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Farrell Dobbs
Farrell Dobbs (1907–1983) joined the Communist League of America in 1934; was a leader of 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strikes and a Teamsters union organizer during 1930s; became SWP labor secretary in 1939; and national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party from 1953 to 1972. He emerged from the ranks of...
Farrell Dobbs (1907–1983) joined the Communist League of America in 1934; was a leader of 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strikes and a Teamsters union organizer during 1930s; became SWP labor secretary in 1939; and national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party from 1953 to 1972.
He emerged from the ranks of the Teamsters as a central leader of battles that transformed the union movement during the Great Depression. He was a leader of the 1934 strikes that made Minneapolis a union town and of organizing drives that brought a quarter million over-the-road truck drivers into the Teamsters union across the Midwest and Mid-South. During World War II, he and other class-struggle leaders organizing union opposition to Washington’s war aims were railroaded to federal prison by the US imperialist rulers. Dobbs resigned as general organizer on the Teamster national staff in 1940 to become labor secretary of the Socialist Workers Party. He was the SWP presidential candidate four times.