The 1926 Pas­sa­ic Tex­tile Strike began on Jan­u­ary 25 th , 1926 and last­ed through March 1 st , 1927. The work stop­page involved more than 15,000 wool and silk work­ers in and around Pas­sa­ic, New Jer­sey who mobi­lized in response to a 10 per­cent cut in their already mea­ger wages. The Pas­sa­ic Tex­tile Strike is notable for the use of force against the demon­stra­tors, the debates over free speech, the role of intel­lec­tu­als and intel­lec­tu­al­ism, and for being the Com­mu­nist Party’s first attempt to orga­nize a large-scale demon­stra­tion encom­pass­ing the region’s tex­tile industry.

Before the Pas­sa­ic Tex­tile Strike, the Unit­ed Tex­tile Work­ers (UTW), an affil­i­ate of the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Labor (AFL), attempt­ed to orga­nize the tex­tile work­ers; how­ev­er, like in the Pater­son Silk Strike of 1913, the mill man­agers pur­pose­ly hired immi­grants from many dif­fer­ent coun­tries to pre­vent the work­ers from eas­i­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ing and orga­niz­ing. Thus, Albert Weis­bord, an active mem­ber of the Inter­na­tion­al Work­ers of the World (IWW) and com­mu­nist and social­ist par­ties, left New Eng­land for Pas­sa­ic to orga­nize the tex­tile work­ers. He cre­at­ed and led the Unit­ed Front Com­mit­tee (UFC), a com­mu­nist-affil­i­at­ed sub­group of the Trade Union Edu­ca­tion­al League (TUEL). With­in two months of his arrival, Weis­bord and the UFC enrolled approx­i­mate­ly 1,000 work­ers to union­ize the region’s tex­tile work­ers. UFC mem­bers artic­u­lat­ed the fol­low­ing goals: “(1) abo­li­tion of the wage cut and a 10 per­cent increase in wages over the old scale; (2) reim­burse­ment of the mon­ey tak­en from the work­ers by the wage cuts since the time the cuts were imposed; (3) time-and-a-half for over­time; (4) a forty-four-hour week; (5) decent san­i­tary work­ing con­di­tions; (6) no dis­crim­i­na­tion against union mem­bers, and (7) recog­ni­tion of the union.”

When UFC mem­bers asked only for an abo­li­tion of the wage cut, over­time wages, and non-dis­crim­i­na­tion of union mem­bers from Colonel F. H. John­son, the man­ag­er of the Botany Worsted Mills, he fired all 45 UFC mem­bers on the spot. With­in an hour, 4,000 Botany Mills work­ers had formed a pick­et line. By the end of the week, work­ers from Ger­al Mill, the Pas­sa­ic Worsted Spin­ning Mill, and the Garfield Worsted Mill had joined the strike, total­ing approx­i­mate­ly 8,000 strikers.

On Feb­ru­ary 9, 1926, strik­ing tex­tile work­ers, their fam­i­lies, and their sup­port­ers attempt­ed to cross the bridge from Pas­sa­ic into Clifton, NJ to shut down the Clifton Forstmann & Huff­man Mill. Police bru­tal­ly attacked the pick­eters and forced them to turn around; how­ev­er, the fol­low­ing day, the strik­ers ral­lied fur­ther sup­port and were able to break through the police lines. Two months into the strike, 15,000 strik­ers had been assem­bled. These indi­vid­u­als walked dai­ly in pick­et lines at their tar­get­ed mills, and a striker’s com­mit­tee, com­prised of work­ers from each mill, met each morn­ing at 9:00. Strik­ers gar­nered finan­cial sup­port from across the nation by cre­at­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing a sev­en-reel silent film about their efforts, called The Pas­sa­ic Tex­tile Strike.

The Pas­sa­ic City Coun­cil attempt­ed to out­law pick­et­ing and pub­lic meet­ings by intro­duc­ing a Riot Act on Feb­ru­ary 25th, 1926. Regard­less, on March 1, 2,000 strik­ers gath­ered in Pas­sa­ic. The fol­low­ing day, the police attacked the assem­bled group with clubs, tear gas, and high-pres­sure cold water from the fire depart­ment. This con­tin­ued into the fol­low­ing day. By March 3, pick­eters, their fam­i­lies, and the media came pre­pared with steel hel­mets, and the police con­tin­ued their attacks and arrests. On April 10, 5,000 child work­ers and school chil­dren marched in sup­port of the strike. They, too, were attacked by the police.

By the end of April, the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union (ACLU) had inter­vened, object­ing to the enforce­ment of the Riot Act and mar­tial law. Despite this, on July 26, Pas­sa­ic police chief, Richard Zober, ordered the police to attack the strik­ers with clubs once again. As a result, the Asso­ci­at­ed Soci­eties and Church­es of Pas­sa­ic, com­prised of Russ­ian, Pol­ish, Slo­va­kian, and Hun­gar­i­an immi­grants, gath­ered to medi­ate a set­tle­ment between mill man­age­ment and mill work­ers, and they ulti­mate­ly sided with the strik­ers, call­ing the com­pa­nies ​“Kaiser-like.”

Albert Weis­bord and his com­mu­nist coun­ter­parts came under scruti­ny, cul­mi­nat­ing in the AFL’s insis­tence that com­mu­nist lead­er­ship of the UTW be dis­band­ed. In August 1926, the change in lead­er­ship occurred and the new, more con­ser­v­a­tive UTW Local 1603 took over. How­ev­er, the mill com­pa­nies still refused to nego­ti­ate. Unde­terred, the strik­ers estab­lished a ​“Com­mit­tee of Five,” con­sist­ing of local res­i­dents and cler­gy­men. On Novem­ber 12, 1926, the Pas­sa­ic Worsted Com­pa­ny signed an agree­ment to the fol­low­ing terms: “(1) recog­ni­tion of the union; (2) the right of the work­ers to bar­gain col­lec­tive­ly; (3) no dis­crim­i­na­tion in rehir­ing; (4) arbi­tra­tion for fur­ther dis­putes, and (5) no out­side help to be engaged until all the strik­ers were reem­ployed.” Six hun­dred work­ers at the Worsted Mill met, vot­ed, and accept­ed the terms. The Botany Mills, Garfield Worsted Mill, and the Dundee Tex­tile Com­pa­ny fol­lowed suit. Oth­er mills refused to sign con­tracts with their work­ers, only offer­ing to ​“endeav­or to re-employ as many of our for­mer work­ers as we pos­si­bly can, with­out demon­stra­tion.” By March 1st, all of the work­ers had vot­ed to end their strike.

After the strike, the mill com­pa­nies broke their agree­ments with their work­ers, fir­ing them only to rehire them at low­er wages. The UTW no longer had enough sup­port to object; with­in two years of the strike end­ing, UTW mem­ber­ship dwin­dled to less than 100 and com­plete­ly dis­ap­peared short­ly thereafter.

This sto­ry first appeared at the Vir­ginia Com­mon­wealth Uni­ver­si­ty Social Wel­fare His­to­ry Project.