Dark chocolate: lessons from the 1937 Hershey sit-down strike

Abstract

The 1936–1937 General Motors sit-down strike may be the most famous work stoppage in American history. The victory in Flint so heartened workers that a veritable “sit-down fever” wave spread across America. But are labor scholars guilty of unintentionally spreading a Whiggish view of history? Just 7 weeks after the victory in Flint, Hershey Chocolate workers sat down. Within 7 days they were forcibly ejected from the factory and beaten by a mob. This article takes a look at the events in Hershey with an eye toward raising questions about the overall efficacy of sit-down strikes. Although it by no means wishes to diminish the heroism or the usefulness of the Flint sit-down, it argues that a balanced look at the past requires a deeper look into the strikes that failed. The question is of the utmost importance for the contemporary labor movement, as some activists have called for a revival of sit-down militancy as a tactic for organized labor to reverse decades of decline. This may not be wise strategy, as past sit-down strikes are too narrowly filtered through the triumphant lens of Flint.

Keywords::

• sit-down
• strikes
• Hershey
• Flint
• activism
• labor movement

Notes

^1. “Sit Down,” Accessed April 3, 2014, http://www.laborarts.org/exhibits/laborsings/song.cfm?id = 5. The song was penned by labor attorney Maurice Sugar during the 1937 Flint strike. It is unclear who first coined the phrase “sit-down fever” but it was used to describe new sit-down strikes after the Flint strike. The term appeared in “Sit Down Epidemics; Strike Fever Spreads,” New York Times, March 21, 1937, but it does not seem to have originated there.

^2. “Hershey Plant Closed,” Harrisburg Patriot, April 3, 1937. Note: No reporter bylines given unless specifically listed.

^3.D'Antonio, Hershey; Snavely, Intimate Story of M. S. Hershey; Quirke, Eyes on Labor.

^4. These names are associated, respectively, with industrial Utopian experiments in Pullman, Illinois; Harvey, Illinois; and Hopedale, Massachusetts.

^5.D'Antonio, Hershey, 112.

^6. Ibid., 115, 116. The phrase “criminally rich” is Roosevelt's.

^7. Ibid., 116.

^8.Quirke, Eyes on Labor, 112.

^9.Wallace, Milton S. Hershey, 153; Reference to the Community Archives come from personal observations, May 30 to June 5, 2010.

^10.Wallace, Milton S. Hershey, 319.

^11. It should be noted that this was also financially astute. Hershey's building spree took advantage of low costs of materials and labor.

^12. This raise averaged 12 cents per hour for men and 5 cents for women. With the increase, men made 60 cents per hour and women 45 cents.

^13.Quirke, Eyes on Labor, 120–3.

^14. “Sit-on-Roof Strike Shuts Hershey Plant,” New York Times, April 3, 1937.

^15. “Hershey Plant Closed,” Harrisburg Patriot, April 3, 1937.

^16.New York Times, “Sit-on-Roof Strike Shuts Hershey Plant,” New York Times, April 3, 1937.

^17. “Federal Court Bans Ouster of Hose Strikers,” Philadelphia Enquirer, March 20, 1937; “Strike Ends at Chrysler,” Philadelphia Enquirer, March 25, 1937.

^18. “Hershey Plant Closed,” Harrisburg Patriot, April 3, 1937 and “Chocolate Workers End Sit-Down Strike,” New York Times, April 3, 1937.

^19.Quirke, Eyes on Labor, 123.

^20. “The Affair at Hershey,” New York Times, April 9, 1937.

^21. “Hershey Plant Closed, ” Harrisburg Patriot, April 3, 1937.

^22. “Hershey Strife Near in Renewed Sit-Down,” New York Times, April 7, 1937.

^23. “Farmers Loses From Strike at Hershey Plant,” Harrisburg Patriot, April 5, 1937. Note: The head of the Hershey Creamery exaggerated the amount of milk sold to Hershey daily, stating that it was 800,000 pounds per day, a near doubling of the stated level of the strike's first day. A quart of milk weighs two pounds, hence 240,000 quarts is 480,000 pounds, not 800,000.

^24.Quirke, Eyes on Labor, 123.

^25. “Violating Fair Play,” Harrisburg Patriot, April 5, 1937.

^26. Sit-down strikes were not declared illegal until the February 27, 1939 Supreme Court ruling LRB v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corporation. Prior to then it was an open question as to whether sit-downs violated trespass ordinances.

^27. “Farmers, Crippled by Hershey Sit-in Win Milk Outlet,” Harrisburg Patriot, April 6, 1937. Note: Still another figure was given for milk purchases: 700,000 pounds. The creamery could continue to operate as the chocolate-making process used condensed skim milk.

^28. “‘Loyal’ Employees at Hershey Unite; Sit-Downers Back,” Harrisburg Patriot, April 7, 1937. Note: If those numbers were accurate, loyalists outnumbered unionists. A reported 2100 of 2400 workers had joined the CIO. If 1300 defected, the number of sit-down strikers on the strike's final day could not have been a thousand.

^29. “Farmers and Workers Drive Sit-In Strikers from Plant at Hershey; 25 are Injured,” Harrisburg Patriot, April 8, 1937. A fleeing striker allegedly stabbed one loyalist with an ice pick.

^30. Lavere and Dorothy Spohn, Interview by Kay Kreider, Hershey, PA, 1982, File 890H48. All interviews are housed at the Hershey Community Archives, where they are grouped by the year in which interviews were conducted. Spohn took many photos of the strike. Alas, these were destroyed in a fire.

^31. Mary Hubler, Interview by Kay Kreider, Hershey, PA, 1982, File 890H43.

^32. “Work Resumed at Hershey Plant as Conciliators Meet,” Harrisburg Patriot, April 8, 1937.

^33. “Sit-Downs Barred by ‘Plain People’ of Hershey Section,” Pittsburgh Gazette, April 12, 1937. Note: Skepticism of the paper's account is enhanced by the fact each of the Pietistic religions noted have strong pacifist traditions that made it unlikely that their members would have comfortable using violence to expel strikers.

^34. “Benefited Labor, Hershey Asserts,” New York Times, April 12, 1937.

^35. Mario Schiavoni, Interview by Eleanor Schneider, 1999, File 990H04, HCA; James DeSantis, Interview by Kay Kreider, 1982, File 89H63, HCA.

^36. Henry Stump, Interview by Monica Spiese, 1992, File 920H10, HCA; Paul Miller, Interview by Shelley Brendel, 1992, File 92OH46; Harold H. Hamilton, Interview by Shelley Brendel, 1992, File 92OH38, HCA. See also Quirke, Eyes on Labor, 123.

^37. “Earle ‘Will Not Tolerate’ Mob Rule in Pennsylvania,” New York Times, April 9, 1937. See also Reading Eagle, April 10, 1937 (untitled news item).

^38. “The Affair at Hershey,” New York Times, April 9, 1937 and “Pickets Routed at Bellefonte,” Harrisburg Patriot, April 10, 1937.

^39. “Wagner Act is Upheld By Supreme Court in Five to Four Decision,” “Settle Strike at Hershey, Harrisburg Patriot, April 13, 1937 and 2 Unions Ask Recognition,” Harrisburg Patriot, April 13, 1937.

^40. “Peace Delayed in Hershey Row,” Daily Boston Globe, April 9, 1937 and “Hershey Plant Again Picketed,” Daily Boston Globe, April 9, 1937.

^41. “Fire Levels Barn of Farmer Who Opposed Strike”; “Vote on Union at Hershey Today”; “Rout CIO Group at Stoverdale”; “Hershey Poll Rejects CIO by 2 to 1 Majority”; Harrisburg Patriot, April 14, 1937; April 22, 1937; April 23, 1937; April 24, 1937.

^42. “New Union Against Sit-Down,” Harrisburg Patriot, November 10, 1937. See also “Workers Lay Plans for a Third Union”; “Independent Unions Form Federation”; “Un-Allied Unions Reveal Objectives”; “Heads Independent Union,” New York Times, April 27, 1937; August 1, 1937; August 10, 1937; November 28, 1937.

^43. D'Antonio, Hershey, 220.

^44. “Scenes Peaceful as Hershey Workers Begin Strike,” Lebanon Daily News, April 20, 1953.

^45. See NLRB v. Hershey Chocolate Corporation, 297F. 2D 286 3D Cir. (1961). The 1980 strike was over wages and ended in compromise, and that of 2002 over how much employees had to contribute to their health care plans.

^46.Brown, “Hershey Walkout Exposes.” The New York Times also gave extensive coverage to the 2011 strike.

^47. “Hershey Tense in Fear of New Strike Battle,” Chicago Tribune, April 9, 1937.

^48.Harrisburg Patriot, April 3, 1937. Note: The Harrisburg Patriot was the Commonwealth's paper of record. Pennsylvania's capital city is located just 21 miles from Hershey. The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Pittsburgh Gazette were, however far more influential as opinion-setters. At 1.9 million and 671,659 those two cities were, respectively, the 3rd and 10th largest in the United States at the time of the US Census. Harrisburg, by contrast, had fewer than 84,000 residents. The Inquirer tended to be critical of unions, though Philadelphia was a center of union strength.

^49.Philadelphia Enquirer and Public Ledger, March 21, 1937. Numerous March issues reported on sit-down strikes.

^50. A regional joke defines Pennsylvania as Philadelphia at one end, Pittsburgh at the other, and Alabama in the middle – an exaggeration, but one that captures the more conservative cast of the Commonwealth's midsection.

^51. Murphy qtd. in Brecher, Strike! 227.

^52.Fine, Sit-Down.

^53. “Farm Head Calls Sit-Downs Folly,” New York Times, April 15, 1937.

^54. “Social Cost,” Congressional Digest, May 1, 1937.

^55. Ibid.

^56. “The Battle at Hershey,” Los Angeles Times, April 9, 1937.

^57.Quirke, Eyes on Labor, 132. Note: Fear tactics such as these were an essential ingredient of the anti-union Mohawk Valley Plan, which was developed in 1937 to defeat a strike at the Remington Company in Ilion, New York, a rural one-industry town roughly the size of Hershey.

^58. It seems hard to believe that James would not have been involved behind the scenes at Hershey, as he had pledged to dismantle Earle's reforms and aggressively promoted a pro-business agenda.

^59. “George Earle II Historical Marker,” Explore PA History.com, Accessed January 23, 2014. http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId = 1-A-331; “Arthur Horace James Historical Marker,” Explore PA History.com, Accessed January 23, 2014. http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId = 1-A-341. Note: Davis was reelected by a 7.2% margin and polled 279,148 more votes than Earle.

^60.Myer, “Rise and Fall,” 208.

^61.Edwards, Strikes in the United State and Lens, Labor Wars, 355.Edwards shows the following data concerning sit-down strikes (141).

^62. Thanks to Bruce Laurie, who reminded me that quickies were underreported.

^63.Zieger, CIO, 49 and Lichtenstein, State of the Union, 50.

^64.Zieger, CIO, 46.

^65.Fine, Sit-Down, 332.

^66. Woody Guthrie, “I Ain't Got No Home in this World,” Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. & TRO-Ludlow Music, Inc. (BMI), copyright 1961, renewed 1963.

^67.Kazin, “Sit-Down Strike Returns!”

^68.Gross, “Spark We Need.”

^69. “How We Sat Down–And Won,” Workers' Power, March 13–26, 1975, Accessed May 19, 2014. http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/workerspower/wp116.pdf and White, “Crime of Staging an Effective Strike” and Fairris, Shopfloor Matters and Arena, “Little Car that Did Nothing Right.” Note: Although the 1989 Pittston strike is often viewed as a rare worker's victory during the Reagan-Bush years, some 4000 workers were arrested and the United Mine Workers paid tens of millions of dollars in fines.

^70.LeDuff, Detroit, 6.

^71.Burns, “Viewpoint.”

^72. New York city newspapers covered the school bus strike extensively in January and February of 2013. Those seeking details can follow it in the New York Times, the New York Post, and the New York Daily News, as well as the archives of the Huffington Post, the Socialist Worker, and New York Magazine; “Pickers Strike in Sakura Bros Berry Fields, gain wage victories [sic on lower case], September 11, 2013, Accessed January 30, 2014. http://karani.wordpress.com/2013/09/11/pickers-deploy-sit-down-strikes-at-sakuma-bros-farm-gain-wage-victories/

^73. Taft-Hartley Act, Accessed January 30, 2014. http://www.nalc1414.org/Taft-Hartly.pdf . See also, White, “Crime of Staging an Effective Strike.” Note: Taft-Hartley does not specify sit-downs as illegal, an unnecessary action given the Fansteel decision, but it provided employers with more weapons and increased the likelihood that further illegal acts would occur during a hastily called sit-down.

^74.Frank, Women Strikers Occupy Chain Store, 7. See also Katyal and Peñalver, “Occupy's New Tactic”

^75. “Imagine: Sit-Down Strikes in Fast Food,” Industrial Worker (Philadelphia), December 1, 2012. Note: Fast Food and other service workers did indeed launch a mass job action during the summer of 2013. They chose, however, a less-strident 1-day walkout. To date, little has come of the demand for a living wage.

^76. Note: Not all job loss at Lordstown was due to the strike. Chevy Vega's unreliability and weak sales contributed greatly, as did increasing mechanization and an overall slump in the auto industry. Lordstown presently produces the Chevrolet Cruze and, as of 2013, had about 4500 employees – still a far cry from its salad days of the early 1970s. Two UAW locals represent workers there. The UAW's agreement to a two-tier wage system in 2008 has, however, reduced a new worker's real wages below 1972 levels ($5.28 per hour). New line workers now make $14 per hour, which translates to less than half the buying power of 1972 rates. See Núñez and Babson, Confronting Change.

^77. Schmadeke, “Republic Windows ex-CEO.” Kari Lydersen maintained a detailed blog on the struggles at Republic Windows, which became the basis for a book, Revolt On Goose Island.

^78. New Era Windows Cooperative, http://www.newerawindows.com/about-us/our-story. Accessed February 3, 2014.

^79.Greenhouse, “Work Strikes Planned” and Greenhouse, “$15 Wage in Fast Food.”

^80.Rees and Pollack, Voice of the People, 65.

^81.Jackson, “Aw, Sit Down!”

^82. Dubofsky, American Labor, 94.

^83. The marker has a slight inaccuracy in that it says workers voted to join Local 464 in 1939. The certification vote actually came in 1938, and the first contract in 1939.

^84.Frank, Women Strikers Occupy Chain Store, 10.

^85.Lens, Labor Wars, 355.

^86. Although both Colin Gordon and Lizabeth Cohen give great credit to militant workers for influencing New Deal legislation, both also see those laws as securing rights that workers would have been hard put to achieve on the shopfloor. Gordon, New Deals and Cohen, Making a New Deal.Dubofsky was highly critical of refracting 1930s labor through a lens of radical direct action. See “Not So Turbulent Times: A New Look at the 1930s.”

^87.Brecher, Save the Humans, 105.

^88. “Hoffman Tells Why He Warned Labor Unions,” Miami Daily News, February 21, 1937.

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Robert E. Weir

Rob Weir teaches at Smith College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is a former senior Fulbright scholar, the author or editor of seven books on American labor and social history, and numerous journal articles and reviews. He is also a freelance journalist and the executive secretary of the Northeast Popular/American Culture Association.