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THE
GREAT STEEL STRIKE
AND ITS LESSONS
by
WILLIAM Z. FOSTER
THE GREAT STEEL STRIKE AND ITS LESSONS
[Illustration: PENNSYLVANIA LAW AND ORDER State Police driving peaceful
citizens out of business places, Clairton, Pa. _Photo by
International_]
THE GREAT STEEL STRIKE AND ITS LESSONS
BY
WILLIAM Z. FOSTER
INTRODUCTION BY
JOHN A. FITCH
NEW YORK
B. W. HUEBSCH, INC.
MCMXX
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY B. W. HUEBSCH, INC.
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
INTRODUCTION
Half a million men are employed in the steel industry of the United
States. At a period in which eight hours is rapidly coming to be
accepted as the standard length of the working day, the principal mills
in this industry are operating on a 12-hour work schedule, and many of
their workmen are employed seven days in every week. These half million
men have, for the most part, no opportunity to discuss with their
employers the conditions of their work. Not only are they denied the
right of bargaining collectively over the terms of the labor contract,
but if grievances arise in the course of their employment they have no
right in any effective manner to take up the matter with their employer
and secure an equitable adjustment.[1] The right even of petition has
been at times denied and, because of the organized strength of the steel
companies and the disorganized weakness of the employees, could be
denied at any time.
The right of workers in this country to organize and to bargain
collectively is unquestioned. On every hand the workers are exercising
this right in order to protect and advance their interests. In the steel
mills not only is the right generally denied but the attempt to exercise
it is punished by expulsion from the industry. Through a system of
espionage that is thoroughgoing and effective the steel companies know
which of their employees are attending union meetings, which of them are
talking with organizers. It is their practice to discharge such men and
thus they nip in the bud any ordinary movement toward organization.
Their power to prevent their employees from acting independently and in
their own interest, extends even to the communities in which they live.
In towns where the mayor's chair is occupied by company officials or
their relatives--as was the case during the 1919 strike in Bethlehem,
Duquesne, Clairton and elsewhere--orders may be issued denying to the
workers the right to hold meetings for organizing purposes, or the
police may be instructed to break them up. Elsewhere--as in Homestead,
McKeesport, Monessen, Rankin and in Pittsburgh itself--the economic
strength of the companies is so great as to secure the willing
cooperation of officials or to compel owners of halls and vacant lots to
refuse the use of their property for the holding of union meetings.
One who has not seen with his own eyes the evidences of steel company
control in the towns where their plants are located will have difficulty
in comprehending its scope and power. Social and religious organizations
are profoundly affected by it. In many a church during the recent
strike, ministers and priests denounced the "agitators" and urged the
workmen in their congregations to go back to the mills. Small business
men accepted deputy sheriffs' commissions, put revolvers in their belts
and talked loudly about the merits of a firing squad as a remedy for
industrial unrest.
For twenty or more years in the mill towns along the Monongahela--since
1892 in Homestead--the working men have lived in an atmosphere of
espionage and repression. The deadening influence of an overwhelming
power, capable of crushing whatever does not bend to its will, has in
these towns stifled individual initiative and robbed citizenship of its
virility.
The story of the most extensive and most courageous fight yet made to
break this power and to set free the half million men of the steel mills
is told within the pages of this book by one who was himself a leader in
the fight. It is a story that is worth the telling, for it has been told
before only in fragmentary bits and without the authority that comes
from the pen of one of the chief actors in the struggle.
Mr. Foster has performed a public service in setting down as he has the
essential facts attendant upon the calling of the strike. The record of
correspondence with Judge Gary and with President Wilson indicates
clearly enough where responsibility for its occurrence lies. It answers
the question also of who it was that flouted the President--the strike
committee that refused to enter into a one sided truce, or Judge Gary,
who would not accept Mr. Wilson's suggestion that he confer with a union
committee, but who was willing to take advantage of the proposed truce
to undermine and destroy the union.
This thoughtful history, remarkably dispassionate upon the whole,
considering the fact that the author was not only an actor in the events
he describes but the storm center of a countrywide campaign of
slanderous falsehood, is an effective answer to those whose method of
opposing the strike was to shout "Bolshevism" and "Revolution." Not thus
are fomenters of revolution accustomed to write. It is this very quality
which will make the book of great value both to the student and to the
labor organizer. Never before has a leader in a great organizing
campaign like the one preceding the steel strike sat down afterward to
appraise so calmly the causes of defeat. Explanations of failure are
common, usually in the form of "alibis." Mr. Foster has been willing to
look the facts steadily in the face and his analysis of the causes of
the loss of the strike--laying the responsibility for it at the doors of
the unions themselves--cannot fail to be helpful to every union leader,
no matter what industry his union may represent. On the other hand his
account of such a feat as the maintenance of a commissary adequate to
meet the needs of the strikers at a cost of $1.40 per man is suggestive
and encouraging to the highest degree. This achievement must stand as a
monument to the integrity and practical ability of the men who conducted
the strike.
It is with no purpose of underwriting every statement of fact or of
making his own every theory advanced in the book that the writer
expresses his confidence in it. It is because the book as a whole is so
well done and because the essential message that it conveys is so true,
that it is a pleasure to write these words of introduction. Other books
have been written about the steel industry. Some have concerned
themselves with metallurgy, others with the commercial aspects of steel
manufacture, and still others with certain phases of the labor problem.
This book is different from all the others. It sets forth as no other
book has, and as no other writer could, the need of the workers in this
great basic industry for organization, and the extreme difficulty of
achieving this essential right. It shows also in the sanity, good
temper, and straightforward speech of the author what sort of leadership
it is that the steel companies have decreed their workers shall not
have!
JOHN A. FITCH.
_New York, June 4, 1920._
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See for example Judge Gary's testimony before the Senate Committee
investigating the steel strike--October 1, 1919, pp. 161-162, of
committee hearings. He told of a strike which occurred because a
grievance remained unadjusted after a committee of the workers had tried
to take it up with the management. The president of the company involved
was for crushing the strike without knowing what the grievance was or
even of the existence of the committee.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION v
CHAPTER
I. THE PRESENT SITUATION 1
The strike--"Victory" of the employers--Industrial
democracy abroad, industrial serfdom at home--What
the workers won--The outlook.
II. A GENERATION OF DEFEAT 8
The urge for mastery--Democratic resistance--The
Homestead strike--The strikes of 1901 and 1909--
The Steel Trust victorious.
III. THE GIANT LABOR AWAKES 16
A bleak prospect--Hope springs eternal--A golden
chance--Disastrous delay--The new plan--A lost
opportunity--The campaign begins--Gary fights
back.
IV. FLANK ATTACKS 28
A sea of troubles--The policy of encirclement--Taking
the outposts--Organizing methods--Financial systems--
The question of morale--Johnstown.
V. BREAKING INTO PITTSBURGH 50
The flying squadron--Monessen--Donora--McKeesport--
Rankin--Braddock--Clairton--Homestead--Duquesne--The
results.
VI. STORM CLOUDS GATHER 68
Relief demanded--The Amalgamated Association moves--A
general movement--The conference committee--Gompers'
letter unanswered--The strike vote--Gary defends steel
autocracy--President Wilson acts in vain--The strike call.
VII. THE STORM BREAKS 96
The Steel Trust Army--Corrupt officialdom--Clairton--
McKeesport--The strike--showing by districts--A
treasonable act--Gary gets his answer.
VIII. GARYISM RAMPANT 110
The White Terror--Constitutional Rights denied--
Unbreakable solidarity--Father Kazincy--The Cossacks
--Scientific barbarity--Prostituted courts--Servants
rewarded.
IX. EFFORTS AT SETTLEMENT 140
The National Industrial Conference--The Senate
committee--The red book--The Margolis case--The
Interchurch World Movement.
X. THE COURSE OF THE STRIKE 162
Pittsburgh district--The railroad men--Corrupt
newspapers--Chicago district--Federal troops at Gary
--Youngstown district--The Amalgamated Association--
Cleveland--The Rod and Wire Mill strike--The Bethlehem
plants--Buffalo and Lackawanna--Wheeling and Steubenville
--Pueblo--Johnstown--Mob rule--The end of the strike.
XI. NATIONAL AND RACIAL ELEMENTS 194
A modern Babel--Americans as skilled workers--Foreigners
as unskilled workers--Language difficulties--The Negro
in the strike--The race problem.
XII. THE COMMISSARIAT--THE STRIKE COST 213
The Relief organization--Rations--System of distribution
--Cost of Commissariat--Steel Strike Relief Fund--Cost of
the strike to the workers, the employers, the public, the
Labor movement.
XIII. PAST MISTAKES AND FUTURE PROBLEMS 234
Labor's lack of confidence--Inadequate efforts--Need of
alliance with miners and railroaders--Radical leadership
as a strike issue--Railroad shopmen, Boston police, miners,
railroad brotherhood strikes--Defection of Amalgamated
Association.
XIV. IN CONCLUSION 255
The point of view--Are trade unions revolutionary?--Camouflage
in social wars--Ruinous dual unionism--Radicals should
strengthen trade unions--The English renaissance--Tom Mann's
work.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Pennsylvania Law and Order _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
National Committee Delegates 38
Strike Ballot 78
Cossacks in Action 122
Mrs. Fannie Sellins, Trade Union Organizer 148
Steel Trust Newspaper Propaganda 188
John Fitzpatrick 216
A Group of Organizers 244
THE GREAT STEEL STRIKE AND ITS LESSONS
THE GREAT STEEL STRIKE AND ITS LESSONS
I
THE PRESENT SITUATION
THE STRIKE--"VICTORY" OF THE EMPLOYERS--INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY
ABROAD, INDUSTRIAL SERFDOM AT HOME--WHAT THE WORKERS
WON--THE OUTLOOK
The great steel strike lasted three months and a half. Begun on
September 22, 1919, by 365,600 men quitting their places in the iron and
steel mills and blast furnaces in fifty cities of ten states, it ended
on January 8, 1920, when the organizations affiliated in the National
Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers voted to permit the
100,000 or more men still on strike to return to work upon the best
terms they could secure.
The steel manufacturers "won" the strike. By forcing an unconditional
surrender, they drove their men back to the old slavery. This they
accomplished in their wonted and time-honored way by carrying on a reign
of terror that outraged every just conception of civil and human rights.
In this unholy task they were aided by a crawling, subservient and
lying press, which spewed forth its poison propaganda in their behalf;
by selfish and indifferent local church movements, which had long since
lost their Christian principles in an ignominious scramble for company
favors; and by hordes of unscrupulous municipal, county, state and
federal officials, whose eagerness to wear the steel collar was equalled
only by their forgetfulness of their oaths of office. No suppression of
free speech and free assembly, no wholesale clubbing, shooting and
jailing of strikers and their families was too revolting for these Steel
Trust[2] hangers-on to carry out with relish. With the notable exception
of a few honorable and courageous individuals here and there among these
hostile elements, it was an alignment of the steel companies, the state,
the courts, the local churches and the press against the steel workers.
Upon the ending of the strike the steel workers got no direct
concessions from their employers. Those who were able to evade the
bitter blacklist were compelled to surrender their union cards and to
return to work under conditions that are a shame and a disgrace. They
were driven back to the infamous peonage system with its twelve hour
day, a system which American steel workers, of all those in the world,
alone have to endure. In England, France, Italy and Germany, the steel
workers enjoy the right of a voice in the control of their industry;
they regularly barter and bargain with their employers over the
questions of hours, wages and working conditions; they also have the
eight hour day. One must come to America, the land of freedom, to find
steel workers still economically disfranchised and compelled to work
twelve hours a day. In this country alone the human rights of the steel
workers are crushed under foot by the triumphant property rights of
their employers.
Who can uphold this indefensible position? Are not our deposits of coal
and iron immeasurably greater, our mills more highly developed, our
labor force more numerous and more skilled than those of any other
country? Who then will venture to assert that American workingmen are
not entitled to exercise all the rights and privileges enjoyed by
European workingmen? If the steel workers of England, or France, or
Italy, or Germany can practice collective bargaining, why not the steel
workers of America? And why should the steel workers here have to work
twelve hours daily when the eight hour day obtains abroad?
There are a hundred good reasons why the principles of collective
bargaining and the shorter workday should prevail in the steel industry
of America, and only one why they should not. This one reason is that
the industry is hard and fast in the grip of absentee capitalists who
take no part in production and whose sole function is to seize by hook
or crook the product of the industry and consume it. These parasites, in
their voracious quest of profits, know neither pity nor responsibility.
Their reckless motto is "After us the deluge." They care less than
naught for the rights and sufferings of the workers. Ignoring the
inevitable weakening of patriotism of people living under miserable
industrial conditions, they go their way, prostituting, strangling and
dismembering our most cherished institutions. And the worst of it is
that in the big strike an ignorant public, miseducated by employers'
propaganda sheets masquerading under the guise of newspapers, applauded
them in their ruthless course. Blindly this public, setting itself up as
the great arbiter of what is democratic and American, condemned as
bolshevistic and ruinous the demands of almost 400,000 steel workers for
simple, fundamental reforms, without which hardly a pretense of freedom
is possible, and lauded as sturdy Americanism the desperate autocracy of
the Steel Trust. All its guns were turned against the strikers.
In this great struggle the mill owners may well claim the material
victory; but with just as much right the workers can claim the moral
victory. For the strike left in every aspiring breast a spark of hope
which must burn on till it finally bursts into a flame of
freedom-bringing revolt. For a generation steel workers had been
hopeless. Their slavery had overwhelmed them. The trade-union movement
seemed weak, distant and incapable. The rottenness of steel districts
precluded all thought of relief through political channels. The
employers seemed omnipotent. But the strike has changed all this. Like
a flash the unions appeared upon the scene. They flourished and expanded
in spite of all opposition. Then boldly they went to a death grapple
with the erstwhile unchallenged employers. It is true they did not win,
but they put up a fight which has won the steel workers' hearts. Their
earnest struggle and the loyal support, by money and food, which they
gave the strikers, have forever laid at rest the employers' arguments
that the unions are cowardly, grafting bodies organized merely to rob
and betray the workers. Even the densest of the strikers could see that
the loss of the strike was due to insufficient preparation; that only a
fraction of the power of unionism had been developed and that with
better organization better results would be secured. And the outcome is
that the steel workers have won a precious belief in the power of
concerted action through the unions. They have discovered the Achilles'
heel of their would-be masters. They now see the way out of their
slavery. This is their tremendous victory.
No less than the steel workers themselves, the whole trade-union
movement won a great moral victory in the steel strike and the campaign
that preceded it. This more than offsets the failure of the strike
itself. The gain consists of a badly needed addition to the unions' thin
store of self-confidence. To trade-union organizers the steel industry
had long symbolized the impossible. Wave after wave of organizing effort
they had sent against it; but their work had been as ineffectual as a
summer sea lapping the base of Gibraltar. Pessimism regarding its
conquest for trade unionism was abysmal. But now all this is changed.
The impossible has been accomplished. The steel workers were organized
in the face of all that the steel companies could do to prevent it. Thus
a whole new vista of possibilities unfolds before the unions. Not only
does the reorganization of the steel industry seem strictly feasible,
but the whole conception that many of the basic industries are immune to
trade unionism turns out to be an illusion. If the steel industry could
be organized, so can any other in the country; for the worst of them
presents hardly a fraction of the difficulties squarely vanquished in
the steel industry. The mouth has been shut forever of that insufferable
pest of the labor movement, the large body of ignorant, incompetent,
short-sighted, visionless union men whose eternal song, when some
important organizing project is afoot, is "It can't be done." After this
experience in the steel industry the problem of unionizing any industry
resolves itself simply into selecting a capable organizer and giving him
sufficient money and men to do the job.
The ending of the strike by no means indicates the abandonment of the
steel workers' battle for their rights. For a while, perhaps, their
advance may be checked, while they are recovering from the effects of
their great struggle. But it will not be long before they have another
big movement under way. They feel but little defeated by the loss of the
strike, and the trade unions as a whole feel even less so. Both have
gained wonderful confidence in themselves and in each other during the
fight. The unions will not desert the field and leave the workers a
prey to the demoralizing propaganda of the employers, customary after
lost strikes. On the contrary they are keeping a large crew of
organizers at work in an educational campaign, devised to maintain and
develop the confidence the steel workers have in themselves and the
unions. Then, when the opportune time comes, which will be but shortly,
the next big drive will be on. Mr. Gary and his associates may attempt
to forestall the inevitable by the granting of fake eight hour days,
paper increases in wages and hand-picked company unions, but it is safe
to say that the steel workers will go on building up stronger and more
aggressive combinations among themselves and with allied trades until
they finally achieve industrial freedom. So long as any men undertake to
oppress the steel workers and to squeeze returns from the industry
without rendering adequate service therefor, just that long must these
men expect to be confronted by a progressively more militant and
rebellious working force. The great steel strike of 1919 will seem only
a preliminary skirmish when compared with the tremendous battles that
are bound to come unless the enslaved steel workers are set free.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Throughout this book the term "Steel Trust" is used to indicate the
collectivity of the great steel companies. It is true that this is in
contradiction to the common usage, which generally applies the term to
the United States Steel Corporation alone, but it is in harmony with the
facts. All the big steel companies act together upon all important
matters confronting their industry. Beyond question they are organized
more or less secretly into a trust. This book recognizes this situation,
hence the broad use of the term "Steel Trust." It is important to
remember this explanation. Where the writer has in mind any one company
that company is named.
II
A GENERATION OF DEFEAT[3]
THE URGE FOR MASTERY--DEMOCRATIC RESISTANCE--THE HOMESTEAD
STRIKE--THE STRIKES OF 1901 AND 1909--THE STEEL TRUST
VICTORIOUS
The recent upheaval in the steel industry was but one link in a long
chain of struggles, the latest battle in an industrial war for freedom
which has raged almost since the inception of the industry.
The steel manufacturers have always aggressively applied the ordinary,
although unacknowledged, American business principles that our
industries exist primarily to create huge profits for the fortunate few
who own them, and that if they have any other utility it is a matter of
secondary importance. The interests of society in the steel business
they scoff at. And as for their own employees, they have never
considered them better than so much necessary human machinery, to be
bought in the market at the lowest possible price and otherwise handled
in a thoroughly irresponsible manner. They clearly understand that if
they are to carry out their policy of raw exploitation, the prime
essential is that they keep their employees unorganized. Then, without
let or hindrance, wages may be kept low, the work day made longer,
speeding systems introduced, safety devices neglected, and the human
side of the industry generally robbed and repressed in favor of its
profit side; whereas, if the unions were allowed to come in, it would
mean that every policy in the industry would first have to be considered
and judged with regard to its effects upon the men actually making steel
and iron. It would mean that humanity must be emphasized at the expense
of misearned dividends. But this would never do. The mill owners are
interested in profits, not in humanity. Hence, if they can prevent it,
they will have no unions. Since the pioneer days of steel making their
policy has tended powerfully on the one hand towards elevating the
employers into a small group of enormously wealthy, idle, industrial
autocrats, and on the other towards depressing the workers into a huge
army of ignorant, poverty-stricken, industrial serfs. The calamity of it
is that this policy has worked out so well.
Against this will-to-power of their employers the steel workers have
fought long and valiantly. In the early days of the industry, when the
combinations of capital were weak, the working force skilled,
English-speaking and independent, the latter easily defended themselves
and made substantial progress toward their own inevitable, even if
unrecognized goal of industrial freedom; but in later years, with the
growth of the gigantic United States Steel Corporation, the displacement
of skilled labor by automatic machinery and the introduction of
multitudes of illiterate immigrants into the industry, their fight for
their rights became a desperate and almost hopeless struggle. For the
past thirty years they have suffered an unbroken series of defeats.
Their one-time growing freedom has been crushed.
At first the fight was easy, and by the later '80's, grace to the
activities of many unions, notable among which were the old Sons of
Vulcan, the Knights of Labor and the Amalgamated Association of Iron,
Steel and Tin Workers, considerable organization existed among the men
employed in the iron and steel mills throughout the country. The
Amalgamated Association, the dominating body, enjoyed great prestige in
the labor movement generally. It consisted almost entirely of highly
skilled men and paid little or no attention to the unskilled workers. In
the heyday of its strength, in 1891, it numbered about 24,000 members.
Its stronghold was in the Pittsburgh district. Its citadel was
Homestead. During the period of its greatest activity some measure of
democracy prevailed in the industry, and prospects seemed bright for its
extension.
But about that time Andrew Carnegie, grown rich and powerful, began to
chafe uneasily under the restrictions placed upon his rapacity by his
organized employees. He wanted a free hand and determined to get it. As
the first step towards enshackling his workers he brought into his
company that inveterate enemy of democracy in all its forms, Henry C.
Frick. Then the two, Carnegie and Frick, neither of whom gave his
workers as much consideration as the Southern slave holder gave his
bondmen--for chattel slaves were at least assured sufficient food, warm
clothes, a habitable home and medical attendance--began to war upon the
union. They started the trouble in Homestead, where the big mills of the
Carnegie Company are located. In 1889 they insisted that the men accept
heavy reductions in wages, write their agreements to expire in the
unfavorable winter season instead of in summer, and give up their union.
The men refused, and after a short strike, got a favorable settlement.
But Carnegie and Frick were not to be lightly turned from their purpose.
When the contract in force expired, they renewed their old demands, and
thus precipitated the great Homestead strike.
This famous strike attracted world-wide attention, and well it might,
for it marked a turning point in the industrial history of America. It
began on June 23, 1892, and lasted until November 20 of the same year.
Characterized by extreme bitterness and violence, it resulted in
complete defeat for the men, not only in Homestead, but also in several
other big mills in Pittsburgh and adjoining towns where the steel
workers had struck in support of their besieged brothers in Homestead.
This unsuccessful strike eliminated organized labor from the mills of
the big Carnegie Company. It also dealt the Amalgamated Association of
Iron, Steel and Tin Workers a blow from which it has not yet recovered.
It ended the period of trade-union expansion in the steel industry and
began an era of unrestricted labor control by the employers. At
Homestead Carnegie and Frick stuck a knife deep into the vitals of the
young democracy of the steel workers.
Recuperating somewhat from the staggering defeat at Homestead, the
Amalgamated Association managed to retain a firm hold in the industry
for a few years longer. Its next big setback, in 1901, was caused by the
organization of the United States Steel Corporation. Foreseeing war from
this monster combination dominated by the hostile Carnegie interests,
the union, presided over at that time by Theodore J. Shaffer, decided to
take time by the forelock and negotiate an agreement that would extend
its scope and give it a chance to live. But the plan failed; the
anti-union tendencies of the employers were too strong, and a strike
resulted. At first the only companies affected were the American Tin
Plate Company, the American Sheet Steel Company and the American Steel
Hoop Company. Finally, however, all the organized men in all the mills
of the United States Steel Corporation were called out, but to no avail;
after a few weeks' struggle the strike was utterly lost.
The failure of the 1901 strike broke the backbone of the Amalgamated
Association. Still, with characteristic trade-union tenacity, it
lingered along in a few of the Trust plants in the sheet and tin section
of the industry. Its business relations with the companies at this stage
of its decline, according to the testimony of its present President, M.
F. Tighe, before the Senate Committee investigating the 1919 strike,
consisted of "giving way to every request that was made by the companies
when they insisted upon it." But even this humble and pliant attitude of
the once powerful Amalgamated Association was intolerable to the haughty
steel kings. They could not brook even the most shadowy opposition to
their industrial absolutism. Accordingly, early in the summer of 1909,
they served notice upon the union men to accept a reduction in wages and
give up their union. It was practically the same ultimatum delivered by
Carnegie and Frick to the Homestead men twenty years before. With a last
desperate rally the union met this latest attack upon its life. The
ensuing strike lasted fourteen months. It was bitterly fought, but it
went the way of all strikes in the steel industry since 1892. It was
lost; and in consequence every trace of unionism was wiped out of the
mills not only of the United States Steel Corporation, but of the big
independent companies as well.
Although the union was not finally crushed in the mills until the strike
of 1909, the steel mill owners were for many years previous to that time
in almost undisputed control of the situation. During a generation,
practically, they have worked their will unhampered; and the results of
their policy of unlimited exploitation are all too apparent. For
themselves they have taken untold millions of wealth from the industry;
for the workers they have left barely enough to eke out an existence in
the miserable, degraded steel towns.
At the outbreak of the World war the steel workers generally, with the
exception of the laborers, who had secured a cent or two advance per
hour, were making less wages than before the Homestead strike. The
constant increase in the cost of living in the intervening years had
still further depressed their standards of life. Not a shred of benefit
had they received from the tremendously increased output of the
industry. While the employers lived in gorgeous palaces, the workers
found themselves, for the most part, crowded like cattle into the filthy
hovels that ordinarily constitute the greater part of the steel towns.
Tuberculosis ran riot among them; infant mortality was far above normal.
Though several increases in wages were granted after the war began,
these have been offset by the terrific rise in the cost of living. If
the war has brought any betterment in the living conditions of the steel
workers, it cannot be seen with the naked eye.
The twelve hour day prevails for half of the men. One-fourth work seven
days a week, with a twenty-four hour shift every two weeks. Their lives
are one constant round of toil. They have no family life, no opportunity
for education or even for recreation; for their few hours of liberty are
spoiled by the ever-present fatigue. Furthermore, working conditions in
the mills are bad. The men are speeded up to such a degree that only the
youngest and strongest can stand it. At forty the average steel worker
is played out. The work, in itself extremely dangerous, is made still
more so by the employers' failure to adopt the necessary safety devices.
Many a man has gone to his death through the wanton neglect of the
companies to provide safeguarding appliances that they would have been
compelled to install were the unions still in the plants.[4] Not a
trace of industrial justice remains. The treatment of the men depends
altogether upon the arbitrary wills of the foremen and superintendents.
A man may give faithful service in a plant for thirty years and then be
discharged offhand, as many are, for some insignificant cause. He has no
one to appeal to. His fellow workers, living in constant terror of
discharge and the blacklist, dare not even listen to him, much less
defend his cause. He must bow to the inevitable, even though it means
industrial ruin for him and his family.
Such deplorable conditions result naturally from a lack of unionism. It
is expecting too much of human nature at this stage of its development
to count on employers treating their employees fairly without some form
of compulsion. Even in highly organized industries the unions have to be
constantly on guard to resist the never-ending encroachments of their
employers, manifested at every conceivable point of attack. For the
workers, indeed, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Hence
nothing but degradation for them and autocracy for their employers may
be looked for in industries where they are systematically kept
unorganized and thus incapable of defending their rights, as is the case
in the steel industry. This system of industrial serfdom has served the
steel barons well for a generation. But it is one the steel workers will
never accept. Regardless of the cost they will rebel against it at every
opportunity till they finally destroy it.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Students desiring a full account of the early struggles of the steel
unions are advised to read Mr. John A. Fitch's splendid book, "The Steel
Workers."
[4] The practice of the different steel companies varies with respect to
safety devices. Some of them are still in the dark ages that all were in
a few years ago, with reckless disregard of human life. Others have made
some progress. Of these the U. S. Steel Corporation is undoubtedly in
the lead, for it has installed many safety appliances and has safety
committees actively at work. At best, however, steel making is an
exceedingly dangerous industry and the risk is intensified by the great
heat of the mills and the long hours of work--the twelve hour day and
the seven day week--which lead inevitably to exhaustion.
III
THE GIANT LABOR AWAKES
A BLEAK PROSPECT--HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL--A GOLDEN CHANCE
--DISASTROUS DELAY--THE NEW PLAN--A LOST OPPORTUNITY--THE
CAMPAIGN BEGINS--GARY FIGHTS BACK
From just previous to, until some time after the beginning of the world
war the situation in the steel industry, from a trade-union point of
view, was truly discouraging. It seemed impossible for the workers to
accomplish anything by organized effort. The big steel companies, by
driving the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers from
the mills, had built up a terrific reputation as union crushers. This
was greatly enhanced by their complete defeat of Labor in the memorable
strikes of the structural iron workers, the lake sailors, the iron
miners, and the steel workers at McKees Rocks in 1909, Bethlehem in 1910
and Youngstown in 1915-16. It was still further enhanced by their
blocking every attempt of the individual trades to re-establish
themselves, and by the failure of the A. F. of L. steel campaign,
inaugurated by the convention of 1909, to achieve even the slightest
tangible results. The endless round of defeat had reduced almost to zero
the trade unions' confidence in their ability to cope with the militant
and rapacious steel manufacturers.
But as the war wore on and the United States joined the general
slaughter, the situation changed rapidly in favor of the unions. The
demand for soldiers and munitions had made labor scarce; the Federal
administration was friendly; the right to organize was freely conceded
by the government and even insisted upon; the steel industry was the
master-clock of the whole war program and had to be kept in operation at
all costs; the workers were taking new heart and making demands--already
they had engaged in big strike movements in the mills in Pittsburgh
(Jones and Laughlin Company), Bethlehem and Birmingham (U. S. Steel).
The gods were indeed fighting on the side of Labor. It was an
opportunity to organize the industry such as might never again occur.
That the trade union movement did not embrace it sooner was a calamity.
The writer was one of those who perceived the unparalleled opportunity.
But being at that time Secretary-Treasurer of the committee organizing
the packing industry I was unable to do anything substantial in the
steel situation until the handing down of Judge Alschuler's decision
giving the packing house workers the eight hour day and other vital
concessions enabled me to slacken my efforts in that important movement.
Immediately thereafter, on April 7, 1918, I presented a resolution to
the Chicago Federation of Labor requesting the executive officers of the
American Federation of Labor to call a general labor conference and to
inaugurate thereat a national campaign to organize the steel workers.
The resolution was endorsed by twelve local unions in the steel
industry. It was adopted unanimously and forwarded to the A. F. of L.
The latter took the matter up with the rapidly reviving Amalgamated
Association, and the affair was slowly winding along to an eventual
conference, with a loss of much precious time, when the resolution was
resubmitted to the Chicago Federation of Labor, re-adopted and sent to
the St. Paul convention of the A. F. of L., June 10-20, 1918. It
follows:
RESOLUTION #29
WHEREAS, the organization of the vast armies of
wage-earners employed in the steel industries is vitally
necessary to the further spread of industrial democracy in
America, and
WHEREAS, Organized Labor can accomplish this great
task only by putting forth a tremendous effort; therefore,
be it
RESOLVED, that the executive officers of the A. F.
of L. stand instructed to call a conference during this
convention of delegates of all international unions whose
interests are involved in the steel industries, and of all
the State Federations and City Central bodies in the steel
districts, for the purpose of uniting all these
organizations into one mighty drive to organize the steel
plants of America.
The resolution was adopted by unanimous vote. Accordingly, a number of
conferences were held during the convention, at which the proposed
campaign was discussed and endorsed. The outcome was that provisions
were made to have President Gompers call another conference, in Chicago
thirty days later, of responsible union officials who would come
prepared to act in the name of their international unions. This involved
further waste of probably the most precious time for organizing work
that Labor will ever have.
From past events in the steel industry it was evident that in the
proposed campaign radical departures would have to be made from the
ordinary organizing tactics. Without question the steel workers' unions
have always lacked efficiency in their organizing departments. This was
a cardinal failing of the Amalgamated Association and it contributed as
much, if not more than anything else to its downfall. If, when in its
prime, this organization had shown sufficient organizing activity in the
non-union mills, and especially by taking in the unskilled, it would
have so intrenched itself that Carnegie and his henchman, Frick, never
could have dislodged it. But, unfortunately, it undertook too much of
its organization work at the conference table and not enough at the mill
gates. Consequently, more than once it found itself in deadly quarrels
with the employers over the unionization of certain mills, when a live
organizer working among the non-union men involved would have solved the
problem in a few weeks.
Nor had the other unions claiming jurisdiction over men employed in the
steel industry developed an organizing policy equal to the occasion.
Their system of nibbling away, one craft at a time in individual mills,
was entirely out of place. Possibly effective in some industries, it was
worse than useless in the steel mills. Its unvarying failure served only
to strengthen the mill owners and to further discourage the mill
workers and Organized Labor. It is pure folly to organize one trade in
one mill, or all trades in one mill, or even all trades in all the mills
in one locality, when, at any time it sees fit to do so, the Steel Trust
can defeat the movement by merely shutting down its mills in the
affected district and transferring its work elsewhere, as it has done
time and again. It was plain, therefore, that the proposed campaign
would have to affect all the steel mills simultaneously. It would have
to be national in scope and encompass every worker in every mill, in
every steel district in the United States.
The intention was to use the system so strikingly successful in the
organization of the packing industry. The committee charged with
organizing that industry, when it assembled, a year before, to begin the
work, found three possible methods of procedure confronting it, each
with its advocates present. It could go along on the old, discredited
craft policy of each trade for itself and the devil take the hindmost;
it might attempt to form an industrial union; or it could apply the
principle of federating the trades, then making great headway on the
railroads. The latter system was the one chosen as the best fitted to
get results at this stage in the development of the unions and the
packing industry. And the outcome proved the wisdom of the decision. In
the steel campaign the unions were to be similarly linked together in an
offensive and defensive alliance.
But all this relates merely to the shell of the plan behind Resolution
No. 29. Its breath of life was in its strategy; in the way the
organization work was to be prosecuted. The best plans are worthless
unless properly executed. The idea was to make a hurricane drive
simultaneously in all the steel centers that would catch the workers'
imagination and sweep them into the unions _en masse_ despite all
opposition, and thus to put Mr. Gary and his associates into such a
predicament that they would have to grant the just demands of their men.
It was intended that after the Chicago conference a dozen or more
general organizers should be dispatched immediately to the most
important steel centers, to bring to the steel workers the first word of
the big drive being made in their behalf, and to organize local
committees to handle the detail work of organization. In the meantime
the co-operating international unions were to recruit numbers of
organizers and to send them to join the forces already being developed
everywhere by the general organizers. They should also assemble and pay
in as quickly as possible their respective portions of the fund of at
least $250,000 to be provided for the work. The essence of the plan was
quick, energetic action.
At the end of three or four weeks, when the organizing forces were in
good shape and the workers in the mills acquainted with what was afoot,
the campaign would be opened with a rush. Great mass meetings, built up
by extensive advertising, would be held everywhere at the same time
throughout the steel industry. These were calculated to arouse hope and
enthusiasm among the workers and to bring thousands of them into the
unions, regardless of any steps the mill owners might take to prevent
it. After two or three meetings in each place, the heavy stream of men
pouring into the unions would be turned into a decisive flood by the
election of committees to formulate the grievances of the men and
present these to the employers. The war was on; the continued operation
of the steel industry was imperative; a strike was therefore out of the
question; the steel manufacturers would have been compelled to yield to
their workers, either directly or through the instrumentality of the
Government. The trade unions would have been re-established in the steel
industry, and along with them fair dealing and the beginnings of
industrial democracy.
The plan was not only a bold one, but also under the circumstances the
logical and practical one. The course of events proved its feasibility.
The contention that it involved taking unfair advantage of the steel
manufacturers may be dismissed as inconsequential. These gentlemen in
their dealings with those who stand in their way do not even know the
meaning of the word fairness. Their workers they shoot and starve into
submission; their competitors they industrially strangle without
ceremony; the public and the Government they exploit without stint or
limit. The year before the campaign began, 1917, when the country was
straining every nerve to develop and conserve its resources, the United
States Steel Corporation alone, not to mention the many independents,
after paying federal taxes and leaving out of account the vast sums that
disappeared in the obscure and mysterious company funds, unblushingly
pocketed the fabulous profit of $253,608,200.
It now remained to be seen how far the unions would sustain such a
general and energetic campaign. The fateful conference met in the New
Morrison Hotel, Chicago, August 1-2, 1918. Samuel Gompers presided over
its sessions. Representatives of fifteen international unions were
present. These men showed their progressive spirit by meeting many
difficult issues squarely with the proper solutions. They realized fully
the need of co-operation along industrial lines, from the men who dig
the coal and iron ore to those who switch the finished products onto the
main lines of the railroads. Plainly no trade felt able to cope
single-handed with the Steel Trust; and joint action was decided upon
almost without discussion. Likewise the conference saw the folly of
trying to organize the steel industry with each of the score of unions
demanding a different initiation fee. Therefore, after much stretching
of constitutions, the international unions, with the exception of the
Bricklayers, Molders and Patternmakers (who charged respectively $7.25,
$5.00 and $5.00), agreed to a uniform initiation fee of three dollars,
one dollar of which was to be used for defraying expenses of the
national organization work.
At the same meeting the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel
Workers was formed. It was made to consist of one representative from
each of the co-operating international unions. Its given function was to
superintend the work of organization. Its chairman had to be a
representative of the A. F. of L. Mr. Gompers volunteered to fill this
position; the writer was elected Secretary-Treasurer. Including later
additions, the constituent unions were as follows:
International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, Drop-Forgers
and Helpers
Brotherhood of Boilermakers and Iron Ship Builders
and Helpers of America
United Brick and Clay Workers
Bricklayers', Masons' and Plasterers' International
Union of America
International Association of Bridge, Structural and
Ornamental Iron Workers
Coopers' International Union of North America
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
International Brotherhood of Foundry Employees
International Hod Carriers', Building, and Common
Laborers' Union of America
Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin
Workers
International Association of Machinists
International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter
Workers
United Mine Workers of America
International Molders' Union of North America
Patternmakers' League of North America
United Association of Plumbers and Steam Fitters
Quarry Workers' International Union of North America