Strutwear Knitting Company Strike, 1935–1936

The Strutwear strike was the last, least violent, and longest of three bitter labor disputes that shook Minneapolis between 1934 and 1936. It pitted the anti-union leaders of Strutwear Knitting Company (and its Citizens Alliance allies) against the United Hosiery Workers Union (and its labor allies, the Teamsters and the American Federation of Labor). When the strike ended in April 1936, Strutwear and the Citizens Alliance declared victory. A year later, however, events took a surprising turn.

James Struthers had founded the Strutwear Knitting Company in 1916, with twenty employees. By 1935 it had over 1,100 workers, a six-story factory, and a headquarters in downtown Minneapolis. Some 200 of the workers, and the best paid, were skilled knitters, all men. Of the remaining 900, most (580) were women, and paid much less. All were paid less than industry workers elsewhere.

In the summer of 1935 Strutwear knitters voted to join the national United Hosiery Workers Union. Strutwear responded by firing eight union activists. On Friday, August 16, a crowd prevented most workers from entering the plant at 1015 Sixth Street South. The following Monday morning hundreds of picketers surrounded the factory. Police used clubs to clear the sidewalks; in response, hundreds more picketers appeared. Strutwear closed the plant.

Instead of dealing with the union, Strutwear marshaled a host of resistance measures. It threatened to leave Minneapolis. It put political pressure on Minneapolis officials. When Strutwear employees went on relief, the company got their payments cut. The virulently anti-union Citizens Alliance, a large Minneapolis business group to which Strutwear belonged, formed a “citizens committee” to lobby against the union effort. Among the workers, most of the suffering fell to the women and unskilled men whom the United Hosiery Workers were not trying to organize.

The two sides presented starkly different versions of the truth. Labor organizers called Strutwear a sweatshop that paid 35 to 40 percent less than similar companies around the country. Strutwear presented itself as a benevolent employer and good citizen, beset by outside agitators.

The dispute came on the heels of violent strikes by Minneapolis Teamsters in 1934 and at Flour City Iron Works in July 1935; thus, the stakes were high. They rose in November, when the company offered to arbitrate the case of the eight fired organizers and any other worker grievances—but not to deal with the union. The union refused. Through a ruse, Strutwear got a few truckloads of machinery and finished goods out of the factory, headed for Missouri. Then, in a confrontation outside the plant, Minneapolis Teamsters stepped in, smashing windows and stoning trucks.

Minneapolis Mayor Thomas Latimer was caught in the middle. He had been elected as a socialist, and the workers were his constituents. But as mayor he had a duty to protect all, including Strutwear; it was a major employer and taxpayer, and he felt pressure to address its threats to leave Minneapolis. Latimer deployed police at the factory, but Strutwear complained that he did not do enough. One of its lawyers called Latimer “a conspirator and agitator.”

Things got worse in late December when Strutwear tried to reopen the plant. Hundreds of picketers appeared, and there were more scuffles. Governor Floyd Olson sent national guard troops—not to open the plant, but to keep it closed. Strutwear advised its employees to seek jobs elsewhere.

Strutwear now took the dispute to the courts. It sued Olson and Latimer to force them to allow the factory to open. It sued labor organizers and workers to end picketing. It sued Latimer and ninety-six others for damages of over $100,000. At one point, two major trials were going on in Minneapolis at the same time. The strike continued.

Then, suddenly, it was over. On April 4, 1936, the union accepted the arbitration offer that had been on the table since November, along with a promise to rehire all striking workers and implement a previously-planned series of wage increases. Recognition of the union was not included. With justification, the Citizens Alliance hailed this as a victory. Strutwear reopened on April 6.

A year later came a surprising denouement. In May 1937 Strutwear and the United Hosiery Workers revealed a comprehensive settlement. All Strutwear workers—not just the knitters, who had started the dispute but the mostly-female production workers, too—would unionize. What had been a union defeat the prior April had become a complete union victory.