Part 14 (1/2)
The movement first manifested itself in the early eighties in the form of local building trades' councils, which especially devoted themselves to sympathetic strikes. This local industrialism grew, after a fas.h.i.+on, to national dimensions in the form of the International Building Trades'
Council organized in St. Louis in 1897. The latter proved, however, ineffective, since, having for its basic unit the local building trades'
council, it inevitably came into conflict with the national unions in the building trades. For the same reason it was barred from recognition of the American Federation of Labor. The date of the real birth of craft industrialism on a national scale, was therefore deferred to 1903, when a Structural Building Trades' Alliance was founded. The formation of the Alliance marks an event of supreme importance, not only because it united for the first time for common action all the important national unions in the building industry, but especially because it promulgated a new principle which, if generally adopted, was apparently destined to revolutionize the structure of American labor organizations. The Alliance purported to be a federation of the ”basic” trades in the industry, and in reality it did represent an _entente_ of the big and aggressive unions. The latter were moved to federate not only for the purpose of forcing the struggle against the employers, but also of expanding at the expense of the ”non-basic” or weak unions, besides seeking to annihilate the last vestiges of the International Building Trades' Council. The Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, probably the most aggressive union in the American Federation of Labor, was the leader in this movement. From the standpoint of the Federation, the Structural Alliance was at best an extra-legal organization, as it did not receive the latter's formal sanction, but the Federation could scarcely afford to ignore it as it had ignored the International Building Trades' Council. Thus in 1908 the Alliance was ”legitimatized”
and made a ”Department” of the American Federation of Labor, under the name of the Building Trades' Department, with the settlement of jurisdictional disputes as its main function. It was accompanied by departments of metal trades, of railway employes, of miners, and by a ”label” department.
It is not, however, open to much doubt that the Department was not a very successful custodian of the trade autonomy principle.
Jurisdictional disputes are caused either by technical changes, which play havoc with official ”jurisdiction,” or else by a plain desire on the part of the stronger union to encroach upon the province of the weaker one. When the former was the case and the struggle happened to be between unions of equal strength and influence, it generally terminated in a compromise. When, however, the combatants were two unions of unequal strength, the doctrine of the supremacy of the ”basic” unions was generally made to prevail in the end. Such was the outcome of the struggle between the carpenters and joiners on the one side and the wood workers on the other and also between the plumbers and steam fitters. In each case it ended in the forced amalgamation of the weaker union with the stronger one, upon the principle that there must be only one union in each ”basic” trade. In the case of the steam fitters, which was settled at the convention at Rochester in 1912, the Federation gave what might be interpreted as an official sanction of the new doctrine of one union in a ”basic” trade.
Notwithstanding these official lapses from the principle of craft autonomy, the socialist industrialists[81] are still compelled to abide by the letter and the spirit of craft autonomy. The effect of such a policy on the coming American industrialism may be as follows: The future development of the ”department” may enable the strong ”basic”
unions to undertake concerted action against employers, while each retains its own autonomy. Such indeed is the notable ”concerted movement” of the railway brotherhoods, which since 1907 has begun to set a type for craft industrialism. It is also probable that the majority of the craft unions will sufficiently depart from a rigid craft standard for members.h.i.+p to include helpers and unskilled workers working alongside the craftsmen.
The clearest outcome of this silent ”counter-reformation” in reply to the socialist industrialists is the Railway Employes' Department as it developed during and after the war-time period.[82] It is composed of all the railway men's organizations except the brotherhoods of engineers, firemen, conductors, trainmen, telegraphers, and several minor organizations, which on the whole cooperate with the Department.
It also has a place for the unskilled laborers organized in the United Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes and Railroad Shop Laborers.
The Railway Employes' Department therefore demonstrates that under craft unionism the unskilled need not be left out in the cold. It also meets the charge that craft unionism renders it easy for the employers to defeat the unions one by one, since this Department has consolidated the const.i.tuent crafts into one bargaining and striking union[83]
practically as well as could be done by an industrial union. Finally, the Railway Employes' Department has an advantage over an industrial union in that many of its const.i.tuent unions, like the machinists', blacksmiths', boiler-makers', sheet metal workers', and electrical workers', have large members.h.i.+ps outside the railway industry, which might by their dues and a.s.sessments come to the aid of the railway workers on strike. To be sure, the solidarity of the unions in the Department might be weakened through jurisdictional disputes, which is something to be considered. However, when unions have gone so far as to confederate for joint collective bargaining, that danger will probably never be allowed to become too serious.
FOOTNOTES:
[75] See above, 139-141.
[76] See above, 76-79.
[77] See above, 139-141.
[78] Eugene V. Debs, after serving his sentence in prison for disobeying a court injunction during the Pullman strike of 1894, became a convert to socialism. It is said that his conversion was due to Victor Berger of Milwaukee. Berger had succeeded in building up a strong socialist party in that city and in the State of Wisconsin upon the basis of a thorough understanding with the trade unions and was materially helped by the predominance of the German-speaking element in the population. In 1910 the Milwaukee socialists elected a munic.i.p.al ticket, the first large city to vote the socialists into office.
[79] In 1907 Haywood was tried and acquitted with two other officers of the Western Federation of Miners at Boise, Idaho, on a murder charge which grew out of the same labor struggle. This was one of the several sensational trials in American labor history, on a par with the Molly Maguires' case in the seventies, the Chicago Anarchists' in 1887, and the McNamaras' case in 1912.
[80] The same applies to the International Ladies' Garment Workers'
Union.
[81] Except the miners, brewers, and garment workers.
[82] See above, 185-186.
[83] This refers particularly to the six shopmen's unions.
CHAPTER 10
THE WAR-TIME BALANCE SHEET
The outbreak of the War in Europe in August 1914 found American labor pa.s.sing through a period of depression. The preceding winter had seen much unemployment and considerable distress and in the summer industrial conditions became scarcely improved. In the large cities demonstrations by the unemployed were daily occurrences. A long and b.l.o.o.d.y labor struggle in the coal fields of Colorado, which was slowly drawing to an unsuccessful end in spite of sacrifices of the heaviest kind, seemed only to set into bold relief the generally inauspicious outlook. Yet the labor movement could doubtless find solace in the political situation.
Owing to the support it had given the Democratic party in the Presidential campaign of 1912, the Federation could claim return favors.
The demand which it was now urging upon its friends in office was the long standing one for the exemption of labor unions from the operation of the anti-trust legislation and for the reduction to a minimum of interference by Federal Courts in labor disputes through injunction proceedings.
During 1914 the anti-trust bill introduced in the House by Clayton of Alabama was going through the regular stages preliminary to enactment and, although it finally failed to embody all the sweeping changes demanded by the Federation's lobbyists, it was p.r.o.nounced at the time satisfactory to labor. The Clayton Act starts with the declaration that ”The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce”
and specifies that labor organizations shall not be construed as illegal combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade under Federal anti-trust laws. It further proceeds to prescribe the procedure in connection with the issuance of injunctions in labor disputes as, for instance, limiting the time of effectiveness of temporary injunctions, making notice obligatory to persons about to be permanently enjoined, and somewhat limiting the power of the courts in contempt proceedings.
The most vital section of the Act relating to labor disputes is Section 20, which says ”that no such restraining order or injunction shall prohibit any person or persons, whether singly or in concert, from terminating any relation of employment, or from ceasing to perform any work or labor or from recommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful means so to do; or from attending at any place where any such person or persons may lawfully be, for the purpose of peacefully persuading any person to work or to abstain from working, or from recommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful and lawful means so to do; or from paying or giving to, or withholding from, any person employed in such dispute, any strike benefits or other moneys or things of value; or from peacefully a.s.sembling in a lawful manner, or for lawful purposes, or from doing any act or things which might lawfully be done in the absence of such dispute by any party thereto; nor shall any of the acts specified in this paragraph be considered or held to be violations of any law of the United States.”