The Auto-Lite Strike of 1934: When Toledo Changed American Labor
Near Toledo, Ohio
In the spring of nineteen thirty-four, workers at the Electric Auto-Lite plant on Champlain Street walked off the job. They wanted a five percent raise and union recognition. What they got was one of the most significant labor battles in American history.
Auto-Lite made automotive electrical components, and its workers had been pressing for union recognition for years under the banner of a federal local union of the American Federation of Labor. The company refused to negotiate seriously and obtained injunctions against mass picketing. Workers defied the injunctions. In early May, the company obtained a court order and sought police enforcement.
What followed became known as the Battle of Toledo. Sympathetic unemployed workers, organized by a small radical group called the Lucas County Unemployment League, joined the picket lines by the thousands. On May seventh, sheriff's deputies attempted to clear the plant gates. The crowd resisted. Windows were broken. Tear gas was fired. Deputies were chased back inside the factory. For five days, running battles raged in the streets around the plant as the crowd swelled to nearly ten thousand people.
Governor George White called in more than thirteen hundred National Guardsmen with bayonets and machine guns. The guardsmen attempted to disperse the crowd with tear gas. The crowd threw the canisters back. On May twenty-fourth, the Guard opened fire with rifles. Two people were killed: Steve Cyigon and Frank Hubay. More than two hundred people were injured in the confrontation.
The strike ended June second with union recognition, a wage increase, and binding arbitration on grievances. Labor historians rank it among the three most significant strikes in American history, alongside the San Francisco general strike and the Minneapolis truckers strike of the same year. The combined pressure of all three helped build the political will for the National Labor Relations Act of nineteen thirty-five. Union Memorial Park now stands on the site of the old Auto-Lite plant. Two bronze picketers stand on a plaza of salvaged bricks.
