🚧 WCU Article 01 - Local Working Class History

Working Class Unity
6

Here is a link to the Google Doc we were taking notes on during the working meeting: 2025-14-1 WCU Article Workshop - Google Docs

Thank you @Bozzii @Robert_H @Englishpete08 @Turcotte for attending!

Copying over the meeting notes by @Bozzii:

2025-14-1 WCU Article Workshop

Topic: Working Class History of Local Labor - Stockton Cannery Strike of 1937 / Spinach Riot

Target audience:

the average person

What is the point?:

  • Comparing state Stockton of warehouse work to the canneries in Stockton during the 1930s
  • Portrayed as a win when it wasn’t actually a victory for the working class (still researching this point)
    – Canneries reopened 5 days later and workers felt sold out by their leadership
    – Tie it back to general assumption that unions are good, but having union leadership can lead to massive failures
  • Your boss will use scare tactics to intimidate you
  • Gavin Newsom’s recent actions towards unions
  • Red Scare back then; making a comeback now (recent vote by Congress)
  • Relating it to current experiences, when wages were low, and communism (collective labor) was vilified, then it is not too much to say that we have the same conditions and the same demands today as things have not improved.

Possible Conclusions:

  • No one is going to come in to save you or fix your problems, it is work that we have to do together
    – Keep advocating with yourself and your community
  • Join WCU
    – We should promote ourselves at the end; talk about how we are organizing collectively, democratically, for the first time in a long time, returning to our roots as not bitches.
    – People used to risk their lives for a better wage. Now we bend the knee to internet celebrities who promise to drop their pocket change on our heads.
    – So if you want to have a different outcome or you want to change the status quo, then we need to organize differently or else we will get more of the same.

References:

Red scare reference in this article “The largest strike occurred in San Francisco in 1933 with effects felt across the state. It began as a labor strike by the Longshoremen but turned into a general, 4-day long, citywide strike. Though quickly settled, it led to the hatred and distrust of labor unions and a communist scare. Many labor movements were seen as a communist threat to the American way of life and thus despised, most likely because communist groups would back the strikes, as it coincided with their socialist agendas. In 1934, the California State Chamber of Commerce and California Farm Bureau created an emergency organization to prevent further strikes”

“The organization included such groups as the American Legion and Associated Farmers of California. The Associated Farmers created a statewide strategy while the American Legion acted as the foot soldiers with the self-created title, “Strikebreaking Deputies.” The organizations became known by the labor parties as the “farm fascists” and were not seen as effective. In many instances the extreme tactics used to break the strikes were considered brutal and harsh.”

@Robert_H found these links about the Stockton Cannery Strike of 1937.

ROSE-MarchInlandStockton-1972-I.pdf (1.5 MB)
ROSE-MarchInlandStockton-1972-II.pdf (1.7 MB)
ROSE-MarchInlandStockton-1972-III.pdf (4.9 MB)