The Hard-Won Fight for the Eight-Hour Day
While union machinists in Northern California celebrate a hard-won victory, their counterparts in the Pacific Northwest face strike-breakers and police intimidation.
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The metal trades and machinists of San Francisco, Oakland, and Sacramento have secured an eight-hour agreement for one year. This success stands in stark contrast to the Pacific Northwest, where men like Gibson, Frink, and Paterson face union-busting tactics, including the importation of 'plug-uglies' who were granted police powers by local administrations. In Los Angeles, union members have even faced imprisonment for exercising free speech. Despite these odds, Everett machinists remain solid after a five-month strike, proving that high-speed machinery and modern steel require skilled, rested labor rather than desperate, inexperienced replacements.
“Strange world this we live in, where men high in the councils of societies that proclaim the brotherhood of man... will use every means at their disposal to defeat that which they proclaim they so ardently desire.”
Everett has a long history of intense industrial conflict rooted in labor rights. The rhetoric here mirrors contemporary concerns about the treatment of essential workers and the influence of private interests on municipal police forces.
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