HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE RISE OF AMERICAN LABOR UNIONS

1852: First Permanent National Union 1868: Luzerne Mining Disaster

Molly Maguires1869 – UP & CP Railroads Linked

Pinkerton Detective Agency Noble Order of Knights of Labor

Agenda of Knights of Labor Downfall of Knights of Labor and the Haymarket Riot, May 4, 1886

1870's - Financial panic and depression took its toll of unions

1886 - AFL Formed

1890 - Sherman Anti-trust ActThe 1892-99 Depression

1894 Pullman Strike1903-1904 - Colorado Miner Strike for 8 Hour Day

1905 - Industrial Workers of the World IWW’s Free Speech Fights

The Haywood Trial Lawrence, Mass Textile Strike

The Clayton Act 1914 Industrial Accidents

Ludlow Strike Disaster1915: Commission on Industrial Relations

WWI Labor Crackdown1920-29 Post-War Resistance to Unions

1926 Railway Labor Act 1929 Great Depression1930s Dramatic Union Gains 1932 - Norris-LaGuardia Act

1933 National Industrial Recovery Act 1934 Anti-Union Drives

Mohawk Valley Formula Worker Victories in the 1930s

Minneapolis Trucker Strike The Wagner Act

1936 Sit-Down Strikes First sit-down strike

CIO Organizing Strategy History of Organizing in Auto Industry

Flint Sit-down 1937 Red Smear

Steel Workers Organizing Committee 1938 Congress of Industrial Organizations

WWII and The Growth of Unions1945-46

UAW Demand To See Books 1947 Taft-Hartley Act1950's

1955 AFL-CIO Merger

1959 Landrum-Griffin Act1960-65 Union Stagnation

1966 UAW Splits From AFL-CIO1968 “Embourgeoisement” of American Workers

1969 Boulwarism1980's Recession and The Rise of Foreign Competition

sources

1852: First Permanent National Union

National Typographers Union (although the Stonecutters, Molders, Cigarmakers, Bootmakers were soon to follow) was formed as a result of improved transportation and communication from railroad growth. The union was an effort to deal with the flow of cheap goods to high wage markets and the movement of employees to permit migratory worker admission to locals.

1868: Luzerne Mining Disaster

Irish miners form the Workingmen's Benevolent Association of Miners. In 1869, the Luzerne Mine disaster resulted in 170 dead miners because owners refused to spend a few dollars for a second escape exit. Thousands of miners kept a vigil at the shaft for two days, begging to be used on rescue teams. As the dead men were removed, organizers plead for union solidarity. They knew they might be facing death just by organizing. In 1842, their union had been shot out of existence. At the time the law regarded unionism as a conspiracy, like bank robbing. Mine owners spent $4 million to break the union. Their strategy was masterminded by Franklin Benjamin Gown.

Molly Maguires

At first Gowen's plan was to charge the union with communism. Then he brought in the Pinkerton Detective Agency and said that the progressive miners had formed a terrorist band known as the Molly Maguires. There is some dispute as to whether there ever was any such organization in Pennsylvania. For two years, a Pinkerton operative traveled the coal fields but was unable to obtain any evidence of crime committed by the miners.

When employer groups killed militant miners, the miners fought back. Gowen then deluged the press with stories about murder and arson by Molly Maguires, which was printed as uncontested fact. The Pinkerton operative testified at trial that certain leaders of the miners had committed various murders; Gowen had gotten himself appointed

special prosecutor at the trial. The spy's testimony was corroborated by a prisoner, whose own wife testified that he was lying, and a vagrant known as Kelly the Bum. Twenty-four death sentences resulted.

1869 – UP & CP Railroads Linked

On May 10, 1869, the last spike was driven to connect the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads; 30,000 miles of railroad had been built between 1867 and 1873. Railroads were the first major trusts in finance and business to come to the attention of the public; they were also the first to inspire near-universal hatred among American workers.

 Pinkerton Detective Agency

Pinkerton Agency provided a private army for employers; they secretly advertised their union-busting services. They were used not only as strikebreakers and spies, but also as agents' provocateurs, deliberately creating violence which was often used to discredit the labor movement and frame-up and imprison its members.

 Noble Order of Knights of Labor

The Noble Order was a secret society until 1879. The union admitted skilled and unskilled workers, women, farmers, and some self-employed, but excluded lawyers, doctors, liquor dealers and other non-working men. The 1870 depression hastened its growth. The union emphasized political action and producer cooperation rather than collective bargaining. In principle, the Noble Order opposed strikes, stating a strategy of legislation and education. In practice, its greatest successes were in railroad strikes against wage cuts and discriminatory discharges.

In 1885, the Knights got Jay Gould, an industrial giant of the day and a symbol of unrestrained economic power among the rich, to end discrimination against striking Knights. The Knights prestige soared. Previously, Gould had bragged, “I can hire one half the working class to kill the other half." Thousands of immigrants who did not speak English, and who had not been told about the strikes, arrived under terms of contract labor, where owners pitted one nationality against another. During this period, industrial serfs were often used as strikebreakers.

 Agenda of Knights of Labor

The agenda of the Knights of Labor was not just "wages" but included an 8-hour workday, abolition of child labor, direct representation and legislation, compulsory education, income and inheritance tax, government ownership of railroad and telegraph, making laws the same for employers and employees, and compulsory arbitration.

 Downfall of Knights of Labor and the Haymarket Riot, May 4, 1886

After 80,000 workers settled their strike for an eight-hour day, the strike resumed after the employer kept the strikebreakers on the payroll. Local unionists had mass meeting to protest death of six strikers on picket line. The protest was peaceable, and the mayor of Chicago told the police chief to send the police home. Later, police marched upon the speakers and demanded that the meeting disperse. In the middle of this turmoil, someone threw a bomb and police began firing round after round into the stunned crowd, killing several and wounding 200. One police officer was killed and seven injured.

At the time many thought, with some police corroboration, that the bomb was thrown by an agent provocateur. But newspapers demanded blood from workers. National press stated that the leaders should be hanged for their political views, for their words, and for their general activities. After a trial at which there was no hard evidence against the leaders, the leaders were condemned to death. After world-wide protests following the verdict, the governor commuted the sentences of three of the local unionists. But the leaders and two others were hung.

1870's - Financial panic and depression took its toll of unions

Substantial paralysis of traffic and extensive disruption resulted from large-scale railroad strikes in protest against wage cuts. After riots in several cities, federal troops and state militia were called out "to restore order." Few railroad workers had been organized, and the strikes appeared to be largely spontaneous. They were unsuccessful, partly because violence alienated public opinion.

1886 - AFL Formed

Craft unions formed the American Federation of Labor ("AFL") with the conservative Samuel Gompers as president. The AFL rejected radical utopian features of earlier movements (they were primarily skilled workers). The AFL philosophy: was "pure wage consciousness," with an acceptance of capitalism, which made it the first national labor group to do so.

AFL chartered one trade union with exclusive jurisdiction. Great mass of unskilled workers remained unorganized. Also, Gompers failed to admit railroad unions because he insisted on members eliminating race discrimination in their constitutions. He later acceded because of resistance.

1890 - SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST ACT

Much of America’s industrial monopoly graduated into the realm of imperialism with its influence spanning the globe into places such as Cuba, the Philippines, and Hawaii.

In response to such industrial power, Congress passed in 1890 the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. However, from the beginning, the act was destined to be used more successfully against labor than against corporations.

As the 1890's began there were price-fixing, wage-fixing trusts in oil, sugar, whiskey, iron and steel, cottonseed oil, lead, tobacco, meatpacking, agricultural machinery, telegraph, telephone and railroads. From 1892 to 1896 the government brought ten cases under the Act; five against labor and five against corporations. The courts decided in favor of the government in four of five cases against labor and in only one of five against the trusts.

The first time it was used was in 1894-95 against Eugene Debs and other Pullman strike leaders. In the Danbury Hatters case, the antitrust law was applied against the union boycott. A common use of the act was to attach workers' homes to a suit pending outcome of the suit. While the Hatters case cost the AFL $420,000, the real cost was the resulting dread among laborers of joining unions out of fear of being sued with potential of treble damages. AFL had to drop boycott as a weapon.

The 1892-99 Depression

In the depression of 1893, the AFL and other major unions lost less ground than they had lost in any previous major downturn. The union movement in the 1890's suffered some famous defeats. Federal troops were called out dozens of times in the West; thousands of miners were placed in barbed-wire camps for months without trial or charges. Thousands of others were loaded into freight cars and deported without trial because they were union men.

1894 Pullman Strike

The American Railway Union (ARU) struck at the Pullman Company. The ARU admitted anyone, except Blacks, who received a paycheck from a railroad company.

The 5,000 employees of Pullman were forced to live in his "utopian" Chicago community where they were gouged on rent, water, and other services; charges were automatically deducted from wages. Spies were rampant. Eugene V. Debs arrived three days after the employees first struck. After the company refused to negotiate twice, the ARU agreed to a boycott. If any member of the ARU was fired for refusing to move sleeping cars, all other members on the line concerned would strike.

The General Managers Association welcomed the conflict, perceiving an opportunity to break the new powerful union. They insisted that Pullmans be on every train, confident that the federal government would intervene if they claimed interference with the mails. A railroad corporation lawyer, Olney, was Attorney General of the US and he had great influence with President Cleveland.

Debs tried to prevent violence; managers promoted it. In fact, the official government report submitted to President Cleveland by the US Strike Commission following the strike said: "There is no evidence before the commission that the officers of the ARU at any time participated in or advised intimidation, violence or destruction of property."

On third day of the strike, railroads began to manufacture violence. Thugs, thieves and ex-convicts were sworn in as deputy marshals, with power to arrest and shoot, both of which they did. They were armed and paid by the railroads, and acted in the double capacity of railroad employees and US officers. The Chicago Police Chief, after the strike was over, testified that the railroad's government officials fired without provocation into unarmed and peaceful crowds.

Despite violence, the strike was still solid on the fifth day. Debs thought that the strike might actually be successful. He was working day and night to keep it peaceful. The national papers declared that Debs was leading a conspiracy to overthrow the US government by force and violence.

On the sixth day, a sweeping federal injunction was issued forbidding all strike activity. The injunction was issued ex parte and without notice of hearing. Debs and other ARU officials declared that they could not yield to the injunction and call off the strike without dealing the labor movement a blow that would set it back for years.

Two days later President Cleveland ordered federal troops to Illinois despite the protest of Governor Altgeld. Thirty strikers and women were killed, and three times that many wounded; innocent bystanders were among the most frequent victims. On July 10 a federal grand jury indicted Debs for conspiracy against the US and interfering with interstate commerce in violation of the Sherman Act. He was arrested and gave bail; strikers still fought on and for a day or so it seemed as if there might be a nationwide general strike.

On July 17 Debs was arrested again with contempt of court and violation of the July 2 injunction. With its leaders behind bars, the strike was finally broken. The ARU was smashed and industrial unionism was set back some forty years.

Clarence Darrow, a young lawyer who resigned from his job with the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad to defend the strikers, met his clients in the filthy Cook County jail. Debs' chief concern was the 120,000 ARU men who would now be blacklisted. The US Supreme Court approved his contempt charge and sentenced him to six months in prison. When he emerged from prison, 10,000 Chicagoans greeted him and fought to touch him. Over 100,000 people met him when his train arrived in Chicago and a parade was held.

1903-1904 - Colorado Miner Strike for 8 Hour Day

During the strike, 42 men were killed; 112 wounded; 1,345 arrested and imprisoned; and 773 deported. Unions had gotten the Colorado legislature in 1899 to pass an eight-hour workday law, but mine owners universally violated it.

In 1901, the state Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. Miners got a referendum to amend the constitution, and passed it again. Still, mine owners refused to obey. Miners became determined to get by strike what they had not been able to get through the

use of political action and law. Strike was led by Big Bill Haywood, a well-read miner whose hand had been crushed in a mine accident.

When judges found in favor of the miners, their courts were invaded by soldiers. When newspapers printed a word favorable to the union, they were closed and their staffs imprisoned. Lawyers, after defending strikers, were assaulted and deported. Professional killers were imported by the score by the Mine Owners Association, which organized the Citizens' Alliance, vigilantes with 30,000 members in the state.

When strike began, 1,000 state troops arrived at both Cripple Creek and Telluride. General Bell declared martial law at both places; he was on the payroll of both Colorado and mine owners. After forcing resignation of elected officials he believed friendly to the strikers, he established a military bullpen and threw into it every union man in the district (some 600), whom he held for weeks without charge and without trial.

When a lawyer appeared with a writ of habeas corpus for some of his clients, the General snorted, "Habeas corpus, Hell! We'll give 'em post mortems!"

When a judge granted thirty prisoners' habeas corpus suit, Bell laughed and declared the writ suspended in Colorado and marched the prisoners back to the bullpen. Their lawyer was then beaten up by mine operatives as he left court. When citizens protested and miners were released, Bell retaliated by arresting them again on vagrancy charges. Mine owners finally gave in fifteen months later.

1905 - Industrial Workers of the World

The IWW, or Wobblies, advocated a militant syndicalism of strikes and other direct action to eliminate the wage system and replace existing government organizations by organizing employees along industrial lines, bottom up.

Membership was primarily lumberjacks, migratory workers, blacklisted railroad men, cowboys, and mill workers. The IWW probably never had more than 60,000 active members, but it influenced millions. The members sang songs about one big union with a general strike, the end of government and elevation of workers to a place of dominance in the new industrial world.

The government targeted it because of strikes and IWW opposition to WW I and military conscription. The government prosecuted leaders for hampering war efforts and violating state criminal syndicalism statutes. Leaders were such legends as Mother Jones and Big Bill Haywood.

IWW’s Free Speech Fights

IWW fought for free speech by exercising it. Wobblies would jump trains and head for the city where free speech had been banned. As soon as one was carted off to jail another took his place. They were arrested as they read from the Declaration of Independence

and the Constitution. Soon the jails and courts were clogged. As a result, by 1912 any citizen could address the public at any time.

The Haywood Trial

During the Colorado mine strike, Big Bill Haywood was kidnapped from Colorado on trumped up murder charges in Idaho. He spent one year in prison before his trial. He was represented by Clarence Darrow. When President Teddy Roosevelt used a White House press conference to arraign him and other union leaders as "undesirable citizens," overnight thousands of men and women began appearing on the street with placards proclaiming: "I am an undesirable citizen."

The chief witness against Haywood testified that he had committed perjury in the past, but that he had been redeemed and now had religion. Everything depended on Darrow's summation; he insisted that what was involved was not the murder of a man but capital's conspiracy to murder the labor movement. He spoke for eleven hours. Verdict: not guilty.

Lawrence, Mass Textile Strike

In 1912, another watershed strike occurred when 23,000 textile workers in Lawrence, MA went on strike. The strike began spontaneously when the average wage of $6/week was lowered when the workweek was reduced by state law from 56 to 54 hours a week. Employers sped up the looms and cut pay.

The National Guard came immediately on the scene, as did the IWW. Employers imported thugs who masqueraded as strikers who engaged in looting and assaults, and dynamited strikers' headquarters. The mass strike was led by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who also gathered food for the strikers.

Efforts were made to send children to workers' homes in other cities for the duration of the strike. Groups of starving children seeking food and shelter in other cities made a tremendous impression throughout the nation. As a result, city authorities of Lawrence refused to allow any more children to leave the city. When the strike committee tried to send another group away, the children and their mothers were assaulted by police at the railroad station. This was the turning point; a Congressional investigation into the strike and its causes resulted. The manufacturers surrendered.

1914 THE CLAYTON ACT

While AFL’s Gompers called it the "Magna Charta" of labor, the Clayton Act was more often than not interpreted by the courts against labor. President Wilson gave Gompers the pen he used to sign the law.

1914 Industrial Accidents

In 1914, about 35,000 persons were killed in industry and 1/2 the deaths were preventable. Over 700,000 were injured annually in the nation's mines, mills and factories. From 1910 to 1945, 68,842 miners were killed and 2,275,000 were injured.

Ludlow Strike Disaster

Rockefeller remained ignorant of horrible working conditions while standing pat on the principle of open shop. Nine thousand striking miners and their families left shabby company houses in 1913 and established ten tent colonies and a 15-month strike ensued.

The strike was not so much an economic strike for better wages and working conditions as it was a rebellion against company domination of every aspect of the workers' lives. Chief among the demands was recognition of the union, the UMW; the right of miners to trade at any store they pleased; the right to choose their own boarding places and doctors; and the enforcement of the Colorado mining laws. The companies imported armed thugs who were deputized. To protect themselves, the miners armed. The result was sporadic gunfire with a few deaths on both sides. The militia was brought in and martial law was imposed.

Peace prevailed until a rumor circulated that the largest tent colony was to be wiped out. Miners seized their rifles and took up positions in nearby arroyos when the militia mounted a machine gun on a hill overlooking the camp and set off two bombs. No one knows who fired the first shot, but no question about the outcome. The militia poured machine-gun and rifle fire into the tent colony. The battle raged for twelve hours; one boy and three men were killed, one a militiaman. Women were frightened and dug a cave inside the largest tent where they put thirteen children and a pregnant woman.

On Easter night of 1914, company gunmen and militia were ordered by their officers to drench the strikers' tents with oil and ignite them after the miners and their families were asleep. When the miners, their wives and children ran from the burning tents, they were machine-gunned. The militia looted at will; took three prisoners and killed them while they were unarmed and under guard. Death toll was thirteen children, two women and five strikers.

As news of Ludlow spread, armed workers marched from the surrounding districts. For ten days open rebellion reigned, which ended upon the arrival of federal troops.

Rockefeller became a target of mass indignation that followed the news of Ludlow across the nation. In response, he hired a publicity agent and consultants to discover some means of fostering friendly cooperation between capital and labor. Nevertheless, the suppression of the strike proceeded until it was defeated. The Company then unveiled a plan for improved employee relations. The plan called for the election of Joint Committees on Industrial Cooperation and Conciliation composed of representatives of the company and of the employees. Individual workers had the right to appeal grievances.

 In fall of 1915, Rockefeller himself launched the plan with a tour of the mines, dancing with nearly every woman at mining town social functions. The Rockefeller Plan became the model for the many variations of the company union that have flourished since.

1915: Commission on Industrial Relations

After decades of unionization accompanied by violence on both sides, and suppression of union civil liberties with fear of violent social upheaval, Congress established a Commission on Industrial Relations (tripartite) to determine why management and labor were so often at each other’s throats.

The Congressional Report concluded: 1) employees had not received fair share of wealth; 2) separation between corporate ownership and control and growth of large corporations made individual bargaining impossible; 3) inequality of income reduced mass purchasing power and led to periodic layoffs; and 4) labor's right to organize had been denied.

In 1913, toward the end of his term, President Taft created the Department of Labor. Gradually, states began to enact child labor laws, compulsory school attendance, women's protective laws, workers compensation laws, and minimum wage laws, which in addition to being opposed by employers, wage laws were opposed by AFL out of a fear that they would become a "maximum" instead of a "minimum" wage.

WWI Labor Crackdown

The U.S. government indicted the entire top leadership of IWW under the wartime espionage laws in 1917. Over 150 unionists were jailed. The government action destroyed the IWW. Big Bill Haywood jumped bail after his conviction, seeking haven in the Soviet Union, where he died in 1928.

Employers continued to use yellow-dog contracts and gunrunning of strikebreakers past indignant picket lines. In 1917, the Supreme Court, in Hitchman Coal Co. v. Mitchell, held that an individual contract not to join a union was valid; that inducement to join a union was a breach of contract; and that the right to strike was not a right to instigate a strike. Employers used injunctions to make strikes illegal where yellow-dog contracts existed. In reality, open shops became closed non-union shops.

1920-29 Post-War Resistance to Unions

On January 2, 1920, some 10,000 American workers, mostly union members, were hauled from their beds and thrown into prison by federal police under direction of Attorney General Palmer and his aide, J. Edgar Hoover. They were led through the streets manacled and handcuffed. One brave judge said that the manner of their arrest was for display and the creation of public prejudice. It was later found to be just a "mistake." Until that time the prisoners were held in inhuman conditions, some forced to watch as their wives and children were beaten. It was the "breaking of the backbone of

radicalism in America." Over 90% of all radicals arrested and taken into custody were reported by one of the large corporations, either steel or coal.

A general decline of unions followed WW I primarily as a result of management's bitter resistance to unions. Employers contributed to organizations which aided the division of native white labor and Blacks and immigrants.

Henry Ford, with his gospel of what he called "high pay and low prices," was regarded as a major prophet, and the slogan "Not Marx but Ford" became popular. The speed-up, increased production and pay by piece became integral to American industry while trade unions became little more than an employer-controlled device to guarantee greater production. Union membership had peaked in 1920 at over five million; by 1923 it was down to 3.6 million.

During the so-called “golden age” of 1920's, 60% of the population did not receive sufficient income to buy "the basic necessities" of life. The predominant characteristics of this era was increased productivity, increased unemployment and an increase in industrial accidents. There were four million unemployed; 25,000 workers were killed annually in industrial accidents during the 1920's with 100,000 permanently disabled and between 2,5000,000 and 3,000,000 injured.

1926 RAILWAY LABOR ACT

An exception to the decline in unionism during this time was in the railway unions. A need for a mechanism to resolve disputes following a series of strikes provoked joint labor-management conferences that ultimately resulted in the Railway Labor Act of 1926. It was written by the parties, not Congress, and institutionalized collective bargaining.

1929 Great Depression

Depressions usually portend union decline. Not this time; the seeds of industrial unionism began to grow. The nightstick and tear gas were great educators and they were freely used through the 1930's.

1930s Saw A Dramatic Union Gains

In the 1930s, the Social Security Act and the Wagner Act were passed. Although AFL said it supported free enterprise, collective bargaining altered that system by preventing wages from being determined in the market place and by restricting the law of supply and demand as it affected workers. These restrictions on laissez-faire economics readied America for the mixed economy of 1930s and after.

In the 1930s, the Committee for Industrial Organization ("CIO") was formed as part of the AFL. Its goal was to organize industrial workers. The conflict between industrial and craft unions grew more and more apparent.

1932 - NORRIS-LAGUARDIA ACT

This federal statute removed federal court jurisdiction to issue injunctions in labor disputes and forbade yellow dog contracts. No longer could employers enforce yellow-dog contracts in federal courts.

1933 NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL RECOVER ACT

The NIRA was passed in 1933. Sections 7a and 7b encouraged organization. Over 900,000 workers went on strike for recognition. Strike wave continued in 1934, with 1.5 million strikers. Over 18,000 strikers were dragged from the picket lines, arrested and jailed. From 1934-36, eighty-eight workers lost their lives in strikes. For the first time in history, there was virtually no scabbing during a depression; instead, the unemployed appeared on the picket line.

1934 Anti-Union Drives

Meanwhile, big business was launching an anti-union drive of unprecedented proportions and increasing violence. The National Association of Manufacturers ("NAM") circulated propaganda that the CIO was communist and endorsed the Mohawk Valley strikebreaking method. In 1934 industry spent $80 million yearly for the purchase of spies, blacklists, framing of union officials and breaking up of trade unions. General Motors executives, testifying before a Senate Committee, admitted that they had spent one million dollars for a spy system in an effort to violate, or circumvent, the law providing for collective bargaining. Also, in 1934, according to the LaFollette Senate Committee, industry began spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for tear gas, shot guns, automatic pistols, armored cars, fragmentation bombs, and sub-machine guns to attack employees in strikes.

Mohawk Valley Formula

The Formula was created by James H. Rand, Jr., of the Remington Rand Co., and was adopted by NAM. It consisted of: (1) branding of any strike anywhere and every strike as a communist plot; (2) complete domination of local police; (3) newspaper advertisements; (4) widespread use of armed vigilantes and citizens' committees; (5) formation of "loyal employee groups," and (6) back to work movements to smash through picket lines by force. All violence was to be charged to out-of-town agitators and Reds

Worker Victories in the 1930s

Workers scored a few victories at great cost. Pickets were killed in Toledo, OH before a threat of a general strike turned the company around. A citywide strike in San Francisco resulted in recognition for longshoremen. A strike of truck drivers, which all but choked off Minneapolis, also ended in a partial victory. Significantly, each of these revolutionary

strikes ended with federal intervention. Most of the AFL unions disavowed this "radicalism" of the striking workers.

Minneapolis Trucker Strike

This strike was significant because the power of the Teamsters eventually emerged its wake. When the city's "better" elements volunteered to be sworn in as "special officers," and were armed with badges and guns, the truckers collected iron pipes and baseball bats. On May 22, 1934, 20,000 people gathered. Deputies wanted trucks to start rolling; strikers were firm to not let a single wheel turn. A scuffle and melee began. When dust settled, one special deputy was dead amidst strikers cradling broken heads. The Governor mobilized the National Guard and forced an uneasy truce. Strike leaders negotiated in good faith until the employers, still hoping to smash the union, broke off talks. Trucks again stopped moving. Police then sent an armed convoy to escort a strikebreaker through the city streets. Unarmed strikers blocked the road with another truck. Police, armed with shotguns, without warning fired into the truck and crowd.

Sixty-seven were wounded, most shot through the back, and two were killed. Class war threatened to throttle the city. Federal mediators proposed a settlement; the union agreed but employers refused. Martial law was declared, but for a change troops were not used as strikebreakers.

After four months, employers began to negotiate. Bolstered by their victory, Teamster leaders, the Dunne brothers and Dobbs, began to extend the jurisdiction of their local. To organize over-the-road drivers, they devised a stratagem of requiring that all drivers coming into Minneapolis be union members. They organized a District Drivers Council to coordinate activities of Teamster locals throughout the region. The first uniform contract was negotiated in 1938. A Detroit tough, James Hoffa, observed the growth of the Minneapolis local and adopted the same tactics of organizing even the "rubbish" of the unskilled on the periphery of the trucking industry. Teamsters grew from 135,000 in 1937 to 530,000 in 1941.

WAGNER ACT

The NLRA was not a "balanced" law but a "balancing" law to favor unions. Its goals were to: 1) require bargaining with recognized representatives; 2) allow workers to organize and bargain through chosen representatives; and 3) create management unfair labor practices. Also, the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB") was established (the agency that determines bargaining units, majority status and ULP's). The law was passed for a variety of reasons to be discussed later.

 1936 Sit-Down Strikes

Sit-down strikes ran like a fever through the strike-racked body of American industry in 1936 and 37, involving directly 484,711 workers.

Myra Wolfgang, an AFL Hotel Union Business Agent recalled: "and the phone would ring and the voice at the other end would say, 'My name is Mary Jones; I'm a soda clerk at Liggett's; we've thrown the manager out and we've got the keys. What do we do now?' And you'd hurry over to the company to negotiate and over there they'd say, 'I think it's the height of irresponsibility to call a strike before you've ever asked for a contract,' and all you could answer was, 'You're so right.'" Bulk of sit-downers had no wish to overthrow either their employers or the country.

American industry, though, saw revolution in every factory. Workers described the experience as like war; you became best buddies with the other sit-downers. In a sit-down, workers stay inside the plant after going on strike without notice or warning. They were safe from assaults of the police and vigilantes; no strikebreakers could take their jobs. Factories became forts, with owners fearful about destruction of their machinery.

First sit-down strike

In February of 1936, rubber workers in Akron, Ohio went on a sit-down strike. The night shift had decided to pull the switch after trying everything else to stop the speed-up or get a living wage. The company had cut wages and fired workers without notice. By the second day, 10,000 workers were on strike and the world's largest rubber factory was at a standstill. Tactics were developed: when police threatened to open the plant, the union massed thousands before the plant gate. Police withdrew and no violence occurred. When rumors of attack of the picket line occurred, the union leased a radio station in order to utilize creative communication with the workers and populace. The strike ended with recognition.

Soon workers everywhere began doing the same. They sat down and as they sat they joined the CIO. CIO offices were flooded with telephone calls from excited workers who shouted: "We've satdown! Send someone over to organize us!" Within six months the CIO had two million members. In 1936 the AFL suspended the CIO unions, later expelling them, calling them communist but utilizing dual unionism and refusal to abide by majority rule as the formal charge.

CIO Organizing Strategy

CIO had intended to organize the steel industry first, but spontaneous surge of autoworkers changed their plans. Auto tycoons earned $150-500,000/year while workers earned $7/week. Workers who attempted union organization were ruthlessly fired and often beaten up. Men were discharged for merely smiling, and sometimes for absolutely no reason at all, on the theory that sudden and arbitrary discharge would keep men docile.

History of Organizing in Auto Industry

In 1930 the UAW struck the Flint plant. The strike was defeated and strikers were blacklisted. In 1933, the Skilled Tool and Die Makers walked out. Their strike was

defeated and the strikers were blacklisted. Early in 1935, the AFL capitulated to auto industry, even agreeing to union non- recognition.

In May of 1936, the UAW withdrew from AFL and joined the CIO. General Motors employed 261,977 workers, and usually owned the cities where plants were. GM refused to recognize the UAW, and four major sit-downs occurred by December 30. Soon the sit-down centered on Flint, the heartland of the GM empire. By January 1, 1937, 112,800 of GM's 150,000 production workers were idle.

Flint Sit-down

By January 4, 1937, Flint was gripped by imminent civil war. Over 50,000 of a total Flint population of 165,000 toiled at the GM plants. The sit-down lasted 44 days, with giant picket lines surrounding the factories to protect the men. President Roosevelt caused Frances Perkins (Secretary of Labor and the first woman Cabinet member) to try to induce GM to obey the Wagner Act and to negotiate. Strikers refused to obey an injunction. The company turned off the heat, but sit-downers opened the windows and the insurance company forced GM to turn the heat back on. Decision to starve them out precipitated a battle between police and women. Fourteen people fell from gunshot wounds at "The Battle of Bulls Run." Women refused to budge, even when shot and gassed by the police.

On the 35th day of the strike Flint authorities began arming hundreds of vigilantes as special police. The Governor threatened to send in the militia. But finally, on the 44th day, GM surrendered, announcing it would recognize the union and negotiate nationally as to hours, wages, and the speed-up. Thousands came to hurrah as the workers left. There was a giant celebration with flags and singing of "Solidarity." Within a year wages increased by $300 million; UAW grew from 30,000 to 500,000 and had written collective bargaining agreements.

1937 Red Smear

Press reports continued to call the CIO communist. In 1937 business had sufficiently recovered from the Depression, and the House Un-American Committee and government blacklists of union workers began. Attempts to swing workers from the CIO to AFL were initiated. NAM circulated 2.2 million copies of a pamphlet entitled "Join the CIO and Help Build a Soviet America." Some CIO members were communists, but the only criterion for union membership was loyalty. The Communist Party did work ceaselessly and made a major contribution in the organization of the unorganized for the CIO. The Red Smear was denounced by many rights organizations, as well as the Catholic Church.

Steel Workers Organizing Committee

CIO formed the SteelWorkers Organizing Committee ("SWOC"), funding it with $2.5 million. SWOC experienced moderate success, especially at US Steel. After months of secret meetings with the chair of US Steel, John L. Lewis got an agreement granting

SWOC recognition without a single picket. It seemed that the other steel companies would follow suit.

Worsening economic conditions, however, managed to stiffened opposition of the Little Steel companies. They rallied around the president of Republic Steel who hated unions. He ruthlessly applied the Mohawk Valley Formula. Little Steel companies rejected all overtures; 70,000 went out on strike.

On May 30, 1937, the Memorial Day Massacre took place. Strikers from Republic Steel's South Chicago plant gathered to hear speakers; the plant lay to the south across a field. Strikers decided to cross the field to affirm their right to picket. Casually, the strikers and their families strolled by twos and threes and small groups toward the plant gates. The holiday spirit was met by gunfire.

After intensive investigation, the LaFollette Senate Committee concluded: "The first shots came from the police...unprovoked." Ten marchers were shot; seven in the back; none in front. Thirty others, including children, were wounded; twenty-eight others were badly beaten; thirty more required medical treatment.

In Ohio, a Republic Steel official demanded of the local police chief: "Why don't you take action like they did in Chicago?" The chief was persuaded to leave town and special police were sworn in, precipitating a riot in which strikers were killed and arrested.

1938 Congress of Industrial Organizations

A CIO independent of the AFL was formed after John L. Lewis of the UMW strode across the AFL convention floor and punched William Hutcheson of the Carpenters in the nose. The rank and file were delighted with the symbolism. The CIO was created within hours of the fight. The CIO continued organizing auto, rubber, and steelworkers.

The CIO had a rivalry with AFL, which was frequently voluntarily recognized by employers because of its reputation of being less militant. The Wagner Act stimulated growth of unions.

Business spent $80 million annually in purchase of spies and thugs as well as munitions. Many in American business perceived Hitler as a hero. Former president of NAM said: "American business might be forced to turn to some form of disguised Fascistic dictatorship."

WWII and The Growth of Unions

World War II, like World War I, was a period of growth for the union movement. President Roosevelt promised to maintain the protections provided by the Wagner Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act, including premium pay for overtime.

Unions, in turn, gave no-strike pledges designed to avoid interference with war production. Collective bargaining became a system for drawing up the rules for employment; and the unions became agencies for enforcing these rules. Nevertheless, the media provided a picture of labor whose members were constantly on strike during the war, annoying the public that perceived the strike as hampering the war defense.

However, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, union labor had honored its no-strike pledge; only 1/100th of one percent of scheduled working hours were lost through the strike during the War. But Congress bought the media portrayal of strikes; angered by the coal miner strike in 1943, it passed the repressive Smith-Connolly Labor Act, forerunner of Taft-Hartley, over the veto of FDR.

1945-46

End of WW II brought fear of unemployment and reduced earnings along with the Cold War. Labor feared anti-union drives patterned on open-shop drives of the 1920's. During end of 1945, labor strikes resulted in 28,400,000 person-days lost. The great strikes of 1945-46 frightened the monopolies, convincing their owners that the Cold War was an opportunity to defeat a labor movement growing in size, militancy and unity. Industry was determined to repeal the Wagner Act. C.E. Wilson, head of General Electric, declared that the Cold War had two targets: the American labor movement at home and the Soviet Union abroad. The Chamber of Commerce published articles that the New Deal and the labor movement were communistic. McCarthy took up the charge. The Chamber of Commerce and NAM demanded legislation to rid labor of "communist domination."

UAW Demand To See Books

Walter Reuther of UAW demanded wage increases without price increases. His most radical demand was to see GM's books to prove the Company's contention of inability to pay. The demand resulted in a 3 1/2 months' strike in 1945 when some 200,000 workers shut down GM in 96 plants. Reuther's insistence to open GM's books and the linking of prices, profits and wages signaled a potential expansion of industrial democracy, which previously meant simple grievance machinery and negotiations over wages and working conditions. The Reuther-UAW demand injected organized labor directly into corporate decision-making, if not into the still broader area of economic planning. His demand would result in a gain in real wages. Social unionism resulted in Reuther's announcement that the union would forego any wage increase if it could be shown from an examination of GM's books that a wage increase could not be granted without raising prices. When President Truman asserted that the ability to pay was always relevant when wage increases were under consideration, GM stormed out of fact-finding hearings.

In early 1930's, ratio of union members to persons at work in nonagricultural establishments was one to eight; by 1945 it was one to three.

1947 TAFT-HARTLEY ACT

NAM wrote the Taft-Hartley Act, not senators. Labor stood pat against any reform as simple anti-unionism. This was a political mistake because more aggressive reformers took the day. President Truman registered a formal veto, but Congress passed it over his ineffective protests.

The new law was more punitive than what a moderate majority wanted. At any rate, Senator Taft later became the willing backer of amendments, never adopted, designed to ease the law's impact on legitimate unionization. AFL attacked the Taft-Hartley Act as the "slave labor" bill. Within months it had brought the trade union movement to a complete standstill in organizing; afflicted it with paralysis; subjected it to the loss of literally millions of dollars in damage suits and fines; paved the way for union raids against each other; and subjected an increasing number of union leaders to indictment and imprisonment. In response, the CIO expelled Communist-dominated unions in 1949.

1950's

Congress investigated union corruption, resulting in the enactment of the Landrum-Griffin Act. President Eisenhower's election in 1952 brought a critical attitude toward unions. NLRB decisions began to run against the unions, as did the tide of public opinion.

1955 AFL-CIO Merger

AFL-CIO merger occurred between Meany (AFL) and Reuther (CIO). AFL-CIO adopted a Code of Ethical Practices, resulting in expulsion of three unions in 1957, including the Teamsters, the largest affiliate, for refusing to oust Hoffa. Thereafter, Teamsters grow at a faster rate than the AFL-CIO. Later, in 1988 the AFL-CIO voted Teamsters back into the fold.

1959 LANDRUM-GRIFFIN ACT

This amendment to the Wagner Act was intended to protect individual union members by regulating internal union affairs; it was the result of union corruption and continued anti-union feelings. Unions are the only voluntary institutions within American society that are required by law to be democratic.

1960-65 Union Stagnation

The workforce increases by five million but no union growth. Failure is explained by: 1) increase in white collar workers who are harder to organize; 2) increased affluence; 3) disclosure of union corruption and maladministration; 4) concern about union power exercised without regard to public interest and the social costs of strikes; 5) increased centralization of the unions and a growing gulf between leadership and rank and file; 6) age and complacency of union leaders; and 7) weakening of traditional support because of discrimination against Blacks.

Other groups then took the place of labor in anti-poverty and civil rights campaigns--President Johnson and his Great Society.

Automation in the 1960's had a drastic effect on employment. For instance, a frankfurter machine that used 50 or 60 workers formerly now used four to five workers; a Raytheon assembly line staffed by two employees tests 11,000 radio tubes a day where the same job done manually required 200 people.

Under President Kennedy, the NLRB was considerably more liberal and pro-labor, but could not set aside prior law wholesale. Nevertheless, strong decisions such as Darlington, issued in 1962, were perceived to attempt to interpret the law in a more balanced fashion.

Some social critics develop a new theory that management does not want to destroy unions; it finds them much too useful as a disciplinary force.

1966 UAW Splits From AFL-CIO

The UAW publicly campaigns against AFL-CIO for failure to help disadvantaged. UAW then disaffiliated in 1968 and formed Alliance for Labor Action with Teamsters.

1968 “Embourgeoisement” of American Workers

Certain labor analysts articulate a theory of the embourgeoisement of American workers. They believe that workers express a "conservatism of the group and its middle-class concerns." One of the major differences between American workers and those in class-conscious Europe has been the high incidence of home-ownership. This property ownership theoretically resulted in an anomaly of the militant worker in the plant who returns home to vote conservatively as a property owner.

1969 Boulwarism

In 1969, a major turn in labor relations occurred in the form of a 102-day strike at GE beginning on October 27, 1969, involving 147,000 workers which shut down fourth largest corporation in America.

For over twenty years, GE played one group of workers against another. Vice President of GE, Boulware, created a new anti-union formula. Its basic ingredients called for the labeling of union leaders as "outside agitators," "radicals" and "creeping socialists;" economic pressure on the community by threats to move plants; organization of a back-to-work movement whenever strikes occurred; a show of police and "citizen's committee" force; and a grandstand opening of struck plants.

Boulware added a dash of Madison Avenue sophistication and applied the formula on a continuing basis rather than simply confining it to a crisis, a strike or union organizing drive. "Communications" was the rubric under which GE carried out one of the most

intricate and long-lasting anti-union campaigns in corporate history. Boulware developed "truthful offers," or disguised ultimatums.

Negotiations at the bargaining table became a take-it-or-leave-it package. Unions were viewed as the enemy and negotiations as a means of doing away with them. NLRB found bad faith bargaining; affirmed by circuit court; Supreme Court denied appeal. Unions responded with coordinated bargaining. In January of 1970, there were eighty different AFL-CIO coordinated bargaining committees. The Court held that the company could not be compelled to negotiate with a coordinated committee, but could not dictate the composition of any particular union team. GE then launched a publicity campaign that union demands in 1970 were inflationary. They offered a regressive collective bargaining proposal, leaving the union little choice other than to strike.

Boulwarism backfired. GE made a second offer during the strike that actually could cost workers money pursuant to a COLA formula; they started calling workers' homes three days before Christmas. Nonetheless, strike remained 90% effective to the end. Unity of diverse workers was amazing. GE had no inventory; workers were able to find other temporary employment in many cases. Altogether, the union provided $12 million in strike benefits. Strike was won when GE consented to bargaining in early January.

1980's Recession and The Rise of Foreign Competition

Employer tough bargaining is coupled with a recession and stiff foreign competition. Unions accept freezes and cutbacks in exchange for restrictions on layoffs and plant closures; new participation of unions on boards of directors (Fraser on Chrysler's Board). PATCO strike in 1981 results in firing of all strikers by President Reagan--set national mood of anti-labor feelings.

SOURCES:

Albert A. Blum, A History of the American Labor Movement -

Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, Labor's Untold Story (United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, Pittsburgh, PA) (1955) (3rd ed. 1988)

Thomas R. Brooks, Toil and Trouble (Delacorte Press, NY) (2nd ed. 1971)

Meltzer and Henderson, Labor Law: Cases, Materials, and Problems (Little, Brown and Co.) (1985)