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Injunctions and the Anti-Trust Laws
In these early years many employers forced job seekers to sign
agreements not to join a union. These were known as yellow dog
contracts. Judges sternly enforced such contracts by issuing
injunctions and jailing organizers for contempt. Employers routinely
received government help in disputes with their workers. If the
police couldn't break strikes the state militia was called in. But
of all the many weapons used to keep workers impoverished and under
the employers' thumb, court injunctions were probably the most
effective.
On the federal level these injunctions were usually issued
under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. it had been passed in the 1890's
to curb the awesome power of huge corporate combinations. In
practice, anti-trust suits became another way to harass unions.
Employers hit by a strike or bothered by a labor organizer merely
had to ask the nearest court to declare the union's activity a
"conspiracy in restraint of trade." Fines and jail
sentences became a way of life, even a badge of honor, for early
trade unionists.
During the strike against the Pope Motor Company of
Indianapolis in 1907 a judge issued an order which, in the words of
the financial secretary of Local Lodge 161 enjoined members
"from doing anything except breathing." When a member
named Louis Poehler defied the order, the judge directed an auction
of his property. This ignited one of the largest protest
demonstrations ever seen in the city. Speakers called for the
impeachment of the judge and a "defense fund" was set up
to solicit donations to help Brother Poehler get this property back.
During the early years the Journal dripped with
scornful condemnation of "capitalist courts." Editor
Douglas Wilson advised workers "to abandon all hope" when
entering an American courtroom. Explaining a decision in which an
employer was acquitted after physically attacking a picket Wilson
wrote, "Courts are not friendly to organized labor because . .
. judges have been mostly corporation lawyers before their elevation
to the bench."
The blatant bias of the judiciary finally forced Congress to
try to legislate some relief for workers. They Clayton Act, passed
in 1914, declared that human labor was no a commodity in commerce
and courts should no longer rule lawful acts for lawful goals as
"conspiracies in restraint of trade." When this new law
went into effect Sam Gompers called in "Labors magna Carta."
However, the ink barely dried before the judges began once more to
issue injunctions against unions. The case that shattered union
labor's last illusion about the Clayton Act was brought against the
IAM by the Duplex Printing Company. The Supreme Court affirmed
punitive damages against IAM members who refused to work on scab
printing presses. Holding this a "conspiracy in restraint of
trade", the high court put the law right back where it had been
and where it would stay until the Norris-LaGuardia Act was passed in
1932.
Suffer The Little Children
In early years of the century, child labor was rampant in
factories, mines an mills. In 1907, Journal Editor Douglas
Wilson noted that, "A miserable attempt is being made to
minimize the fact . . . that children of tender years are being
exploited and . . . but for persistent agitation . . . by the trade
unions for the last half century this exploitation would be
inutterably greater." On another occasion Wilson raged that
child labor was the worst form of race suicide.
A few states began to move cautiously and slowly to temper
some of the more horrifying conditions under which so many workers,
especially women and children, were employed. But the exploitation
of children continued for many years to come. As late as 1911 a
commission investigating child labor in Pennsylvania found
eleven-year-old girls working from 6:30 in the evening to 6:30 the
next morning for 3¢ an hour. It was hard for even the most backward
politician not to admit the need for some degree of legal protection
against this kind of greed.
In that same year 154 women, mostly teenagers, burned to death
in a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York. The
Triangle Company (read about the Triangle
Fire), a typical sweatshop, operated on the three top floors of
a ten-story building. It had no fires escapes and the bosses had
bolted emergency doors to keep the girls from leaving their
machines. The tragedy shocked the conscience of the nation and
revealed the criminal lack of health and safety standards in
America's work places. Although middle class progressives cried out
for reform, the courts continued to nullify laws setting minimum
standards for wages, hours, child labor, health and safety. |
