Hershey, Pennsylvania witnessed a six-day sit-down strike of workers at the Hershey Chocolate Corporation in 1937. The strike ended in violence, as dairy workers and loyal Hershey employees stormed the factory to force out strikers. Eventually, Hershey Corporation workers signed an agreement with the American Federation of Labor through the Bakery and Confectionery International Union, becoming one of the first American candy companies to unionize. Background Corporate changes Founded in 1894 by Milton Hershey, the Hershey Chocolate Corporation became one of the richest candy companies in existence. In its first three decades, Hershey, Pennsylvania was an idyllic company town that thrived no matter what was going on in the rest of the country. Hershey was seen as a benevolent employer, providing benefits, retirement plans, and amenities to workers before they were commonplace. All of that changed with the Great Depression and the explosion of the labor movement. Before the Depression, Hershey employees were accustomed to a sixty-hour work week, so when they were restricted to forty hour weeks, many had difficulty getting by on their post-Depression paychecks. Initially, Milton Hershey could legitimately keep tight controls on hours and wages because it was required under the National Recovery Administration (NRA), but the NRA was later found unconstitutional and could no longer be enforced. From 1930 to 1936, Milton Hershey had spent more than $10 million on building up Hershey, Pennsylvania, but he reduced hours of his employees and stopped paying annual bonuses. In those six years, the Hershey Chocolate Corporation made more than $37 million in after-tax profits. Company town Many Hershey employees also resented the paternalistic attitude of the company. Milton Hershey built a town for his workers, attempting to cater to their material and spiritual needs, including entertainment and education. But not everyone was comfortable living in a place where everything was controlled by one man and his executives. This degree of control and entanglement with their personal lives meant that many hiring and firing decisions were made based on individual relationships and favoritism. This disturbed some employees, and made them receptive to CIO organizers in 1937. "Chocolate Bar-B" In the last weeks of 1936, a newsletter called "The Chocolate Bar-B" began to circulate around the chocolate factory. The leaflet aired grievances over low wages, erratic work schedules and recent orders to speed up production. It insisted that chocolate workers did perform physically demanding labor, with deafening levels of