Judy Ancel The Institute for Labor Studies University of Missouri-Kansas City

Judy Ancel The Institute for Labor Studies University of Missouri-Kansas City

"The past ten years have seen changes of amazing magnitude in the organization of American economic society. The change to which I refer is the lessening importance of trade unionism in American economic organization... We may briefly summarize the present situation as follows: American trade unionism is slowly being limited in influence by changes which destroy the basis on which it is erected. It is probable that changes in the law have adversely affected unionism. Certainly the growth of large corporations has done so.

But no one who carefully follows the fortunes of individual unions can doubt that over and above these influences, the relative decline in the power of American trade unionism is due to occupational changes and to technological revolutions...

The changes-occupational and technological-which checked the advance of trade unionism in the last decade appear likely to continue in the same direction. It is hazardous to prophesy, but I see no reason to believe that American trade unionism will so revolutionize itself within a short period of time as to become in the next decade a more potent social influence than it has been in the past decade. This is by no means to say that trade unionism in the United States is on its way to insignificance as a social factor."

What decade do you think this quote comes from? What legal, occupational, and technological changes do you think the author is talking about? Do you think the author is right in his prediction?

George Barnett, President of the American Economic Association, December 1932 Just a few years before an unprecedented wave of organizing

[Unions] may have been justified in the long past, for I think the workmen were not always treated justly.the existence and conduct of labor unions, in this country are inimical to the best interests of the employees, the employers, and the general public. Elbert Gary, President of the U.S. Steel Corporation, defending the need for the 12 hour day at a stockholders meeting 1921

Don t try to predict the death of the labor movement, you ll probably be wrong.

It would be interesting to speculate on the possibility that American trade unionism as a whole could organize on some other basis than that on which it has organized itself from the beginning of its history [craft unionism]. It is possible that something like the Knights of Labor may emerge and dominate American trade-union organization. Many writers have counseled the leaders of the American tradeunion movement to abandon their present forms of organization and to move in the direction [of industrial trade unionism].

Had 750,000 members in 1886 Organized in Trades assemblies Mixed assemblies Let owners who worked in Refused admittance to Stock brokers Bankers Lawyers Saloon keepers Chinese An injury to one is the concern of all.

AFL craft unionism was unable to organize mass production industry. John L. Lewis split the labor movement to form Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Labor has repeatedly reinvented itself and adopted new organizing models in response to changes in the organization of the economy. Often innovation comes from the margins not the center.

Question: The largest group of workers in colonial North America were Answer: a) Free laborers b) African Slaves c) Indentured servants d) Native Americans

In early colonial North America the largest group of workers was indentured servants. In the south and north after 1670 they were joined by African slaves. Of 30,000 who came from England to Maryland and Virginia in the 1600s 75-80% were servants. 2/3 die during indenture In 1776 ¾ ths of Philadelphia population were or had been servants. In 1776 there were 500,000 slaves New York had 21,324 slaves in 1790

Our history of slavery and servitude established a pattern of brutality and lack of respect or legal rights for the worker by many employers and government. Throughout our history workers have struggled to win their rights and protect them.

Question: Strikes in early America were considered conspiracies and were illegal. True or false? Answer True

In the famous Cordwainer Conspiracy Cases of 1806-1815, courts ruled that any combination of workers to raise wages was a criminal conspiracy. This doctrine held back organizing progress and defeated strikes. By mid-century the courts abandoned the conspiracy doctrine and substituted other reasons for breaking strikes. From 1880 to 1930 there were 1,845 federal and state injunctions issued against labor.

For most of our history unions have operated without protection of law and often in violation of it. Facing the combined power of government and business has been the norm for American workers. Labor succeeds when it can get government to be neutral.

Question: Where did American wage workers come from? Answer a) Bankrupt farmers or their sons and daughters. b) Immigrants, mostly bankrupt farmers too c) Former slaves d) Children e) All of the above

Lowell Mill girls 1834

African-Americans head north during the great migration 1917-45 painting by Jacob Lawrence

Question: Which immigrant group did not face anti-immigrant or nativist opposition? Answer a) The Germans who came as indentured servants in the 1750s b) The French who fled the violence of the counterrevolution in the 1790s c) The Irish who built the Eastern railways d) The Chinese who built the western railways e) The Mexicans who picked our crops f) None of the above

Unless the stream of these people can be turned away... they will soon outnumber us so that we will not be able to save our language or our government. Benjamin Franklin, 1755 Talking about German indentured servants

Waves of migration and immigration created the working class. In truth the American working class was constantly being reinvented with new infusions of people from all over the world who spoke different languages and had different cultures. Management faced the continuous challenge of instilling a work ethic in their new workers who were unused to the discipline of wage work and the factory or mine.

New immigrants as well as women and African Americans were often brought into a workplace to operate new technology, replacing skilled workers or during strikes. Such divide and conquer tactics were in most cases successful in breaking labor s unity.

Question: In early steel mills, machine shops, and other factories skilled workers ran the shop floor and decided how to produce, at what pace, and how much they would produce. True or False? Answer: True

Most factory management neither knew how to produce nor how to improve productivity. They relied on skilled workers to engineer and make products and assigned unskilled helpers to them to supervise.

An engineer, Fredrick Winslow Taylor, complained that workers were obstacles to efficiency. In 1912 he published The Priniciples of Scientific Management which removed the planning from the shop floor and standardized production techniques. One worker said, But we want our heads left on!

In 1914 Ford introduced the assembly line at his Highland Park Michigan plant deskilling his workers and taking all control of the pace of work away. He paid them $5 a day if they were morally fit and introduced a system of control that kept out unions.

Labor history has largely been the evolving struggle for worker control. Changes in the way work is done have been a focal point of conflict. Most conflicts begin at the level of the shop floor and involve issues of management vs. workers' rights. Union power begins in this struggle and is built with solidarity from the bottom up.

Question: Craft unions shunned organizing women because they thought: Answer: a) Women were too hard to organize being more interested in their families b) Women shouldn t be working in shops and factories; it would unsex them c) They refused to strike d) They undercut wages of men e) All of the above

Some of the earliest strikes were of women and of children In the Rising of the 20,000 in 1909, women garment workers demanded the union let them strike

In 1937 Chicana, Mexican, and Russian immigrant women cannery workers joined UCAPAWA the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America, a CIO union. They built strong community support, waged militant strikes, and organized a powerful union.

American workers have always been very diverse. Employers have segmented and separated them and sometimes unions failed to challenge those divisions. However, unions are most successful when they organize all workers, are inclusive, democratic, and develop leaders from the rank and file.

Question: Our basic labor law the Wagner National Labor Relations Act passed in 1935 because Answer: a) A new coalition of voters elected Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt who was pro-union and gave us our rights. b) Workers and the unemployed created so much disruption through strikes and both violent and nonviolent illegal clashes with the authorities that the President and Congress were forced to throw them some crumbs.

c) The country was in such an economic shambles that Congress decided giving labor rights would help raise wages and buying power thus bringing back prosperity and be a bulwark against communism. d) We got it because the AFL and CIO unions organized and brought massive labor support in lobbying for the Act. Answer: Workers and the unemployed created so much disruption through strikes and both violent and nonviolent illegal clashes with the authorities that the President and Congress were forced to throw them some crumbs.

Starting in about 1934 there was an upsurge of organizing and strikes. Employed and unemployed organized together. Before the Wagner Act, there were major militant strikes across the country. These strikes put a great deal of pressure on Congress and President Roosevelt to support labor law reform, giving unions the right to organize and be recognized. The upsurge of militancy also led to the formation of the CIO.

Southern Textile Worker Strike 1934 where workers used flying squadrons, marching from mill to mill to shut them down.

Many New Dealers in Congress did believe that giving workers bargaining power would raise wages, create demand, and help the economy recover. The legal reforms did raise wages and also channeled militancy into legal pursuits. President Franklin Roosevelt supported workers right to organize, but he did not announce his support for the Wagner Act until it was clear it would pass Congress.

When we've made gains, it has been because of two crucial elements: good leadership and organization and the solidarity and involvement of masses of people who were willing to disrupt the system or threaten to disrupt it. Legal reforms generally follow an upsurge in the labor movement rather than cause it. Reforms are a response to this mass movement and militancy and usually are an attempt to control it. When the mass movement weakens, reforms begin to be eroded.

The US has the most violent labor history in the western world. Why?