A History of Trade Unionism in the United States Part 12

The employers' fight on the political front was in charge of the National a.s.sociation of Manufacturers. This a.s.sociation was originally organized in 1895 for the pursuit of purely trade interests, but about 1903, under the influence of the Dayton, Ohio, group of employers, turned to combating trade unions. It closely cooperated with other employers' a.s.sociations in the industrial and legal field, but its chief efforts lay in the political or legislative field, where it has succeeded through clever lobbying and manipulations in nullifying labor's political influence, especially in Congress. The National a.s.sociation of Manufacturers saw to it that Congress and State Legislatures might not weaken the effect of court orders, injunctions and decisions on boycotts, closed shop, and related matters.

The "open-shop movement" in its several aspects, industrial, legal, and political, continued strong from 1903 to 1909. Nevertheless, despite most persistent effort and despite the opportunity offered by the business depression which followed the financial panic of 1907, the results were not remarkable. True, it was a factor in checking the rapid rate of expansion of unionism, but it scarcely compelled a retrogression from ground already conquered. It is enough to point out that the unions managed to prevent wage reductions in the organized trades notwithstanding the unemployment and distress of 1907-1908. On the whole trade unionism held its own against employers in strictly compet.i.tive industry. Different, however, was the outcome in industries in which the number of employers had been reduced by monopolistic or semi-monopolistic mergers.

The steel industry is the outstanding instance.[68] The disastrous Homestead strike of 1892[69] had eliminated unionism from the steel plants of Pittsburgh. However, the Carnegie Steel Company was only a highly efficient and powerful corporation, not yet a "trust." The panic of 1893 dealt another blow to the Amalgamated a.s.sociation of Iron & Steel Workers. The steel mills of Alleghany County, outside Pittsburgh, were all put upon a non-union basis before 1900. In Pittsburgh, the iron mills, too, became non-union between 1890 and 1900. There remained to the organization only the iron mills west of Pittsburgh, the large steel mills of Illinois, and a large proportion of the sheet, tin, and iron hoop mills of the country. In 1900 there began to be whisperings of a gigantic consolidation in the steel industry. The Amalgamated officials were alarmed. In any such combination the Carnegie Steel Company, an old enemy of unionism, would easily be first and would, they feared, insist on driving the union out of every mill in the combination. Then it occurred to President Shaffer and his a.s.sociates that it might be a propitious time to press for recognition while the new corporation was forming. Anxious for public confidence and to float their securities, the companies could not afford a labor controversy.

Accordingly, when the new scales were to be signed in July 1901, the Amalgamated a.s.sociation demanded of the American Tin Plate Company that it sign a scale not only for those mills that had been regarded as union but for all of its mills. This was agreed, provided the American Sheet Steel Company would agree to the same. The latter company refused, and a strike was started against the American Tin Plate Company, the American Sheet Steel Company, and the American Steel Hoop Company. In conferences held on July 11, 12, and 13 these companies offered to sign for all tin mills but one, for all the sheet mills that had been signed for in the preceding year and for four other mills that had been non-union, and for all the hoop mills that had been signed for in the preceding year. This highly advantageous offer was foolishly rejected by the representatives of the union; they demanded all the mills or none. The strike then went on in earnest. In August, President Shaffer called on all the men working in mills of the United States Steel Corporation to come out on strike.

By the middle of August it was evident that the a.s.sociation had made a mistake. Instead of finding their task easier because the United States Steel Corporation had just been formed, they found that corporation ready to bring all its tremendous power to bear against the organization. President Shaffer offered to arbitrate the whole matter, but the proposal was rejected; and at the end of August the strike was declared at an end.

The steel industry was apparently closed to unionism.[70]

(5) _Legislation, Courts, and Politics_

While trade unionism was thus on the whole holding its ground against the employers and even winning victories and recognition, its influence on National and State legislation failed for many years to reflect its growing economic strength. The scant success with legislation resulted, on the one hand, from the very expansion of the Federation into new fields, which absorbed nearly all its means and energy; but was due in a still greater measure to a solidification of capitalist control in the Republican party and in Congress, against which President Roosevelt directed his spectacular campaign. A good ill.u.s.tration is furnished by the attempt to get a workable eight-hour law on government work.

In the main the leaders of the Federation placed slight reliance upon efforts to shorten the working day through legislation. The movement for shorter hours by law for women, which first attained importance in the nineties, was not the work of organized labor but of humanitarians and social workers. To be sure, the Federation has supported such laws for women and children workers, but so far as adult male labor was concerned, it has always preferred to leave the field clear for the trade unions. The exception to the rule was the working day on public work.

The Federal eight-hour day law began to receive attention from the Federation towards the end of the eighties. By that time the status of the law of 1868 which decreed the eight-hour day on Federal government work[71] had been greatly altered. In a decision rendered in 1887 the Supreme Court held that the eight-hour day law of 1868 was merely directory to the officials of the Federal government, but did not invalidate contracts made by them not containing an eight-hour clause.

To counteract this decision a special law was pa.s.sed in 1888, with the support of the Federation, establishing the eight-hour day in the United States Printing Office and for letter carriers. In 1892 a new general eight-hour law was pa.s.sed, which provided that eight-hours should be the length of the working day on all public works of the United States, whether directed by the government or under contract or sub-contract.

Within the next few years interpretations rendered by attorney generals of the United States practically rendered the law useless.

In 1895 the Federation began to press in earnest for a satisfactory eight-hour law. In 1896 its eight-hour bill pa.s.sed the House of Representatives unanimously. In the Senate it was introduced by Senator Kyle, the chairman of the committee on Education and Labor. After its introduction, however, hearings upon the bill were delayed so long that action was prevented during the long session. In the short session of 1898-1899 the bill met the cruel fate of having its introducer, Senator Kyle, submit a minority report against it. Under the circ.u.mstances no vote upon the bill could be had in the Senate. In the next Congress, 1899-1901, the eight-hour bill once more pa.s.sed the House of Representatives only to be lost in the Senate by failure to come to a vote. In 1902, the bill again unanimously pa.s.sed the House, but was not even reported upon by the Senate committee. In the hearings upon the eight-hour bill in that year the opposition of the National Manufacturers' a.s.sociation was first manifested. In 1904 the House Labor Committee sidetracked a similar bill by recommending that the Department of Commerce and Labor should investigate its merits. Secretary Metcalf, however, declared that the questions submitted to his Department with reference to the eight-hour bill were "well-nigh unintelligible." In 1906 the House Labor Committee, at a very late stage in the session, reported "favorably" upon the eight-hour bill. At the same time it eliminated all chances of pa.s.sage of the bill through the failure of a majority of the members of the committee to sign the "favorable" report made. This session of Congress, also, allowed a "rider" to be added to the Panama Ca.n.a.l bill, exempting the ca.n.a.l construction from the provisions of the eight-hour law. In the next two Congresses no report could be obtained from the labor committees of either House upon the general eight-hour day bill, despite the fact that President Roosevelt and later President Taft recommended such legislation. In the sessions of the Congress of 1911-1913 the American Federation of Labor hit upon a new plan. This was the attachment of "riders" to departmental appropriation bills requiring that all work contracted for by these departments must be done under the eight-hour system. The most important "rider" of this character was that attached to the naval appropriation bill. Under its provisions the Attorney-General held that in all work done in shipyards upon vessels built for the Federal government the eight-hour rule must be applied. Finally, in June 1912, a Democratic House and a Republican Senate pa.s.sed the eight-hour bill supported by the American Federation of Labor with some amendments, which the Federation did not find seriously objectionable; and President Taft signed it.

Still better proof of the slight influence of the Federation upon government is furnished by the vicissitudes of its anti-injunction bills in Congress. The Federation had been awakened to the seriousness of the matter of the injunction by the Debs case. A bill of its sponsoring providing for jury trials in "indirect" contempt cases pa.s.sed the Senate in 1896 only to be killed in the House. In 1900 only eight votes were recorded in the House against a bill exempting labor unions from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act; it failed, however, of pa.s.sage in the Senate. In 1902 an anti-injunction bill championed by the American Federation of Labor pa.s.sed the House of Representatives. That was the last time, however, for many years to come when such a bill was even reported out of committee. Thereafter, for a decade, the controlling powers in Congress had their faces set against removal by law of the judicial interference in labor's use of its economic strength against employers.

In the meantime, however, new court decisions made the situation more 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 unconst.i.tutional 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, Mitch.e.l.l, 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 compet.i.tion 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 subst.i.tuted 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 endors.e.m.e.nt 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 pa.s.sed a large portion of the legislation which the Federation had been urging for fifteen years. It pa.s.sed 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 ma.s.ses 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 cla.s.ses 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 compet.i.tive 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 compet.i.tive 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 compet.i.tion 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 const.i.tuting himself the union's financial agent.

[55] In that district the check-off was granted in 1902.

[56] Hitchman Coal and c.o.ke Company _v._ Mitch.e.l.l, 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 a.s.signment 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 pa.s.sed 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.