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History |
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From THE FIGHTING MACHINISTS, A CENTURY OF
STRUGGLE
by Robert G. Rodden |
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Class Warfare in the 1920's
While the war lasted and America needed an unbroken flow of
armaments, the federal government forced employers to recognize and
deal with unions to insure labor peace. With the war over, big
business began to drive unions from America's work places. While
attending the Peace Conference in Paris, Wilson cabled home
uplifting sentiments about the workers' right to share "in some
organic way" in decisions affecting the work place. But
"over here" the corporations grimly resolved to turn the
clock back.
The opening offensive came in the steel industry. At the war's
end the steel companies were swimming in profits. yet their workers
remained among the most exploited in America. Largely first or
second generations immigrants, the men who labored over the open
hearths in the nation's steel mills were victimized by starvation
wages and barbaric working conditions. In other industries the
eight-hour day was fast becoming standard. In the steel mills
workers were still forced to work twelve hours a day and six days a
week. At least a third earned less than a subsistence wage and
three-quarters were below a minimum standard of comfort.
In September, 1919, some 350,000 workers walked off their jobs
in the belt of steel cities and towns that extends from Gary and
Hammond to Cleveland and Youngstown and on to Pittsburgh, Johnstown
and Buffalo.
In October, President Wilson called an industrial conference
of representatives of labor, business and the public to try to find
peaceful ways of dealing with this strike as well as others brewing
on the railroads and other basic industries. As leader of the labor
delegation, Sam Gompers offered a resolution asking the conference
to name a six-member panel to arbitrate the steel strike, then in
its fifth week. The president of U.S. Steel, Elbert Gary, flatly
rejected this proposal. Gompers then offered another resolution
affirming " The right of wage-earners to organize, without
discrimination; to bargain collectively; to be represented by
representatives of their own choosing in negotiations with employers
in respect to wages, hours and conditions of employment." Gary
also vetoed this second resolution. Gompers led the union men out of
the hall, defiantly warning the employers,
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You have defeated us in our
proposition, but you have not broken one line of this movement
of ours, nor have you crushed the spirit of that movement. The
word you have spoken here means nothing. You have defeated the
labor group in its declaration, but we will meet you again in
conference and when we do . . . you will be glad to talk
collective bargaining. |
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The steel strike went on. Over the next four months the steel
companies, aided by state and local governments, waged merciless
warfare on the workers and their families. State troopers rode down
their picket lines and judges sent them to jail. Employers planted
spies in union halls and sheriffs suppressed the civil liberties of
union leaders. Twenty strikers were killed and countless others
clubbed without mercy. The strike finally collapsed. later an
Inter-Church Commission of Inquiry found, "The United States
Steel Corporation was to big to be beaten by 300,000 workers. It had
too large a cash surplus, too many allies among business . . .
government . . . the press and the pulpit."
The NAM and The American Plan
Encouraged by the victory of the steel magnates, other
industries went on a rampage of union-busting. The new President,
Warren Harding an empty-headed Republican machine politician from
Ohio, campaigned on the slogan "Back to Normalcy." To
employers this signaled federal approval of union-busting. Over the
next few years the National Association of Manufacturers urged all
employers to operate on what they called the American Plan. Quite
simply the American Plan was the old-fashioned open shop. Most
employers didn't need much urging. But the few who were willing to
go on negotiating and dealing with unions were soon whipped into
line. Banks called in their loans; customers cancelled orders and
suppliers refused to make deliveries.
In the rush to return to their pre-war open shops employers
brought out and dusted off all the old union-busting tactics: yellow
dog contracts, injunctions, blacklists, labor spies and using thugs
like Pearl Bergoff to pistol whip pickets and move scabs through
picket lines.
The IAM's old enemy, the National Metal Trades Association,
pushed the American Plan throughout the metal trades industry. The
NMTA offered a complete line of blacklisting, spying and
strikebreaking services. In 1921 their membership and income rose
400%. The effectiveness of the blacklist was described many years
lager by an old time member who served as president of Local Lodge
439 in Cleveland during World War I. He told how he went to apply
for a job after the war "and was refused before I had a chance
to open my mouth." When he asked for an explanation "the
employer simply pulled my photograph out from inside his desk."
With metalworking employers everywhere applying pressures such as
these the IAM's membership went into a tailspin. In a span of four
years membership plunged from more than 330,000 to less than 78,000.
As the IAM's membership melted so did many of the hard-won
benefits gained during the war years. The president of the NMTA
exulted, |
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"Thousands of employers . .
. have decided to lengthen the basic week to fifty, fifty-four
or fifty-five hours, being convinced that a shorter work week
is uneconomic and that to work a longer week, paying overtime
for all hours over the forty-four or forty-eight hour week is
merely another way of increasing wages." |
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He sternly trumpeted "that the abnormally high wages which
have recently prevailed must recede before we can expect to return
to a normal basis." In thousands of work places, seniority
clauses evaporated and workers were once again at the mercy of
foremen. Workers who had fought for grievance procedures once more
had to "take it or leave it."
Having failed to drive the Machinists out of Cincinnati in the
winter of 1915-1916, the NMTA set out to do it in 1919. An NMTA
official later admitted "It was not a question of wages or
hours; it was a question of whether Cincinnati was going to be made
an open shop town."
In the test of strength that followed, 8,000 Machinists were
driven out on strike. While some of the smaller firms defied the
NMTA and settled after three months, the IAM was under attack on
several fronts. Between January 1, 1919 and June 30, 1920, the Grand
Lodge mailed out more than $1,750,000 in strike benefits, including
$240,000 to striking members in Cincinnati. After five months more
than half the members in Cincinnati had either moved to other
cities, taken out retirement cards or dropped out of the union. All
the gains made during the war were lost.
The disastrous membership slide in the early '20's was
hastened by a demoralizing defeat in a two-year strike against
American Can Company. This was an all-out effort, formally endorsed
by a $1.00 per member assessment on all members, including
specialists and helpers as well as journeymen, voted by the 1920
Grand Lodge Convention in Rochester and ratified by referendum.* |
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*The assessment
made in the American Can strike in the early 1920's was the
IAM's last formal union-wide effort to assess the entire
membership although voluntary collections continue to be made
in response to circulated appeals made on behalf of specific
strikes or natural disasters. |
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The strike affected all the company's fifty-six plants. The
primary issues were wages, union recognition and changes in the
company's incentive system. American Cans counter-attack was
designed and directed by the NMTA. Newspapers and politicians helped
the company whip up public hysteria against "Reds",
radicals and labor "agitators." Though the IAM launched a
desperate secondary boycott the strikers finally faced the
humiliation of going, hat-in- hand, for individual
rehiring on a plant-by-plant basis.
When the strike was formally called off in January 1922 the
union's reserves were badly depleted. As a result the IAM was
unprepared for the massive blow about to be struck by the railroad
industry. |
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The Great Railroad Strike of 1922,
A Toe in The Political Waters
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History |
Comments or Suggestions? E-mail the Communications Officer
of Siouxland Lodge 1426 IAMAW
Greg Enright
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