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4 unusual facts about Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934


Jake Cooper

As a supporter of the strike he actively gathered large amounts of food for the workers and advocated the kinds of militant tactics that he was part of in the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934.

He was active in the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934 led by the Communist League of America and later became a member of the Socialist Workers Party and as a leading member of the SWP he was imprisoned under the Smith Act together with many other SWP leaders for opposing the US involvement in the Second World War.

Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934

A number of militant members, including several Communist Party members who had gone to the newly formed Communist League of America (Left Opposition) in the internal split following Trotsky's expulsion, became members of Local 574 in the early 1930s.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters was, under the leadership of Daniel Tobin in 1933, a conservative union averse to strikes.


James P. Cannon

Therefore when the labor movement revived in the early 1930s the Communist league was well placed to put its ideas into action in the Twin Cities and through their influence in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters the union rapidly grew after an historic dispute in 1934.


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