Minneapolis Truckers Make History - Film on the 1934 Minneapolis Truckers Strikes

This film was produced by Labor Education Services at the University of Minnesota. Its based on an earlier documentary Labor's Turning Point. The video gives a good indication of the significance of the 1934 strike both in Minneapolis and more broadly in the US. There are a few facts and interpretations that I would quibble with, as it does play down both the level of strike breaking conducted by the Farmer Labor Party adminsitration, and also overstates in my opinion the signicance of both the National Recovery Act and the Wagner Act which established the National Labor Relations Board.

One positive is the inclusion of segments of interviews with Shaun "Jack" Maloney, who was a militant both in Local 574 at the time of the strike, and in the Communist League of America, the Trotskyist current which lead the strike, and built Local 574 and subsequently Local 544 into a leading force in the US labour movement until their removal from offce as consequence of convictions for subversion in 1941.

Maloney was imprisoned in 1938 for his involvement in a strike in Iowa.