Griviţa Strike of 1933

The Grivița strike of 1933 was a railway strike which was started at the Grivița Workshops, Bucharest, Kingdom of Romania in February 1933 by workers of Căile Ferate Române (Romanian Railways). The strike was brought about by the increasingly poor working conditions of railway employees in the context of the worldwide Great Depression, which affected Romania significantly. As the workers occupied the workshops, the Romanian Army surrounded and sieged them. The fighting resulted in the death of 7 workers, including Vasile Roaită, a 19-year-old worker whose image was used by the early Communist regime.

As the Great Depression affected Romania, in 1932, the government began austerity measures, first reducing the clerks' salaries, then a reduction of blue collar workers' salaries by 25% and the cancelation of rent allowances. On January 20, 1933, the workers were announced that they would get paid only if they brought proof that they had paid all their taxes for the previous three years. The following day, the workers of the train wagon workshop (who worked under the open sky) were dismissed until the weather improved.

Toward the end of the 1932, the Communists were able to create a "red union" (as opposed to the social-democratic unions that existed throughout the company) led by Panait Bogătoiu and Constantin Doncea, while Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (who later became the leader of People's Republic of Romania) was coordinating the connection to the Communist Party. Using couriers, Gheorghiu-Dej and Moscu Cohn kept in touch with other similar unions in the Cluj and Iași railway workshops.

On January 28, 1933, the union led by Bogătoiu decided to go striking. Initially, the strike started at the wagon workshop, where it had the support of 700 workers who had just been temporarily dismissed, submitting the employer a list of demands. As soon as they got the news, over 3000 workers from other workshops joined the strike.

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