Part 11 (1/2)
In the winter of 1912, when the time for renewing the agreement again drew near, the entire members.h.i.+p in the three anthracite districts was slightly above 29,000. Nevertheless, the union demanded a twenty percent raise, a complete recognition of the union, the check-off, and yearly agreements, in addition to a more expeditious system of settling local grievances to replace the slow and c.u.mbersome joint arbitration boards provided by the award of the Commission. A strike of 180,000 anthracite miners followed on April 1, 1912, during which the operators made no attempt to run their mines. The strike ended within a month on the basis of the abolition of the sliding scale, a wage increase of approximately 10 percent, and a revision of the arbitration machinery in local disputes. This was coupled with a somewhat larger degree of recognition, but by no means a complete recognition. Nor was the check-off system granted. Strangest of all, the agreement called for a four-year contract, as against a one-year contract originally demanded by the union. In spite of the opposition of local leaders, the miners accepted the agreement. President White's chief plea for acceptance was the need to rebuild the union before anything ambitious could be attempted.
After 1912 the union entered upon the work of organization in earnest.
In the following two years the members.h.i.+p was more than quadrupled. With the stopping of immigration due to the European War, the power of the union was greatly increased. Consequently, in 1916, when the agreement was renewed, the miners were accorded not only a substantial wage increase and the eight-hour day but also full recognition. The United Mine Workers have thus at last succeeded in wresting a share of industrial control from one of the strongest capitalistic powers of the country; while demonstrating beyond doubt that, with intelligent preparation and with sympathetic treatment, the polyglot immigrant ma.s.ses from Southern and Eastern Europe, long thought to be impervious to the idea of labor organization, can be changed into reliable material for unionism.
The growth of the union in general is shown by the following figures.
In 1898 it was 33,000; in 1900, 116,000; in 1903, 247,000; in 1908, 252,000; and in 1913, 378,000.[58]
(2) _The Railway Men_
The railway men are divided into three groups. One group comprises the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Order of Railroad Conductors, the Brotherhood of Firemen and Enginemen, and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. These are the oldest and strongest railway men's organizations and do not belong to the American Federation of Labor. A second group are the shopmen, comprising the International a.s.sociation of Machinists; the International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, Drop Forgers, and Helpers; the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America; the Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' International Alliance; the Brotherhood of Boilermakers and Iron s.h.i.+p Builders and Helpers of America; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and the International Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen and Oilers. A third and more miscellaneous group are the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, the Order of Railway Telegraphers, the Switchmen's Union of North America, the International Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes and Railroad Shop Laborers, and the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen. The organizations comprised in the latter two groups belong to the American Federation of Labor. For the period from 1898 to the outbreak of the War, the organizations, popularly known as the ”brotherhoods,” namely, those of the engineers, conductors, firemen, and trainmen, are of outstanding importance.
The brotherhoods were unique among American labor organizations in that for many years they practically reproduced in most of their features the sort of unionism typified by the great ”Amalgamated” unions of the fifties and sixties in England.[59] Like these unions the brotherhoods stressed mutual insurance and benefits and discouraged when they did not actually prohibit striking. It should, however, be added that the emphasis on insurance was due not to ”philosophy,” but to the practical consideration that, owing to the extra hazardous nature of their occupations, the men could get no insurance protection from ordinary commercial insurance companies.
By the end of the eighties the brotherhoods began to press energetically for improvements in employment conditions and found the railways not disinclined to grant their demands in a measure. This was due in great measure to the strategic position of these trades, which have it in their power completely to tie up the industry when on strike, causing enormous losses to the carriers.[60] Accordingly, they were granted wages which fairly placed them among the lower professional groups in society as well as other privileges, notably ”seniority” in promotion, that is promotion based on length of service and not on a free selection by the officials. Seniority was all the more important since the train personnel service is so organized that each employe will pa.s.s several times in the regular course of his career from a lower to a higher rung on the industrial ladder.[61] For instance, a typical pa.s.senger train engineer starts as fireman on a freight train, advances to a fireman on a pa.s.senger train, then to engineer on a freight train, and finally to engineer on a pa.s.senger train. A similar sequence is arranged in advancing from brakeman to conductor. Along with seniority the brotherhoods received the right of appeal in cases of discharge, which has done much to eliminate discrimination. Since they were enjoying such exceptional advantages relative to income, to the security of the job, and to the stability of their organization, it is not surprising, in view of the limited cla.s.s solidarity among American laboring men in general, that these groups of workers should have chosen to stand alone in their wage bargaining and that their refusal to enter ”entangling alliances” with other less favored groups should have gone even to the length of staying out of the American Federation of Labor.
This condition of relative harmony between employer and employe, notwithstanding the energetic bargaining, continued for about fifteen years until it was disturbed by factors beyond the control of either railway companies or brotherhoods. The steady rise in the cost of living forced the brotherhoods to intensify their demands for increased wages.
At the same time an ever tightening regulation of railway rates by the Federal government since 1906 practically prevented a s.h.i.+ft of increased costs to the s.h.i.+pper. ”Cla.s.s struggles” on the railways began in earnest.
The new situation was brought home to the brotherhoods in the course of several wage arbitration cases in which they figured.[62] The outcome taught them that the public will give them only limited support in their efforts to maintain their real income at the old high level compared with other cla.s.ses of workers.
A most important case arose from a ”concerted movement” in 1912[63] of the engineers and firemen on the 52 Eastern roads for higher wages. Two separate arbitration boards were appointed. The engineers' board consisted of seven members, one each for the interests involved and five representing the public. The award was unsatisfactory to the engineers, first, because of the meager raise in wages and, second, because it contained a strong plea to Congress and the country to have all wages of all railway employes fixed by a government commission, which implied a restriction of the right to strike. The award in the firemen's case, which was decided practically simultaneously with the engineers', failed to satisfy either side.
The conductors and trainmen on the Eastern roads were next to move ”in concert” for increased wages. The roads refused and the brotherhoods decided by a good majority to quit work. This threatened strike occasioned the pa.s.sage of the so-called Newlands bill as an amendment to the Erdman Act, with increased powers to the government in mediation and with more specified conditions relative to the work of the arbitration boards chosen for each occasion. Whereupon both sides agreed to submit to arbitration.
The award allowed an increase in wages of seven percent, or less than one-half of that demanded, but disallowed a plea made by the men for uniformity of the wage scales East and West, and denied the demanded time and a half for overtime. The men accepted but the decision added to their growing opposition to the principle of arbitration.
Another arbitration case, in 1914, involving the engineers and firemen on the Western roads led the brotherhoods to come out openly against arbitration. The award was signed only by the representatives on the board of the employers and the public. A characteristic aftermath of this case was an attack made by the unions upon one of the ”neutrals” on the board. His impartiality was questioned because of his relations with several concerns which owned large amounts of railroad securities.
Therefore, when in 1916 the four brotherhoods together demanded the eight-hour day, they categorically refused to consider arbitration.[64]
The evolution to a fighting unionism had become complete.
While the brotherhoods of the train service personnel were thus s.h.i.+fting their tactics, they kept drawing nearer to the position held by the other unions in the railway service. These had rarely had the good fortune to bask in the suns.h.i.+ne of their employers' approval and ”recognition.” Some railways, of the more liberal sort, made agreements with the machinists and with the other shop unions. On the whole, however, the hold of these organizations upon their industry was of a precarious sort.
To meet their strong opponents on a basis nearer to equality, they started about 1904 a movement for ”system federations,”[65] that is, federations of all organized trades through the length of a given railway system as, for instance, the Pennsylvania Railroad or the Illinois Central Railroad. In turn the creation of system federations sharpened the employers' antagonism. Some railway systems, like the Illinois Central, might be willing to enter into agreements with the separate crafts, but refused to deal with a federation of crafts. In 1912, stimulated by a dispute on the Illinois Central Railroad and on the Harriman lines in general, involving the issue of system federations, a Federation of System Federations was formed by forty systems upon an aggressive program. In 1908 a weak and rather tentative Railway Employes' Department had been launched by the American Federation of Labor. The Federation of Federations was thus a rival organization and ”illegal” or, at best, ”extra-legal” from the standpoint of the American Federation of Labor. The situation, however, was too acute to permit the consideration of ”legality” to enter. An adjustment was made and the Federation of System Federations was ”legitimatized” through fusion with the ”Department,” to which it gave its const.i.tution, officers, and fighting purpose, and from which it took only its name. This is the now well-known Railway Employes' Department of the American Federation of Labor (embracing all important national unions of the railway workers excepting the four brotherhoods), and which, as we shall see, came into its own when the government took over the railways from their private owners eight months after America's entry into the World War.
(3) _The Machinery and Metal Trades_
Unlike the miners and the railway brotherhoods, the unions in the machinery and metal trades met with small success in their efforts for ”recognition” and trade agreements. The outstanding unions in the industry are the International a.s.sociation of Machinists and the International Molders' Union, with a half dozen smaller and very small unions.[66] The molders' International united in the same union the stove molders, who as was seen had been ”recognized” in 1891, and the molders of parts of machinery and other foundry products. The latter found the National Founders' a.s.sociation as their antagonist or potential ”co-partner” in the industry.
The upward swing in business since 1898, combined with the growth of trade unionism and with the successful negotiation of the Interstate agreement in the soft coal mining industry, created an atmosphere favorable to trade agreements. For a time ”recognition” and its implications seemed to all concerned, the employer, the unions, and the public, a sort of cure-all for industrial disputes. Accordingly, in March 1899, the National Founders' a.s.sociation (organized in the previous year and comprising foundrymen engaged princ.i.p.ally in machinery manufacturing and jobbing) and the International Molders' Union of North America met and drew up the following tersely worded agreement which became known as the New York Agreement:
”That in event of a dispute arising between members of the respective organizations, a reasonable effort shall be made by the parties directly at interest to effect a satisfactory adjustment of the difficulty; failing to do which, either party shall have the right to ask its reference to a Committee of Arbitration which shall consist of the President of the National Founders'
a.s.sociation and the President of the Iron Molders' Union or their representatives, and two other representatives from each organization appointed by the respective Presidents.
”The finding of this Committee of Arbitration by majority vote shall be considered final in so far as the future action of the respective organizations is concerned.
”Pending settlement by the Committee, there shall be no cessation of work at the instance of either party to the dispute. The Committee of Arbitration shall meet within two weeks after reference of dispute to them.”
The agreement was a triumph for the principle of pure conciliation as distinct from arbitration by a third party. Both sides preferred to run the risk of a possible deadlock in the conciliation machinery to throwing decisions into the hands of an umpire, who would be an uncertain quant.i.ty both as regards special bias and understanding of the industry.
The initial meeting of the arbitration committee was held in Cleveland, in May 1899, to consider the demand by the unions at Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island, for a minimum wage which the employers had refused. In each city one member of the National Founders' a.s.sociation was involved and the men in these firms went to work pending the arbitration decision, while the others stayed out on strike.