On May 30, 1937, a group of protestors made up of local steelworkers, their families, and supporters approached Republic Steel on Chicago’s East Side near the Indiana border. Some 300 police officers met the protestors. The protestors were unarmed, but the police opened fire, killing 10 and injuring more than 100 others.
The Memorial Day Massacre was a dark moment in labor history, emerging at a time when labor rights were on the upswing, after a period in which organizing and strikes had been largely unsuccessful or even violent, such as the 1894 Pullman strike. In 1935, the National Labor Relations Act (also called the Wagner Act) was signed into law, guaranteeing workers the right to organize unions, pursue collective bargaining, and go on strike.
The 1937 protest in Chicago was part of a larger demonstration of steelworkers across the Midwest called the “Little Steel Strike” against some 30 smaller steel companies. Two months prior to the 1937 massacre, “big steel” company U.S. Steel had signed a union contract with the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC). Unionists from the SWOC and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) sought a similar agreement, but the little steel companies wouldn’t budge on the unions’ demands for a minimum wage, an eight-hour work day, a 40-hour work week, overtime pay, better safety standards, and more. Republic Steel even hired spies referred to as “stool pigeons” to infiltrate union meetings and report back to company officials…