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In May 1937, seventy thousand workers walked off their jobs at four
large steel companies known collectively as "Little Steel." The
strikers sought to make the companies retreat from decades of
antiunion repression, abide by the newly enacted federal labor law,
and recognize their union. For two months a grinding struggle
unfolded, punctuated by bloody clashes in which police, company
agents, and National Guardsmen ruthlessly beat and shot unionists.
At least sixteen died and hundreds more were injured before the
strike ended in failure. The violence and brutality of the Little
Steel Strike became legendary. In many ways it was the last great
strike in modern America. Traditionally the Little Steel Strike has
been understood as a modest setback for steel workers, one that
actually confirmed the potency of New Deal reforms and did little
to impede the progress of the labor movement. However, The Last
Great Strike tells a different story about the conflict and its
significance for unions and labor rights. More than any other
strike, it laid bare the contradictions of the industrial labor
movement, the resilience of corporate power, and the limits of New
Deal liberalism at a crucial time in American history.
A dramatic, deeply researched account of how legal repression and
vigilantism brought down the Wobblies-and how the destruction of
their union haunts us to this day. In 1917, the Industrial Workers
of the World was rapidly gaining strength and members. Within a
decade, this radical union was effectively destroyed, the victim of
the most remarkable campaign of legal repression and vigilantism in
American history. Under the Iron Heel is the first comprehensive
account of this campaign. Founded in 1905, the IWW offered to the
millions of workers aggrieved by industrial capitalism the promise
of a better world. But its growth, coinciding with World War I and
the Russian Revolution and driven by uncompromising militancy, was
seen by powerful capitalists and government officials as an
existential threat that had to be eliminated. In Under the Iron
Heel, Ahmed White documents the torrent of legal persecution and
extralegal, sometimes lethal violence that shattered the IWW. In so
doing, he reveals the remarkable courage of those who faced this
campaign, lays bare the origins of the profoundly unequal and
conflicted nation we know today, and uncovers disturbing truths
about the law, political repression, and the limits of free speech
and association in class society.
In May 1937, seventy thousand workers walked off their jobs at four
large steel companies known collectively as "Little Steel." The
strikers sought to make the companies retreat from decades of
antiunion repression, abide by the newly enacted federal labor law,
and recognize their union. For two months a grinding struggle
unfolded, punctuated by bloody clashes in which police, company
agents, and National Guardsmen ruthlessly beat and shot unionists.
At least sixteen died and hundreds more were injured before the
strike ended in failure. The violence and brutality of the Little
Steel Strike became legendary. In many ways it was the last great
strike in modern America. Traditionally the Little Steel Strike has
been understood as a modest setback for steel workers, one that
actually confirmed the potency of New Deal reforms and did little
to impede the progress of the labor movement. However, The Last
Great Strike tells a different story about the conflict and its
significance for unions and labor rights. More than any other
strike, it laid bare the contradictions of the industrial labor
movement, the resilience of corporate power, and the limits of New
Deal liberalism at a crucial time in American history.
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