Seventy years ago this week, Romeo found itself in a milk strike. Strikers included farmers and longtime members of the Michigan Milk Producers Association (MMPA) who joined the Fair Share Bargaining Association (FSBA) in an effort to increase milk prices. The strike lasted nine days and throughout Michigan.
The events leading up to it began in December 1954 when a resolution was passed by Romeo dairyfarmers asking for a grand jury investigation of "possible monopolistic tendencies" in the milk industry. They complained that even with high demand for the beverage, there remained low prices; therefore, not much profit for the farmers. In October 1955, the grand jury issued supeonas to the MMPA and five Detroit dairies. Records from the Flint chapter were later supeonaed as well.
In January 1956, the local MMPA held a meeting to go over the progress report on the case at the Romeo High School on Prospect Street. Between 500 to 600 farmers and their wives from 11 eastern Michigan counties attended. Homer Martin also came. He was a long-time labor organizer and the representative for FSBA. The group sought "to align farmers with the Teamsters union to enforce collective bargaining."
Martin encouraged farmers to abandon the MMPA as a bargaining agent on milk prices.
The MMPA wasn't going to take this lying on its back. In the February 16, 1956 issue of The Romeo Observer Press, it claimed that the attack from the FSBA was attempting to "hoodwink" and "booby trap" (newspaper's quotes) dairy farmers "by use of distorted facts, half-truths, gilded promises and subterfuge."
In other words, the MMPA felt that the FSBA were trying to take advantage of dairy farmers through control and misinformation. The Saline Observer echoed similar sentiments in an MMPA advertisement in their April 26, 1956 edition.
Things got worse when eight members of the MMPA were ousted because of their involvement with the FSBA on February 23, 1956. Talk of striking from the FSBA kept going on.
According to the MMPA website, the strike went underway in late March when "milk trucks belonging to MMPA and to private haulers were hijacked and herded to MMPA's Imlay City plant."
Violence occurred in many parts of Michigan like Elsie and Ovid near Flint, Saranac near Grand Rapids, and Brighton. They grew so big that the New York Times covered it. Romeo wasn't immune. Romeo Observer Press writers Lee Winborn and Ed Howard covered the strike in town.
During those nine days, farmers withheld their milk as well as picketed at Borden's Romeo depot and at delivery trucks trying to get through. Strikers threw rocks at drivers who attempted to deliver milk and wrote "scab" on their vehicles like the one seen here on Stanley Roszczewski's car in the April 5, 1956 issue of The Romeo Observer Press.
One delivery driver and farmer Robert Toles even pulled out a .45 calibre automatic at picketers who crowded around his pickup truck in front of the local Borden milk depot on Wednesday, March 28. The newspaper took a picture of the aftermath for their March 29 edition, which can be seen below.
Other acts of violence occurred during the strike in Romeo. According to an article written by Lee Winborn, the peak of this brutality happened on Saturday, March 31 when a gravel truck carrying 18 cans of milk "turned sharply into the Borden company driveway, knocking down two women pickets."
Both women - Mrs. Edward F. Budnick of Bruce Township and and Mrs. Phillip Lambert of Capac - were taken to the St. Joseph's Hospital in Mount Clemens, but they weren't seriously hurt. Romeo police took the driver - Robert Currey of Almont - into custody. Local Police Chief Gordon Osgood mentioned that he was later released on $1,000 bond pending "investigation of assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder."
Robert's father Mitchell Currey was also arrested for punching a third female striker - Mrs. Annie Korth of Romeo. Both of men are seen here waiting in the police car after both incidents. This picture was taken for the April 5 issue.
Not every town had violence. In Richmond, local newspaper The Richmond Review praised the picketers in the area "for their orderly manner in which they have conducted their campaign" in their April 5 edition. The Romeo Community Archives keeps issues of that newspaper (1911-1984) in-house.
On the same day, in which Toles pulled out a gun on strikers, Detroit-area delegates voted to demand $5 price per hundredweight of milk at the MMPA's annual meeting in East Lansing. It took nearly a week to inform the picketers about the strike's end.
However, the strike ultimately failed to secure those price gains. The increased $5 only applied to milk used for bottling and fluid purposes. In addition, many farmers stayed loyal to the MMPA, thus lessening the FSBA's power. The events also triggered long-term changes in the MMPA to restructure its by-laws to ensure more equal representation and involvement for farmers in price negotiations.
The milk strike was an unfortunate event in Michigan history, but we must learn about it from all angles, including the local one in towns like Romeo.
To learn more about the 1956 Michigan Milk Strike in Romeo, you can contact the Romeo Community Archives at rca@romemodistrictlibrary.org or call (586) 690-4890 to look at newspapers like The Richmond Review. If you want to search for articles on that topic, you can find the Romeo newspapers like The Romeo Observer on the Suburban Library Cooperative's Local History Digital Collection website.
Images and sources courtesy of the Romeo Community Archives; Melvin E. and Joan D. Bleich Collection, The Romeo Observer Press, January 19, 1956, p.I-1; February 2, 1956, p.I-1; February 16, 1956, p.I-2; February 23, 1956, p.I-1; March 15, 1956, p.A-1; March 29, 1956, p.A-1 and p.A-8; April 5, 1956, p.A-1, p.A-6, p.B-1, and p.B-3; Richmond History Society Collection, The Richmond Review, April 5, 1956, p.1; Saline Observer, April 26, 1956, p.5; Michigan Milk Producers Association; and New York Times