Apolitical Activism Ambushed

The MFA was re-negotiated in 1970. Its new terms disappointed Teamsters nationally and, in addition, attacked workers’ ability to take direct action against the employers. Wildcat strikes broke out in several locations. In Ohio, the National Guard was mobilized against the strikers. In Los Angeles, employers and union officials tried to crush Local 208 and other democratic activists. This led to a ten-week strike/lockout that disrupted freight in the Los Angeles region. Police attacked picket lines and to some extent brutalized strikers. Employers fired 10,000 workers, but the strike’s strength forced this to be reduced to 500. I describe how the rank-and-file strikers organized a strike committee and picket lines. By the end of the strike, the apolitical activism of 208’s rank-and-file leadership became more strategic, so they sent picketers to close down freight in San Francisco and invited student and other campus radicals from the region to join their picket lines. (This was during the nationwide student strikes against the Nixon Administration’s extending the Vietnam War to Cambodia.) These actions frightened both the employers and the Teamster bureaucracy, and, together with the strikers’ standing firm, led to negotiations that ended the wildcat.