During the economic crisis that gripped the country in the early 1890s,
farmers complained of low prices, businessmen of falling orders, and wage
earners of salary cuts. Unemployment was widespread. Armies of jobless men
swarmed over the countryside and rode freight trains. Bread lines and soup
kitchens became commonplace.
The depression of the 1890s had softened the public attitude towards
organized labor. Between 1897 and 1904, union membership climbed from 447,000
to 2,072,700. In the same period, the number of internationals affiliated with
the American Federation of Labor (AFL) rose from fifty-eight to 120. The AFL
had come on the scene in the 1880s, created by the leaders of craft unions who
sought to curb invasions of their jurisdictions by the Knights of Labor. While
the principal reason for embarking on this venture was defensive, AFL founders
believed in the improvement of wages and working conditions through trade-union
action--including the strike if necessary. Adolph Strasser, president of the
International Cigar Makers Union, described the AFL program as a constant
seeking of "more and more," a slogan frequently repeated by AFL President
Samuel Gompers.
The early years of the century witnessed a stabilization of the labor
movement, but it was also a time when some employers were determined to halt
its further progress. One of the first challenges came from the steel industry.
The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, established in the
1870s, saw its position endangered with the formation of the United States
Steel Corporation in 1901. The convention of the union met that year and voted
that each combine, or multiple companies, would be required to sign a union
contract for all of its plants. This demand became the sticking point in
negotiations. When no agreement was reached, the union called a strike in three
of U.S. Steel's subsidiaries.
As the strike continued, a committee from the National Civic Federation,
established for promoting the peaceful adjustment of labor disputes,
intervened. The committee included Gompers, United Mine Workers President John
Mitchell, and Senator Mark Hanna, President McKinley's mentor. A conference of
strike leaders met with J.P. Morgan, Charles M. Schwab, and Elbert Gary, heads
of the U.S. Steel Corporation. Morgan, denying hostility to unions, argued that
it was not practicable for the corporation to recognize unions for unorganized
mills. When the union leaders rejected his arguments, the companies began to
replace the strikers.
At another meeting, Charles M. Schwab, speaking for the corporation,
said that since many steel mills had been started by nonunion labor, the
companies would only sign for mills which had not started up. The union was
given twenty-four hours to accept; otherwise all negotiations would be
terminated. On the plea of the Civic Federation Committee, Schwab extended the
time, but the union would not immediately accept. The strike dragged on until
September 14, 1901, when it was settled on terms disastrous to the union. Under
the agreement, the union lost fourteen mills, but it suffered much more. It
could not, in fact, seek to organize any mills.
The union's insistence upon signing all mills of a company was obviously
ill-advised, since it could not be enforced. Amalgamated had overestimated its
strength, and many steelworkers refused to follow its leadership. The effect of
the 1901 strike was to strengthen the enemies of organized labor in the
greatest center of economic power.
After the defeat of 1901, the union steadily lost strength. The
puddlers, who became dissatisfied with the union's inclusion of all classes of
steel labor, seceded and formed the Sons of Vulcan in 1907. The final blow fell
when the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company posted a notice "
that all
its plants after June 30, 1909, will be operated as 'open' plants." The
Amalgamated had no choice but to call a strike. But it was a losing battle. The
union surrendered after fourteen months.
"Inside," or company, unions were the employers' answer to organizing by
bona fide unions. On the Great Lakes, where the U.S. Steel Corporation operated
fleets of iron ore vessels, a company union, the Lake Carriers' Beneficial
Association, was established in 1903 to "maintain, by contract or otherwise,
such amicable relations between employer and employed as would avoid public
injury that would result from lockouts or strikes...." In the spring of 1908
the association declared for the open shop and voted to deny union delegates
access to ships. An organized effort to deny employment to union members
followed. The union fought back, and there were bloody clashes at lake ports.
But it was difficult to overcome the combined resources of the shippers. When
the association announced in 1912 that no discrimination would be directed
against union members, the walkout ended. U.S. Steel extended its open-shop
policies to other industries in which it had influence. One was bridge
construction. The National Erectors' Association, organized in 1903, took U.S.
Steel's lead and pledged to maintain the open shop. Subcontractors were
expected to follow suit. Consequently, members of the International Association
of Bridge and Structural Workers found themselves excluded from many jobs.
The union reacted by dynamiting nonunion jobs. From 1908 to 1911, they
set off an estimated seventy explosions at unorganized jobs. In 1910, the Los
Angeles Times building was dynamited, killing twenty. General Harrison Gray
Otis, the publisher, blamed labor terrorists. The California State Federation
of Labor charged the Times with laying the foundation for another Haymarket
case, and denounced it "as a hostile and unscrupulous enemy, not only of
unionism, but to progress generally."
The National Erectors' Association hired detective William J. Burns to
find out who was blowing up their bridges and buildings. He accused the union's
secretary-treasurer, John H. McNamara, and his brother James. The prosecution
charged that San Francisco unionists were trying to organize open-shop Los
Angeles and that the Times stood in their way. Unionists, including Gompers,
insisted the McNamara brothers were framed; Clarence Darrow was hired as
defense counsel. But the McNamara brothers confessed, dealing labor a damaging
blow.
Because of its vast resources the steel industry was able to impose its
will on the unions of its employees and compel employers in other industries to
follow its example. On the other hand, employers in the metal trades and
foundries were not strong enough to resist organizational efforts of unions. In
an attempt to promote harmonious relations with labor the foundrymen producing
cast-iron ware established the National Founders' Association in 1898. The
National Metal Trades Association was set up in 1900 for similar purposes. In
neither instance were the hopes for cooperation realized. In the case of the
foundrymen and the International Molders' Union, differences were submitted to
the presidents of the respective organizations and four members from each side.
As a result, on issues of basic importance the parties deadlocked. In 1904 the
Founders' Association decided to go its own way. The next few years witnessed
many strikes in the foundries. Often there was violence because employers tried
to keep their plants operating with replacements.
Employers established the National Metal Trades Association to find a
basis of cooperation with the International Association of Machinists, the
dominant union in the industry. At the time, the union was seeking the
nine-hour workday. The Murray Hill agreement between the association and the
union, signed in New York City in May, 1900, stipulated that the hours of labor
would be reduced to fifty-seven a week and to fifty-four within a year.
Overtime rates were defined, apprenticeship regulated, and strikes and lockouts
prohibited during the term of the agreement.
However, as soon as the contract was signed members of the union
insisted that wages be raised to compensate for reduced hours of work. When
negotiations reached an impasse, the National Metal Trades Association, on June
10, 1901, abrogated its contract with the International Association of
Machinists, and the following week enunciated its Declaration of
Principles.
The employer was to have complete and unrestricted control over the work
force. The association declared, "It is the privilege of the employee to leave
our employ whenever he sees fit and it is the privilege of the employer to
discharge any workman he sees fit." The principles enunciated were embodied in
the words "open shop," which meant that the employer was the absolute master.
Under the code no interference with the prerogatives of management was
tolerated.
Unions were combated by a combination of black listing, espionage,
strikebreaking, and company unions. The National Metal Trades established labor
bureaus in major cities for compiling records of employees in the industry so
that the blacklist could be more effective. To promote the open shop, the
National Metal Trades Association conducted the "investigation and adjustment
of questions arising between members and their employees." This kind of
activity consisted of using industrial spies in plants to disrupt labor unions
and cause the dismissal of union activists. If a strike in the plant
nevertheless followed, "the association assumed complete control over the
settlement of the dispute in exchange for the strikebreaking services which it
made available to the member." The association paid the cost of recruiting
strikebreakers and the bonus needed to attract them.
Large single employers could successfully combat a labor organization
and by various devices prevent its establishment on their properties. Smaller
employers combined in associations to follow, as convenient, a policy of peace
or war with the organizations that sought to recruit their employees. In 1903
local organizations of employers, manufacturers' associations, industrial
associations, employers' associations, and citizens' alliances joined forces to
resist the demands of organized labor. They formed the Citizens' Industrial
Association, with David M. Parry of the National Association of Manufacturers
as chairman of the executive committee. "Organized labor," he accused, "....
does not place its reliance upon reason and justice, but on strikes, boycotts,
and coercion.... It denies to those outside its ranks the individual right to
dispose of their labor as they see fit a right that is one of the most sacred
and fundamental of American liberty."
The Citizens' Industrial Association sought "to establish and maintain
industrial peace, and to create and direct a public sentiment in opposition to
all forms of violence, coercion and intimidation." It urged employers to
organize to forestall the spread of unionism. Under the leadership of C. W.
Post, a wealthy dry cereal manufacturer, the Citizens' Industrial Association
carried on propaganda through public meetings and in paid advertisements. In
some communities, the citizens' alliances resorted to stronger tactics.
The citizens' alliances were a factor in the Colorado mining wars of
1903 and 1904. Cripple Creek, a union stronghold, was the center of the
dispute. Although relations between the miners and the operators had been
peaceful for more than a decade, the representatives of the State miners'
association had declared that one of their purposes was "to fight... the
miners' unions of the state." Thus began a contest of unparalleled violence
between the Western Federation of Miners and the operators, which resulted in
the virtual ousting of the union from the Colorado mining camps.
The union struck the mines at Idaho Springs and the smelters of the
American Smelting and Refining Company at Denver. A strike of mill men for
reduction of hours was going on simultaneously in Telluride. At Cripple Creek
sporadic violence flared. Pleas were made to Governor James H. Peabody by the
mine owners for troops; petitions not to intervene arrived from union
supporters.
The Governor's investigating team recommended sending troops. They
arrived under the command of General Sherman M. Bell, who directed a reign of
terror against the strikers. Unionists retaliated by blowing up a mine and
killing two men, then dynamiting the Independence station, which took the lives
of thirteen nonunion miners.
Union men were arrested and herded into the "bull pen," a cattle
stockyard. The cooperative stores owned by the union were sacked and their
contents stolen or thrown out and burned. Leaders were imprisoned. Lawyers
sought their release, but the majority of the Colorado Supreme Court supported
the detention under the Governor's proclamation of martial law. Members of the
Western Federation of Miners were driven out of the district. When the Governor
was asked by the New York World whether it was true that destitute miners were
being deported to Kansas, he replied that "rioting, dynamiting and anarchy has
had its day in Colorado."
On December 30, 1905, the ex-governor of Idaho, Frank Steunberg was
murdered. A man named Harry Orchard confessed the deed, but he claimed that the
Western Federation of Miners' leaders, William "Big Bill" Haywood, Charles
Moyer, and Denver businessman George A. Pettibone, put him up to it. He said
their motive was revenge on the Governor who, elected with labor support,
called out the troops in the Coeur d'Alene strike of 1899. Idaho officials
kidnapped the accused in Denver and took them across the state line for trial.
The prosecution was directed by the famous William Borah, but he was to meet
his match in the defense attorney Clarence Darrow, who skillfully convinced a
specially picked "hanging jury" to acquit the accused.
The mine owners' campaign destroyed the Western Federation of Miners
throughout virtually all of the metalliferous mining areas of Colorado.
Weakened by the ordeal the organization became a prey to internal bickering.
There was not much the union could do except to defend itself, but it was not
equal to the massed might of the mine operators supported by the citizens'
alliances and the government.
Over the years the United Mine Workers of America had attempted to
organize the Colorado coal fields, but to no avail. The companies, led by the
Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, would not deal with the
union. These companies dominated the Colorado mining areas "through the
ruthless suppression of unionism, accomplished by the use of the power of
summary discharge, the black list, armed guards, and spies, and by the active
aid of venal state, county and town officials."
Seeking, union recognition, the miners wanted wages of $3.45 a day, the
eight-hour day, a union man checking the weighing of coal (for they felt the
company was cheating them), the right not to buy at the company store, and the
"abolition of the notorious and criminal guard system which has prevailed in
the mining camps of Colorado for many years." The operators refused. In
September, 1913, the miners voted to strike. Sheriff Jefferson Farr of Huerfano
County immediately commissioned several hundred deputies.
Workers left company-owned hovels for tent camps in Ludlow and nearby
areas established by the UMW. In the meantime, the Colorado Fuel and Iron
Company provided its guards with a specially built armored car, the "Death
Special," which could be used to intimidate pickets and strikers. The miners
began to arm after several of their number were killed. Clashes between
strikers and guards increased.
Yielding to the companies' pressure, Governor Elias Ammons sent the
National Guard into the strike district. At first the strikers welcomed the
soldiers, who had been instructed to protect property and preserve the peace.
But when the militiamen sided with the company guards and deputies, the miners
protested. Subsequently the governor withdrew most of the National Guard,
leaving a company commanded by Lieutenant Karl E. Linderfelt, a "rare
combination of a bully and a bulldog."
On April 20, 1914, Ludlow exploded. Linderfelt's soldiers attacked the
tent colony, spraying it with bullets and setting fire to the tents. Eleven
children and two women died in the flames. Louis Tikas, strike leader at
Ludlow, and two others were murdered. Angered miners burned mines and killed
guardsmen. The military began falling back as strikers advanced to the cry
"Remember Ludlow!" In a ten-day war, forty-six people died in the assault, most
of them company guards.
President Woodrow Wilson, at the request of the governor, sent in
federal troops, and it was all over. Court-martials absolved soldiers of any
responsibility in the Ludlow Massacre. Linderfelt, tried for murder, got off
with a light reprimand.
The mining wars in the Rocky Mountain states had their eastern
counterpart in West Virginia, where the United Mine Workers embarked on a major
organizing effort in 1912. The union demanded wage increases, the eight-hour
day, the checkoff, and no discrimination for union membership. The companies
refused. A strike was called on April 20.
Guards supplied by the Baldwin-Felts agency and three companies of
National Guardsmen were sent to the scene. The officer in charge "proceeded on
the theory that a state of war existed there, and we were exercising war
powers." On February 7, 1913, an armored train, the "Bull Moose" special,
attacked the miners' tent colony at Holly Grove. Armed men fired more than 200
shots into the sleeping village. Quin Morton, general manager of Imperial Coal
Company, boasted: "We will go back and give them another round." When
testifying before a committee of the U.S. Senate, Morton was asked whether "a
cultured gentleman approves of the use of a machine gun in a populous village."
One senator called Morton's conduct "appalling, horrible." The strike ended in
April, 1913, with the companies promising not to discriminate against union
members, a promise broken.
The anthracite fields of Pennsylvania had also been bloodied when miners
challenged the superior might of the coal operators. In 1900 the United Mine
Workers of America had called its first strike in these fields. It lasted a
little over a month. According to UMW President John Mitchell, the anthracite
strike of 1900 "stands out in bold relief as the most remarkable contest
between labor and capital in the industrial history of our nation; remarkable
because it involved a greater number of persons than any other industrial
contest; because of the entire absence of lawlessness on the part of those who
engaged in the strike; and last, but not least, because it was the only great
contest in which the workers came out entirely and absolutely victorious."
While the last part of Mitchell's statement was more than a slight
exaggeration, the outcome of the strike was a solid victory for the union. A
more serious encounter began in May, 1902, and lasted until mid-October. From
the beginning the strike had been a violent one. Shootings, killings, and
attacks upon the colliers were frequent. In the midst of the strike, George F.
Baer, head of the Reading Railroad and spokesman for the mine operators, penned
his famous "divine right" letters. When a Wilkes-Barre photographer appealed to
him on the basis of Christian principles to settle the strike, Baer
replied:
"I do not know who you are. I see that you are a Christian man; but you
are evidently biased in favor of the right of the working man to control a
business in which he has no interest other than to secure fair wages for the
work he does. I beg of you not to be discouraged. The right and interests of
the laboring man will be protected and cared for not by the labor agitators,
but by the Christian men to whom God in his infinite wisdom has given the
control of the property interests of the country, and upon the successful
Management of which so much depends. Do not be discouraged. Pray earnestly that
right may triumph, always remembering that the Lord God Omnipotent still
reigns, and that His reign is one of law and order, and not of violence and
crime."
Dominated by such sentiments, the coal operators would accept no
compromise. Baer criticized President Theodore Roosevelt for urging a
settlement with "fomentors... of anarchy." Roosevelt later confided that he
would like to have taken Baer "by the seat of the breeches and the nape of the
neck and chucked him out of the window."
Only after an appeal to J. P. Morgan, the dominant investment banker of
the time, did the operators agree to arbitration by a Presidential commission.
The union was anxious to have a labor man on the panel. Roosevelt "sneaked" E.
E. Clark, Grand Chief of the Order of Conductors, on the commission as an
"eminent sociologist." The award of the commission did not grant as much as the
union expected, but it included a ten percent increase in wages and a reduction
in hours of work. In addition, the use of private guards was held to be against
the public interest. The commission did not recommend the recognition of the
union, but it did agree that differences between the employer and his employees
should "first be considered in conference between the operator or his official
representative, and a committee chosen by his employees from their own ranks."
While the issue of child labor was not directly submitted, the commission
deplored the employment of male children as breaker boys, and noted that the
statutory age of employment was not sufficiently high.
"The story of coal is always the same," wrote Mary "Mother" Jones,
self-styled "hell raiser" and a devoted fighter for the rights of miners to
form a union. "It is a dark story. For a second's more sunlight, men must fight
like tigers. For the privilege of seeing the color of their children's eyes by
the light of the sun, fathers must fight as beasts in the jungle. That life may
have something of decency, something of beauty a--picture, a new dress, a bit
of cheap lace fluttering in the window--for this, men who work down in the
mines must struggle and lose, struggle and win."
The victory in the anthracite fields was one of the greatest in American
labor history. It was gained against the formidable opposition of the operators
in an industry dominated by the same financial groups which sought to limit the
influence of unionism in other industries. By willingness to accept less than
their demands, the mine workers, under the leadership of Mitchell, were able to
force open a door to labor organizations that had been closed since the demise
of the Workingmen's Benevolent Association in the early 1870s.
Employers have in disputes with their employees utilized the legal
weapons that were available. By the turn of the century the use of the labor
injunction was already established. It was a method by which equity courts
forbade picketing or other union activities during a labor dispute. It was also
used to prohibit the boycott of a good or service of an "unfair" employer. The
injunction was effective because those refusing to obey the order of a court
could be adjudged in contempt and sentenced to a fine or imprisonment.
Legislation to limit the writ of injunction had been introduced in
Congress in 1900, but no action was taken. Before the end of the decade the
unions faced another serious problem, the liability of an organization of labor
under the Sherman Antitrust law for damages incurred by an employer as a result
of a secondary boycott. The United Hatters of North America, as a result of a
dispute with D. E. Loewe & Co., a manufacturer of men's hats in Danbury,
Connecticut, instituted a nationwide boycott. Unionists from all over the
country urged dealers not to handle Loewe merchandise. Advertisements sponsored
by the United Hatters asked readers to forego Loewe products. Loewe warned the
members of the Hatters' Union that their conduct was illegal. When the union
ignored the warning, Loewe sued.
The case was in the courts for twelve years. In 1908, the Supreme Court
held that any combination which "obstructs the free flow of commerce or
restricts in that regard the liberty of a trader to engage in business" may
have violated the antitrust laws. The case was brought to trial and the union
found guilty. The decision was unexpected, and it was believed that the labor
unions would be flooded by suits charging violations of the Sherman laws and
that verdicts of triple damages would bankrupt the union treasuries and
jeopardize the savings of the members.
While the Danbury Hatters' case was going through the courts, an attack
upon the boycott was made by James Van Cleave, owner of the Buck's Stove and
Range Company and a leader of the militant antiunionists. A strike had been
called at Van Cleave's factory, and its products placed on the unfair list by
the AFL, a fact regularly announced by the American Federationist, the AFL's
official journal. Van Cleave secured an order from the District of Columbia
federal court directing the removal of the offensive announcement. Considering
that the court order violated the first amendment, Gompers refused to obey. He
and Frank Morrison, secretary of the AFL, and John Mitchell, a vice-president,
were adjudged guilty of contempt of court and sentenced to jail.
While the case was passing through the courts, Van Cleave died and his
successor settled with the unions. The court upheld the injunction, but the
jail sentences were set aside. The trial judge then appointed a prosecuting
committee and again found the defendants guilty of contempt. However, the
Supreme Court ruled that the statute of limitations barred punishment.
The attack upon the boycott, the utilization of the injunction in labor
disputes by the courts, and the unresponsiveness of Congress to the AFL's
appeals for remedial legislation caused the AFL to become more active in the
national political arena. To show its displeasure at the failure of Congress,
delegates from fifty-one unions assembled in Washington in March, 1906, and
drew up a "Bill of Grievances." Congress was charged with failing to deal
adequately with the competition of convict labor, immigration, the granting of
equal rights to seamen. In addition, Congress had refused to protect the right
of federal employees to petition for redress, relieve unions from the threat of
prosecution under the antitrust laws, or to limit the right of the courts to
issue injunctions in labor disputes.
Although the AFL was the predominant labor organization radicals had
been trying to "capture" the trade unions since the 1890s. The Western
Federation of Miners had become disenchanted with the AFL's conservative
outlook and helped establish successively the Western Labor Union and the
American Labor Union. In the eastern part of the country, the Socialist Trade
and Labor Alliance was formed by adherents of the Socialist Labor Party.
In 1905, a successful attempt was made to unite the separate independent
groups into one organization. A group of leaders who believed another
federation of labor espousing a more radical doctrine was needed met in Chicago
"to confederate the workers of this country into a working class movement that
shall have for its purpose that emancipation of the working class ... having in
view no compromise and no surrender." Thus was launched the Industrial Workers
of the World. The Wobblies, as members called themselves, advocated the
abolition of capitalism and the formation of industrial unions.
Presiding at the convention was William D. Haywood, head of the Western
Federation of Miners. He proclaimed that "we are going down in the gutter to
get the mass of workers and bring them up to a decent plane of living." Despite
ringing oratory and rousing songs, it was obvious that the IWW did not have a
ready formula for success. Conflicting elements could not live together in the
same organization. At the second IWW convention, the trade unionists with the
most industrial experience, including the Western Federation of Miners,
withdrew. At the fourth convention, in 1908, the followers of the Socialist
Labor Party left or were driven out. As a result of these secessions, the IWW
became an organization of migratory workers with an anarcho-syndicalist
orientation. For the next few years it devoted itself to carrying on
free-speech fights in the West. Though revolution was the final aim, the
present need, in the words of one IWW official, was "a bed to sleep in, water
enough to take a bath in and decent food to eat."
In the East, the IWW turned its attention to steelworkers in McKees
Rocks, Pennsylvania, and textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts; Paterson,
New Jersey; and Little Falls, New York. The Lawrence strike was a dramatic
struggle by thousands of workers, many of them of foreign origin, but it led to
no permanent organization. The ability of the IWW leaders to mobilize large
unskilled masses to display their poverty and suffering was of a high order,
but they failed in the elementary ability needed to build a permanent
organization.
When the United States entered World War I Wobblies by the hundreds were
rounded up and sent to jail. Accused of hampering the war effort, they became
targets of vigilante groups who sometimes took the law into their own hands. It
is true that the IWW had traditionally opposed war; its 1916 convention
condemned "all wars and, for the prevention of such, we proclaim the
anti-militarist propaganda in time of peace, thus promoting Class Solidarity
among the workers of the entire world, and, in time of war, the General Strike
in all industries."
Socialist leader Eugene Debs openly spoke out against the war. Indicted
for violating the Espionage Act, he said at his trial: "Years ago I recognized
my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit
better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there
is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it,
and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." Debs was found guilty.
He had been converted to socialism while in jail for his role as leader
of the Pullman strike. Running for President of the United States in 1912, he
polled nearly a million votes. A born agitator, Debs told working people:
"Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. It is agitation or
stagnation. I have taken my choice." Individual status and power seeking was
for the small in soul. Debs chose to remain with the rank and file. Hoosier
poet James Whitcomb Riley said of him:
As warm a heart as ever beat
Betwixt here and the judgment seat.
Critics called Debs a perpetual failure, traveling from defeat to
defeat. He might have said, as did socialist leader Norman Thomas, that he
fought not for lost causes but causes yet to be won.
Socialists had comparatively more influence within the labor movement
than in the country at large. They were active in many unions, and some
occupied high office. For many years, Max Hayes, a member of the International
Typographical Union, was the leading socialist spokesman on the floor of the
AFL convention. In 1912, he ran for president of the AFL, receiving almost half
as many votes as Gompers.
The socialists were concerned with promoting the policy of an
independent labor party. Many also supported reform of the AFL's structure so
that a number of the crafts would combine into industrial unions. But the
socialists' influence was short-lived. Their antiwar stance in 1917 and the
emergence of communists in their ranks proved self-destructive.
Meanwhile AFL leaders were pledging "ourselves in peace and in war, in
stress or in storm, to stand unreservedly by the standards of liberty and the
safety and preservation of the institutions and ideals of our Republic." The
most important addition to the ranks of organized labor between 1900 and World
War I was the clothing industries. The battle for recognition began in New York
City, the major market for women's clothing, where the International Ladies
Garment Workers Union struggled to survive. Conditions in the industry were
deplorable. Low wages, long hours, and unsanitary and unsafe working places
were commonplace.
In March, 1911, a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company claimed the
lives of 148 employees, most of them young women. As flames spread throughout
the eighth floor, workers jumped to their deaths. Scores of charred bodies were
found piled against closed doors. They had been kept bolted, a newspaper
reported, "to safeguard employers from the loss of goods by the departure of
workers . . ." From the ashes of this disaster sprang the movement for
industrial safety with the passage of factory inspection laws.
Garment workers revolted at inhumane conditions occasionally and went
out on strike. But once grievances were temporarily eliminated, there would be
an exodus from the union. This tendency continued for twenty years, and some
believed that Jewish workers would never be able to form stable labor unions.
The theory was weakened in 1909 when 30,000 striking waistmakers, seventy
percent of them women, heard Gompers ask them "to stand together, to have faith
in yourselves, to be true to your comrades... Let your watchword be: Union and
progress, and until then, no surrender." The strike was an eyeopener to those
who doubted the stamina of garment workers. For fourteen weeks the picket lines
held and the strikers gained contracts in 354 shops.
That was only a curtain raiser. The next summer 60,000 cloakmakers
struck for a pay raise and the closed union shop. Strikers held the picket
lines until a favorable settlement was reached on September 16. The following
week began a struggle for the unionization of the men's garment trades in
Chicago. A foreman in one of the Hart, Schaffner and Marx plants reduced piece
rates, a practice normally accepted without protest. However, this time it was
rejected, and the incident sparked a major revolt. The United Garment Workers
of America called a general strike, and 41,000 workers responded. They gained a
costly and limited victory. The strike lasted 133 days, $200,000 was paid out
for relief, hundreds of workers were arrested, and seven were killed.
Both the United Garment Workers and the International Ladies Garment
Workers Union were made up of predominantly Jewish and Italian immigrants,
although the national leadership of the United Garment Workers was
predominantly native born. At the convention of the United Garment Workers in
1914, a conflict between the two groups resulted in the formation of the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, which became the dominant organization
in the men's clothing industry.
Immigration policy was one of the issues that divided the leaders of
labor. Virtually all unionists favored exclusion of Orientals and believed that
the limitless flow of immigrants to the United States tended to depress wages.
Between 1903 and 1914 more than 800,000 immigrants entered the United States
annually, with a peak of 1,387,318 in 1913.
The issue of immigration exclusion was debated at AFL conventions and at
the 1910 convention of the Socialist Party. The majority of the Socialist
convention's committee on immigration recommended limiting the number.
Milwaukee's Victor L. Berger, elected that year as the first Congressman chosen
on the Socialist ticket, spoke in favor of the restrictive proposal. An
immigrant himself, he reasoned: "Now I believe in the motto of Marx that the
proletarians of all countries should unite, absolutely. But he [Marx] did not
say, nor would he say if they should unite in Milwaukee, Chicago or New York."
Adolph Germer, a coal miner destined to be a future leader of the CIO,
complained that many foreigners acted as strikebreakers and were not reliable
for the long pull.
The American Federation of Labor for a time opposed outright
restrictions upon immigration. But in the early years of the century it favored
an educational test and, after World War I, endorsed the quota system for
limiting entry. Restrictions upon Chinese immigration were endorsed from the
beginning. It was the adverse influence of the immigrant upon the labor market
rather than opposition based on race or religion which accounted for the
negative attitude of organized labor. That's why the AFL supported the quota
laws of 1921 and 1924 which limited immigration to a percentage of nationals
living in the United States. The law of 1924 was attacked as favoring
immigrants from northern Europe at the expense of those from Italy and the
Slavic nations, but to organized labor these measures represented the means to
restrict the continual flow of immigration.
World War I reduced immigration to the United States to a trickle.
Recruiting agents from northern industries found substitutes among southern
blacks. Between 1916 and 1924, hundreds of thousands streamed north to the
automobile, meat packing, iron and steel, and railroad industries. Most of the
black workers filled semiskilled and unskilled jobs.
The influx of thousands of black workers into northern industrial areas
created many problems for the new arrivals. Coming largely from rural areas and
having virtually no knowledge of union organizations, they were more
susceptible to strikebreaking than white workers. The employment of large
numbers of black strikebreakers in the wave of post-World War I labor disputes
exacerbated the feeling of hostility between the races. An estimated 30,000
black strikebreakers worked in the 1919 steel strike. Labor leader John
Fitzpatrick feared that if this continued, the industrial centers "are bound to
be paralyzed by race riots... As I find it the Northern Negro is alive to the
situation and cannot be used to any great extent, but the Southern Negro is
brutally exploited and has no real knowledge of the situation in which he is
being used."
While Northerners were debating what to do with the black workers, they
were welcomed by the Alabama labor movement. When the unions of the state
established the Alabama State Federation of Labor, in 1901, they elected two
blacks as vice-presidents.
The quality of the Alabama unionists was revealed at the 1902 convention
held in Selma. Vice-President J.H. Beane, a black man, informed newspapers:
"The State Federation does not draw the color line, and the delegates will be
seated as in all general conventions under the American Federation of Labor...
Color or creed is no bar to a fair day's service. If the people of Selma for
this reason turn the cold shoulder to the Alabama State Federation of Labor in
the matter of hall accommodations it will not in any way interfere with the
deliberations of the convention."
Blacks and whites cooperated on the picket line in strikes in the mines
and plants where both races were employed. A considerable increase in the
employment of black workers took place on the railroads during the strike of
shopmen in 1922. The six railway shopcrafts agreed with the AFL Executive
Council that black mechanics, helpers, and laborers would be allowed to become
members of the International Brotherhood of Fireman and Oilers. A small group
of black employees of the Pullman Company established the Brotherhood of
Sleeping Car Porters in New York City on August 25, 1925. A. Philip Randolph
was invited to address the group, and he became its first organizer. In
Randolph, the Porters' Union selected a man of unusual eloquence, one who was
to devote almost forty years to eliminating discrimination by unions against
black workers.
The struggle for the eight-hour day was initiated by the four major
operating crafts on the railroads. When negotiations proved unsuccessful, the
four railroad brotherhoods took the unprecedented step of scheduling a
nationwide railroad strike to begin on September 4, 1916. On September 2,
President Wilson addressed a joint session of Congress and appealed for the
enactment of an eight-hour law to govern railroad operations. Congress acted
quickly, and a bill was in his hands on September 3. He signed it the day
before the strike date. The brotherhoods knew that the law would be challenged
in the courts, and demanded the eight-hour day be put in effect on January 1,
1917. Once war was declared, the union leaders were convinced it would not be
possible to seek a solution through a strike.
Three members of the Council of National Defense, including Gompers,
were dispatched by President Wilson to meet the bead of the railroad unions and
seek a peaceful solution. They agreed to the eighthour work schedule a day
before the Supreme Court found the law constitutional.
In December, 1917, the federal government took over the operation of the
railroads. No discrimination for union membership was allowed, and wages were
set by a government board. Despite the liberal labor policies followed,
discontent among workers mounted as the war went on. In 1917, strikes reached
the highest level in history, 4,450.
In an effort to deal with the problem, President Woodrow Wilson created
the National War Labor Board, made up of an equal number of employer and union
representatives. The Board agreed there should be no strikes or lockouts during
the war, and that workers were to have the right to organize into unions of
their choosing for purposes of collective bargaining. Employers were to have
the right to organize associations. Workers were not to be discharged for
belonging or being active in trade unions, but they were to refrain from
coercive methods in recruiting members or seeking bargaining rights. In the
sixteen months it functioned, the Board disposed of more than 1,100 cases.
Union membership rose substantially during the war years; in
transportation it virtually doubled. The metal and building trades also gained,
as did unions on the docks and on the ships. With the end of the war, the
organized labor movement faced a number of problems requiring almost immediate
solutions. The increased memberships in many unions were in with cautious
traditional tactics. A search for new policies and methods was under way. The
belief that the heads of the movement were old and weary and that individual
unions as well as the general labor movement were in need of new and more
imaginative leadership was widespread.
Business leaders were also unhappy about the course of events during the
war. In their view, organized labor had become too strong; its improved
bargaining position and the protection of the government had allowed unions to
expand and gain a foothold in industries normally opposed to their recognition.
Labor's more aggressive opponents urged business to organize so as to resist
any further encroachments upon the rights of management. As a consequence, the
immediate postwar period witnessed an epidemic of labor disputes.
The first manifestation of the new-found militancy was the Seattle
general strike called in support of the striking metal trades workers in the
shipyards. Food kitchens and milk stations were set up, and the people went
about their affairs with few protests and little difficulty. The city's crime
rate actually was below normal in this period.
On the second day of the strike, Mayor Ole Hanson issued a proclamation
in which he guaranteed the people of Seattle "absolute and complete
protection... The anarchists in the community shall not rule its affairs. All
persons violating the laws will be dealt with summarily." The strike, which
accomplished little, lasted five days.
More unusual was the strike of the Boston Police. When a plan for
adjusting wages and working conditions had failed, the policemen struck on
September 11, 1919. Absence of police was followed by twenty-four hours of
rioting, looting, and violence. At the request of the city authorities,
Governor Calvin Coolidge sent 5,000 militiamen to keep order. "There is no
right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime," he
declared. Clashes between roving mobs and soldiers resulted in the killing of
eight civilians. By September 14, the strike was virtually over. Coolidge, who
had denounced the strike as a "desertion of duty," became a national hero.
Despite reversals, the labor movement expanded at a greater rate than
ever. Almost one million additional members joined the unions in 1919. Actors,
after a strike lasting a month, won recognition for the newly organized Actors
Equity Association. The first contract specified the number of performances a
week that could be required without payment of overtime, limited rehearsal
time, and required arbitration of unsettled differences.
In May, 1920, the United Mine Workers mustered an "army" to move into
the nonunion counties of McDowell, Mingo, and Logan, West Virginia. In one
shootout eight men and a boy were killed. Repeated skirmishes brought federal
troops into the area; finally the miners were peaceably disarmed and dispersed.
The union failed in its campaign.
After the expulsion of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and
Tin Workers from the plants of the U.S. Steel Corporation, the absence of a
strong union in the steel industry was regarded as a sign of a weak labor
movement. In 1918, the AFL convention endorsed a joint campaign by the
twenty-four unions having jurisdiction in the steel industry. The campaign was
one of the more successful in labor history. Thousands of steelworkers joined
unions.
More difficult was obtaining industry recognition. Elbert Gary, board
chairman of U.S. Steel Corporation, refused to meet a union committee to
discuss the matter. A strike called for September 22, 1919, was answered by
367,000 steelworkers.
Confrontations between strikers, private guards, and the local police
began immediately. Local officials suppressed strike meetings. The mayor of
Duquesne, Pennsylvania justified his denial of a speaking permit to AFL
Secretary Frank Morrison by saying: "Jesus Christ himself could not speak in
Duquesne." Throughout the strike Gary maintained his imperturbability and
reiterated his view that U.S. Steel did not deal with unions. During the
strike, one of the bloodier of the time, twenty people, eighteen of them
strikers, were killed. U.S. Steel had triumphed and would remain the bastion of
the open shop for another seventeen years.
In the midst of the strike, President Wilson convened an industrial
conference with representatives from business, labor, and the public. The main
purpose of the conference was to work out methods that would promote industrial
peace. As a minimum the labor delegates wanted the conference to recognize the
right of employees to bargain through outside unions, but the employer group
would only accept collective bargaining through company-controlled
organizations.
Company unions of various sorts had developed early in the century and
had multiplied during the war. Large employers also developed paternalistic
welfare plans under which they aided home ownership by their employees through
supporting low mortgage rates, subsidized lunches, encouraged savings, and
established profit-sharing plans. Systems of grievance procedure through which
employee complaints could be considered were organized, but the employer
generally held the right to make the final decision. The programs were
primarily designed to eliminate the influence of the outside union on the work
force.
A more extensive campaign for eliminating the influence of unions in
industry was the American Plan of Employment which promoted the open shop. The
program had considerable success, and established systems of collective
bargaining. As in the Chicago and the San Francisco building trades, buckled
under the attack of the open shop contractors.
At one time twenty-two states had laws making it a criminal offense for
employers to discharge union members or to deny employment because of
membership in a union. The federal government incorporated such a provision in
the Erdman Act of 1898 regulating the railroads. But in a case involving the
right of the federal government to enforce the prohibition against
discrimination of railroad employees, the Supreme Court held that workers could
be discharged for any reason, including membership in a labor union. In the
Kansas statute forbidding discrimination for union membership, the Court held
that an employer could not be penalized for compelling one of his employees to
give up his union membership.
These decisions removed any legislative protection that union members
may have enjoyed against discrimination. In another case the Supreme Court
ruled against attempts to unionize employees who had signed a "yellow-dog
contract," an agreement under which the prospective employee agreed not to join
a union during his tenure with the employer. The National War Labor Board had
directed employers to abandon such contracts, but they increased greatly after
the end of World War I, and were used to block organizing throughout the
nonunion areas of West Virginia. They were also used by employers who would
hire professional strikebreakers and have them sign an agreement not to join a
union.
Inability to obtain relief from Congress turned many sections of
organized labor towards independent political action. By 1922, the proponents
met and organized the Conference for Progressive Political Action, which was
dominated by the railroad unions, although socialists and traditional
supporters of an independent labor party were allowed admission; the communists
were excluded. Groups speaking for the new body endorsed some congressional
candidates in 1922, and when the presidential nominees of the Democratic and
the Republican parties did not meet their criteria for endorsement, they
nominated Robert M. LaFollette for president and Burton K. Wheeler for
vice-president. The AFL endorsed the ticket. Considering the absence of
organizational support outside of Wisconsin, La Follette's home state, the
third party candidates did very well. However, the railway unions, concerned
with their positions in the Congress and the state legislatures, backed out of
the alliance.
The antiunion open-shop campaigns seriously affected membership. From
1920 to 1923, it declined from 5,1047,800 to 3,622,000.
Congress made a giant step forward in providing protection against
discrimination for union membership when it enacted the Railway Labor Act of
1926. Section two allowed each side to designate representatives for purposes
of collective bargaining without interference from the other. In addition a
board of mediation was set up to aid the parties to reach an agreement. In the
event of a shutdown of rail service which might affect the public interest, the
law provided for the appointment of an emergency board of inquiry by the
President.
The power of Congress to outlaw discriminatory labor practices was
upheld by a unanimous Supreme Court. A railroad company had interfered with the
right of its employees to self-organization, and the Brotherhood of Railway
Clerks sued. It was ordered to (1) disestablish the company union, (2)
reinstate the Brotherhood as the representative of the employees until a choice
by secret ballot is made, (3) reinstate employees who had been discharged for
activity in the Brotherhood. Mr. Chief Justice Hughes, who wrote the unanimous
opinion for the Court, said that the workers' right to organize "to safeguard
their proper interests is not to be disputed .... Congress was not required to
ignore this right of the employees but could safeguard it and seek to make
their appropriate collective action an instrument of peace rather than of
strike." He denied that the law would limit the right of the employer to hire
or discharge employees. "The statute is not aimed at the right of the employers
but interference with the freedom of the employees to have representatives of
their own choosing. As the carriers subject to the Act have no constitutional
right to interfere with the freedom of the employees in making their selection
they cannot complain of the statute on constitutional grounds."
The 1920s witnessed the gradual reduction of the power of the United
Mine Workers. In 1922, half a million soft-coal miners and 150,000 anthracite
miners joined in a massive strike. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover ruled
out federal intervention, declaring: "The government's position has long been
known to be that sooner or later there would have to be a showdown in the mine
fields. Its attitude is that if a strike must be, it must be, and the sooner
the issue is disposed of the better."
As operators engaged in cutthroat competition, John L. Lewis, president
of the UMW, thundered "no backward step," which meant no downward wage
adjustment. The policy of "no backward step" proved to be no solution. Although
compromises were worked out with operators in Illinois and other fields, the
miners decided to resist in Ohio and western Pennsylvania. The strike began in
the summer of 1927. It was a bitter and heart-rending struggle, with famished
families evicted from their homes. In July, 1928, the union admitted
defeat.
Ominously, a report from the AFL research department in February, 1928,
called attention to increasing unemployment among organized workers. Neither
the Labor Department nor the Government was prepared for the catastrophe which
followed. In May, 1929, the executive council of the AFL suggested the
establishment of a national employment service, a census to determine the
number of unemployed, and regularization of employment. In November, a month
after the stock market crash, President Hoover asked industry to avoid wage
cuts and to speed investment.
The absence of relief and welfare systems deprived millions of the bare
necessities. Dire want forced them to seek assistance for themselves and their
families, but none was available. State and local governments made some efforts
to provide relief, until their budgets were exhausted. Pleas for federal aid
were rejected by President Herbert Hoover, who insisted that the nation had
"turned the corner." The attempts of Congress to provide aid were vetoed as a
threat to the credit of the federal government.
With business depressed and its promises of permanent prosperity a
bitter memory, Congress enacted the Norris-LaGuardia Act. The law deprived the
federal courts of the power to prohibit certain types of union activity,
organization, assembly, strikes, picketing, and collective acts which can be
performed by an individual. The yellow-dog contract was declared against public
policy.
The labor movement survived the Great Depression shaken but intact. With
the advent of the New Deal, its unions were to initiate the greatest organizing
drives in history.
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