SF Embarcadero 1934 labor strike (1286c1)

I honestly had never heard anything about this particular strike, though it fits with the ongoing narrative in a lot of places in that era. (I think of what was happening in the coal mines at about the same time, for instance.) We were so close to a tipping point then, when things could have gone any number of directions. I need to do some reading.

I wonder how far we are from a tipping point now, except I have trouble seeing how organized labor can be a part of a solution. More and more, the dominant jobs are part-time, low-wage, unskilled service industry jobs, the kind of jobs far less affected by the threat of something like a strike. Turnover is high in these jobs, and organization is difficult--even when you don't have somebody like Wal-Mart fighting it all the way. Just from a logistical standpoint, it's difficult for me to see how the unions can be made to fit into today's post-manufacturing labor in any effective way. I'd like to think I'm just suffering from a lack of imagination.