Stockton cannery strike of 1937

The Stockton cannery strike of 1937, also known as the spinach riot,^[1] was the bloody culmination of conflict between the Agricultural Workers Organization local and the California Processors and Growers in the San Joaquin Valley of California.^[2] The riots of April 23, 1937, in which both sides were armed with clubs and firearms, began in front of a Stockton cannery and resulted in one death, over fifty serious injuries^[1][3] and tied up the movement of a $6 million vegetable crop.^[4] The strike is remembered as the most violent confrontation in a long struggle between unions and growers for control of Stockton canneries (and the millions of acres dependent on them) and the political, economic and labor ramifications that affected California for years to come.^[2]