The union demanded information on possible plant closures, which the company refused. The union then threatened a strike. In retaliation, the company distributed its own strike ballots and claimed that it alone could speak for workers. Outraged union officials seized and destroyed the company's ballots, interrupted and broke up meetings at which ballots were handed out, and harassed and physically intimidated managers trying to conduct balloting. The Joint Board quickly held its own strike vote. More than 75% of the union's members voted to strike. Union officials asked the company to submit the dispute to a federal mediator, but the company refused to do so. Instead, Remington Rand fired the presidents of the local unions in Tonawanda and Syracuse along with fifteen other union activists. Infuriated workers in Ilion, Syracuse and Tonawanda walked off their jobs on May 25, 1936, followed by Remington Rand workers in Ohio and Connecticut the following day. The Remington Rand strike was a particularly violent strike. Although no one died during the strike, both sides engaged in beatings with fists and clubs, rock and brick throwing, vandalism, threats and physical intimidation. But historians and federal officials point out that the company went out of its way to antagonize workers and use private security personnel (sometimes disguised as workers) to instigate violence and riots. The record before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the scholarly literature show that the level of violence in the strike was deliberately manipulated by Remington Rand, and was several orders of magnitude higher than it would have been had the company not taken the actions it did. Notable incidents include:  The Remington Rand strike is notable for the wide array of aggressive anti-union tactics employed by the employer. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) documented these tactics in a 120-page decision, "Remington Rand, Inc.", 2 NLRB 626 (decided March 13, 1937). The tactics used were not merely inventive (although some had been used by employers before), but, as the NLRB argued, were specifically designed and utilized to undermine the democratic process, manipulate public opinion through deceit and terror, and violate federal law. With the union out on strike, Remington Rand quickly began consolidating its plants. The company later admitted that it had long wanted to close several of its plants, but that the union was too strong and would not have permitted it. Remington Rand contracted with millwrights several months before the strike began (discussions which courts and federal agencies later interpreted as a sign of the company's bad-faith bargaining) to dismantle the plants.