On October 24, between 2,000 and 3,000 members of the three racially integrated unions, the Black Teamsters, the Scalesmen and the Packers (who were predominantly white), dubbed the Triple Alliance, went on strike for a 10-hour workday, overtime pay and union recognition.
At the time, New Orleans was the largest port in the South and a majority-Black city.
The New Orleans Board of Trade, representing business interests, refused to negotiate and sought to break the strike. Despite attempts by business leaders and newspapers to divide them along racial lines, the strikers remained united.
The strike was one of several to occur that year in the state.
In New Orleans, May 1892, streetcar workers went on strike, demanding shorter working hours. The strike proved successful and labor hours were scaled back from 16 hours to 10 hours.
On November 8, 1892, the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, came to a halt when about 30,000 workers, both Black and white, walked off the job. Streetcars stopped, printing presses shut down, construction halted and public services ceased. Gas and electricity workers joined, cutting power and plunging the city into darkness.
On Nov. 10, Governor Murphy J. Foster called in the state militia, but they found the city calm. There were no riots or violence. The workers maintained peaceful picket lines and order. The power that be then resorted to racist fearmongering and even tried to offer selective contracts to white workers as a way to divide them and end the strike.
Their tactics failed.
The Board of Trade reacted on November 13, 1892, by pushing federal prosecutors to file charges against 44 unions under the Sherman Antitrust Act, accusing them of conspiracy. The case was later dropped.
The strike strengthened the local labor movement, with membership growing and new unions forming. Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, praised the unity of New Orleans workers and called the movement “a bright ray of hope for the future of organized labor.”
The 1892 General Strike in New Orleans was the first U.S. general strike led jointly by Black and white workers.
