Auto-Lite Strike - End of The Strike

End of The Strike

Over the next two weeks, Taft continued his negotiations. On May 28, the union agreed to submit their grievances to mediation, but Auto-Lite officials refused these terms. A company union calling itself the Auto-Lite Council injected itself into the negotiations, demanding that all replacement workers be permitted to keep their jobs. In contrast, the union demanded that all strikebreakers be fired. Meanwhile, Judge Stuart began processing hundreds of contempt of court cases associated with the strike. Arthur Garfield Hays, general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, traveled to Toledo and represented nearly all those who came before Judge Stuart.

On May 29, tensions worsened again. The Toledo Central Labor Council continued to plan for a general strike. By now, 68 of the 103 unions had voted to support a general strike, and the council was seeking a vote of all its member unions on Thursday, May 31. Auto-Lite executives, too, were busy. Miniger met with Governor George White and demanded that White re-open the plant using the National Guard. White refused, but quietly began drawing up contingency plans to declare martial law. Negotiations remained deadlocked, and Taft began communicating with United States Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins to seek federal support (including personal intervention by Roosevelt).

On May 31, the Toledo Central Labor Council asked President Roosevelt to intervene to avert a general strike. The CLC placed the final decision to hold a general strike in the hands of the Committee of 23, with a decision to be rendered on June 2. By this time, 85 of the CLC's member unions had pledged to support the general strike (with one union dissenting and another reconsidering its previous decision to support the general strike). The same day, leaders of FLU 18384 met with Governor White and presented their case. The media reported that both Labor Secretary Perkins and AFL president Green might come to Toledo to help end the strike. Despite no resolution to the strike, Toledo remained peaceful. Governor White had begun withdrawing National Guard troops a few days earlier, and by May 31 only 250 remained.

On June 1, the prospects of a general strike greatly subsided. A local affiliate of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which had threatened to strike on June 2, reached a tentative agreement for a 20 percent wage increase. The local approved the pact the same day. As Taft secured final agreement on the electrical workers' contract, he also kept all sides in the Auto-Lite strike negotiating round the clock in the same hotel. That night, a torchlight parade of 20,000 union members and their supporters peacefully marched through Toledo.

Auto-Lite and FLU 18384 reached a tentative agreement settling the strike on June 2, 1934. The union won a 5 percent wage increase, and a minimum wage of 35 cents an hour. The union also won recognition (effectively freezing out the company union), provisions for arbitration of grievances and wage demands, and a system of re-employment which favored (respectively) workers who had crossed the picket line, workers who struck, and replacement workers. Although Muste and Budenz advocated that the union reject the agreement, workers ratified it on June 3.

Governor White withdrew the final National Guard troops on June 5, 1934.

Toledo remained tense, however. When union officials complained on June 5 that not all striking workers had been rehired, Taft urged Auto-Lite officials to re-employ them immediately (although that was not required under the agreement). Auto-Lite did so on June 6, and a final crisis was averted. Instead of a general strike beginning on Friday, June 9, the Toledo CLC held a victory rally at which 20,000 people paraded.