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Abstract: The ten-week strike by Sprague Electric Company workers in 1970 in the small city of North Adams, Massachusetts, marked a turning point in labor-management relations at the capacitor plant. After decades of workplace paternalism, Sprague employees voted down their weak local unions, joined national AFL-CIO unions, and struck for better wages, union security, and greater power on the job. During the strike, the union perspective achieved wide public view as its leaders used handouts, the local press, and access to civic organizations to rebut the Companys public relations offensive. The union push, combined with strong picket line solidarity and local support, enabled the strikers to win some of their key objectives. This study draws on oral histories, union archives, and company records to examine perceptions of the strike during 1970 and afterwards. While the Sprague strike is an important moment in Northeast labor history, its aftermath in North Adams also offers a capsule portrait of larger trends in deindustrialization, attacks on unions, and the rightward shift of the Democratic party. Maynard Seider, a professor emeritus of Sociology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA), recently completed his first film, Farewell to Factory Towns?, which traces the history of North Adams.
INTRODUCTION
In 1970 more than 2,000 blueand white-collar workers in North Adams engaged in a militant ten-week strike against Sprague Electric Company. Sprague had dominated employment in the northern Berkshires since World War II and had never before faced such a significant and lengthy strike. For much of its history in North Adams, the electronic component company held the upper hand in dealing with its weak labor unions, leaving the workforce low-paid and ill-protected on the shop floor. What precipitated the strike? And what created the strong sense of camaraderie among the production, office, and technical workers who came together to challenge the power of the world's largest capacitor company? And what would be the consequences of the mighty upsurge of 1970 to the community's memory, both immediately after the strike and years later?
Tucked in a valley in the northwestern corner of Massachusetts, North Adams possesses an industrial history similar to numerous other New England mill towns, with immigrants from Ireland, Wales, French-Canada, and Italy finding work in the textile and shoe...