Several workers were killed during the strike. When two longshoremen were killed and a third wounded in what could be described as a police riot, a mass funeral set the stage for the San Francisco general strike. Basically the city was shut down for four days as a result of this strike. This elevated what had been a serious, but local strike, to national and international attention. Selvin is the only historian of this period whom I have been able to find who makes this assertion.
Employers have the right to hire and fire without explaining why they make their decisions.
One exception to this doctrine is workers covered under union contracts. Unfortunately this statement is not footnoted and is simply asserted. A second question is why these strikers, and the others during this year, were largely successful while historically most, if not all strikes which reached this level had previously failed. Sevlin cites two interesting points. One, as might be expected, is that the Roosevelt administration was unwilling to intervene on the side of the employers to the same extent previous administrations had.