Strikebreakers, Infiltrators, and the 1935–1936 Union-Busting Case Against Brown Shoe

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Strikebreakers, Infiltrators, and the 1935–1936 Union-Busting Case Against Brown Shoe

Brown Shoe Company / 1930s

During the Great Depression, Brown Shoe workers faced both collapsing wages and aggressive opposition to unionization. A government investigation found that employees at one plant were receiving only $2.50 to $3 for a sixty-hour week. When workers at the Vincennes, Indiana, plant struck for recognition in 1933, Brown closed the facility. The company was also reported to have used physical intimidation, hired a professional strike-breaking agency, and infiltrated unions. In 1934, company president John A. Bush hired the A. A. Ahner detective agency, which had a reputation for breaking strikes; the following year, the Illinois Federation of Labor pushed for a grand-jury investigation after a union representative was nearly tarred and feathered. Although the investigation produced no indictments, the Regional Labor Board in St. Louis later complained that Brown had intimidated employees through agents and officers and committed unfair labor practices. In 1936, the National Labor Relations Board cited the company for violating the Wagner Act after it dissolved the Salem local union, while Brown refused to reinstate workers fired for union activity. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 eventually forced higher wages for remaining Brown workers, but the labor conflict came as the company was already in financial crisis; Brown Shoe went bankrupt in June 1939, with its stock collapsing from a former high of $60 to a final recorded transaction of twenty cents.