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Labor Pains: Unions Struggle to Organize:
Organized labor gains strength during the Depression as workers unite to protect their jobs and wages. This trend is weaker in Indiana, however, where fiercely independent Hoosiers often view unions as a threat to individual liberty.
Throughout the 1930s, government and industry attempt to squelch labor. In 1932, Inland Steel and U.S. Steel deport thousands of Mexican workers brought in earlier as strikebreakers. When Terra Haute's 1935 general strike closes the city for two days, Governor McNutt invokes martial law.
Unions enjoy little support outside their own ranks -- but membership steadily expands. By 1939, 22 percent of Indiana's non-agricultural workers are unionized. Gradual success in organizing auto and steel workers lays the groundwork for even more rapid growth in the 1940s. |