and more critical. A climax was reached in 1908-1909. In February 1908,
came the Supreme Court decision in the Danbury Hatters' case, which held
that members of a labor union could be held financially responsible to
the full amount of their individual property under the Sherman
Anti-Trust Act for losses to business occasioned by an interstate
boycott.[72] By way of contrast, the Supreme Court within the same week
held unconstitutional the portion of the Erdman Act which prohibited
discrimination by railways against workmen on account of their
membership in a union.[73] One year later, in the Buck's Stove and Range
Company boycott case, Gompers, Mitchell, and Morrison, the three most
prominent officials of the American Federation of Labor, were sentenced
by a lower court in the District of Columbia to long terms in prison for
violating an injunction which prohibited all mention of the fact that
the plaintiff firm had ever been boycotted.[74] Even though neither
these nor subsequent court decisions had the paralyzing effect upon
American trade unionism which its enemies hoped for and its friends
feared, the situation called for a change in tactics. It thus came about
that the Federation, which, as was seen, by the very principles of its
program wished to let government alone,--as it indeed expected little
good of government,--was obliged to enter into competition with the
employers for controlling government; this was because one branch of the
government, namely the judicial one, would not let it alone.
A growing impatience with Congress was manifested in resolutions adopted
by successive conventions. In 1902 the convention authorized the
Executive Council to take "such further steps as will secure the
nomination--and the election--of only such men as are fully and
satisfactorily pledged to the support of the bills" championed by the
Federation. Accordingly, the Executive Council prepared a series of
questions to be submitted to all candidates for Congress in 1904 by the
local unions of each district.
The Federation was more active in the Congressional election of 1906.
Early in the year the Executive Council urged affiliated unions to use
their influence to prevent the nomination in party primaries or
conventions of candidates for Congress who refused to endorse labor's
demands, and where both parties nominated refractory candidates to run
independent labor candidates. The labor campaign was placed in the hands
of a Labor Representation Committee, which made use of press publicity
and other standard means. Trade union speakers were sent into the
districts of the most conspicuous enemies of labor's demands to urge
their defeat. The battle royal was waged against Congressman Littlefield
of Maine. A dozen union officials, headed by President Gompers, invaded
his district to tell the electorate of his insults to organized labor.
However, he was reelected, although with a reduced plurality over the
preceding election. The only positive success was the election of
McDermott of the commercial telegraphers' union in Chicago. President
Gompers, however, insisted that the cutting down of the majorities of
the conspicuous enemies of labor's demands gave "more than a hint" of
what organized labor "can and may do when thoroughly prepared to
exercise its political strength." Nevertheless the next Congress was
even more hostile than the preceding one. The convention of the
Federation following the election approved the new tactics, but was
careful at the same time to declare that the Federation was neither
allied with any political party nor had any intention of forming an
independent labor party.
In the Presidential election of 1908, however, the Federation virtually
entered into an alliance with the Democrats. At a "Protest Conference"
in March, 1908, attended by the executive officers of most of the
affiliated national unions as well as by the representatives of several
farmers' organizations, the threat was uttered that organized labor
would make a determined effort in the coming campaign to defeat its
enemies, whether "candidates for President, for Congress, or other
offices." The next step was the presentation of the demands of the
Federation to the platform committees of the conventions of both
parties. The wording of the proposed anti-injunction plank suggests that
it had been framed after consultation with the Democratic leaders, since
it omitted to demand the sweeping away of the doctrine of malicious
conspiracy or the prohibition of the issuance of injunctions to protect
business rights, which had regularly been asked by the American
Federation of Labor since 1904. In its place was substituted an
indefinite statement against the issuance of injunctions in labor
disputes where none would be allowed if no labor dispute existed and a
declaration in favor of jury trial on the charge of contempt of court.
The Republicans paid scant attention to the planks of the Federation.
Their platform merely reiterated the recognized law upon the allowance
of equity relief; and as if to leave no further doubt in the minds of
the labor leaders, proceeded to nominate for President, William H. Taft,
who as a Federal judge in the early nineties was responsible for some of
the most sweeping injunctions ever issued in labor disputes. A year
earlier Gompers had characterized Taft as "the injunction
standard-bearer" and as an impossible candidate. The Democratic
platform, on the other hand, _verbatim_ repeated the Federation plank on
the injunction question and nominated Bryan.
After the party conventions had adjourned the _American Federationist_
entered on a vigorous attack upon the Republican platform and candidate.
President Gompers recognized that this was equivalent to an endorsement
of Bryan, but pleaded that "in performing a solemn duty at this time in
support of a political party, labor does not become partisan to a
political party, but partisan to a principle." Substantially, all
prominent non-Socialist trade-union officials followed Gompers' lead.
That the trade unionists did not vote solidly for Bryan, however, is
apparent from the distribution of the vote. On the other hand, it is
true that the Socialist vote in 1908 in almost all trade-union centers
was not materially above that of 1904, which would seem to warrant the
conclusion that Gompers may have "delivered to Bryan" not a few labor
votes which would otherwise have gone to Debs.
In the Congressional election of 1910 the Federation repeated the policy
of "reward your friends, and punish your enemies." However, it avoided
more successfully the appearance of partisanship. Many progressive
Republicans received as strong support as did Democratic candidates.
Nevertheless the Democratic majority in the new House meant that the
Federation was at last "on the inside" of one branch of the government.
In addition, fifteen men holding cards of membership in unions, were
elected to Congress, which was the largest number on record. Furthermore
William B. Wilson, Ex-Secretary of the United Mine Workers, was
appointed chairman of the important House Committee on Labor.
The Congress of 1911-1913 with its Democratic House of Representatives
passed a large portion of the legislation which the Federation had been
urging for fifteen years. It passed an eight-hour law on government
contract work, as already noted, and a seaman's bill, which went far to
grant to the sailors the freedom of contract enjoyed by other wage
earners. It created a Department of Labor with a seat in the Cabinet. It
also attached a "rider" to the appropriation bill for the Department of
Justice enjoining the use of any of the funds for purposes of
prosecuting labor organizations under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law and
other Federal laws. In the presidential campaign of 1912 Gompers pointed
to the legislation favorable to labor initiated by the Democratic House
of Representatives and let the workers draw their own conclusions. The
corner stone of the Federation's legislative program, the legal
exemption of trade unions from the operation of anti-trust legislation
and from court interference in disputes by means of injunctions, was yet
to be laid. By inference, therefore, the election of a Democratic
administration was the logical means to that end.
At last, with the election of Woodrow Wilson as President and of a
Democratic Congress in 1912, the political friends of the Federation
controlled all branches of government. William B. Wilson was given the
place of Secretary of Labor. Hereafter, for at least seven years, the
Federation was an "insider" in the national government. The road now
seemed clear to the attainment by trade unions of freedom from court
interference in struggles against employers--a judicial _laissez-faire_.
The political program initiated in 1906 seemed to be bearing fruit.
The drift into politics, since 1906, has differed essentially from that
of earlier periods. It has been a movement coming from "on top," not
from the masses of the laborers themselves. Hard times and defeats in
strikes have not very prominently figured. Instead of a movement led by
local unions and by city centrals as had been the case practically in
all preceding political attempts, the Executive Council of the American
Federation of Labor now became the directing force. The rank and file
seem to have been much less stirred than the leaders; for the member who
held no union office felt less intensely the menace from injunctions
than the officials who might face a prison sentence for contempt of
court. Probably for this reason the "delivery" of the labor vote by the
Federation has ever been so largely problematical. That the Federation
leaders were able to force the desired concessions from one of the
political parties by holding out a _quid pro quo_ of such an uncertain
value is at once a tribute to their political sagacity as well as a mark
of the instability of the general political alignment in the country.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] The bricklayers became affiliated in 1917.
[45] "The Growth of Labor Organizations in the United States,
1897-1914," in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, Aug., 1916, p. 780.
[46] "The Extent of Trade Unionism," in _Annals of American Academy of
Political Science_, Vol. 69, p. 118.
[47] _Ibid._
[48] "The Extent of Trade Unionism," in _Annals of American Academy of
Political Science_, Vol. 69, p. 118.
[49] The "federal labor unions" (mixed unions) and the directly
affiliated local trade unions (in trades in which a national union does
not yet exist) are forms of organization which the Federation designed
for bringing in the more miscellaneous classes of labor. The membership
in these has seldom reached over 100,000.
[50] A small but immensely rich area in Eastern Pennsylvania where the
only anthracite coal deposits in the United States are found.
[51] At a conference at Columbus, Ohio, in January, 1886, coal operators
from Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois met the organized
miners and drew up an agreement covering the wages which were to prevail
throughout the central competitive field from May 1, 1886, to April 30,
1887. The scale established would seem to have been dictated by the wish
to give the markets of the central competitive field to the Ohio
operators. Ohio was favored in the scale established by this first
Interstate conference probably because more than half of the operators
present came from that State, and because the chief strength of the
miners' union also lay in that State. To prevent friction over the
interpretation of the Interstate agreement, a board of arbitration and
conciliation was established. This board consisted of five miners and
five operators chosen at large, and one miner and operator more from
each of the States of this field. Such a board of arbitration and
conciliation was provided for in all of the Interstate agreements of the
period of the eighties. This system of Interstate agreement, in spite of
the cut-throat competition raging between operators, was maintained for
Pennsylvania and Ohio practically until 1890, Illinois having been lost
in 1887, and Indiana in 1888. It formed the real predecessor of the
system established in 1898 and in vogue thereafter.
[52] See above, 136.
[53] The run-of-mine system means payment by weight of the coal as
brought out of the mine including minute pieces and impurities.
[54] The check-off system refers to collection of union dues. It means
that the employer agrees to deduct from the wage of each miner the
amount of his union dues, thus constituting himself the union's
financial agent.
[55] In that district the check-off was granted in 1902.
[56] Hitchman Coal and Coke Company _v._ Mitchell, 245 U.S. 232.
[57] See below, 175-177.
[58] The actual membership of the union is considerably above these
figures, since they are based upon the dues-paying membership, and
miners out on strike are exempted from the payment of all dues. The
number of miners who always act with the union is much larger still.
Even in non-union fields the United Mine Workers have always been
successful in getting thousands of miners to obey their order to strike.
[59] See Webb, _History of Trade Unionism_, p. 205 ff.
[60] This was demonstrated in the bitterly fought strike on the Chicago,
Burlington and Quincy Railroad in 1888. (See above, 130-131.)
[61] Seniority also decides the assignment to "runs," which differ
greatly in desirability, and it gives preference over junior employes in
keeping the job when it is necessary to lay men off.
[62] The first arbitration act was passed by Congress in 1888. In 1898
it was superseded by the well known Erdman Act, which prescribed rules
for mediation and voluntary arbitration.
[63] Concerted movements began in 1907 as joint demands upon all
railways in a single section of the country, like the East or the West,
by a single group of employes; after 1912 two or more brotherhoods
initiated common concerted movements, first in one section only, and at
last covering all the railways of the country.
[64] See below, 230-233.
[65] Long before this, about the middle of the nineties, the first
system federations were initiated by the brotherhoods and were confined
to them only; they took up adjustment of grievances and related matters.
[66] The International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, the Brotherhood of
Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders, the Pattern Makers' League, the
International Union of Stove Mounters, the International Union of Metal
Polishers, Platers, Brass and Silver Workers, the International
Federation of Draftsmen's Unions, and the International Brotherhood of
Foundry Employes.
[67] Professor Barnett attributes the failure of these agreements
chiefly to faulty agreement machinery. The working rules, he points out,
are rules made by the national union and therefore can be changed by the
national union only. At the same time the agreements were national only
in so far as they provided for national conciliation machinery; the
fixing of wages was left to local bodies. Consequently, the national
employers' associations lacked the power to offer the unions an
indispensable _quid pro quo_ in higher wages for a compromise on working
rules. ("National and District Systems of Collective Bargaining in the
United States," in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, May, 1912, pp. 425
ff.)
[68] The following account is taken from Chapter X of the _Steel
Workers_ by John A. Fitch, published by the Russell Sage Foundation.
[69] See above, 133-135.
[70] The opposition of the Steel Corporation to unionism was an
important factor in the disruption of the agreement systems in the
structural iron-erecting industry in 1905 and in the carrying industry
on the Great Lakes in 1908; in each of these industries the Corporation
holds a place of considerable control.
[71] See above, 47-49.
[72] Loewe _v._ Lawlor, 208 U.S. 274 (1908).
[73] Adair _v._ U.S., 208 U.S. 161 (1908).
[74] 36 Wash. Law Rep. 436 (1909). Gompers was finally sentenced to
imprisonment for thirty days and the other two defendants were fined
$500 each. These penalties were later lifted by the Supreme Court on a
technicality, 233 U.S. 604 (1914).
CHAPTER 9
RADICAL UNIONISM AND A "COUNTER-REFORMATION"
For ten years after 1904, when it reached its high point, the American
Federation of Labor was obliged to stay on the defensive--on the
defensive against the "open-shop" employers and against the courts. Even
the periodic excursions into politics were in substance defensive moves.
This turn of events naturally tended to detract from the prestige of the
type of unionism for which Gompers was spokesman; and by contrast raised
the stock of the radical opposition.
The opposition developed both in and outside the Federation. Inside it
was the socialist "industrialist" who advocated a political labor party
on a socialist platform, such as the Federation had rejected when it
defeated the "program" of 1893,[75] together with a plan of organization
by industry instead of by craft. Outside the Federation the opposition
marched under the flag of the Industrial Workers of the World, which was
launched by socialists but soon after birth fell into the hands of
syndicalists.
However, fully to understand the issue between conservatives and
radicals in the Federation after 1905, one needs to go back much earlier
for the "background."
The socialist movement, after it had unwittingly assisted in the birth
of the opportunistic trade unionism of Strasser and Gompers,[76] did
not disappear, but remained throughout the eighties a handful of
"intellectuals" and "intellectualized" wage earners, mainly Germans.
These never abandoned the hope of better things for socialism in the
labor movement. With this end in view, they adopted an attitude of
enthusiastic cooperation with the Knights of Labor and the Federation in
their wage struggle, which they accompanied, to be sure, by a persistent
though friendly "nudging" in the direction of socialism. During the
greater part of the eighties the socialists were closer to the trade
unionists than to the Knights, because of the larger proportion of
foreign born, principally Germans, among them. The unions in the cigar
making, cabinet making, brewing, and other German trades counted many
socialists, and socialists were also in the lead in the city federations
of unions in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and
other cities. In the campaign of Henry George for Mayor of New York in
1886, the socialists cooperated with him and the labor organizations.
When, however, the campaign being over, they fell out with George on the
issue of the single tax, they received more sympathy from the trade
unionists than George; though one should add that the internal strife
caused the majority of the trade unionists to lose interest in either
faction and in the whole political movement. The socialist organization
went by the name of the Socialist Labor party, which it had kept since
1877. Its enrolled membership was under 10,000, and its activities were
non-political (since it refrained from nominating its own tickets) but
entirely agitational and propagandist. The socialist press was chiefly
in German and was led by a daily in New York. So it continued until
there appeared on the scene an imperious figure, one of those men who,
had he lived in a country with conditions more favorable to socialism
than the United States, would doubtless have become one of the world's
outstanding revolutionary leaders. This man was Daniel DeLeon.
DeLeon was of South American ancestry, who early immigrated to New York.
For a time he was teacher of languages at Columbia College; later he
devoted himself thoroughly to socialist propaganda. He established his
first connection with the labor movement in the George campaign in 1886
and by 1890 we find him in control of the socialist organization. DeLeon
was impatient with the policy of slow permeation carried on by the
socialists. A convinced if not fanatical Marxian, his philosophy taught
him that the American labor movement, like all national labor movements,
had, in the nature of things, to be socialist. He formed the plan of a
supreme and last effort to carry socialism into the hosts of the Knights
and the Federation, failing which, other and more drastic means would be
used.
By 1895 he learned that he was beaten in both organizations; not,
however, without temporarily upsetting the groups in control. For, the
only time when Samuel Gompers was defeated for President of the
Federation was in 1894, when the socialists, angered by his part in the
rejection of the socialist program at the convention,[77] joined with
his enemies and voted another man into office. Gompers was reelected the
next year and the Federation seemed definitely shut to socialism. DeLeon
was now ready to go to the limit with the Federation. If the established
unions refused to assume the part of the gravediggers of capitalism,
designed for them, as he believed, by the very logic of history, so much
the worse for the established trade unions.
Out of this grew the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance as a life and
death rival to the Federation. From the standpoint of socialism no more
unfortunate step could have been taken. It immediately stamped the
socialists as wilful destroyers of the unity of labor. To the trade
unionists, yet fresh from the ordeal of the struggle against the Knights
of Labor, the action of the socialists was an unforgivable crime. All
the bitterness which has characterized the fight between socialist and
anti-socialist in the Federation verily goes back to this gross
miscalculation by DeLeon of the psychology of the trade union movement.
DeLeon, on his part, attributed the action of the Federation to a
hopelessly corrupt leadership and, since he failed to unseat it by
working from within, he now felt justified in striking at the entire
structure.
The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance was a failure from the outset.
Only a small portion of even the socialist-minded trade unionists were
willing to join in the venture. Many trade union leaders who had been
allied with the socialists now openly sided with Gompers. In brief, the
socialist "revolution" in the American labor world suffered the fate of
all unsuccessful revolutions: it alienated the moderate sympathizers and
forced the victorious majority into taking up a more uncompromising
position than heretofore.
Finally, the hopelessness of DeLeon's tactics became obvious. One
faction in the Socialist Labor party, which had been in opposition ever
since he assumed command, came out in revolt in 1898. A fusion took
place between it and another socialist group, the so-called Debs-Berger
Social Democracy,[78] which took the name of the Social Democratic
Party. Later, at a "Unity Congress" in 1901, it became the Socialist
Party of America. What distinguished this party from the Socialist Labor
party (which, although it had lost its primacy in the socialist
movement, has continued side by side with the Socialist party of
America), was well expressed in a resolution adopted at the same "Unity"
convention: "We recognize that trade unions are by historical necessity
organized on neutral grounds as far as political affiliation is
concerned." With this program, the socialists have been fairly
successful in extending their influence in the American Federation of
Labor so that at times they have controlled about one-third of the votes
in the conventions. Nevertheless the conservatives have never forgiven
the socialists their "original sin." In the country at large socialism
made steady progress until 1912, when nearly one million votes were cast
for Eugene V. Debs, or about 1/16 of the total. After 1912, particularly
since 1916, the socialist party became involved in the War and the
difficulties created by the War and retrogressed.
For a number of years DeLeon's failure kept possible imitators in check.
However, in 1905, came another attempt in the shape of the Industrial
Workers of the World. As with its predecessor, impatient socialists
helped to set it afoot, but unlike the Alliance, it was at the same
time an outgrowth of a particular situation in the actual labor
movement, namely, of the bitter fight which was being waged by the
Western Federation of Miners since the middle nineties.
Beginning with a violent clash between miners and mine owners in the
silver region of Coeur d'Alène, Idaho, in the early nineties, the mining
States of the West became the scene of many labor struggles which were
more like civil wars than like ordinary labor strikes.
A most important contributing cause was a struggle, bolder than has been
encountered elsewhere in the United States, for control of government in
the interest of economic class. This was partly due to the absence of a
neutral middle class, farmers or others, who might have been able to
keep matters within bounds.
The Western Federation of Miners was an organization of workers in and
around the metaliferous mines. It also included workers in smelters. It
held its first convention in 1893 in Butte, Montana. In 1894 the men
employed in the Cripple Creek, Colorado, gold fields demanded a minimum
wage of three dollars for an eight-hour day. After four months the
strike resulted in a victory for the union. Other strikes occurred in
1896 and 1897 at Leadville, in 1899 in the Coeur d'Alène mining
district, and in 1901 at Rossland and Fernie, British Columbia, and also
in the San Juan district in California.
The most important strike of the Western Federation of Miners, however,
began in 1903 at Colorado City, where the mill and smeltermen's union
quit work in order to compel better working conditions. As the
sympathetic strike was a recognized part of the policy of the Western
Federation of Miners, all the miners in the Cripple Creek region were
called out. The eight-hour day in the smelters was the chief issue. In
1899 the Colorado legislature had passed an eight-hour law which was
declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the State. To overcome
this difficulty, an amendment to the State constitution was passed in
1902 by a large majority, but the legislature, after having thus
received a direct command to establish the eight-hour law, adjourned
without taking action. Much of the subsequent disorder and bloodshed in
the Cripple Creek region during 1903-1904 is traceable to this failure
on the part of the legislature to enact the eight-hour law. The struggle
in Colorado helped to convince the Western miners that agreements with
their employers were futile, that constitutional amendments and politics
were futile, and from this they drew the conclusion that the
revolutionary way was the only way. William D. Haywood, who became the
central figure in the revolutionary movement of the Industrial Workers
of the World since its launching in 1905, was a former national officer
of the Western Federation of Miners and a graduate of the Colorado
school of industrial experience.[79]
Even before 1905 the Western Federation of Miners, which was out of
touch with the American Federation of Labor for reasons of geography and
of difference in policy and program, attempted to set up a national
labor federation which would reflect its spirit. An American Labor Union
was created in 1902, which by 1905 had a membership of about 16,000
besides the 27,000 of the miners' federation. It was thus the precursor
of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905. In the latter the
revolutionary miners from the West joined hands with radical socialists
from the East and Middle West of both socialist parties, the Socialist
party of America and DeLeon's Socialist Labor party.
We shall forbear tracing here the complicated internal history of the
I.W.W., that is the friction which immediately arose between the
DeLeonites and the other socialists and later on the struggle between
the socialists and the syndicalist-minded labor rebels from the West.
Suffice it to say that the Western Federation of Miners, which was its
very heart and body, convinced of the futility of it all, seceded in
1907. In 1911 it joined the American Federation of Labor and after
several hard-fought strikes, notably in Michigan in 1913, it practically
became assimilated to the other unions in the American Federation of
Labor.
The remnant of the I.W.W. split in 1908 into two rival Industrial
Workers of the World, with headquarters in Detroit and Chicago,
respectively, on the issue of revolutionary political versus
non-political or "direct" action. As a rival to the Federation of Labor
the I.W.W. never materialized, but on the one hand, as an instrument of
resistance by the migratory laborers of the West and, on the other hand,
as a prod to the Federation to do its duty to the unorganized and
unskilled foreign-speaking workers of the East, the I.W.W. will for long
have a part to play.
In fact, about 1912, it seemed as though the I.W.W. were about to repeat
the performance of the Knights of Labor in the Great Upheaval of
1885-1887. Its clamorous appearance in the industrial East, showing in
the strikes by the non-English-speaking workers in the textile mills of
Lawrence, Massachusetts, Paterson, New Jersey, and Little Falls, New
York, on the one hand, and on the other, the less tangible but no less
desperate strikes of casual laborers which occurred from time to time in
the West, bore for the observer a marked resemblance to the Great
Upheaval. Furthermore, the trained eyes of the leaders of the Federation
espied in the Industrial Workers of the World a new rival which would
best be met on its own ground by organizing within the Federation the
very same elements to which the I.W.W. especially addressed itself.
Accordingly, at the convention of 1912, held in Rochester, the problem
of organizing the unskilled occupied a place near the head of the list.
But after the unsuccessful Paterson textile strikes in 1912 and 1913,
the star of the Industrial Workers of the World set as rapidly as it had
risen and the organization rapidly retrogressed. At no time did it roll
up a membership of more than 60,000 as compared with the maximum
membership of 750,000 of the Knights of Labor.
The charge made by the I.W.W. against the Federation of Labor (and it is
in relation to the latter that the I.W.W. has any importance at all) is
mainly two-fold: on aim and on method. "Instead of the conservative
motto, 'A fair day's wage for a fair day's work,'" reads the Preamble,
"We must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, 'Abolition
of the wage system.' It is the historic mission of the working class to
do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not
only for the every-day struggle with capitalists, but to carry on
production when capitalism shall have been overthrown." Then on method:
"We find that the centering of management in industries into fewer and
fewer hands makes the trade union unable to cope with the ever-growing
power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs
which allows one set of the workers to be pitted against another set of
workers in the same industry, thereby helping to defeat one another in
wage wars.... These conditions must be changed and the interest of the
working class upheld only by an organization founded in such a way that
all its members in any one industry, or in all industries, if necessary,
cease work whenever a strike or a lockout is in any department thereof,
thus making an injury to one an injury to all." Lastly, "By organizing
industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the
shell of the old."
This meant "industrialism" versus the craft autonomy of the Federation.
"Industrialism" was a product of the intense labor struggles of the
nineties, of the Pullman railway strike in 1894, of the general strike
of the bituminous miners of 1898, and of a decade long struggle and
boycott in the beer-brewing industry. Industrialism meant a united front
against the employers in an industry regardless of craft; it meant doing
away with the paralyzing disputes over jurisdiction amongst the several
craft unions; it meant also stretching out the hand of fellowship to the
unskilled worker who knowing no craft fitted into no craft union. But
over and above these changes in structure there hovered a new spirit, a
spirit of class struggle and of revolutionary solidarity in contrast
with the spirit of "business unionism" of the typical craft union.
Industrialism signified a challenge to the old leadership, to the
leadership of Gompers and his associates, by a younger generation of
leaders who were more in tune with the social ideas of the radical
intellectuals and the labor movements of Europe than with the
traditional policies of the Federation.
But there is industrialism and industrialism, each answering the demands
of a _particular stratum_ of the wage-earning class. The class lowest in
the scale, the unskilled and "floaters," for which the I.W.W. speaks,
conceives industrialism as "one big union," where not only trade but
even industrial distinctions are virtually ignored with reference to
action against employers, if not also with reference to the principle of
organization. The native floater in the West and the unskilled foreigner
in the East are equally responsive to the appeal to storm capitalism in
a successive series of revolts under the banner of the "one big union."
Uniting in its ranks the workers with the least experience in
organization and with none in political action, the "one big union" pins
its faith upon assault rather than "armed peace," upon the strike
without the trade agreement, and has no faith whatsoever in political or
legislative action.
Another form of industrialism is that of the middle stratum of the
wage-earning group, embracing trades which are moderately skilled and
have had considerable experience in organization, such as brewing,
clothing, and mining. They realize that, in order to attain an equal
footing with the employers, they must present a front coextensive with
the employers' association, which means that all trades in an industry
must act under one direction. Hence they strive to assimilate the
engineers and machinists, whose labor is essential to the continuance of
the operation of the plant. They thus reproduce on a minor scale the
attempt of the Knights of Labor during the eighties to engulf the more
skilled trade unions.
At the same time the relatively unprivileged position of these trades
makes them keenly alive to the danger from below, from the unskilled
whom the employer may break into their jobs in case of strikes. They
therefore favor taking the unskilled into the organization. Their
industrialism is consequently caused perhaps more by their own trade
consideration than by an altruistic desire to uplift the unskilled,
although they realize that the organization of the unskilled is required
by the broader interests of the wage-earning class. However, their long
experience in matters of organization teaches them that the "one big
union" would be a poor medium. Their accumulated experience likewise has
a moderating influence on their economic activity, and they are
consequently among the strongest supporters inside the American
Federation of Labor of the trade agreement. Nevertheless, opportunistic
though they are in the industrial field, their position is not
sufficiently raised above the unskilled to make them satisfied with the
wage system. Hence, they are mostly controlled by socialists and are
strongly in favor of political action through the Socialist party. This
form of industrialism may consequently be called "socialist
industrialism." In the annual conventions of the Federation,
industrialists are practically synonymous with socialists.
The best examples of the "middle stratum" industrialism are the unions
in the garment industries. Enthusiastic admirers have proclaimed them
the harbingers of a "new unionism" in America. One would indeed be
narrow to withhold praise from organizations and leaders who in spite of
a most chaotic situation in their industry have succeeded so brilliantly
where many looked only for failure. Looking at the matter, however, from
the wider standpoint of labor history, the contribution of this
so-called "new unionism" resides chiefly, first, in that it has
rationalized and developed industrial government by collective
bargaining and trade agreements as no other unionism, and second, in
that it has applied a spirit of broadminded all-inclusiveness to all
workers in the industry. To put it in another way, its merit is in that
it has made supreme use of the highest practical acquisition of the
American Federation of Labor--namely, the trade agreement--while
reinterpreting and applying the latter in a spirit of a broader labor
solidarity than the "old unionism" of the Federation. As such the
clothing workers point the way to the rest of the labor movement.
The first successful application of the "new unionism" in the clothing
trades was in 1910 by the workers on cloaks and suits in the
International Ladies' Garment Workers Union of America, a constituent
union of the American Federation of Labor. They established machinery of
conciliation from the shop to the industry, which in spite of many
tempests and serious crises, will probably live on indefinitely. Perhaps
the greatest achievement to their credit is that they have jointly with
the employers, through a Joint Board of Sanitary Control, wrought a
revolution in the hygienic conditions in the shops.
The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America have won great power in the
men's clothing industry, through aggressive but constructive leadership.
The nucleus of the union seceded from the United Garment Workers, an
A.F. of L. organization, in 1914. The socialistic element within the
organization was and still is numerically dominating. But in the
practical process of collective bargaining, this union's revolutionary
principles have served more as a bond to hold the membership together
than as a severe guide in its relations with the employers.[80] As a
result, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers attained trade agreements in
all the large men's clothing centers. The American Federation of Labor,
however, in spite of this union's success, has persistently refused to
admit it to affiliation, on account of its original secessionist origin
from a chartered international union.
The unions of the clothing workers have demonstrated how immigrants (the
majority in the industry are Russian and Polish Jews and Italians) may
be successfully organized on the basis of a broad minded industrialism.
On the issue of industrialism in the American Federation of Labor the
last word has not yet been said. It appears, though, that the matter is
being solved slowly but surely by a silent "counter-reformation" by the
old leaders. For industrialism, or the adjustment of union structure to
meet the employer with ranks closed on the front of an entire industry,
is not altogether new even in the most conservative portion of the
Federation, although it has never been called by that name.
Long before industrialism entered the national arena as the economic
creed of socialists, the unions of the skilled had begun to evolve an
industrialism of their own. This species may properly be termed craft
industrialism, as it sought merely to unite on an efficient basis the
fighting strength of the unions of the skilled trades by devising a
method for speedy solution of jurisdictional disputes between
overlapping unions and by reducing the sympathetic strike to a science.
The movement first manifested itself in the early eighties in the form
of local building trades' councils, which especially devoted themselves
to sympathetic strikes. This local industrialism grew, after a fashion,
to national dimensions in the form of the International Building Trades'
Council organized in St. Louis in 1897. The latter proved, however,
ineffective, since, having for its basic unit the local building trades'
council, it inevitably came into conflict with the national unions in
the building trades. For the same reason it was barred from recognition
of the American Federation of Labor. The date of the real birth of craft
industrialism on a national scale, was therefore deferred to 1903, when
a Structural Building Trades' Alliance was founded. The formation of the
Alliance marks an event of supreme importance, not only because it
united for the first time for common action all the important national
unions in the building industry, but especially because it promulgated a
new principle which, if generally adopted, was apparently destined to
revolutionize the structure of American labor organizations. The
Alliance purported to be a federation of the "basic" trades in the
industry, and in reality it did represent an _entente_ of the big and
aggressive unions. The latter were moved to federate not only for the
purpose of forcing the struggle against the employers, but also of
expanding at the expense of the "non-basic" or weak unions, besides
seeking to annihilate the last vestiges of the International Building
Trades' Council. The Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, probably the
most aggressive union in the American Federation of Labor, was the
leader in this movement. From the standpoint of the Federation, the
Structural Alliance was at best an extra-legal organization, as it did
not receive the latter's formal sanction, but the Federation could
scarcely afford to ignore it as it had ignored the International
Building Trades' Council. Thus in 1908 the Alliance was "legitimatized"
and made a "Department" of the American Federation of Labor, under the
name of the Building Trades' Department, with the settlement of
jurisdictional disputes as its main function. It was accompanied by
departments of metal trades, of railway employes, of miners, and by a
"label" department.
It is not, however, open to much doubt that the Department was not a
very successful custodian of the trade autonomy principle.
Jurisdictional disputes are caused either by technical changes, which
play havoc with official "jurisdiction," or else by a plain desire on
the part of the stronger union to encroach upon the province of the
weaker one. When the former was the case and the struggle happened to be
between unions of equal strength and influence, it generally terminated
in a compromise. When, however, the combatants were two unions of
unequal strength, the doctrine of the supremacy of the "basic" unions
was generally made to prevail in the end. Such was the outcome of the
struggle between the carpenters and joiners on the one side and the wood
workers on the other and also between the plumbers and steam fitters. In
each case it ended in the forced amalgamation of the weaker union with
the stronger one, upon the principle that there must be only one union
in each "basic" trade. In the case of the steam fitters, which was
settled at the convention at Rochester in 1912, the Federation gave what
might be interpreted as an official sanction of the new doctrine of one
union in a "basic" trade.
Notwithstanding these official lapses from the principle of craft
autonomy, the socialist industrialists[81] are still compelled to abide
by the letter and the spirit of craft autonomy. The effect of such a
policy on the coming American industrialism may be as follows: The
future development of the "department" may enable the strong "basic"
unions to undertake concerted action against employers, while each
retains its own autonomy. Such indeed is the notable "concerted
movement" of the railway brotherhoods, which since 1907 has begun to set
a type for craft industrialism. It is also probable that the majority of
the craft unions will sufficiently depart from a rigid craft standard
for membership to include helpers and unskilled workers working
alongside the craftsmen.
The clearest outcome of this silent "counter-reformation" in reply to
the socialist industrialists is the Railway Employes' Department as it
developed during and after the war-time period.[82] It is composed of
all the railway men's organizations except the brotherhoods of
engineers, firemen, conductors, trainmen, telegraphers, and several
minor organizations, which on the whole cooperate with the Department.
It also has a place for the unskilled laborers organized in the United
Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes and Railroad Shop Laborers.
The Railway Employes' Department therefore demonstrates that under craft
unionism the unskilled need not be left out in the cold. It also meets
the charge that craft unionism renders it easy for the employers to
defeat the unions one by one, since this Department has consolidated the
constituent crafts into one bargaining and striking union[83]
practically as well as could be done by an industrial union. Finally,
the Railway Employes' Department has an advantage over an industrial
union in that many of its constituent unions, like the machinists',
blacksmiths', boiler-makers', sheet metal workers', and electrical
workers', have large memberships outside the railway industry, which
might by their dues and assessments come to the aid of the railway
workers on strike. To be sure, the solidarity of the unions in the
Department might be weakened through jurisdictional disputes, which is
something to be considered. However, when unions have gone so far as to
confederate for joint collective bargaining, that danger will probably
never be allowed to become too serious.
FOOTNOTES:
[75] See above, 139-141.
[76] See above, 76-79.
[77] See above, 139-141.
[78] Eugene V. Debs, after serving his sentence in prison for disobeying
a court injunction during the Pullman strike of 1894, became a convert
to socialism. It is said that his conversion was due to Victor Berger of
Milwaukee. Berger had succeeded in building up a strong socialist party
in that city and in the State of Wisconsin upon the basis of a thorough
understanding with the trade unions and was materially helped by the
predominance of the German-speaking element in the population. In 1910
the Milwaukee socialists elected a municipal ticket, the first large
city to vote the socialists into office.
[79] In 1907 Haywood was tried and acquitted with two other officers of
the Western Federation of Miners at Boisé, Idaho, on a murder charge
which grew out of the same labor struggle. This was one of the several
sensational trials in American labor history, on a par with the Molly
Maguires' case in the seventies, the Chicago Anarchists' in 1887, and
the McNamaras' case in 1912.
[80] The same applies to the International Ladies' Garment Workers'
Union.
[81] Except the miners, brewers, and garment workers.
[82] See above, 185-186.
[83] This refers particularly to the six shopmen's unions.
CHAPTER 10
THE WAR-TIME BALANCE SHEET
The outbreak of the War in Europe in August 1914 found American labor
passing through a period of depression. The preceding winter had seen
much unemployment and considerable distress and in the summer industrial
conditions became scarcely improved. In the large cities demonstrations
by the unemployed were daily occurrences. A long and bloody labor
struggle in the coal fields of Colorado, which was slowly drawing to an
unsuccessful end in spite of sacrifices of the heaviest kind, seemed
only to set into bold relief the generally inauspicious outlook. Yet the
labor movement could doubtless find solace in the political situation.
Owing to the support it had given the Democratic party in the
Presidential campaign of 1912, the Federation could claim return favors.
The demand which it was now urging upon its friends in office was the
long standing one for the exemption of labor unions from the operation
of the anti-trust legislation and for the reduction to a minimum of
interference by Federal Courts in labor disputes through injunction
proceedings.
During 1914 the anti-trust bill introduced in the House by Clayton of
Alabama was going through the regular stages preliminary to enactment
and, although it finally failed to embody all the sweeping changes
demanded by the Federation's lobbyists, it was pronounced at the time
satisfactory to labor. The Clayton Act starts with the declaration that
"The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce"
and specifies that labor organizations shall not be construed as illegal
combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade under Federal
anti-trust laws. It further proceeds to prescribe the procedure in
connection with the issuance of injunctions in labor disputes as, for
instance, limiting the time of effectiveness of temporary injunctions,
making notice obligatory to persons about to be permanently enjoined,
and somewhat limiting the power of the courts in contempt proceedings.
The most vital section of the Act relating to labor disputes is Section
20, which says "that no such restraining order or injunction shall
prohibit any person or persons, whether singly or in concert, from
terminating any relation of employment, or from ceasing to perform any
work or labor or from recommending, advising, or persuading others by
peaceful means so to do; or from attending at any place where any such
person or persons may lawfully be, for the purpose of peacefully
persuading any person to work or to abstain from working, or from
recommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful and lawful
means so to do; or from paying or giving to, or withholding from, any
person employed in such dispute, any strike benefits or other moneys or
things of value; or from peacefully assembling in a lawful manner, or
for lawful purposes, or from doing any act or things which might
lawfully be done in the absence of such dispute by any party thereto;
nor shall any of the acts specified in this paragraph be considered or
held to be violations of any law of the United States."
The government was also rendering aid to organized labor in another,
though probably little intended, form, namely through the public
hearings conducted by the United States Commission on Industrial
Relations. This Commission had been authorized by Congress in 1912 to
investigate labor unrest after a bomb explosion in the _Los Angeles
Times_ Building, which was set off at the order of some of the national
officers of the structural iron workers' union, incidental to a strike.
The hearings which were conducted by the able and versatile chairman,
Frank P. Walsh, with a particular eye for publicity, centering as they
did around the Colorado outrages, served to popularize the trade union
cause from one end of the country to the other. The report of the
Commission or rather the minority report, which was signed by the
chairman and the three labor members, and was known as the "staff"
report, named _trade unionism_ as the paramount remedy--not compulsory
arbitration which was advocated by the employer members, nor labor
legislation and a permanent governmental industrial commission proposed
by the economist on the commission. The immediate practical effects of
the commission were _nil_, but its agitational value proved of great
importance to labor. For the first time in the history of the United
States the employing class seemed to be arrayed as a defendant before
the bar of public opinion. Also, it was for the first time that a
commission representing the government not only unhesitatingly
pronounced the trade union movement harmless to the country's best
interests but went to the length of raising it to the dignity of a
fundamental and indispensable institution.
The Commission on Industrial Relations on the whole reflected the
favorable attitude of the Administration which came to power in 1912.
The American Federation of Labor was given full sway over the Department
of Labor and a decisive influence in all other government departments
on matters relating to labor. Without a political party of its own, by
virtue only of its "bargaining power" over the old parties, the American
Federation of Labor seemed to have attained a position not far behind
that of British labor after more than a decade of independent political
action. Furthermore, fortunately for itself, labor in America had come
into a political patrimony at a time when the country was standing on
the threshold of a new era, during which government was destined to
become the arbiter of industry.
The War in Europe did not immediately improve industrial conditions in
America. The first to feel its effects were the industries directly
engaged in the making of munitions. The International Association of
Machinists, the organization of the now all-important munition workers,
actually had its membership somewhat decreased during 1915, but in the
following year made a 50 percent increase. The greater part of the new
membership came from the "munitions towns," such as Bridgeport,
Connecticut, where, in response to the insatiable demand from the Allied
nations, new enormous plants were erected during 1915 and shipment of
munitions in mass began early the next year. Bridgeport and surrounding
towns became a center of a successful eight-hour movement, in which the
women workers newly brought into the industry took the initiative. The
Federation as a whole lost three percent of its membership in 1915 and
gained seven percent during 1916.
On its War policy the Federation took its cue completely from the
national government. During the greater part of the period of American
neutrality its attitude was that of a shocked lover of peace who is
desirous to maintain the strictest neutrality if the belligerents will
persist in refusing to lend an ear to reason. To prevent a repetition
of a similar catastrophe, the Federation did the obvious thing,
pronouncing for open and democratized diplomacy; and proposed to the
several national trade union federations that an international labor
congress meet at the close of the war to determine the conditions of
peace. However, both the British and Germans declined. The convention in
1915 condemned the German-inspired propaganda for an embargo on
shipments to all belligerents and the fomenting of strikes in
munitions-making plants by German agents. The Federation refused to
interpret neutrality to mean that the American wage earner was to be
thrown back into the dumps of depression and unemployment, from which he
was just delivered by the extensive war orders from the Allied
governments.
By the second half of 1916 the war prosperity was in full swing. Cost of
living was rising rapidly and movements for higher wages became general.
The practical stoppage of immigration enabled common labor to get a
larger share than usual of the prosperity. Many employers granted
increases voluntarily. Simultaneously, a movement for the eight-hour day
was spreading from strictly munitions-making trades into others and was
meeting with remarkable success. But 1916 witnessed what was doubtless
the most spectacular move for the eight-hour day in American
history--the joint eight-hour demand by the four railway brotherhoods,
the engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmen. The effectiveness
acquired by trade unionism needs no better proof than the remarkable
success with which these four organizations, with the full support of
the whole labor movement at their back and aided by a not unfriendly
attitude on the part of the national Administration, brought to bay the
greatest single industry of the country and overcame the opposition of
the entire business class.
The four brotherhoods made a joint demand for an eight-hour day early in
1916.[84] The railway officials claimed that the demand for the
reduction of the work-day from ten to eight hours with ten hours' pay
and a time and a half rate for overtime was not made in good faith.
Since, they said, the employes ought to have known that the railways
could not be run on an eight-hour day, the demand was but a covert
attempt to gain a substantial increase in their wages, which were
already in advance of any of the other skilled workers. On the other
hand, the brotherhoods stoutly maintained during their direct
negotiations with the railway companies and in the public press that
their demand was a _bona fide_ demand and that they believed that the
railway business did admit of a reorganization substantially on an
eight-hour basis. The railway officials offered to submit to arbitration
the demand of the men together with counter demands of their own. The
brotherhoods, however, fearing prejudice and recalling to mind past
disappointments, declined the proposal and threatened to tie up the
whole transportation system of the country by a strike on Labor Day.
When the efforts at mediation by the United States Board of Mediation
and Conciliation came to naught, President Wilson invited to Washington
the executives of the several railway systems and a convention of the
several hundred division chairmen of the brotherhoods and attempted
personal mediation. He urged the railway executives to accept the
eight-hour day and proposed that a commission appointed by himself
should investigate the demand for time and a half overtime. This the
employes accepted, but the executives objected to giving the eight-hour
day before an investigation was made. Meantime the brotherhoods had
issued their strike order effective on Labor Day and the crisis became
imminent. To obviate the calamity of a general strike, at a time when
the country was threatened with troubles on the Mexican frontier and
with the unsettled submarine controversy with Germany ready to flare up
any moment, the President went before Congress and asked for a speedy
enactment of an eight-hour law for train operatives without a reduction
in wages but with no punitive overtime. He coupled it with a request for
an authorisation of a special commission to report on the operation of
such a law for a period of six months, after which the subject might be
reopened. Lastly, he urged an amendment to the Newlands Act making it
illegal to call a strike or a lockout pending an investigation of a
controversy by a government commission. Spurred on by the danger of the
impending strike, Congress quickly acceded to the first two requests by
the President and passed the so-called Adamson law.[85] The strike was
averted, but in the immediately following Presidential campaign labor's
"hold-up" of the national government became one of the trump issues of
the Republican candidate.
This episode of the summer of 1916 had two sequels, one in the courts
and the other one in a negotiated agreement between the railways and the
brotherhoods. The former brought many suits in courts against the
government and obtained from a lower court a decision that the Adamson
law was unconstitutional. The case was then taken to the United States
Supreme Court, but the decision was not ready until the spring of 1917.
Meantime the danger of a strike had been renewed. However, on the same
day when the Supreme Court gave out its decision, the railways and
brotherhoods had signed, at the urging of the National Council of
Defense, an agreement accepting the conditions of the Adamson law
regardless of the outcome in court. When the decision became known it
was found to be in favor of the Adamson law. The declaration of war
against Germany came a few days later and opened a new era in the
American labor situation.
Previous to that, on March 12, 1917, when war seemed inevitable, the
national officers of all important unions in the Federation met in
Washington and issued a statement on "American Labor's Position in Peace
or in War." They pledged the labor movement and the influence of the
labor organizations unreservedly in support of the government in case of
war. Whereas, they said, in all previous wars "under the guise of
national necessity, labor was stripped of its means of defense against
enemies at home and was robbed of the advantages, the protections, and
guarantees of justice that had been achieved after ages of struggle";
and "labor had no representatives in the councils authorized to deal
with the conduct of the war"; and therefore "the rights, interests and
welfare of workers were autocratically sacrificed for the slogan of
national safety"; in this war "the government must recognize the
organized labor movement as the agency through which it must cooperate
with wage earners." Such recognition will imply first "representation on
all agencies determining and administering policies of national
defense" and "on all boards authorized to control publicity during war
time." Second, that "service in government factories and private
establishments, in transportation agencies, all should conform to trade
union standards"; and that "whatever changes in the organization of
industry are necessary upon a war basis, they should be made in accord
with plans agreed upon by representatives of the government and those
engaged and employed in the industry." Third, that the government's
demand of sacrifice of their "labor power, their bodies or their lives"
be accompanied by "increased guarantees and safe-guards," the imposing
of a similar burden on property and the limitation of profits. Fourth,
that "organization for industrial and commercial service" be "upon a
different basis from military service" and "that military service should
be carefully distinguished from service in industrial disputes," since
"the same voluntary institutions that organized industrial, commercial
and transportation workers in times of peace will best take care of the
same problems in time of war." For, "wrapped up with the safety of this
Republic are ideals of democracy, a heritage which the masses of the
people received from our forefathers, who fought that liberty might live
in this country--a heritage that is to be maintained and handed down to
each generation with undiminished power and usefulness."
We quote at such length because this document gives the quintessence of
the wise labor statesmanship which this crisis brought so clearly to
light. Turning away from the pacifism of the Socialist party, Samuel
Gompers and his associates believed that victory over world militarism
as well as over the forces of reaction at home depended on labor's
unequivocal support of the government. And in reality, by placing the
labor movement in the service of the war-making power of the nation they
assured for it, for the time being at least, a degree of national
prestige and a freedom to expand which could not have been conquered by
many years of the most persistent agitation and strikes.
The War, thus, far from being a trial for organized labor, proved
instead a great opportunity. For the War released organized labor from a
blind alley, as it were. The American Federation of Labor, as we saw,
had made but slow progress in organization after 1905. At that time it
had succeeded in organizing the skilled and some of the semi-skilled
workers. Further progress was impeded by the anti-union employers
especially in industries commonly understood to be dominated by
"trusts." In none of the "trustified" industries, save anthracite coal,
was labor organization able to make any headway. And yet the American
Federation of Labor, situated as it is, is obliged to stake everything
upon the power to organize.[86] The war gave it that all-important
power. Soon after the Federal government became the arbiter of
industry--by virtue of being the greatest consumer, and by virtue of a
public opinion clearly outspoken on the subject--we see the Taft-Walsh
War Labor Board[87] embody "the right to organize" into a code of rules
for the guidance of the relations of labor and capital during War-time,
along with the basic eight-hour day and the right to a living wage. In
return for these gifts American labor gave up nothing so vital as
British labor had done in the identical situation. The right to strike
was left unmolested and remained a permanent threat hanging over slow
moving officialdom and recalcitrant employers. And the only restraint
accepted by labor was a promise of self-restraint. The Federation was
not to strike until all other means for settlement had been tried, nor
was it to press for the closed shop where such had not existed prior to
the War declaration. But at the same time no employer was to interpose a
check to its expansion into industries and districts heretofore
unorganized. Nor could an employer discipline an employe for joining a
union or inducing others to join.
In 1916, when the President established the National Council of Defense,
he appointed Samuel Gompers one of the seven members composing the
Advisory Commission in charge of all policies dealing with labor and
chairman of a committee on labor of his own appointment. Among the first
acts of the Council of Defense was an emphatic declaration for the
preservation of the standards of legal protection of labor against the
ill-advised efforts for their suspension during War-time. The Federation
was given representation on the Emergency Construction Board, the Fuel
Administration Board, on the Woman's Board, on the Food Administration
Board, and finally on the War Industries Board. The last named board was
during the war the recognized arbiter of the country's industries, all
labor matters being handled by its labor representative. The Department
of Labor, which in the War emergency could rightly be considered the
Federation's arm in the Administration, was placed in supreme charge of
general labor administration. Also, in connection with the
administration of the military conscription law, organized labor was
given representation on each District Exemption Board. But perhaps the
strongest expression of the official recognition of the labor movement
was offered by President Wilson when he took time from the pressing
business in Washington to journey to Buffalo in November 1917, to
deliver an address before the convention of the American Federation of
Labor.
In addition to representation on boards and commissions dealing with
general policies, the government entered with the Federation into a
number of agreements relative to the conditions of direct and indirect
employment by the government. In each agreement the prevalent trade
union standards were fully accepted and provision was made for a
three-cornered board of adjustment to consist of a representative of the
particular government department, the public and labor. Such agreements
were concluded by the War and Navy departments and by the United States
Emergency Fleet Corporation. The Shipping Board sponsored a similar
agreement between the shipping companies and the seafaring unions; and
the War Department between the leather goods manufacturers and leather
workers' union. When the government took over the railways on January 1,
1918, it created three boards of adjustment on the identical principle
of a full recognition of labor organizations. The spirit with which the
government faced the labor problem was shown also in connection with the
enforcement of the eight-hour law. The law of 1912 provided for an
eight-hour day on contract government work but allowed exceptions in
emergencies. In 1917 Congress gave the President the right to waive the
application of the law, but provided that in such event compensation be
computed on a "basic" eight-hour day. The War and Navy departments
enforced these provisions not only to the letter but generally gave to
them a most liberal interpretation.
The taking over of the railways by the government revolutionized the
railway labor situation. Under private management, as was seen, the four
brotherhoods alone, the engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmen
enjoyed universal recognition, the basic eight-hour day (since 1916),
and high wages. The other organizations of the railway workers, the
shopmen, the yardmen, the maintenance of way men, the clerks, and the
telegraphers were, at best, tolerated rather than recognized. Under the
government administration the eight-hour day was extended to all grades
of workers, and wages were brought up to a minimum of 68 cents per hour,
with a considerable though not corresponding increase in the wages of
the higher grades of labor. All discrimination against union men was
done away with, so that within a year labor organization on the railways
was nearing the hundred percent mark.
The policies of the national railway administration of the open door to
trade unionism and of recognition of union standards were successfully
pressed upon other employments by the National War Labor Board. On March
29, 1918, a National War Labor Conference Board, composed of five
representatives of the Federation of Labor, five representatives of
employers' associations and two joint chairmen, William H. Taft for the
employers and Frank P. Walsh for the employes, reported to the Secretary
of Labor on "Principles and Policies to govern Relations between Workers
and Employers in War Industries for the Duration of the War." These
"principles and policies," which were to be enforced by a permanent War
Labor Board organized upon the identical principle as the reporting
board, included a voluntary relinquishment of the right to strike and
lockout by employes and employers, respectively, upon the following
conditions: First, there was a recognition of the equal right of
employes and employers to organize into associations and trade unions
and to bargain collectively. This carried an undertaking by the
employers not to discharge workers for membership in trade unions or for
legitimate trade union activities, and was balanced by an undertaking of
the workers, "in the exercise of their right to organize," not to "use
coercive measures of any kind to induce persons to join their
organizations, nor to induce employers to bargain or deal therewith."
Second, both sides agreed upon the observance of the _status quo ante
bellum_ as to union or open shop in a given establishment and as to
union standards of wages, hours, and other conditions of employment.
This carried the express stipulation that the right to organize was not
to be curtailed under any condition and that the War Labor Board could
grant improvement in labor conditions as the situation warranted. Third,
the understanding was that if women should be brought into industry,
they must be allowed equal pay for equal work. Fourth, it was agreed
that "the basic eight-hour day was to be recognized as applying in all
cases in which the existing law required it, while in all other cases
the question of hours of labor was to be settled with due regard to
government necessities and the welfare, health, and proper comfort of
the workers." Fifth, restriction of output by trade unions was to be
done away with. Sixth, in fixing wages and other conditions regard was
to be shown to trade union standards. And lastly came the recognition of
"the right of all workers, including common laborers, to a living wage"
and the stipulation that in fixing wages, there will be established
"minimum rates of pay which will insure the subsistence of the worker
and his family in health and reasonable comfort."
The establishment of the War Labor Board did not mean that the country
had gone over to the principle of compulsory arbitration, for the Board
could not force any party to a dispute to submit to its arbitration or
by an umpire of its appointment. However, so outspoken was public
opinion on the necessity of avoiding interruptions in the War industries
and so far-reaching were the powers of the government over the employer
as the administrator of material and labor priorities and over the
employes as the administrator of the conscription law that the indirect
powers of the Board sufficed to make its decision prevail in nearly
every instance.
The packing industry was a conspicuous case of the "new course" in
industrial relations. This industry had successfully kept unionism out
since an ill-considered strike in 1904, which ended disastrously for the
strikers. Late in 1917, 60,000 employes in the packing houses went on
strike for union recognition, the basic eight-hour day, and other
demands. Intervention by the government led to a settlement, which,
although denying the union formal recognition, granted the basic
eight-hour day, a living wage, and the right to organize, together with
all that it implied, and the appointment of a permanent arbitrator to
adjudicate disputes. Thus an industry which had prohibited labor
organization for fourteen years was made to open its door to trade
unionism.[88] Another telling gain for the basic eight-hour day was made
by the timber workers in the Northwest, again at the insistence of the
government.
What the aid of the government in securing the right to organize meant
to the strength of trade unionism may be derived from the following
figures. In the two years from 1917 to 1919 the organization of the meat
cutters and butcher workmen increased its membership from less than
10,000 to over 66,000; the boilermakers and iron shipbuilders from
31,000 to 85,000; the blacksmiths from 12,000 to 28,000; the railway
clerks from less than 7000 to over 71,000; the machinists from 112,000
to 255,000; the maintenance of way employes from less than 10,000 to
54,000; the railway carmen from 39,000 to 100,000; the railway
telegraphers from 27,000 to 45,000; and the electrical workers from
42,000 to 131,000. The trades here enumerated--mostly related to
shipbuilding and railways--accounted for the greater part of the total
gain in the membership of the Federation from two and a half million
members in 1917 to over three and a third in 1919.
An important aspect of the cooperation of the government with the
Federation was the latter's eager self-identification with the
government's foreign policy, which went to the length of choosing to
play a lone hand in the Allied labor world. Labor in America had an
implicit faith in the national government, which was shared by neither
English nor French labor. Whereas the workers in the other Allied
Nations believed that their governments needed to be prodded or forced
into accepting the right road to a democratic peace by an international
labor congress, which would take the entire matter of war and peace out
of the diplomatic chancellories into an open conference of the
representatives of the workers, the American workers were only too eager
to follow the leadership of the head of the American nation. To this
doubtless was added the usual fervor of a new convert to any cause (in
this instance the cause of the War against Germany) and a strong
distrust of German socialism, which American labor leaders have
developed during their drawn-out struggle against the German-trained
socialists inside the Federation who have persistently tried to
"capture" the organization.
When on January 8, 1918, President Wilson enunciated his famous Fourteen
Points, the Federation of course gave them an enthusiastic endorsement.
In the autumn of 1918 Gompers went to Europe and participated in an
Inter-Allied labor conference. He refused, however, to participate in
the first International Labor and Socialist Congress called since the
War, which met at Berne, Switzerland, in March 1919, since he would not
sit with the Germans while their country was not formally at peace with
the United States. The convention of the Federation in June 1919 gave
complete endorsement to the League of Nations Pact worked out at
Versailles,--on general grounds and on the ground of its specific
provisions for an international regulation of labor conditions designed
to equalize labor standards and costs. Contrasting with this was the
position of British labor, which regarded the Pact with a critical eye,
frankly confessing disillusionment, but was willing to accept it for the
sake of its future possibilities, when the Pact might be remodelled by
more liberal and more democratic hands.
The contrast in outlook between the mild evolutionism of the American
Federation of Labor and the social radicalism of British labor stood out
nowhere so strongly as in their respective programs for Reconstruction
after the War. The chief claim of the British Labor party for
recognition at the hands of the voter at the General Election in
December 1918, was its well-thought-out reconstruction program put forth
under the telling title of "Labour and the New Social Order." This
program was above all a legislative program. It called for a
thoroughgoing governmental control of industry by means of a control of
private finance, natural resources, transportation, and international
trade. To the workingmen such control would mean the right to steady
employment, the right to a living wage, and the appropriation of
economic surpluses by the state for the common good--be they in the form
of rent, excessive profits, or overlarge personal incomes. Beyond this
minimum program loomed the cooperative commonwealth with the private
capitalist totally eliminated.
Such was the program of British labor. What of the Reconstruction
program of American labor? First of all, American labor thought of
Reconstruction as a program to be carried out by the trade union, not by
the government. Moreover, it did not see in Reconstruction the great
break with the past which that meant to British labor. The American
Federation of Labor applied to Reconstruction the same philosophy which
lies at the basis of its ordinary, everyday activity. It concerned
itself not with any far-reaching plan for social reorganization, but
with a rising standard of living and an enlarged freedom for the union.
The American equivalent of a government-guaranteed right to employment
and a living wage was the "right to organize." Assure to labor that
right, free the trade unions of court interference in strikes and
boycotts, prevent excessive meddling by the government in industrial
relations--and the stimulated activities of the "legitimate"
organizations of labor, which will result therefrom, will achieve a far
better Reconstruction than a thousand paper programs however beautiful.
So reasoned the leaders of the American Federation of Labor. During the
period of War, they of course gladly accepted directly from the
government the basic eight-hour day and the high wages, which under
other circumstances they could have got only by prolonged and bitter
striking. But even more acceptable than these directly bestowed boons
was the indirect one of the right to organize free from anti-union
discriminations by employers. Having been arrested in its expansion, as
we saw, by anti-union employers and especially "trusts," the American
Federation of Labor took advantage of the War situation to overflow new
territory. Once entrenched and the organization well in hand, it thought
it could look to the future with confidence.
FOOTNOTES:
[84] For the developments which led up to this joint move see above,
182-184.
[85] Congress ignored the last-named recommendation which would have
introduced in the United States the Canadian system of "Compulsory
Investigation."
[86] See below, 283-287.
[87] See below, 238-240.
[88] The unions again lost their hold upon the packing industry in the
autumn of 1921.
CHAPTER 11
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
The Armistice with Germany came suddenly and unexpectedly. To the
organized workers the news was as welcome as to other citizens. But, had
they looked at the matter from a special trade union standpoint, they
would probably have found a longer duration of the War not entirely
amiss. For coal had been unionized already before the War, the railways
first during the War, but the third basic industry, steel, was not
touched either before or during the War. However, it was precisely in
the steel industry that opposition to unionism has found its chief seat,
not only to unionism in that industry alone but to unionism in related
or subsidiary industries as well.
The first three months after the Armistice the general expectation was
for a set-back in business conditions due to the withdrawal of the
enormous government War-time demand. Employers and trade unions stood
equally undecided. When, however, instead of the expected slump, there
came a prosperity unknown even during the War, the trade unions resumed
their offensive, now unrestrained by any other but the strictly economic
consideration. As a matter of fact, the trade unions were not at all
free agents, since their demands, frequent and considerable though they
were, barely sufficed to keep wages abreast of the soaring cost of
living. Through 1919 and the first half of 1920 profits and wages were
going up by leaps and bounds; and the forty-four hour week,--no longer
the mere eight-hour day,--became a general slogan and a partial reality.
Success was especially notable in clothing, building, printing, and the
metal trades. One cannot say the same, however, of the three basic
industries, steel, coal, and railways. In steel the twelve-hour day and
the seven-day week continued as before for approximately one-half of the
workers and the unions were preparing for a battle with the "Steel
Trust." While on the railways and in coal mining the unions now began to
encounter opposition from an unexpected quarter, namely, the government.
When in the summer of 1919 the railway shopmen demanded an increase in
their wages, which had not been raised since the summer of 1918,
President Wilson practically refused the demand, urging the need of a
general deflation but binding himself to use all the powers of the
government immediately to reduce the cost of living. A significant
incident in this situation was a spontaneous strike of shopmen on many
roads unauthorized by international union officials, which disarranged
the movement of trains for a short time but ended with the men returning
to work under the combined pressure of their leaders' threats and the
President's plea.
In September 1919, the United States Railroad Administration and the
shopmen's unions entered into national agreements, which embodied the
practices under the Administration as well as those in vogue on the more
liberal roads before 1918, including recognition and a large number of
"working rules." These "national agreements" became an important issue
one year later, when their abolition began to be pressed by the railway
executives before the Railroad Labor Board, which was established under
the Transportation Act of 1920.
In the summer of 1919 employers in certain industries, like clothing,
grew aware of a need of a more "psychological" handling of their labor
force than heretofore in order to reduce a costly high labor turnover
and no less costly stoppages of work. This created a veritable Eldorado
for "employment managers" and "labor managers," real and spurious.
Universities and colleges, heretofore wholly uninterested in the problem
of labor or viewing training in that problem as but a part of a general
cultural education, now vied with one another in establishing "labor
management" and "labor personnel" courses. One phase of the "labor
personnel" work was a rather wide experimentation with "industrial
democracy" plans. These plans varied in form and content, from simple
provision for shop committees for collective dealing, many of which had
already been installed during the War under the orders of the War Labor
Board, to most elaborate schemes, some modelled upon the Constitution of
the United States. The feature which they all had in common was that
they attempted to achieve some sort of collective bargaining outside the
channels of the established trade unions. The trade unionists termed the
new fashioned expressions of industrial democracy "company unions." This
term one may accept as technically correct without necessarily accepting
the sinister connotation imputed to it by labor.
The trade unions, too, were benefiting as organizations. The Amalgamated
Clothing Workers' Union firmly established itself by formal agreement on
the men's clothing "markets" of Chicago, Rochester, Baltimore, and New
York. The membership of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers' Union rose to
175,000. Employers in general were complaining of increased labor
unrest, a falling off of efficiency in the shop, and looked askance at
the rapid march of unionization. The trade unions, on their part, were
aware of their opportunity and eager for a final recognition as an
institution in industry. As yet uncertainty prevailed as to whether
enough had survived of the War-time spirit of give and take to make a
struggle avoidable, or whether the issue must be solved by a bitter
conflict of classes.
A partial showdown came in the autumn of 1919. Three great events, which
came closely together, helped to clear the situation: The steel strike,
the President's Industrial Conference, and the strike of the soft coal
miners. The great steel strike, prepared and directed by a Committee
representing twenty-four national and international unions with William
Z. Foster as Secretary and moving spirit, tried in September 1919 to
wrest from the owners of the steel mills what the railway shopmen had
achieved in 1918 by invitation of the government, namely, "recognition"
and the eight-hour day. Three hundred thousand men went out on strike at
the call of the committee. The industry came to a practical standstill.
But in this case the twenty-four allied unions were not dealing with a
government amenable to political pressure, nor with a loosely joined
association of employers competing among themselves. Furthermore, the
time had passed when the government had either the will or the power to
interfere and order both sides to arbitrate their dispute. On the
contrary, the unions were now dealing unaided with the strongest
capitalist aggregation in the world.
At the request of President Wilson, Gompers had urged the strike
committee to postpone the strike until after the meeting of the national
industrial conference called by the President in October, but the
committee claimed that it could not have kept the men back after a
summer of agitation and feverish organization had they even tried. The
President's conference, modelled upon a similar conference which met
earlier in Great Britain, was composed of three groups of
representatives equal in number, one for capital, one for labor, and one
for the general public. Decisions, to be held effective, had to be
adopted by a majority in each group. The labor representation, dominated
of course by Gompers, was eager to make the discussion turn on the steel
strike. It proposed a resolution to this effect which had the support of
the public group, but fearing a certain rejection by the employer group
the matter was postponed. The issue upon which the alignment was
effected was industrial control and collective bargaining. All three
groups, the employer and public groups and of course the labor group,
advocated collective bargaining,--but with a difference. The labor group
insisted that collective bargaining is doomed to be a farce unless the
employes are allowed to choose as their spokesmen representatives of the
national trade union. In the absence of a powerful protector in the
national union, they argued, the workers in a shop can never feel
themselves on a bargaining equality with their employer, nor can they be
represented by a spokesman of the necessary ability if their choice be
restricted to those working in the same plant. The employers, now no
longer dominated by the War-time spirit which caused them in 1917 to
tolerate an expansion of unionism, insisted that no employer must be
obliged to meet for the purpose of collective bargaining with other
than his own employes.[89] After two weeks of uncertainty, when it had
become clear that a resolution supported by both labor and public
groups, which restated the labor position in a milder form, would be
certain to be voted down by the employer group, the labor group withdrew
from the conference, and the conference broke up. The period of the
cooperation of classes had definitely closed.
Meantime the steel strike continued. Federal troops patrolled the steel
districts and there was no violence. Nevertheless, a large part of the
country's press pictured the strike by the steel workers for union
recognition and a normal workday as an American counterpart of the
Bolshevist revolution in Russia. Public opinion, unbalanced and excited
as it was over the whirlpool of world events, was in no position to
resist. The strike failed.
Nothing made so clear to the trade unionists the changed situation since
the War ended as the strike of the bituminous coal miners which began
November 1. The miners had entered, in October 1917, into a wage
agreement with the operators for the duration of the War. The purchasing
power of their wages having become greatly reduced by the ever rising
cost of living, discontent was general in the union. A further
complication arose from the uncertain position of the United States with
reference to War and Peace, which had a bearing on the situation. The
miners claimed that the Armistice had ended the War. The War having
ended, the disadvantageous agreement expired with it. So argued the
miners and demanded a sixty percent increase in tonnage rates, a
corresponding one for yardmen and others paid by the day or hour, and a
thirty-hour week to spread employment through the year. The operators
maintained that the agreement was still in force, but intimated a
readiness to make concessions if they were permitted to shift the cost
to the consumer. At this point, the Fuel Administration, a War-time
government body, already partly in the process of dissolution,
intervened and attempted to dictate a settlement at a fourteen percent
increase, which was entirely unacceptable to the union. The strike
continued and the prospect of a dire coal famine grew nearer. To break
the deadlock, on motion of Attorney-General Palmer, Judge Anderson of
Indianapolis, under the War-time Lever Act, issued an injunction
forbidding the union officials to continue conducting the strike. The
strike continued, the strikers refusing to return to work, and a
Bituminous Coal Commission appointed by the President finally settled it
by an award of an increase of twenty-seven percent. But that the same
Administration which had given the unions so many advantages during the
War should now have invoked against them a War-time law, which had
already been considered practically abrogated, was a clear indication of
the change in the times. In a strike by anthracite coal miners in the
following year an award was made by a Presidential board of three,
representing the employers, the union, and the public. The strikers,
however, refused to abide by it and inaugurated a "vacation-strike," the
individual strikers staying away on a so-called vacation, nominally
against the will of the union officers. They finally returned to work.
Both the steel and coal strikes furnished occasions for considerable
anti-union propaganda in the press. Public sentiment long favorable to
labor became definitely hostile.[90] In Kansas the legislature passed a
compulsory arbitration law and created an Industrial Relations Court to
adjudicate trade disputes. Simultaneously an "anti-Red" campaign
inaugurated by Attorney-General Palmer contributed its share to the
public excitement and helped to prejudice the cause of labor more by
implication than by making direct charges. It was in an atmosphere thus
surcharged with suspicion and fear that a group of employers, led by the
National Association of Manufacturers and several local employers'
organizations, launched an open-shop movement with the slogan of an
"American plan" for shops and industries. Many employers, normally
opposed to unionism, who in War-time had permitted unionism to acquire
scope, were now trying to reconquer their lost positions. The example of
the steel industry and the fiasco of the President's Industrial
Conference crystallized this reviving anti-union sentiment into action.