A History of Trade Unionism in the United States Part 13

[65] Long before this, about the middle of the nineties, the first system federations were initiated by the brotherhoods and were confined to them only; they took up adjustment of grievances and related matters.

[66] The International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, the Brotherhood of Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders, the Pattern Makers' League, the International Union of Stove Mounters, the International Union of Metal Polishers, Platers, Bra.s.s and Silver Workers, the International Federation of Draftsmen's Unions, and the International Brotherhood of Foundry Employes.

[67] Professor Barnett attributes the failure of these agreements chiefly to faulty agreement machinery. The working rules, he points out, are rules made by the national union and therefore can be changed by the national union only. At the same time the agreements were national only in so far as they provided for national conciliation machinery; the fixing of wages was left to local bodies. Consequently, the national employers' a.s.sociations lacked the power to offer the unions an indispensable _quid pro quo_ in higher wages for a compromise on working rules. ("National and District Systems of Collective Bargaining in the United States," in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, May, 1912, pp. 425 ff.)

[68] The following account is taken from Chapter X of the _Steel Workers_ by John A. Fitch, published by the Russell Sage Foundation.

[69] See above, 133-135.

[70] The opposition of the Steel Corporation to unionism was an important factor in the disruption of the agreement systems in the structural iron-erecting industry in 1905 and in the carrying industry on the Great Lakes in 1908; in each of these industries the Corporation holds a place of considerable control.

[71] See above, 47-49.

[72] Loewe _v._ Lawlor, 208 U.S. 274 (1908).

[73] Adair _v._ U.S., 208 U.S. 161 (1908).

[74] 36 Wash. Law Rep. 436 (1909). Gompers was finally sentenced to imprisonment for thirty days and the other two defendants were fined $500 each. These penalties were later lifted by the Supreme Court on a technicality, 233 U.S. 604 (1914).

CHAPTER 9

RADICAL UNIONISM AND A "COUNTER-REFORMATION"

For ten years after 1904, when it reached its high point, the American Federation of Labor was obliged to stay on the defensive--on the defensive against the "open-shop" employers and against the courts. Even the periodic excursions into politics were in substance defensive moves.

This turn of events naturally tended to detract from the prestige of the type of unionism for which Gompers was spokesman; and by contrast raised the stock of the radical opposition.

The opposition developed both in and outside the Federation. Inside it was the socialist "industrialist" who advocated a political labor party on a socialist platform, such as the Federation had rejected when it defeated the "program" of 1893,[75] together with a plan of organization by industry instead of by craft. Outside the Federation the opposition marched under the flag of the Industrial Workers of the World, which was launched by socialists but soon after birth fell into the hands of syndicalists.

However, fully to understand the issue between conservatives and radicals in the Federation after 1905, one needs to go back much earlier for the "background."

The socialist movement, after it had unwittingly a.s.sisted in the birth of the opportunistic trade unionism of Stra.s.ser and Gompers,[76] did not disappear, but remained throughout the eighties a handful of "intellectuals" and "intellectualized" wage earners, mainly Germans.

These never abandoned the hope of better things for socialism in the labor movement. With this end in view, they adopted an att.i.tude of enthusiastic cooperation with the Knights of Labor and the Federation in their wage struggle, which they accompanied, to be sure, by a persistent though friendly "nudging" in the direction of socialism. During the greater part of the eighties the socialists were closer to the trade unionists than to the Knights, because of the larger proportion of foreign born, princ.i.p.ally Germans, among them. The unions in the cigar making, cabinet making, brewing, and other German trades counted many socialists, and socialists were also in the lead in the city federations of unions in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and other cities. In the campaign of Henry George for Mayor of New York in 1886, the socialists cooperated with him and the labor organizations.

When, however, the campaign being over, they fell out with George on the issue of the single tax, they received more sympathy from the trade unionists than George; though one should add that the internal strife caused the majority of the trade unionists to lose interest in either faction and in the whole political movement. The socialist organization went by the name of the Socialist Labor party, which it had kept since 1877. Its enrolled membership was under 10,000, and its activities were non-political (since it refrained from nominating its own tickets) but entirely agitational and propagandist. The socialist press was chiefly in German and was led by a daily in New York. So it continued until there appeared on the scene an imperious figure, one of those men who, had he lived in a country with conditions more favorable to socialism than the United States, would doubtless have become one of the world's outstanding revolutionary leaders. This man was Daniel DeLeon.

DeLeon was of South American ancestry, who early immigrated to New York.

For a time he was teacher of languages at Columbia College; later he devoted himself thoroughly to socialist propaganda. He established his first connection with the labor movement in the George campaign in 1886 and by 1890 we find him in control of the socialist organization. DeLeon was impatient with the policy of slow permeation carried on by the socialists. A convinced if not fanatical Marxian, his philosophy taught him that the American labor movement, like all national labor movements, had, in the nature of things, to be socialist. He formed the plan of a supreme and last effort to carry socialism into the hosts of the Knights and the Federation, failing which, other and more drastic means would be used.

By 1895 he learned that he was beaten in both organizations; not, however, without temporarily upsetting the groups in control. For, the only time when Samuel Gompers was defeated for President of the Federation was in 1894, when the socialists, angered by his part in the rejection of the socialist program at the convention,[77] joined with his enemies and voted another man into office. Gompers was reelected the next year and the Federation seemed definitely shut to socialism. DeLeon was now ready to go to the limit with the Federation. If the established unions refused to a.s.sume the part of the gravediggers of capitalism, designed for them, as he believed, by the very logic of history, so much the worse for the established trade unions.

Out of this grew the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance as a life and death rival to the Federation. From the standpoint of socialism no more unfortunate step could have been taken. It immediately stamped the socialists as wilful destroyers of the unity of labor. To the trade unionists, yet fresh from the ordeal of the struggle against the Knights of Labor, the action of the socialists was an unforgivable crime. All the bitterness which has characterized the fight between socialist and anti-socialist in the Federation verily goes back to this gross miscalculation by DeLeon of the psychology of the trade union movement.

DeLeon, on his part, attributed the action of the Federation to a hopelessly corrupt leadership and, since he failed to unseat it by working from within, he now felt justified in striking at the entire structure.

The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance was a failure from the outset.

Only a small portion of even the socialist-minded trade unionists were willing to join in the venture. Many trade union leaders who had been allied with the socialists now openly sided with Gompers. In brief, the socialist "revolution" in the American labor world suffered the fate of all unsuccessful revolutions: it alienated the moderate sympathizers and forced the victorious majority into taking up a more uncompromising position than heretofore.

Finally, the hopelessness of DeLeon's tactics became obvious. One faction in the Socialist Labor party, which had been in opposition ever since he a.s.sumed command, came out in revolt in 1898. A fusion took place between it and another socialist group, the so-called Debs-Berger Social Democracy,[78] which took the name of the Social Democratic Party. Later, at a "Unity Congress" in 1901, it became the Socialist Party of America. What distinguished this party from the Socialist Labor party (which, although it had lost its primacy in the socialist movement, has continued side by side with the Socialist party of America), was well expressed in a resolution adopted at the same "Unity"

convention: "We recognize that trade unions are by historical necessity organized on neutral grounds as far as political affiliation is concerned." With this program, the socialists have been fairly successful in extending their influence in the American Federation of Labor so that at times they have controlled about one-third of the votes in the conventions. Nevertheless the conservatives have never forgiven the socialists their "original sin." In the country at large socialism made steady progress until 1912, when nearly one million votes were cast for Eugene V. Debs, or about 1/16 of the total. After 1912, particularly since 1916, the socialist party became involved in the War and the difficulties created by the War and retrogressed.

For a number of years DeLeon's failure kept possible imitators in check.

However, in 1905, came another attempt in the shape of the Industrial Workers of the World. As with its predecessor, impatient socialists helped to set it afoot, but unlike the Alliance, it was at the same time an outgrowth of a particular situation in the actual labor movement, namely, of the bitter fight which was being waged by the Western Federation of Miners since the middle nineties.

Beginning with a violent clash between miners and mine owners in the silver region of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in the early nineties, the mining States of the West became the scene of many labor struggles which were more like civil wars than like ordinary labor strikes.

A most important contributing cause was a struggle, bolder than has been encountered elsewhere in the United States, for control of government in the interest of economic cla.s.s. This was partly due to the absence of a neutral middle cla.s.s, farmers or others, who might have been able to keep matters within bounds.

The Western Federation of Miners was an organization of workers in and around the metaliferous mines. It also included workers in smelters. It held its first convention in 1893 in b.u.t.te, Montana. In 1894 the men employed in the Cripple Creek, Colorado, gold fields demanded a minimum wage of three dollars for an eight-hour day. After four months the strike resulted in a victory for the union. Other strikes occurred in 1896 and 1897 at Leadville, in 1899 in the Coeur d'Alene mining district, and in 1901 at Rossland and Fernie, British Columbia, and also in the San Juan district in California.

The most important strike of the Western Federation of Miners, however, began in 1903 at Colorado City, where the mill and smeltermen's union quit work in order to compel better working conditions. As the sympathetic strike was a recognized part of the policy of the Western Federation of Miners, all the miners in the Cripple Creek region were called out. The eight-hour day in the smelters was the chief issue. In 1899 the Colorado legislature had pa.s.sed an eight-hour law which was declared unconst.i.tutional by the Supreme Court of the State. To overcome this difficulty, an amendment to the State const.i.tution was pa.s.sed in 1902 by a large majority, but the legislature, after having thus received a direct command to establish the eight-hour law, adjourned without taking action. Much of the subsequent disorder and bloodshed in the Cripple Creek region during 1903-1904 is traceable to this failure on the part of the legislature to enact the eight-hour law. The struggle in Colorado helped to convince the Western miners that agreements with their employers were futile, that const.i.tutional amendments and politics were futile, and from this they drew the conclusion that the revolutionary way was the only way. William D. Haywood, who became the central figure in the revolutionary movement of the Industrial Workers of the World since its launching in 1905, was a former national officer of the Western Federation of Miners and a graduate of the Colorado school of industrial experience.[79]

Even before 1905 the Western Federation of Miners, which was out of touch with the American Federation of Labor for reasons of geography and of difference in policy and program, attempted to set up a national labor federation which would reflect its spirit. An American Labor Union was created in 1902, which by 1905 had a membership of about 16,000 besides the 27,000 of the miners' federation. It was thus the precursor of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905. In the latter the revolutionary miners from the West joined hands with radical socialists from the East and Middle West of both socialist parties, the Socialist party of America and DeLeon's Socialist Labor party.

We shall forbear tracing here the complicated internal history of the I.W.W., that is the friction which immediately arose between the DeLeonites and the other socialists and later on the struggle between the socialists and the syndicalist-minded labor rebels from the West.

Suffice it to say that the Western Federation of Miners, which was its very heart and body, convinced of the futility of it all, seceded in 1907. In 1911 it joined the American Federation of Labor and after several hard-fought strikes, notably in Michigan in 1913, it practically became a.s.similated to the other unions in the American Federation of Labor.

The remnant of the I.W.W. split in 1908 into two rival Industrial Workers of the World, with headquarters in Detroit and Chicago, respectively, on the issue of revolutionary political versus non-political or "direct" action. As a rival to the Federation of Labor the I.W.W. never materialized, but on the one hand, as an instrument of resistance by the migratory laborers of the West and, on the other hand, as a prod to the Federation to do its duty to the unorganized and unskilled foreign-speaking workers of the East, the I.W.W. will for long have a part to play.

In fact, about 1912, it seemed as though the I.W.W. were about to repeat the performance of the Knights of Labor in the Great Upheaval of 1885-1887. Its clamorous appearance in the industrial East, showing in the strikes by the non-English-speaking workers in the textile mills of Lawrence, Ma.s.sachusetts, Paterson, New Jersey, and Little Falls, New York, on the one hand, and on the other, the less tangible but no less desperate strikes of casual laborers which occurred from time to time in the West, bore for the observer a marked resemblance to the Great Upheaval. Furthermore, the trained eyes of the leaders of the Federation espied in the Industrial Workers of the World a new rival which would best be met on its own ground by organizing within the Federation the very same elements to which the I.W.W. especially addressed itself.

Accordingly, at the convention of 1912, held in Rochester, the problem of organizing the unskilled occupied a place near the head of the list.

But after the unsuccessful Paterson textile strikes in 1912 and 1913, the star of the Industrial Workers of the World set as rapidly as it had risen and the organization rapidly retrogressed. At no time did it roll up a membership of more than 60,000 as compared with the maximum membership of 750,000 of the Knights of Labor.

The charge made by the I.W.W. against the Federation of Labor (and it is in relation to the latter that the I.W.W. has any importance at all) is mainly two-fold: on aim and on method. "Instead of the conservative motto, 'A fair day's wage for a fair day's work,'" reads the Preamble, "We must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, 'Abolition of the wage system.' It is the historic mission of the working cla.s.s to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for the every-day struggle with capitalists, but to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown." Then on method: "We find that the centering of management in industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade union unable to cope with the ever-growing power of the employing cla.s.s. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of the workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping to defeat one another in wage wars.... These conditions must be changed and the interest of the working cla.s.s upheld only by an organization founded in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries, if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or a lockout is in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all." Lastly, "By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the sh.e.l.l of the old."

This meant "industrialism" versus the craft autonomy of the Federation.

"Industrialism" was a product of the intense labor struggles of the nineties, of the Pullman railway strike in 1894, of the general strike of the bituminous miners of 1898, and of a decade long struggle and boycott in the beer-brewing industry. Industrialism meant a united front against the employers in an industry regardless of craft; it meant doing away with the paralyzing disputes over jurisdiction amongst the several craft unions; it meant also stretching out the hand of fellowship to the unskilled worker who knowing no craft fitted into no craft union. But over and above these changes in structure there hovered a new spirit, a spirit of cla.s.s struggle and of revolutionary solidarity in contrast with the spirit of "business unionism" of the typical craft union.

Industrialism signified a challenge to the old leadership, to the leadership of Gompers and his a.s.sociates, by a younger generation of leaders who were more in tune with the social ideas of the radical intellectuals and the labor movements of Europe than with the traditional policies of the Federation.

But there is industrialism and industrialism, each answering the demands of a _particular stratum_ of the wage-earning cla.s.s. The cla.s.s lowest in the scale, the unskilled and "floaters," for which the I.W.W. speaks, conceives industrialism as "one big union," where not only trade but even industrial distinctions are virtually ignored with reference to action against employers, if not also with reference to the principle of organization. The native floater in the West and the unskilled foreigner in the East are equally responsive to the appeal to storm capitalism in a successive series of revolts under the banner of the "one big union."

Uniting in its ranks the workers with the least experience in organization and with none in political action, the "one big union" pins its faith upon a.s.sault rather than "armed peace," upon the strike without the trade agreement, and has no faith whatsoever in political or legislative action.

Another form of industrialism is that of the middle stratum of the wage-earning group, embracing trades which are moderately skilled and have had considerable experience in organization, such as brewing, clothing, and mining. They realize that, in order to attain an equal footing with the employers, they must present a front coextensive with the employers' a.s.sociation, which means that all trades in an industry must act under one direction. Hence they strive to a.s.similate the engineers and machinists, whose labor is essential to the continuance of the operation of the plant. They thus reproduce on a minor scale the attempt of the Knights of Labor during the eighties to engulf the more skilled trade unions.

At the same time the relatively unprivileged position of these trades makes them keenly alive to the danger from below, from the unskilled whom the employer may break into their jobs in case of strikes. They therefore favor taking the unskilled into the organization. Their industrialism is consequently caused perhaps more by their own trade consideration than by an altruistic desire to uplift the unskilled, although they realize that the organization of the unskilled is required by the broader interests of the wage-earning cla.s.s. However, their long experience in matters of organization teaches them that the "one big union" would be a poor medium. Their acc.u.mulated experience likewise has a moderating influence on their economic activity, and they are consequently among the strongest supporters inside the American Federation of Labor of the trade agreement. Nevertheless, opportunistic though they are in the industrial field, their position is not sufficiently raised above the unskilled to make them satisfied with the wage system. Hence, they are mostly controlled by socialists and are strongly in favor of political action through the Socialist party. This form of industrialism may consequently be called "socialist industrialism." In the annual conventions of the Federation, industrialists are practically synonymous with socialists.

The best examples of the "middle stratum" industrialism are the unions in the garment industries. Enthusiastic admirers have proclaimed them the harbingers of a "new unionism" in America. One would indeed be narrow to withhold praise from organizations and leaders who in spite of a most chaotic situation in their industry have succeeded so brilliantly where many looked only for failure. Looking at the matter, however, from the wider standpoint of labor history, the contribution of this so-called "new unionism" resides chiefly, first, in that it has rationalized and developed industrial government by collective bargaining and trade agreements as no other unionism, and second, in that it has applied a spirit of broadminded all-inclusiveness to all workers in the industry. To put it in another way, its merit is in that it has made supreme use of the highest practical acquisition of the American Federation of Labor--namely, the trade agreement--while reinterpreting and applying the latter in a spirit of a broader labor solidarity than the "old unionism" of the Federation. As such the clothing workers point the way to the rest of the labor movement.

The first successful application of the "new unionism" in the clothing trades was in 1910 by the workers on cloaks and suits in the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union of America, a const.i.tuent union of the American Federation of Labor. They established machinery of conciliation from the shop to the industry, which in spite of many tempests and serious crises, will probably live on indefinitely. Perhaps the greatest achievement to their credit is that they have jointly with the employers, through a Joint Board of Sanitary Control, wrought a revolution in the hygienic conditions in the shops.

The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America have won great power in the men's clothing industry, through aggressive but constructive leadership.

The nucleus of the union seceded from the United Garment Workers, an A.F. of L. organization, in 1914. The socialistic element within the organization was and still is numerically dominating. But in the practical process of collective bargaining, this union's revolutionary principles have served more as a bond to hold the membership together than as a severe guide in its relations with the employers.[80] As a result, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers attained trade agreements in all the large men's clothing centers. The American Federation of Labor, however, in spite of this union's success, has persistently refused to admit it to affiliation, on account of its original secessionist origin from a chartered international union.

The unions of the clothing workers have demonstrated how immigrants (the majority in the industry are Russian and Polish Jews and Italians) may be successfully organized on the basis of a broad minded industrialism.

On the issue of industrialism in the American Federation of Labor the last word has not yet been said. It appears, though, that the matter is being solved slowly but surely by a silent "counter-reformation" by the old leaders. For industrialism, or the adjustment of union structure to meet the employer with ranks closed on the front of an entire industry, is not altogether new even in the most conservative portion of the Federation, although it has never been called by that name.

Long before industrialism entered the national arena as the economic creed of socialists, the unions of the skilled had begun to evolve an industrialism of their own. This species may properly be termed craft industrialism, as it sought merely to unite on an efficient basis the fighting strength of the unions of the skilled trades by devising a method for speedy solution of jurisdictional disputes between overlapping unions and by reducing the sympathetic strike to a science.