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The Battle of Cincinnati, 1915
In September, 1915 Johnston sent Pete Conlon to Cincinnati
with instructions to organize as he had in New England. Cincinnati
was a major center of the metal trades industry. It was also one of
the NMTAs primary strongholds. When Conlon arrived he found that
news of the IAM's successful eight hour day campaign in New England
had created a receptive mood among working people. A mass meeting
brought out 1,800 journeymen five days after Conlon got to town.
This was topped by even a larger rally five days later. Despite
torrential rains machinists packed the meeting hall to suffocation.
The Cincinnati Metal Trades Association counter-attacked by
notifying all machinists in the city that planned bonuses were being
jeopardized by outside labor agitators. This was followed by a story
in a local political smear sheet called The Cincinnati Republican.
It accused Conlon of conspiring with the Austrian consul and a
certain "Doctor Ludwig" to dynamite a local machine tool
company. Copies of this scurrilous sheet, mailed to machinists
throughout the city, called for Conlon's death.
Despite such tactics machinists streamed to IAM headquarters
night after night to be initiated. In two weeks 1,200 were
obligated. The Cincinnati Metal Trades Association issued a general
announcement that it "would not concede the eight hours work
day no matter what the consequences would be." This triggered a
chain reaction. That same day machinists walked out of four shops
and marched to IAM headquarters with their tool boxes. Over the next
few days nine more shops went out and 800 machinists paraded down
Walnut Street with signs and banners demanding the eight hour day.
By the middle of October, 1,672 men at twenty-two firms were out.
After Johnston came in from Washington and addressed a mass rally
the strike spread to other shops in Cincinnati as well as Hamilton,
Springfield and Dayton.
Employers continued to resist with time-tested tactics. Conlon
reported to the Journal that thousands of dollars were being
spent by foremen on bee busts and entertainments, police were
breaking up IAM picket lines, plainclothesmen were escorting strike
breakers from home to work, and judge sentenced prisoners to work in
scab shops, local newspapers were only printing items detrimental to
the strikers and, Conlon wrote "the scurrilous sheet call The
Cincinnati Republican has been mailed to all the strikers
weekly filled with the most sensational and libelous stuff."
By this time Conlon had been under heavy pressure for at least
a year. While leading the fight for the eight hour day in New
England two of his sons almost died of typhoid fever back home in
Virginia. They were barely recovered when Johnston sent Conlon to
stir up the eight hour day fire in Cincinnati. Non-stop tension
finally took its toll. Conlon collapsed under a combination of flu
and nervous indigestion. His doctor ordered him home to the Virginia
hills. Within two weeks, however, he was back in Cincinnati, setting
up a commissary to help get the strikers' families through the hard,
cold winter to come. Conlon explained, "We can save 25 percent
by bringing in wholesale quantities [which] together with savings on
distribution and profit enables the strikers to get twice as much
for the money." He also reported "Every striker in
Cincinnati is guaranteed assistance as long as he will do picket
duty."
As the strike dragged on, employers spurned offers of
mediation by the U.S. Department of Labor. They called government
efforts "outside meddling" and reaffirmed their
determination to accept no settlement other than unconditional
surrender. A number of employers secretly admitted to Conlon they
were being held in line by threats to ruin their credit or otherwise
run them out of business. Others made under-the-table deals but were
too frightened by the Cincinnati Metal Trades Association to put
anything into writing.
The employers had little trouble finding a judge to issue an
injunction prohibiting strikers from interfering with the comings
and goings of scabs. Machinists parading near the Niles Tool Works
got into a cursing and shoving match with strikebreakers coming off
the day shift. Insults soon turned into fist fights. Fifty-seven
union members were arrested and charged with contempt. Handing down
his decision on Christmas Eve, the judge released nineteen of the
men, fining the other thirty-eight a total of $320. After caucusing
the men refused to pay the fine, saying they would rather go to
jail. The judge offered to hold the case over the holidays so they
could spend Christmas with their families if they would post $250
bail. Again they refused and were ready to go to jail until Conlon
persuaded them to put up the bond so they could spend Christmas with
their families. Conlon himself stayed in Cincinnati through the
holidays to see that striking families received Christmas baskets
along with the toys for the children.
Employers in Hamilton were the first to compromise, conceding
the nine hour day with a five percent wage increase but most in
Cincinnati held out. From the original twenty-two shops and 1,672
men who went out in October, 1915 the strike spread to 113 shops an
3,680 men by May 1, 1916. By this time companies were offering
strikers a $1.25 an hour to desert and were paying out-of-town scabs
premium wages plus hotel expenses. The IAM retaliated by shipping
thousands of Cincinnati's most skilled journeymen to booming
munitions plants starved for skilled labor in New England. In the
June, 1916 Journal Conlon wrote that the employer's solid
front was finally cracking. Agreements had been signed with
twenty-four plants setting a forty-eight hour work week with no
reduction in pay and time and a half for more than eight and
one-half hours a day. He reported more agreements were pending with
nineteen other shops and nine breweries.
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