A 1930 pay change for Pittsburgh’s taxi drivers sparked a four-month running battle that observers described as “guerrilla warfare.” Before the drivers and companies would come to a begrudging agreement, at least one man would be killed, countless drivers and passengers injured and many cabs torched and smashed.
Little discussed today, the strike dominated headlines in 1930 — alongside stories of bootleggers and racketeers — and posed a threat to business across the city. It represented a particularly striking example of the deadly labor violence that marked parts of the 1920s and early ’30s.
The walkout
In 1929, buoyed with capital from a public stock offering, Chicago-based Parmelee Transportation Co. bought out cab companies across the country. It took control of Pittsburgh’s Yellow and Green companies, which operated several hundred taxis. “Drivers’ wages will not be changed for the present,” a company official said after the buyout.
That changed by January 1930, when the Pittsburgh taxi companies altered their wage scale. Bosses described the change as a raise, but veteran drivers called it an effective cut. Where the prior system gave longtime drivers $4 of their first $9 in fares and a smaller cut at higher revenues, the new system offered a flat $3.75 on the first $10 for everyone, with a higher-than-before rate past $10. When drivers protested, a company official blamed lazy veteran drivers: “It is a great benefit to men who are willing to work, but actually will be to the detriment of the drones.”
Drivers gathered Jan. 12 at a raucous meeting outside the Pennsylvania Railroad East Liberty station (today near the Village of Eastside shopping center) and agreed to strike. Parmelee officers rushed to the city; drivers met at Duquesne Garden under police guard and chose a strike committee. They would affiliate with the Teamsters Local 249, with some 1,400 drivers walking out. Their demands: 40 percent of their fares, a 10-hour day instead of 12 hours, a six-day week instead of seven, company-paid gas, oil and repairs, and recognition of their union. “At 2 o’clock a general strike call was spread throughout the city and by 5 o’clock cabs were few and far between,” the Post-Gazette reported.
Scabs and supporters
Parmelee moved to break the strike almost immediately. Within two days, scab drivers from as far as Philadelphia were manning cars despite attacks by pickets. Police arrested many of the unlicensed replacements; when they were released from booking, they faced showers of stones and bolts from strikers. Company officers insisted service would resume, even if only in daylight. Meanwhile, the strikers established their own emergency cab service, dispatched from the strike headquarters, to ensure some rides could continue. The placards read: “Union car, free for emergency service.”
Labor allies attended rallies to back the strikers, while radicals stirred up interest. The Conference for Progressive Labor Action, the leftist group formed by noted radical A.J. Muste, made a statement of support, while the Communist Party-affiliated International Labor Defense offered its services. Police arrested two women, aged 19 and 21, for distributing Communist literature outside the strikers’ kitchen. Local Trotskyist James Sifakis wrote about the strike in the movement’s national newspaper, The Militant: “The strikers are determined to continue their struggle until they win their demands.”
Guerrilla warfare
On Jan. 24, the companies moved to offload strikebreakers from the Pennsylvania Railroad station, sparking a riot that left several seriously injured. The Pittsburgh Press described it:
“Here they come!” someone shouted. Then a brick crashed against the leading taxi. In 30 seconds the air was filled with bricks, stones and clubs. Glass in the cabs was shattered. The machines’ bodies were badly dented. Pedestrians scurried to safety as the call for police reserves went out. The cab drivers, taking a desperate chance, gave their cars the gas and plunged through the scattering crowd.
By late January, the strike was noticeably affecting business throughout the city. Nightclubs reported drastic attendance drops; one resorted to offering its own private shuttle service. Independent cab drivers, or “hackers,” reported sleeping three hours a night as they gouged customers around the clock. Theatrical performances were modified to include topical references to the strike.
Further outbreaks of violence characterized the weeks of “guerrilla warfare.” On Feb. 13, police responded to at least seven riots as hundreds of strikers and scabs waged pitched battles over dozens of square blocks in East Liberty. A car was flipped and torched. “The limited number of police on duty in the East End found the task of following the rapid change of battlefront a difficult one,” the Press reported. Scores had already been injured since mid-January.
A worker dead
The night of Feb. 19, according to police, a crowd of strikers surrounded parked cabs at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad station Downtown (today near the PNC Firstside Center). Officers rushed to the scene, and in an altercation — police claimed a car rushed toward them — one fired a shot at 24-year-old William Dreibhold. The bullet struck Dreibhold in the head, killing him. Organizers said he was an ex-driver who had turned out to support his two brothers, both on strike.
The strikers mourned Dreibhold, gathering at his home and marching to his funeral. A flower arrangement outside, in the shape of a taxicab, bore the union’s name.
Within days of Dreibhold’s killing, Mayor Charles Kline issued an ultimatum to the cab companies: No further cabs would run in the city, he said, citing “open war” on the streets and the unwillingness of both sides to compromise.
“A taxi strike, when carried on in the congested streets of any metropolitan community, presents a most extraordinary condition. If a man owns a factory and has a strike, it is a comparatively easy matter with which to deal. . . . But in the case of a taxi strike and an attempt to operate, the peace officers are compelled to deal with movable, not immovable property.”
The cab companies took Kline’s order as a challenge, and threatened to go to court to stop him. Meanwhile, the strikers held firm. In an overwhelming vote in late February, they rejected the latest company offer of 37.5 percent of fares, paid uniforms and a employee representation group in place of a union. “The battle is just as intense as ever,” their leaders told reporters. They still demanded a union shop and 40 cents on the dollar.
“Order at all costs”
Third parties took a growing role in negotiations, with federal labor officials and the pro-union Roman Catholic clergyman the Rev. James Cox helping to mediate. A few days into March, union lawyers presented the strike committee’s new offer to the companies. Hazy details in the press suggested they would accept 37.5 percent of fares along with a local union, not affiliated with a national body. The offer was declined, but negotiations were ongoing — a hint of light for those seeking labor peace.
That light dimmed by late March, when scab taxi service resumed Downtown — with the mayor’s blessing and under heavy police protection. Inside each car was an sheriff’s deputy wielding a club, outside was a sign warning of a new court injunction against interference. “We were told to use the wood and use it plenty if trouble starts,” a police officer told reporters. The police chief said: “My men have been instructed to preserve order at all costs.”
In the days that followed, the companies expanded scab taxi service, first into the evening hours and then into neighborhoods farther afield. Special deputies guarding the cars were dismissed. A judge ruled the union’s emergency cab service was illegal. For a time, it seemed as through the strike was wavering, with officials arguing that service must continue “in the public interest.”
Then, three months into the strike, violence flared anew as rioters smashed cars and attacked drivers. Police claimed union men were using decoy passengers to lure scabs into waiting squads of strikers. Soon, even the scabs walked out, citing repeated pay cuts since Parmelee resumed service. “Most of us are quitting tonight,” one told reporters. Beatings and brick-throwing continued, night after night. Newspapers as far as Philadelphia complained of lawlessness and overwhelmed police on the streets of Pittsburgh.
A deal is struck
Under pressure from government and would-be independent arbitrators, negotiations continued on and off. Then, in early May, a flurry of activity signaled a possible end to the strike. Dispatches suggested deals on pay, perhaps even union status, although drivers remained adamant that scabs should be dismissed. Militant strike leaders, some apparently affiliated with the Communist Party’s Trade Union Unity League, whipped against a deal.
At last, on May 10, the newspapers showed details of a potential agreement. Pay would be set at 37.5 percent, work would be on a six-day week and 10-hour day, and some tool expenses would be covered. Strikers would be reinstated with their seniority. And union members would purportedly not be punished for their status, although the companies would remain effectively open shops. Strikers were to submit their votes by mail.
The final vote went in favor of the deal 471 to 338. The two negotiating teams met amid smiles and handshakes, with carnations and apples handed out as they formally agreed to end the strike. On May 16, taxis rolled out of their stations, union drivers at (some of) their wheels. “Everybody’s happy,” the Post-Gazette reported in a certain exaggeration. “Drivers and officials of the taxi cab companies, pedestrians, potential cab users, millionaires and paupers were all smiling yesterday as the long drawn out taxi strike came to an end and service was once more placed on a ‘pre-war’ basis.”
The deal raised standards for other drivers in the region: Within days of the tentative deal, 50 McKeesport cab drivers struck for a similar pay scale and won a 5-cent-per-dollar increase. The Pittsburgh battle would continue in the coming years; another strike would begin in 1931 over firings and hour cuts (to be covered, perhaps, in a future Red Pittsburgh post). But the 1930 strike shows the mass violence that followed when transportation workers struck in an age before New Deal-era labor protections.
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