Remington Rand strike
| 1936–1937 Remington Rand strike | |
|---|---|
| Part of Labor Unions | |
| Date | May 25, 1936–April 21, 1937 (89 years ago) |
| Location | United States |
| External videos | |
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| 1936 - Remington Rand Strike, Ohio 220572-05 |
From May 1936 to April 1937, a strike against the Remington Rand company was conducted by a federal union affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The strike settlement would not be fully implemented until mid-1940. The union had managed to organize six plants of the company, which were located in the towns of Tonawanda, Ilion and Syracuse in New York; in Middletown, Connecticut; and in Marietta and Norwood in Ohio.
The strike is notorious for spawning the "Mohawk Valley formula," a corporate plan for strikebreaking to discredit union leaders, frighten the public with the threat of violence, use local police and vigilantes to intimidate strikers, form puppet associations of "loyal employees" to influence public debate, fortify workplaces, employ large numbers of strikebreakers, and threaten to close the plant if work is not resumed. The Mohawk Valley formula was described in an article by company president James Rand, Jr., and published in the National Association of Manufacturers Labor Relations Bulletin in the fourth month of the strike. The article was widely disseminated in pamphlet form by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) later that year.
In a landmark decision, the National Labor Relations Board called the Mohawk Valley formula "a battle plan for industrial war."