I) I. The Expansion of the AFL
A. Wilson Administration--Woodrow Wilson's administration courted the support of labor, particularly in his campaign for a second term. This is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that Wilson became the first sitting president to address a convention of the AFL
1. Creation of the Department of Labor--in 1913, Woodrow Wilson created the cabinet-level position of Secretary of Labor, and appointed former United Mine Workers union official William B. Wilson (no relation) as the first secretary.
2. Clayton Act--although it fell far short of being "labor's Magna Carta" that it was proclaimed by Samuel Gompers, the Clayton Act was intended to limit the power of the courts to use the Sherman Anti-Trust Act against labor strikes, since the legislation exempted labor unions from prosecution under the anti-trust law.
2. Commission on Industrial Relations (1915)--reported that much of the labor unrest of the previous two decades was due to the refusal of management to bargain collectively with unions.
4. Adamson Act (1916)--gave railroad workers the right to bargain collectively, as well as setting the eight hour day as the standard work day, with overtime pay guaranteed for any time worked over that eight hours.
B. Wartime Labor Conditions
1. End of European Immigration--the outbreak of hostilities in Europe largely ended immigration from the continent to the United States, since immigrants were now needed by their homelands for manufacturing war goods and cannon fodder. The danger of transatlantic travel during wartime also deterred immigration.
2. Economic Expansion--although the outbreak of war in Europe initially caused a brief recession in the United States, by 1915 the demand for war goods from Europe was largely responsible for an economic boom, because US companies were relied upon to provide these goods.
1.US job market--the lack of European immigrants meant that companies could no longer use the immigrants transitory status--and willingness to work for less--to keep wages depressed. Employers also had to increase their recruitment efforts within the United States.
2. Internal Migration--the economic expansion encouraged a great number of Americans to move from their rural homes--North and especially South--to industrial urban centers in the North
II. Industrial Democracy
A. Wilson Administration--Woodrow Wilson's administration courted the support of labor, particularly in his campaign for a second term. This is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that Wilson became the first sitting president to address a convention of the AFL
1. Creation of the Department of Labor--in 1913, Woodrow Wilson created the cabinet-level position of Secretary of Labor, and appointed former United Mine Workers union official William B. Wilson (no relation) as the first secretary.
2. Clayton Act--although it fell far short of being "labor's Magna Carta" that it was proclaimed by Samuel Gompers, the Clayton Act was intended to limit the power of the courts to use the Sherman Anti-Trust Act against labor strikes, since the legislation exempted labor unions from prosecution under the anti-trust law.
2. Commission on Industrial Relations (1915)--reported that much of the labor unrest of the previous two decades was due to the refusal of management to bargain collectively with unions.
4. Adamson Act (1916)--gave railroad workers the right to bargain collectively, as well as setting the eight hour day as the standard work day, with overtime pay guaranteed for any time worked over that eight hours.
B. Wartime Labor Conditions
1. End of European Immigration--the outbreak of hostilities in Europe largely ended immigration from the continent to the United States, since immigrants were now needed by their homelands for manufacturing war goods and cannon fodder. The danger of transatlantic travel during wartime also deterred immigration.
2. Economic Expansion--although the outbreak of war in Europe initially caused a brief recession in the United States, by 1915 the demand for war goods from Europe was largely responsible for an economic boom, because US companies were relied upon to provide these goods.
1.US job market--the lack of European immigrants meant that companies could no longer use the immigrants transitory status--and willingness to work for less--to keep wages depressed. Employers also had to increase their recruitment efforts within the United States.
2. Internal Migration--the economic expansion encouraged a great number of Americans to move from their rural homes--North and especially South--to industrial urban centers in the North
II. Industrial Democracy
A) Definition
– actually, there is no one definition of industrial democracy—it meant
different things to different people. To workers, it meant that they
would have a say in how a factory or other kind of business would be
run. To owners of the factories and businesses, it meant that for the
duration of the war they would tolerate government interference in the
running of their business, in return for guaranteed profits—but only to
the end of the war.
B) A. Different views of Industrial Democracy
1) 1.
Americanization programs – largely under the control of the capitalist
class, intended to make workers think and act like “Americans.”
(a) a.
Banishment of German language newspapers – distribution of German
language material through the mail was banished in 1917, which
effectively ended the large German press in the United States.
(b) 2. Company-sponsored programs
(i) a.
Ford Motor Company – in the period just before the war, Ford introduced
his famous “Five Dollars a Day” program, which he proposed to pay
workers in his factories five dollars a day (about twice the then going
rate for factory workers). To qualify, workers had to pass inspection
from the Ford Social Department, who ensured that workers were living
frugally and would not dissipate the salary that they were to receive.
Immigrant workers, in addition to this, were also required to attend
language classes if they did not speak English, and were lectured on
work habits, personal hygiene, and table manners; they were also
encouraged to move out of ethnic neighborhoods, and not to take in
borders.
(c) b. Loyalty
organizations – groups like the American Protective League were formed
by natives born to enforce their vision of Americanization upon the
foreign born, as well as other natives who did not fit their vision of
proper conduct.
(d) Restrictions
on immigration – although the numbers of immigrants was not restricted
by law until 1924, and the effect of that law did not come into effect
until 1929 (when, due to the world-wide depression, immigration would
have fallen off, anyway), restrictions were placed upon immigration
before that time period.
(i) Literacy
test – immigrants had to prove that they could read and write in their
native language—a law the AFL staunchly supported. The law was passed
by Congress over President Wilson’s veto
2) B. Industrial democracy for working people.
(a) 1.
Labor as a partner in society – the symbolic importance of the
positions that AFL president Samuel Gompers held should not be
discounted in importance; this gave the working people that he
represented (the single largest group, and growing during this time
period) the impression that they finally had some influence in
government.
(b) 2.
Success of labor actions – with sympathetic members sitting on the War
Labor Board, which was charged with adjudicating labor disputes, labor
unions increasingly won recognition from companies, and modest wage
increases for the workers they represented (which companies could afford
to grant because many of them operated with “cost-plus” contracts from
the Federal Government—which meant that the companies were guaranteed a
certain level of profit).
II) a.
Reaction to Industrial Democracy – after the signing of the Armistice,
companies in the United States moved to rescind many of the agreements
that had been reached during the war years.
A) 3. 1919 Strike wave
1) a.
Seattle General Strike – a strike instigated by the International
Associations of Machinists, who represented shipbuilding workers in the
city. Eventually, most workers in the city joined the machinists on
strike, and a workers’ strike committee ended up running the city for
three days—providing law enforcement, food distribution, and other
essential services.
2) b.
Rossford Ford Plate Glass strike – led by the IWW, began the same time
as the Willys-Overland strike; strike leaders were swiftly arrested, and
carted off to Wood County county seat Bowling Green (with the
assistance of a number of volunteer deputies recruited from the normal
college there), where they were held largely incommunicado. Catholic
school children were told that there parents would be excommunicated
from church if they attended a strike rally in Toledo; management in the
factory armed and deputized by county; after several weeks, with the
assistance of strikebreakers, strike defeated.
3) c.
Willys-Overland strike – Willys attempted to unilaterally impose a wage
cut on workers; offered a profit-sharing scheme to workers, which was
rejected. When wage cut imposed anyway (in the form of a longer work
day with no increase in wage), many workers walk off job at normal
quitting time; workers are fired, and strike called. Workers from
Lagrange Street area board west-bound streetcars on Central, all workers
who cannot produce a Chevrolet work badge are made to get off the
streetcar. Strikebreakers are hired, and housed within the company
compound; strikers surround compound. Sweeping injunction granted after
North Carolina auto dealer claims business adversely effected.
4) d.
Steel strike – AFL made concerted attempt to organize steel workers
during the war, and this attempt continued during period just after the
war. Most success occurred in the area around Chicago, and result
encouraged attempts to organize workers in the Pittsburgh area.
Leadership of this drive was given to former Wobbly William Z. Foster,
who had headed up a similar drive on the behalf of the Chicago
Federation of Labor and the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butchers to
organize packinghouse workers in Chicago area. Steel companies refused
to negotiate; used Foster’s syndicalist past to discredit him, and
eventually crush the strike.
5) e.
Boston Police Strike – walkout of the Boston Police force led to
several nights of general lawlessness, although property damage was
fairly minimal. The governor of Massachusetts, Calvin Coolidge ordered
the firing of the entire police force, and mobilized the state militia
to police the city. This strike, perhaps more than any of the other of
the hundreds that occurred, scared those in power most.
B) 4. Reaction of governing elite
1) a.
Red Scare – led by US Attorney General (and Presidential wannabee) A.
Mitchell Palmer, a nationwide coordinated attack against known and
suspected radicals took place in early January 1920, when hundreds were
arrested, with a suspension of the rights of habeous corpus; some of
those arrested are deported on minor violations; some of those who were
American citizens—like Big Bill Haywood—jumped bail and left the country
(Haywood fled to the Soviet Union, and is buried in the wall of the
Kremlin).
2) b.
Institution of the “American Plan” – this plan was part carrot, and
part stick. While unions were unwanted in the workplace, in many
factories the indiscriminate powers of the foreman were curtailed, and
powers to hire and fire were given instead to newly instituted personnel
departments.
(a) c. Power of foremen curtailed
(b) Institution of personnel departments
(c) Grievance procedures
(d) Profit-sharing and stock options plans
(e) No collective bargaining, however
1) Fordism
– Ford’s contribution to the automotive industry was his drive to
reduce the cost of the automobile, so that it would become more widely
accessible to the general public; Ford accomplished this by increasing
the number of specialized machines used to create parts for the
automobile. This had two advantages: it decreased his reliance upon
skilled workers, who could demand higher wages; and it allowed him to
set a specific pace of manufacturing, rather than letting the workers
set their own pace
(a) Model
T – extremely limited choice (it came with no options, and in one
color—black), but this allowed Ford to perfect its manufacture—which in
turn allowed Ford to drop the price of the automobile from $950 when it
was introduced in 1909 to $290 at the height of its popularity in 1924
(b) $5
a Day – the famous $5/day wage, instituted in 1914, was approached by
few workers, but it helped limit the turnover of 300%; the higher
overall wage also allowed workers to purchase the product that they were
manufacturing (analogy to Bush directives for Americans to do their
“patriotic duty” and purchase stuff in reaction to Sept. 11)
(c) Increased
mobility – ownership of an automobile allowed many more people to move
to the suburbs (or “into the country’); also created a greater demand
for recreation—along with more workers employed in routinized labor.
2) Sloanism
– named after the President of the General Motors Corporation, Alfred
P. Sloan. Sloanism is in many ways the perfection of Fordism;
automobiles were provided in a variety of styles (kind of), and a
variety of price ranges
(a) Creation
of the General Motors Acceptance Corporation – GMAC created in order to
provide financing for potential automobile purchasers who could not pay
cash for an automobile.
(b) Triumph
of Sloanism – by 1927, falling sales of the Model T forces Ford to shut
down production, and re-tool for the production of the Model A. In
1924, Ford had commanded 55% of the new car market.
(c) Increased
importance of advertising – used to help people differentiate between
largely undifferentiated products; advertising allowed companies to
manufacture desires in their customers.
III. The Strikes of the 1920s
A. Coal Mining
1. Battle of Matewan
2. Battle of Blair Mountain--after the events at Matewan, the UMW called on miners and other union members to assemble in West Virginia, armed, to ensure the safety of union miners in the state. Some 10,000 to 15,00 men answered the call, and marched south to Mingo County, where they took part in the largest armed insurrection in the United States since the Civil War.
B. Railroad Industry
1. 1922 Railroad Shopmen's Strike--when the Rail Board approved a 7 cent an hour wage reduction, shopmen voted to go out on strike. The railroads were able to hire enough strikebreakers to fill about three-fourths of the positions; this provoked a violent response from strikers, who attempted to intimidate strikebreakers to stop them from taking their jobs; this in turn brought forth the full police force of the government.
C. Textile Industry
1. 1929 Gastonia Strike--although textile manufacturers had moved South to avoid labor confrontations, working conditions in the mills provoked workers in Gastonia, North Carolina, to attempt to unionize in 1929. Led by members of the Communist Party, the strike provoked violence from both mill owners and local government. After the headquarters of the National Textile Workers Union (NTWU) in Gastonia was attacked, and striking workers evicted from their company-owned homes, a tent city was erected on the outskirts of town, guarded by armed strikers. When the sheriff showed up to demand the strikers turn over their guns, an altercation occurred and the sheriff and several miners were killed. Eight miners were charged with murder, and convicted on rather flimsy evidence--thus breaking the strike.
III. The Strikes of the 1920s
A. Coal Mining
1. Battle of Matewan
2. Battle of Blair Mountain--after the events at Matewan, the UMW called on miners and other union members to assemble in West Virginia, armed, to ensure the safety of union miners in the state. Some 10,000 to 15,00 men answered the call, and marched south to Mingo County, where they took part in the largest armed insurrection in the United States since the Civil War.
B. Railroad Industry
1. 1922 Railroad Shopmen's Strike--when the Rail Board approved a 7 cent an hour wage reduction, shopmen voted to go out on strike. The railroads were able to hire enough strikebreakers to fill about three-fourths of the positions; this provoked a violent response from strikers, who attempted to intimidate strikebreakers to stop them from taking their jobs; this in turn brought forth the full police force of the government.
C. Textile Industry
1. 1929 Gastonia Strike--although textile manufacturers had moved South to avoid labor confrontations, working conditions in the mills provoked workers in Gastonia, North Carolina, to attempt to unionize in 1929. Led by members of the Communist Party, the strike provoked violence from both mill owners and local government. After the headquarters of the National Textile Workers Union (NTWU) in Gastonia was attacked, and striking workers evicted from their company-owned homes, a tent city was erected on the outskirts of town, guarded by armed strikers. When the sheriff showed up to demand the strikers turn over their guns, an altercation occurred and the sheriff and several miners were killed. Eight miners were charged with murder, and convicted on rather flimsy evidence--thus breaking the strike.
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