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."
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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?
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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
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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].”
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Had 750,000 members in 1886
Organized in
◦ Trades assemblies
◦ Mixed assemblies
Let owners who worked in
Refused admittance to
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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.
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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
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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
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In 1776 ¾ths of Philadelphia population were
or had been servants.
In 1776 there were 500,000 slaves
◦ New York had 21,324 slaves in 1790
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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.
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Question: Strikes in early America were
considered conspiracies and were illegal.
True or false?
Answer – True
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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.
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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
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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
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“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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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a)
b)
Question: Our basic labor law – the Wagner National
Labor Relations Act passed in 1935 because
Answer:
A new coalition of voters elected Democrat Franklin
D. Roosevelt who was pro-union and gave us our
rights.
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.
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.
c)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The US has the most violent labor history in
the western world. Why?