1911 Grand Rapids furniture workers' strike
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The 1911 Grand Rapids furniture workers' strike was a general strike performed by furniture workers in Grand Rapids, which was then a national leader of furniture production.[2][3]
1911 Grand Rapids furniture workers' strike | |||
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Date | April 19 – August 19, 1911 (121 days) | ||
Location | |||
Goals |
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Methods | Labor strike | ||
Resulted in |
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Parties | |||
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Lead figures | |||
William MacFarlane Mayor George E. Ellis Francis D. Campau Reverend Wesley Wishart | |||
Casualties | |||
Arrested | 25[1] |
Furniture businessmen of Grand Rapids held control of the city's industry and banking sectors, growing so influential that they were able to price fix national furniture production.[4] While Grand Rapids' economy grew, the wages of furniture laborers did not increase, with the city's furniture businesses collaborating on controlling their workers by establishing identical wages and creating an identification system that monitored the political sympathies and productivity of individual employees.[1][4]
Displeased with their treatment by employers, workers demanded furniture companies to provide increased pay, lower work hours and the creation of collective bargaining between laborers and employers.[3] After months of businesses refusing to meet with their workers, the strike began on April 19, 1911. It lasted for four months until leaders of the Christian Reformed Church – its Dutch American members comprised the majority of the labor movement – publicly denounced the efforts of workers, effectively ending the strike.[3][5]
The strike resulted with city businesses becoming more direct with their political involvement, with companies placing their own representatives into public office and successfully lowering the number of city wards from twelve wards that accurately represented the city's various ethnicities to three wards that provided more voting power to the larger demographic of Dutch Americans.[3][4][5]