 National Labor Relations Act provided legal protections for organizing. During WWII, over 125,000 Teamsters served militarily, returning with seniority intact. Post-war, the union expanded into automotive, dairy, and food processing industries using innovative strategies like secondary boycotts, growing membership to over 2 million by the 1950s. Jimmy Hoffa became President in 1957, commanding a workforce larger than the U.S. Army. He negotiated the landmark 1964 Master Freight Agreement, bringing 400,000 members into the middle class. The union also supported civil rights, contributing to Dr. King's efforts. Hoffa's leadership combined personal accessibility with decisive action, though controversies surrounding mob connections would later overshadow his achievements.

Collective action requires coordination and cooperation among people with different interests and perspectives. The challenge is to develop mechanisms for enabling effective collective action while still accommodating legitimate differences and concerns. This involves developing practices that enable people to work together toward common goals while respecting individual and group differences.

To accomplish collective action, many individual interests must be brought together in synthesis. The theory of collective action explains why defection is more convenient than engagement - if one person defects in a system of a million people, no one notices. The problem of coordination is solved by money and wealth, but this does not generate the same effects as collective action without effort. This explains why contemporary society shows phenomena that have no collective logic while simultaneously privatizing everything that should be public.

Coordination problems refer to the difficulties faced by groups with shared interests in getting all members to participate in collective action. Larger groups face greater coordination challenges because it becomes harder to motivate participation when individual interests are relatively small. When each member's personal stake is large, they are more likely to volunteer, contribute money, or spend time supporting the group's efforts.

Social groups facilitate collective action through: (1) Pooling resources and capabilities, (2) Creating shared purpose and motivation, (3) Establishing coordination mechanisms, (4) Building collective identity and solidarity, and (5) Enabling coordinated responses to challenges. Groups can achieve objectives that individuals cannot accomplish alone, making them essential for addressing complex social, economic, and political issues.

Collective action refers to individuals working together toward a common cause. The fundamental challenge with collective action is 'defection' - when individual members have incentives to act contrary to the group's interest. In union contexts, defectors are called 'scabs' who cross picket lines to work for lower wages. The core problem is that while collective action benefits everyone if maintained, individual members may gain more by defecting, creating tension between group welfare and personal incentive.