A History of Trade Unionism in the United States Part 11

In the winter of 1912, when the time for renewing the agreement again drew near, the entire membership in the three anthracite districts was slightly above 29,000. Nevertheless, the union demanded a twenty percent raise, a complete recognition of the union, the check-off, and yearly agreements, in addition to a more expeditious system of settling local grievances to replace the slow and c.u.mbersome joint arbitration boards provided by the award of the Commission. A strike of 180,000 anthracite miners followed on April 1, 1912, during which the operators made no attempt to run their mines. The strike ended within a month on the basis of the abolition of the sliding scale, a wage increase of approximately 10 percent, and a revision of the arbitration machinery in local disputes. This was coupled with a somewhat larger degree of recognition, but by no means a complete recognition. Nor was the check-off system granted. Strangest of all, the agreement called for a four-year contract, as against a one-year contract originally demanded by the union. In spite of the opposition of local leaders, the miners accepted the agreement. President White's chief plea for acceptance was the need to rebuild the union before anything ambitious could be attempted.

After 1912 the union entered upon the work of organization in earnest.

In the following two years the membership was more than quadrupled. With the stopping of immigration due to the European War, the power of the union was greatly increased. Consequently, in 1916, when the agreement was renewed, the miners were accorded not only a substantial wage increase and the eight-hour day but also full recognition. The United Mine Workers have thus at last succeeded in wresting a share of industrial control from one of the strongest capitalistic powers of the country; while demonstrating beyond doubt that, with intelligent preparation and with sympathetic treatment, the polyglot immigrant ma.s.ses from Southern and Eastern Europe, long thought to be impervious to the idea of labor organization, can be changed into reliable material for unionism.

The growth of the union in general is shown by the following figures.

In 1898 it was 33,000; in 1900, 116,000; in 1903, 247,000; in 1908, 252,000; and in 1913, 378,000.[58]

(2) _The Railway Men_

The railway men are divided into three groups. One group comprises the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Order of Railroad Conductors, the Brotherhood of Firemen and Enginemen, and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. These are the oldest and strongest railway men's organizations and do not belong to the American Federation of Labor. A second group are the shopmen, comprising the International a.s.sociation of Machinists; the International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, Drop Forgers, and Helpers; the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America; the Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' International Alliance; the Brotherhood of Boilermakers and Iron Ship Builders and Helpers of America; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and the International Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen and Oilers. A third and more miscellaneous group are the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, the Order of Railway Telegraphers, the Switchmen's Union of North America, the International Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes and Railroad Shop Laborers, and the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen. The organizations comprised in the latter two groups belong to the American Federation of Labor. For the period from 1898 to the outbreak of the War, the organizations, popularly known as the "brotherhoods," namely, those of the engineers, conductors, firemen, and trainmen, are of outstanding importance.

The brotherhoods were unique among American labor organizations in that for many years they practically reproduced in most of their features the sort of unionism typified by the great "Amalgamated" unions of the fifties and sixties in England.[59] Like these unions the brotherhoods stressed mutual insurance and benefits and discouraged when they did not actually prohibit striking. It should, however, be added that the emphasis on insurance was due not to "philosophy," but to the practical consideration that, owing to the extra hazardous nature of their occupations, the men could get no insurance protection from ordinary commercial insurance companies.

By the end of the eighties the brotherhoods began to press energetically for improvements in employment conditions and found the railways not disinclined to grant their demands in a measure. This was due in great measure to the strategic position of these trades, which have it in their power completely to tie up the industry when on strike, causing enormous losses to the carriers.[60] Accordingly, they were granted wages which fairly placed them among the lower professional groups in society as well as other privileges, notably "seniority" in promotion, that is promotion based on length of service and not on a free selection by the officials. Seniority was all the more important since the train personnel service is so organized that each employe will pa.s.s several times in the regular course of his career from a lower to a higher rung on the industrial ladder.[61] For instance, a typical pa.s.senger train engineer starts as fireman on a freight train, advances to a fireman on a pa.s.senger train, then to engineer on a freight train, and finally to engineer on a pa.s.senger train. A similar sequence is arranged in advancing from brakeman to conductor. Along with seniority the brotherhoods received the right of appeal in cases of discharge, which has done much to eliminate discrimination. Since they were enjoying such exceptional advantages relative to income, to the security of the job, and to the stability of their organization, it is not surprising, in view of the limited cla.s.s solidarity among American laboring men in general, that these groups of workers should have chosen to stand alone in their wage bargaining and that their refusal to enter "entangling alliances" with other less favored groups should have gone even to the length of staying out of the American Federation of Labor.

This condition of relative harmony between employer and employe, notwithstanding the energetic bargaining, continued for about fifteen years until it was disturbed by factors beyond the control of either railway companies or brotherhoods. The steady rise in the cost of living forced the brotherhoods to intensify their demands for increased wages.

At the same time an ever tightening regulation of railway rates by the Federal government since 1906 practically prevented a shift of increased costs to the shipper. "Cla.s.s struggles" on the railways began in earnest.

The new situation was brought home to the brotherhoods in the course of several wage arbitration cases in which they figured.[62] The outcome taught them that the public will give them only limited support in their efforts to maintain their real income at the old high level compared with other cla.s.ses of workers.

A most important case arose from a "concerted movement" in 1912[63] of the engineers and firemen on the 52 Eastern roads for higher wages. Two separate arbitration boards were appointed. The engineers' board consisted of seven members, one each for the interests involved and five representing the public. The award was unsatisfactory to the engineers, first, because of the meager raise in wages and, second, because it contained a strong plea to Congress and the country to have all wages of all railway employes fixed by a government commission, which implied a restriction of the right to strike. The award in the firemen's case, which was decided practically simultaneously with the engineers', failed to satisfy either side.

The conductors and trainmen on the Eastern roads were next to move "in concert" for increased wages. The roads refused and the brotherhoods decided by a good majority to quit work. This threatened strike occasioned the pa.s.sage of the so-called Newlands bill as an amendment to the Erdman Act, with increased powers to the government in mediation and with more specified conditions relative to the work of the arbitration boards chosen for each occasion. Whereupon both sides agreed to submit to arbitration.

The award allowed an increase in wages of seven percent, or less than one-half of that demanded, but disallowed a plea made by the men for uniformity of the wage scales East and West, and denied the demanded time and a half for overtime. The men accepted but the decision added to their growing opposition to the principle of arbitration.

Another arbitration case, in 1914, involving the engineers and firemen on the Western roads led the brotherhoods to come out openly against arbitration. The award was signed only by the representatives on the board of the employers and the public. A characteristic aftermath of this case was an attack made by the unions upon one of the "neutrals" on the board. His impartiality was questioned because of his relations with several concerns which owned large amounts of railroad securities.

Therefore, when in 1916 the four brotherhoods together demanded the eight-hour day, they categorically refused to consider arbitration.[64]

The evolution to a fighting unionism had become complete.

While the brotherhoods of the train service personnel were thus shifting their tactics, they kept drawing nearer to the position held by the other unions in the railway service. These had rarely had the good fortune to bask in the sunshine of their employers' approval and "recognition." Some railways, of the more liberal sort, made agreements with the machinists and with the other shop unions. On the whole, however, the hold of these organizations upon their industry was of a precarious sort.

To meet their strong opponents on a basis nearer to equality, they started about 1904 a movement for "system federations,"[65] that is, federations of all organized trades through the length of a given railway system as, for instance, the Pennsylvania Railroad or the Illinois Central Railroad. In turn the creation of system federations sharpened the employers' antagonism. Some railway systems, like the Illinois Central, might be willing to enter into agreements with the separate crafts, but refused to deal with a federation of crafts. In 1912, stimulated by a dispute on the Illinois Central Railroad and on the Harriman lines in general, involving the issue of system federations, a Federation of System Federations was formed by forty systems upon an aggressive program. In 1908 a weak and rather tentative Railway Employes' Department had been launched by the American Federation of Labor. The Federation of Federations was thus a rival organization and "illegal" or, at best, "extra-legal" from the standpoint of the American Federation of Labor. The situation, however, was too acute to permit the consideration of "legality" to enter. An adjustment was made and the Federation of System Federations was "legitimatized" through fusion with the "Department," to which it gave its const.i.tution, officers, and fighting purpose, and from which it took only its name. This is the now well-known Railway Employes' Department of the American Federation of Labor (embracing all important national unions of the railway workers excepting the four brotherhoods), and which, as we shall see, came into its own when the government took over the railways from their private owners eight months after America's entry into the World War.

(3) _The Machinery and Metal Trades_

Unlike the miners and the railway brotherhoods, the unions in the machinery and metal trades met with small success in their efforts for "recognition" and trade agreements. The outstanding unions in the industry are the International a.s.sociation of Machinists and the International Molders' Union, with a half dozen smaller and very small unions.[66] The molders' International united in the same union the stove molders, who as was seen had been "recognized" in 1891, and the molders of parts of machinery and other foundry products. The latter found the National Founders' a.s.sociation as their antagonist or potential "co-partner" in the industry.

The upward swing in business since 1898, combined with the growth of trade unionism and with the successful negotiation of the Interstate agreement in the soft coal mining industry, created an atmosphere favorable to trade agreements. For a time "recognition" and its implications seemed to all concerned, the employer, the unions, and the public, a sort of cure-all for industrial disputes. Accordingly, in March 1899, the National Founders' a.s.sociation (organized in the previous year and comprising foundrymen engaged princ.i.p.ally in machinery manufacturing and jobbing) and the International Molders' Union of North America met and drew up the following tersely worded agreement which became known as the New York Agreement:

"That in event of a dispute arising between members of the respective organizations, a reasonable effort shall be made by the parties directly at interest to effect a satisfactory adjustment of the difficulty; failing to do which, either party shall have the right to ask its reference to a Committee of Arbitration which shall consist of the President of the National Founders'

a.s.sociation and the President of the Iron Molders' Union or their representatives, and two other representatives from each organization appointed by the respective Presidents.

"The finding of this Committee of Arbitration by majority vote shall be considered final in so far as the future action of the respective organizations is concerned.

"Pending settlement by the Committee, there shall be no cessation of work at the instance of either party to the dispute. The Committee of Arbitration shall meet within two weeks after reference of dispute to them."

The agreement was a triumph for the principle of pure conciliation as distinct from arbitration by a third party. Both sides preferred to run the risk of a possible deadlock in the conciliation machinery to throwing decisions into the hands of an umpire, who would be an uncertain quant.i.ty both as regards special bias and understanding of the industry.

The initial meeting of the arbitration committee was held in Cleveland, in May 1899, to consider the demand by the unions at Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island, for a minimum wage which the employers had refused. In each city one member of the National Founders' a.s.sociation was involved and the men in these firms went to work pending the arbitration decision, while the others stayed out on strike.

The meeting ended inauspiciously. The founders and molders seemed not to be able to settle their difficulties. Each side stood fast on its own principles and the arbitration committees regularly became deadlocked.

The question of a minimum wage was the most important issue. From 1899 to 1902 several joint conventions were held to discuss the wage question. In 1899 a settlement was made, which, however, proved of short duration. In November 1902, the two organizations met, differed, and arranged for a sub-committee to meet in March 1903. The sub-committee met but could reach no agreement.

The two organizations clashed also on the question of apprentices. The founders contended that, because there were not enough molders to fill the present demand, the union restrictions as to the employment of apprentices should be removed. The union argued that a removal of the restriction would cause unlimited compet.i.tion among molders and eventually the founders could employ them at their own price. They likewise failed to agree on the matter of cla.s.sifying molders.

Owing to the stalling of the conciliation machinery many strikes occurred in violation at least of the spirit of the agreement. July 1, 1901, the molders struck in Cleveland for an increase in wages; arbitration committees were appointed but failed to make a settlement.

In Chicago and San Francisco strikes occurred for the same reason.

It was at last becoming evident that the New York agreement was not working well. In the autumn of 1903 business prosperity reached its high watermark and then came a sharp depression which lessened the demand for molders. Early in 1904 the National Founders' a.s.sociation took advantage of this situation to reduce wages and finally practically abrogated the New York agreement. In April, 1904, the founders and molders tried to reach a decision as to how the agreement could be made effective, but gave it up after four days and nights of constant consideration. The founders claimed that the molders violated the agreement in 54 out of the 96 cases that came up during the five years of its life; and further justified their action on the ground that the union persistently refused to submit to arbitration by an impartial outsider the issues upon which the agreement was finally wrecked.

An agreement similar to the New York one was concluded in 1900 between the National Metal Trades' a.s.sociation and the International a.s.sociation of Machinists. The National Metal Trades' a.s.sociation had been organized in 1899 by members of the National Founders' a.s.sociation, whose foundries formed only a part of their manufacturing plants. The spur to action was given by a strike called by the machinists in Chicago and other cities for the nine-hour day. After eight weeks of intense struggle the a.s.sociation made a settlement granting a promise of the shorter day. Although hailed as one of the big agreements in labor history, it lasted only one year, and broke up on the issue of making the nine-hour day general in the a.s.sociation shops. The machinists continued to make numerous agreements with individual firms, especially the smaller ones, but the general agreement was never renewed.

Thereafter the National Metal Trades' a.s.sociation became an uncompromising enemy of organized labor.

In the following ten years both molders and machinists went on fighting for control and engaged in strikes with more or less success. But the industry as a whole never again came so near to embracing the idea of a joint co-partnership between organized capital and labor as in 1900.

(4) _The Employers' Reaction_

With the disruption of the agreement systems in the machinery producing and foundry industries, the idea of collective bargaining and union recognition suffered a setback; and the employers' uneasiness, which had already steadily been feeding on the unions' mounting pressure for control, now increased materially. As long, however, as business remained prosperous and a rising demand for labor favored the unions, most of the agreements were permitted to continue. Therefore, it was not until the industrial depression of 1907-1908 had freed the employers'

hands that agreements were disrupted wholesale. In 1905 the Structural Erectors' a.s.sociation discontinued its agreements with the Structural Iron Workers' Union, causing a dispute which continued over many years.

In the course of this dispute the union replied to the victorious a.s.saults of the employers by tactics of violence and murder, which culminated in the fatal explosion in the _Los Angeles Times_ Building in 1911. In 1906 the employing lithographers discontinued their national agreement with the lithographers' union. In 1907 the United Typothetae broke with the pressmen, and the stove founders with the stove mounters and stove polishers. In 1908 the agreements between the Lake Carriers and Lumber Carriers (both operating on the Great Lakes) and the seafaring and water front unions were terminated.

In the operation of these unsuccessful agreements the most serious stumbling blocks were the union "working rules," that is to say, the restrictive rules which unions strove to impose on employers in the exercise of their managerial powers in the shop, and for which the latter adopted the sinister collective designation of "restriction of output."

Successful trade unionism has always pressed "working rules" on the employer. As early as the first decade of the nineteenth century, the trade societies then existing tried to impose on the masters the closed shop and restrictions on apprenticeship along with higher wages and shorter hours. As a union advances from an ephemeral a.s.sociation to a stable organization more and more the emphasis is shifted from wages to working rules. Unionists have discovered that on the whole wages are the unstable factor, going up or down, depending on fluctuating business conditions and cost of living; but that once they have established their power by making the employer accept their working rules, high wages will ultimately follow.

These working rules are seldom improvisations of the moment, but, crude and one-sided as they often are, they are the product of a long labor experience and have taken many years to be shaped and hammered out.

Since their purpose is protective, they can best be cla.s.sified with reference to the particular thing in the workingman's life which they are designed to protect: the standard of living of the trade group, health, the security of the worker's job, equal treatment in the shop and an equal chance with other workmen in promotion, the bargaining power of the trade group, as a whole, and the safety of the union from the employer's attempts to undermine it. We shall mention only a few of these rules by way of ill.u.s.tration. Thus all rules relating to methods of wage payment, like the prohibition of piece work and of bonus systems (including those a.s.sociated with scientific management systems), are primarily devices to protect the wage earner's rate of pay against being "nibbled away" by the employer; and in part also to protect his health against undue exertion. Other rules like the normal (usually the eight-hour) day with a higher rate for overtime; the rule demanding a guarantee of continuous employment for a stated time or a guarantee of minimum earnings, regardless of the quant.i.ty of work available in the shop; again the demand for the sharing of work in slack times among all employes; and further, when layoffs become necessary, the demand of recognition by the employer of a right to continuous employment based on "seniority" in the shop;--all these have for their common aim chiefly the protection of the job. Another sort of rules, like the obstruction to the splitting up of trades and the restrictions on apprenticeship, have in view the protection of the bargaining power of the craft group--through artificially maintaining an undiminished demand for skilled labor, as well as through a reduction of the number of compet.i.tors, present and future, for jobs. The protection of the union against the employer's designs, actual or potential, is sought by an insistence on the closed union shop, by the recognition of the right of appeal to grievance boards in cases of discharge to prevent anti-union discrimination, and through establishing a seniority right in promotion which binds the worker's allegiance to his union rather than to the employer.

With these rigid rules, partly already enforced on the employer by strikes or threats to strike and partly as yet unrealized but energetically pushed, trade unionism enters the stage of the trade agreement. The problem of industrial government then becomes one of steady adjustment of the conflicting claims of employer and union for the province of shop control staked out by these working rules. When the two sides are approximately equal in bargaining strength (and lasting agreements are possible only when this condition obtains), a promising line of compromise, as recent experience has shown, has been to extend to the unions and their members in some form that will least obstruct shop efficiency the very same kind of guarantees which they strive to obtain through rules of their own making. For instance, an employer might induce a union to give up or agree to mitigate its working rules designed to protect the job by offering a _quid pro quo_ in a guarantee of employment for a stated number of weeks during the year; and likewise, a union might hope to counteract the employer's natural hankering for being "boss in his own business," free of any union working rules, only provided it guaranteed him a sufficient output per unit of labor time and wage investment.

However, compromises of this sort are pure experiments even at present--fifteen to twenty years after the dissolution of those agreements; and they certainly require more faith in government by agreement and more patience than one could expect in the partic.i.p.ants in these earlier agreements. It is not surprising, therefore, that the short period of agreements after 1898 should in many industries have formed but a prelude to an "open-shop" movement.[67]

After their breach with the union, the National Founders' a.s.sociation and the National Metal Trades' a.s.sociation have gone about the business of union wrecking in a systematic way. They have maintained a so-called "labor bureau," furnishing men to their members whenever additional help was needed, and keeping a complete card system record of every man in the employ of members. By this system occasion was removed for employers communicating with the business agents of the various unions when new men were wanted. The a.s.sociations have had in their regular pay a large number of non-union men, or "strike-breakers," who were sent to the shop of any member whose employes were on strike.

In addition to these and other national organizations, the trade unions were attacked by a large and important cla.s.s of local employers'

a.s.sociations. The most influential a.s.sociation of this cla.s.s was the Employers' a.s.sociation of Dayton, Ohio. This a.s.sociation had a standing strike committee which, in trying to break a strike, was authorized to offer rewards to the men who continued at work, and even to compensate the employer for loss of production to the limit of one dollar per day for each man on strike. Also a system was adopted of issuing cards to all employes, which the latter, in case of changing employment, were obliged to present to the new employer and upon which the old employer inscribed his recommendation. The extreme anti-unionism of the Dayton a.s.sociation is best attested by its policy of taking into membership employers who were threatened with strikes, notwithstanding the heavy financial obligations involved.

Another cla.s.s of local a.s.sociations were the "Citizens' Alliances,"

which did not restrict membership to employers but admitted all citizens, the only qualification being that the applicant be not a member of any labor organization. These organizations were frequently started by employers and secured cooperation of citizens generally. In some places there were two a.s.sociations, an employers' and a Citizens'

Alliance. A good example of this was the Citizens' Alliances of Denver, Colorado, organized in 1903. These "Citizens' Alliances," being by virtue of mixed membership more than a mere employers' organization, claimed in time of strikes to voice the sentiment of the community in general.

So much for the employers' counter attacks on trade unions on the strictly industrial front. But there were also a legal front and a political front. In 1902 was organized the American Anti-Boycott a.s.sociation, a secret body composed mainly of manufacturers. The purpose of the organization was to oppose by legal proceedings the boycotts of trade unions, and to secure statutory enactments against the boycott.

The energies of the a.s.sociation have been devoted mainly to taking certain typical cases to the courts in order thereby to create legal precedents. The famous Danbury Hatters' Case, in which the Sherman Anti-Trust law was invoked against the hatters' union, was fought in the courts by this a.s.sociation.