Workers on south abutment. Courtesy of the University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library.

Hetch Hetchy Industrial Strike

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In September of 1922, 1800 Hetch Hetchy workers went on strike. The men had endured wet, dark, and dangerous conditions in their work on the tunnels. Several men had already lost their lives in Hetch Hetchy’s tunnels by 1922, with more to come in the next decade of construction. In response to these working conditions, many workers joined a national labor union called the International Workers of the World (IWW), also known as the Wobblies. The Wobblies are thought to have organized the labor strike at Hetch Hetchy.

Work in bottom of cutoff trench, July 28, 1921. Courtesy of the
University of California, Riverside.

After organizing, the laborers sent a list of demands to the supervisors: they called for the underground workers to make $6 a day, and the shaftmen $7 a day. Laborers also demanded outside labor to get a 50-cent increase in wages. Beyond a wage increase, they also demanded hot meals for the men working in the tunnels, and an improvement in the quality of the food. Strikers had another sticking point: the Construction Company of North America charged the workers for transportation to and from work, bedding, and even price-gouged the goods sold in the commissary. Workers wanted the cost of goods to be regular retail prices and all other services to be reduced or free. In addition, they demanded that their employers follow the existing labor laws, adhere to 48-hour work weeks, and have laborers work overtime only in emergencies (at double normal pay). At the top of the list, however, laborers and organizers wanted “all class war prisoners to be released.” Wobblies often referred to any workers arrested by police as “class prisoners.”

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The division between the working and upper classes became a tangible war cry for labor organizing in the early 20th century.
The work on Hetch Hetchy was itself affected by the national labor movement of its time.