Everett Machinists Strike for the Eight-Hour Day
As local metal workers walk off the job, the Chamber of Commerce hides behind 'open shop' rhetoric to suppress the growing union movement.
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On June 1st, machinists from Los Angeles to Vancouver went on strike, with ninety percent of workers on the coast heeding the call for an eight-hour workday. In Seattle, nineteen shops have signed, with others joining in Portland and Tacoma. Locally, the situation hinges on the Sumner Iron Works, where the entire skilled force is out. While smaller shops have expressed willingness to sign the new schedule, they are being pressured by manufacturers to resist. The Chamber of Commerce, in passing its 'open shop' resolution, has essentially slapped union men in the face, using the policy as a smokescreen to reject the shorter workday. Despite threats of intimidation and the potential import of strike-breakers, the workers remain firm, driven by a new spirit of interdependence and union brotherhood.
“If the truth were told the manufacturers do not fear the shorter workday half so much as they do the spirit of unionism.”
Everett’s labor history is defined by the struggle for the eight-hour day and the tension between organized labor and local business interests. Today’s debates over 'independent contracting' and gig labor echo this 1910 conflict, where the definition of 'who works for whom' remains a volatile civic fault line.
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