As of June 2024, 13 percent of workers in Minnesota belong to a union, which is higher than the national rate of 10 percent. And it’s much higher than 90 years ago, when a transformative labor battle was boiling over in the state’s largest city. Unions were basically non-existent in Minneapolis in the early 1930s until a group of worker activists rallied truckers and their wives to form a union in 1934. By May, they had as many as 3,000 members. The union led three strikes, beginning in February and stretching into the summer of 1934. The struggle became violent at times. Strikers killed two strikebreakers in May. Police killed two workers and wounded 67 others in July, a day known as “Bloody Friday.” By late August, the union had accomplished its goal of securing influence for workers in the city. Linda Leighton is granddaughter of a strike leader and she’s one of the organizers of an annual commemoration. She joined Minnesota Now to talk about her family story of the strike.