About 500 Blue Card unionists then traveled by automobile to Treece, Kansas, where they demolished another hall of the CIO union. The caravan of cars continued to Galena, Kansas, where forewarned members of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers' International Union had barricaded their meeting hall. The mob formed before the hall, brandishing clubs. Firing broke out, and nine men were shot, one fatally. In the ensuing melee the hall was wrecked and the records of the union stolen. Twenty-five members of the Blue Card Union and ten members of the CIO were arrested and released on bond. A week after the riot occurred, six thousand members of the Blue Card Union voted to join the American Federation of Labor, with which organization they were subsequently affiliated.
The Kansas units of the CIO and A. F. of L. have not generally engaged in inter-union competition. As though a mutual agreement existed between both organizations, they have maintained and respected separate spheres of activity. The A. F. of L. has grown to 500 locals with a membership of about 75,000 in the State. The CIO counts approximately 25,000 members among Kansas workers and has concentrated its membership drive among oil, stove, furniture, packing plant, filling station, soap and glycerine, clay and pottery, paper and box workers. The United Mine Workers of America, which is now affiliated with the CIO has approximately 100 locals in the State. The one strike called in Kansas by the CIO a five-day sit-down at the Kansas City plant of Armour & Company was peacefully settled without arbitration. The Kansas Workers' Alliance, an organization of the unemployed, has an estimated membership of 4,500.
During the past few years labor has made considerable gains by the passing of several legislative measures. An industrial hygiene section in the division of sanitation of the State board of health was established in February 1936. Since its organization this section has been conducting surveys of industries in order to determine what potential exposure hazards, if any, exist in the industries, and to study the means of eliminating such occupational hazards as do exist. Silicosis, an occupational hazard existing in the Tri-State area (parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri) is not compensable under Kansas laws, and it is obvious that the organization of an industrial hygiene section means a great deal to the workers of the State.
The 1937 legislature passed laws covering all sections of the Federal social security program; ratified the Federal child-labor amendment, and adopted an unemployment compensation act. The 1938 session of the legislature revived the State's former minimum wage law.
Considerable progress is also to be noted in the relationship between the industrial and agricultural workers. Until comparatively recent years, the average Kansan was little interested in labor relationships unless they directly affected him. Except for the Populist movement of the i88o's, there had been no concerted action on the part of the farmer and industrial worker and Populism in Kansas was largely an agrarian movement.
In the last few years, however, a definite movement for joint action by farmers and industrial workers has been developing. Several meetings of the Farmers Union, the United Cannery, Agricultural Packing, and Allied Workers, and Labor's Non-Partisan League were held recently and programs for concerted action were drawn up. Representatives from Kansas participated. Several other such conferences with representatives of organized labor resulted in a greater understanding of each other's problems and increasing cooperation between the Farmers Union and organized labor. A notable example of such farmer-labor cooperation was the calling off of an impending Colorado beet workers' strike, largely through the efforts of agricultural labor union representatives and National Farmers Union officials. It is also of interest to note that the farm program resolution of the CIO convention, recently held in Pittsburg, cited the agreement recently drawn up and ratified in Colorado, under which the Farmers Union will organize beet growers, and the CIO cannery and agricultural workers will organize the beet workers, both to guarantee mutual recognition and collective bargaining.