New Orleans General Strike began - November 8, 1892

On this day in 1892, workers in New Orleans went on a general strike. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio Hello Again. I'm Eves and you're listening to
This Day in History Class, a show where we dropped
history knowledge every single day. Today is November eighteen. The

(00:23):
day was November eight A general strike began in New Orleans, Louisiana,
after it had been postponed twice. The strike ended four
days later, with workers winning many of the demands they
called for. In May of eighteen, two street car operators
in New Orleans one shorter hours, moving from sixteen hour

(00:44):
days to twelve hour days, and they won a closed shop,
which is when an employer only hires union members. That summer,
black and white workers organized many new labor unions, so
that forty nine local unions were soon part of the
American Federation of Labor or a f L. The unions
organized a local labor federation called the working Men's Amalgamate Council,

(01:08):
which met in integrated sessions. The late nineteenth century was
a time characterized by racial violence, segregation, convict leasing, and
the restriction of jobs for black workers, but there were
integrated jobs and labor demonstrations. Three racially integrated unions, the
Round Freight Teamsters and Loaders Union, the Scalesman's Union, and

(01:31):
the Warehousemen and Packers Protective Union made up the so
called Triple Alliance. The Triple Alliance went to the Board
of Trade, the employer's organization, demanding a preferential union's shop,
ten hour day and over time pay, but the Board
of Trade announced that it refused to enter into agreements
with black people. On October twenty, members of the Triple

(01:55):
Alliance went on strike, and the president of the Workingmen's
Amalgamated Council said that it's unions would strike if a
settlement wasn't reached, but the Board said that it would
work with the scalesman and packers, who were mostly white,
but not with the teamsters, as most black workers were teamsters,
and it went even further to stoke racial fears, saying

(02:16):
that the Triple Alliance was threatening to put employers and
control of the docks under a quote big black negro.
The press even attempted to inflame tensions, accusing white unionists
of being sympathetic to or controlled by, black people, and
claiming that black strikers were beating people up. But the
Triple Alliance and the Council did not fold, and a

(02:38):
general strike seemed imminent. Under increasing union pressure, the board
was compelled to negotiate a contract, but the bargaining collapsed
when the board would not budge on discussing the preferential union,
so a general strike began on November eight. About half
of the city's workforce, or around twenty five thousand union members,

(02:58):
participated in the general strike. Street cars stopped running, the
electrical grid stopped working, and the natural gas supply went empty. Firefighting, construction, printing,
and street cleaning services were also disrupted. Governor Murphy Foster
ordered five thousand state militia troops to New Orleans, but
the troops were withdrawn because the reports of chaos and

(03:21):
violence were exaggerated. The press continued to claim that black
strikers were violent and threats to white supremacy, but unionists
did not react to the appeals. Just days after the
strike began, the council called off the strike due to
the presence of the State militia, which remained outside the city,
and the Board of Trade agreed to negotiate. The union

(03:45):
went away to increased over time pay and a ten
hour day, but the agreement did not include a preferential
union shop, and it did not grant recognition to the
unions of the Triple Alliance street car Workers union recognition ended.
The strike has been deemed a success by some contemporary
and current assessments since the strikers won many of their

(04:06):
demands and demonstrated racial solidarity. Critics have said that the
strike failed since it did not win the union shop.
But in the years following the general strike, riots broke
out between white and black workers. On the New Orleans docs,
I'm each deep Code and hopefully you know a little
more about history today than you do yesterday. If there's

(04:27):
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