Strike by heating fitters in Zurich in 1932
The strike of the heating fitters in Zurich in 1932 began on May 9 and lasted around eight weeks. When a ban on demonstrations was issued, which the strikers wanted to oppose, a bloody clash with the police took place on June 15 , which went down in history as the “ Zurich Blood Night ”.
background
The background to the conflict was the competition between the Communist Party of Switzerland (KP) and the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (SP) for opinion leadership in the labor movement . In the city of Zurich , the SP has had an absolute majority since the municipal elections of 1931. Since the party split in 1921, the importance of the Communist Party in the city of Zurich had continuously declined. Their share of the vote, which was 10.9% in 1922, halved by 1931 to 5.8%. In contrast, that of social democratic competition rose sharply, from 31.2% in 1922 to 47.4% in 1931. In the workers' quarters, the shifts away from the communists and towards the social democrats were even more striking.
trigger
Trigger the strike of the planned wage cuts at the was heating engineers in the time of global economic crisis . The heating fitters decided to defend themselves against these measures and arranged a meeting for May 9, 1932 at 4 p.m. In a secret ballot, the fitters present decided the strike with 281 votes in favor, 62 against and abstentions. The elected strike leadership consisted of 27 people. 13 of them came from the metal workers' association, four from Sulzer AG , ten from other or no associations. Most of the members of the strike leadership were not organized in political parties. Three belonged to the KP and four to the SP . The Swiss Metal and Watch Workers Association (SMUV) and the Zurich trade union cartel rejected the strike as a breach of contract.
Riots
After weeks of strikes, which also included acts of sabotage, the city government issued a ban on demonstrations. The CP agitated against this in its press and called for people to disregard the ban. Against the will of the strike leadership, at the instigation of the communists, another rally took place on June 15 at Helvetiaplatz . When the 1000 to 4000 workers and people in solidarity with them were already moving towards Röntgenplatz , located in the industrial district , a former working-class district, to show solidarity with other workers, the police intervened. It was controversial whether they responded to attacks from the ranks of the demonstrators. As a result there were violent clashes that went down in history as the “Zurich Blood Night” . The police attacked the demonstrators with truncheons and sabers . There was one dead and 30 seriously injured, including 5 women.
End of strike and consequences
Following the "Bloody Night", the ban on demonstrations was extended. When an unauthorized protest meeting took place on Helvetiaplatz the following evening, the police did not intervene. On the sidelines of the rally, a 52-year-old cigarette dealer and member of the Swiss Association of Lithographers was beaten up by demonstrators. He suffered a lung injury, to which he succumbed on the night of June 22nd to 23rd.
Negotiations before the municipal unification office from June 22nd remained unsuccessful. Thereupon the Zurich city government intervened and started work on July 5th. In the agreement reached through their mediation, the scope of the wage cut was not reduced, but somewhat delayed. Thereupon the fitters decided with all against 17 votes to end the labor dispute.
The reappraisal of the strike, and in particular of the unrest of June 15, led to debates in the parliaments of the city and canton of Zurich in which social democrats, bourgeois and communists repeated their positions already expressed in the press. The riot process against leading Communist Party officials immediately after the riots had to be put down for lack of evidence. In contrast, in August 1933, 25 fitters were charged with coercion, trespassing and objecting and sentenced to a total of 180 days in prison.
Debt debate
Opinions diverge on responsibility for the riots. The SP saw responsibility for the communists who had incited the demonstrators.
Work-up
Similar clashes with demonstrators broke out in Geneva on November 9 of the same year, killing 13 people and injuring over 60 (" Blood Night of Geneva "). There it was not about a conflict within the left camp, but about an event by the fascist Union nationale led by Georges Oltramare , against which around 8,000 people from the left camp led by Léon Nicole demonstrated.
A memorial was erected in Geneva and commemorative events were held on the 75th anniversary in 2007. While the police in Zurich have been using rubber bullets in riots until recently, in Geneva they largely shy away from them so as not to evoke memories of 1932.
literature
- The bloody night and the workers' strike in Zurich in 1932 , brochure of the national leadership of the RGO ( Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition ), July 1932 (viewed in the Zurich Social Archives), shows the KP perspective
- Christian Koller : Strike Culture: Performances and Discourses of Labor Struggle in a Swiss-Austrian Comparison (1860–1950) (= Austrian Cultural Research , Volume 9). Lit-Verlag, Münster / Vienna 2009, pp. 344–376, ISBN 978-3-643-50007-6 .
- Steffen Lindig: “The decision is at the polls”: Social democracy and workers in Red Zurich 1928 to 1938. Zurich 1979.
- Marco Tackenberg, Dominique Wisler: The massacres of 1932. Protest, discourse and public . In: Swiss Journal for Political Science. Vol. 4, Iss. 2, 1998, pp. 51-78
- Josef Wandeler: The KPS and the economic struggles 1930–1933. Construction workers strike Basel, shoe workers strike Brüttisellen. Heating fitters strike Zurich, plumbing fitters strike Zurich. Verlag series W. Zurich 1978, ISBN 3-85854-003-X
- Rebekka Wyler: A chief fitter doesn't strike like an ordinary proletarian : the strike of the Zurich heating fitters in the summer of 1932 as a labor dispute between a divided group of workers. Licentiate thesis University of Zurich 2005.
- Marco Zanoli: Between class struggle, pacifism and spiritual national defense, page 62 ff.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dominique Wisler: The black block is raw and primitive, but also political ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Basler Zeitung , October 27, 2007, p. 7
