Loray Mill Strike

The Loray Mill Strike in 1929 in Gastonia, North Carolina was one of the more influential labor strikes in the history of the United States. Though it was largely unsuccessful in its goals of better working conditions and wages, the strike did lead to an increased awareness of workers' rights nationwide.

Background

Located in the south-western piedmont of North Carolina, Gaston County had the ideal resources for manufacturing. With the abundance of water and the large potential workforce of failed farmers, [ John A. Salmond, Gastonia 1929: The Story of the Loray Mill Strike, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1995), xi] many northern industrialists came south in search of a reduced cost of labor. [Samuel Yellen, American Labor Struggles, (New York: Harbor Press, 1936), 292] Therefore the owners of the mills were willing to do most anything to keep the prices down, resulting in working in the mills being extremely dangerous and dirty. Often the workdays were so long that the women, who made up a considerable percentage of the workers, were rarely home to raise their children. Upon hearing about the detestable conditions in the Loray Mill, Fred Beal of the National Textile Workers Union (NTWU), a communist labor union, began focusing his attention on the small town of Gastonia as he sensed that it would soon be more than “just a dot on the map”. [ Salmond, Gastonia, 22.]

The Strike

The Strike at Loray Mill started at 3pm on April 1, 1929 as Fred Beal took a vote of the workers, which was unanimously in favor of a strike. The relatively low-key atmosphere was replaced by tension as Mayor Rankin then asked for help from the National Guard, which arrived on April 3. [ Salmond, Gastonia, 24.] The strike continued to escalate throughout the month. Nearly 100 masked men destroyed the NTWU’s headquarters on April 18, [ American, 304.] resulting in the NTWU starting a tent city on the outskirts of town that was protected by armed strikers at all times.

The situation continued through the next few months as the workers continued to strike despite the return to production at the Loray Mill, thus making their situation appear hopeless. [ Yellen, American, 308.] On June 7, 150 workers marched out to the mill to call out the night shift; this demonstration was attacked and dispersed by sheriff deputies. Later that night, four officers including Police Chief Aderholt arrived at the tent city and demanded that the guards hand over their weapons. When the strikers refused, an officer attempted to wrench a gun away from a striker resulting in several shots being fired and Chief Aderholt being mortally wounded.

The Trials and the Reign of Terror

71 strikers were arrested and 16 were indicted for murder (8 were strikers, and 8 were members of the NTWU including Beal). During the tense trial, a juror went insane and therefore the trial was labeled as a mistrial and was to be brought to court again. When the news of the mistrial was released a general wave of terror ran through the countryside. During the early part of September, mobs of men gathered up strikers and ran them out of the county. [ Yellen, American, 312.] These actions came to a head when, on September 14, a truck containing 22 strikers was chased down and fired upon. One female striker, Ella Mae Wiggins, was killed and seven men were charged with her murder (6 of them were employed by the Loray Mill).

The Effects

Only five of the 16 assailants were indicted and all were released despite solid evidence proving at least one of them fired the fatal shots, whereas the retrial of the strikers resulted in heavy sentences of many years behind bars. Overall the strike was not a success but resulted in worker’s rights throughout the country despite setting back labor unions decades in the South. [ Timothy J. Minchin, “Coming Into the Real World: Southern Textile Workers and the TWUA, 1945-1951,” Varieties of Southern History, (1996), 177-188]

References

http://www.lib.unc.edu/ncc/ref/nchistory/jun2004/loray.html