On Memorial Day 1937, Chicago police murdered 10 union picketers and permanently disabled nine more, shooting most in the back as they ran. The police killed them for having the audacity to demand their employer, Republic Steel, recognize and bargain with their union.
US Steel had recognized its workers' union, they'd just seen GM workers run a powerful forty day sit-down strike and they weren't willing to risk it. But Republic Steel and its chairman, Tom Girdler, wouldn't bend. He wouldn't help hand the US over to Communism, he said.
Prior to this, the steel industry had kept unions out by brutal force for decades. Unions aren't right for us, they'd said. They're full of radicals, they said. But by 1937, workers had finally built the power to win. It was a victory that some paid for with their lives.
No police were ever prosecuted for their murders. FDR told the union, "a plague on both your houses." A newsreel that showed the massacre unfold in graphic detail was kept from the public so they wouldn't see police firing on running protesters.
Today, more and more workers are ready to fight for a union. Like then, the law, the government, and the media are against us.

But it's our human and legal right to have a union. A right that people died for. And we'll stand with you against anyone who tries to take that away.
You can follow @phillydignity.
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