Animal Farm: Chapter 7
In 1933, cotton workers were now being paid merely 40 cents per 100 lbs; it had dropped from 1 dollar. This decline in their wage had lead to a strike in October of that year, when 1800 workers walked out. Three quarters of them were Mexican and the remaining quarter was all blacks or whites. The growers tried to fight back and they started with firing all members of the strike from company owned labour camps, but this didn’t force the strikers to back off, it only pushed them further.
When the police started to shoot the strikers down, they held their ground in front of the county jail, trying to fight for freedom for the strikers already arrested. The police shot eleven and two died.
Twenty-four days had passed since all the workers had walked out; their wages had now been increased to 75 cents per 100 lbs and so the strike ended. Even though they did not get everything they wanted, such as union recognition and ending the labour contractor system.
For the rest of the 1930’s, workers fought for their right for a union, and they were beginning to be successful. They were doing this under the CIO and were trying to push for pro-labour legislation, like the National Labour Relations Act.
The cotton strike was neither the longest nor the most brutal, but it was very well important.
Because of the cotton strike and many other strikes in the early 1900’s, such as the Salinas strike and many others, the workers today, which is a very large part of the population today, would not have the privileges that they do to day. There would be no unions and no one to protect all the hard labourers of today.
