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Mgmt 583

Mgmt 583. Chapter 2: The Evolution of the American Labor Movement Fall 2008. Robert Hoxie’s 5 Classes of Unionism. Business Unionism Uplift Unionism Revolutionary Unionism Predatory Unionism Dependent Unionism

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Mgmt 583

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  1. Mgmt 583 Chapter 2: The Evolution of the American Labor Movement Fall 2008

  2. Robert Hoxie’s 5 Classes of Unionism • Business Unionism • Uplift Unionism • Revolutionary Unionism • Predatory Unionism • Dependent Unionism Source: E. H. Downey (1914). Professor Hoxie's Interpretation of Trade Unionism, The American Journal of Sociology

  3. Business Unionism • Accepts the wage system as is and seeks to obtain the best terms for its members. • View collective bargaining as a means to achieve this end. • AFL

  4. Uplift Unionism • Accepts the wage system and social order. • Its mission is to improve the life of all members of the working class, not just its members. • Knights of Labor, Woman’s Trade Union League

  5. Revolutionary Unionism • Abhors the wage system and social order. • Seeks to overthrow the capitalist socio-economic order by and for the proletariat. • Socialistic in its world view. • Industrial Workers of the World.

  6. Predatory Unionism • The aggrandizement of a narrow ring of union members for their own gain. • Sometimes called hold-up unionism. • IBT under Beck & Hoffa

  7. Craft Unions • Union membership is limited to members of a specific craft (example: IBEW, UBCJA). • One craft, one union. • Exercise economic power by controlling the supply of the craft. • Control apprenticeship. • Trace history to the guilds.

  8. Industrial Unions • Union membership open to employees of a specific industry (example: UAW, USW). • One industry, one union. • Exercises economic power only by political fiat. • In recent years, industry designations have become meaningless.

  9. Pre-Revolutionary Unionism • Craft unions on a local basis: printers, carpenters, and cordwainers. • New York journeymen printers won a wage increase in 1778. • Concerns: Closed shops, rules of apprenticeship, wages and methods of payment, • Economy and society was primarily agricultural. • Labor shortages exacerbated by availability of cheap land.

  10. The Philadelphia Cordwainers • Federal Society of Journeyman Cordwainers organized in 1794 to demand the same rate for all shoes they made. • The court in Commonwealth v. Pullis concluded that the Philadelphia cordwainers conspired and unlawfully agreed together that they would not work but at certain large prices and rates. • The criminalconspiracy doctrine emerged - merely forming or joining a union was a criminal activity.

  11. Pre-Civil War Unionism • Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842) • Boston bootmakers had conviction for criminal conspiracy overturned, stating that it was the concerted activity that was in question, not the employees’ association. • Unions, by themselves, were no longer considered to be criminal conspiracies . • This effectively overturned the criminal conspiracy doctrine

  12. The National Labor Union 1866-1872 • Founder: William Sylvis (1866-1872) • Type: Uplift • Goals : Ideological and Political • Eight-hour workday. • Paper currency (ties to the Greenback Party). • Replace factories with worker co-operatives.

  13. Knights of Labor 1869-1892 • Founder: Uriah Stephens (1869-1879) Terrence Powderly (1879-1892). • Type: Uplift • Goals: Ideological and political. • Educate government and public to ignore self-interest and work for the benefit of all (utopian). • Consumer-producer cooperatives. • Pushed for labor arbitration.

  14. Knights of Labor 1869-1892 • Locals: • Mirrored Masonic organizations. • Open to virtually all professions except: • Lawyers • Gamblers • Bankers • Stockbrokers • Bootleggers & Saloonkeepers • Mixed craft and industrial workers • Policy to refrain from strikes and violence.

  15. Knights of Labor 1869-1892 • Major Event: Wabash RR Strike (1885) • Jay Gould's Wabash RR refused to recognize the Knights. • Gould met with Powderly and agreed to call off his campaign against the Knights of Labor • Failed because they valued reform over worker self-interest.

  16. American Federation of Labor 1886-1955 • Founder: Samuel Gompers (1886-1924) • Type: Business • Goals: Economic. • Improving member’s working condition • Collective bargaining. • Early PACs (Reward your friends, punish your enemies). • Avoided aligning with socialists or forming a Labor Party (the European model).

  17. American Federation of Labor 1886-1955 • Members: Skilled workers only. • Completely turned their backs on industrial workers. • Became known as the “Aristocrats of Labor.” • Attained a modicum of respectability.

  18. Industrial Workers of the World 1905-Present • Founders: Eugene V. Debs (1905-1926) & Big Bill Hayward (1905-1918) • Type: Revolutionary • Goals: Political. • Replacing capitalism with socialism. • Workers would control the means of production. • The wage and class system should be abolished.

  19. Industrial Workers of the World 1905-Present • Members: Anyone • Mary Harris Jones “Mother Jones” (organizer of the “Children’s Crusade”) • Early 2000s the IWW organized Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics, a fabric/seamstress shop in Berkeley. • In 2004, an IWW union was organized in a New York City Starbucks. • In 2006, the IWW continued efforts at Starbucks by organizing several Chicago area shops.

  20. Industrial Workers of the World 1905-Present • Major Events: • 1903 "Children's Crusade", a march to the home of President Theodore Roosevelt with banners demanding "We want time to play!" and "We want to go to school!" • Lawrence, MA strike 1912, the "Bread and Roses" strike. Most of the leadership jailed during WWI. • “Red Scare” following WWI caused membership to decline. Haywood actually died in Moscow in 1928. • Always financially insolvent. • Down to roughly 2000 members by 2007.

  21. Congress of Industrial Organizations 1935-1955 • Founder: John L. Lewis (UMW) • Type: Business • Goals: Economic • Better working conditions for members • Eight-hour day • Forty-hour week • Members: Industrial (unskilled ) workers • Began as Committee for Industrial Organization in AFL (1935)

  22. Congress of Industrial Organizations 1935-1955 • Events: • First sit-down strike, GM (1936). • Merged with AFL in 1955. • George Meany of the AFL became the first president of the AFL-CIO • McClellan Committee began investigating IBT for labor racketeering • AFL-CIO expels IBT in 1957

  23. The American Federation of Labor -Congress of Industrial Organizations • AFL-CIO is a voluntary federation of 56 national and international labor unions. • Members: 8.5 million. • Current president: John J. Sweeney • Working America an advocacy/ lobbying group affliated with the AFL-CIO—2 million members. • “We work against wrong-headed priorities favoring the rich and corporate special interests over America's well-being.”

  24. Change to Win Coalition • Group of seven unions who in 2005 broke away group from AFL-CIO • International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) • Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) • Service Employees International Union (SEIU)/ • United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (UBC) • United Farm Workers of America (UFW)/ • United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) • UNITE HERE • Members: 6 million

  25. Management Labor Relations in Pre-Wagner Act America • The Era of Labor Unrest • The Molly Maguires (1866-1877) • Pinkerton’s first major labor job. • James McParlan • National Railway Strike (1877) • Baltimore & Ohio line cut the wages of all employees making more than a dollar a day by 10 percent. • Rutherford B. Hayes sent federal troops to end the strike.

  26. Management Labor Relations in Pre-Wagner Act America • Haymarket Massacre (May 4, 1886) • Chicago’s Haymarket Square. • Seven police killed. • Fueled anti-labor public sentiment (AFL will distance itself from industrial unions) • Seven German-born anarchists convicted (four hung). • Homestead Strike (1892) • Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers. • Carnegie Steel Co. (Henry Clay Frick) Locks out workers. • PA militia breaks strike by escorting nonunion labor. • Fighting ensued involving a 20-pounder brass cannon Three Pinkertons and seven workers died. 6,000 PA Militia sent in.

  27. Management Labor Relations in Pre-Wagner Act America • Pullman Strike (1894) • Workers in Pullman’s "company town" (where everything was owned by the corporation, including their housing and local store) were given pay cuts as a result of the depression, but rents remained the same. • American Railway Union (ARU), led by Eugene Debs. • Grover Cleveland sends in 12,000 U.S Army troops. • Anthracite Coal Strike (1902) • United Mine Workers called a strike among its membership in the anthracite coal fields of eastern Pennsylvania. demanding safer working conditions, higher pay and recognition of their union. • T. Roosevelt instead of sending federal troops had secured the services of J. P. Morgan as a mediator. • The strike was ended in March 1903 and the miners received a wage increase. However, recognition of the union was not achieved.

  28. Management Labor Relations in Pre-Wagner Act America • Danbury Hatters Strike (1902) • United Hatters Union v. D.E. Loewe Co. • Culminates with Loewe v. Lawler, 208 U.S. 274 (1908) • US Supreme Court holds that the boycott by the United Hatters Union against a manufacturer to be a conspiracy in restraint of trade under the Sherman Antitrust Act.

  29. Management Labor Relations in Pre-Wagner Act America • Lawrence, MA Strike (1912) • Bread & Roses Strike (1911 poem by James Oppenheim). The slogan appeals for both fair wages and dignified conditions. • IWW struck for 2 months and American Woolen Co. caved. • Militia and police assault on the children and their mothers sparked a national outrage. [A PR coup] • Ludlow Strike (April 20, 1914) • Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. • Colorado Militia breaks strike killing 13 women and children. • Swung public opinion toward the industrial unions

  30. Management Labor Relations in Pre-Wagner Act America • National Steel Strike (1919) • Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers began a strike that would involve 370,000 workers. • The specter of bolshevism (the Red Scare) was fanned by sensational headlines. • Samuel Gompers refused to send strike funds. • Complete defeat for the union..

  31. Anti-Union Tactics before NLRA • The American Plan (1920s) • Blacklisting • Industrial spies • Strikebreaking • Replacement workers • Company police • Injunctions • Sweetheart arrangements

  32. Anti-Union Tactics before NLRA • Yellow dog contracts • Company (sham) unions • Antiunion propaganda (Mohawk Valley formula) • Sherman Act (antitrust) • Loewe v. Lawler • Clayton Act of 1914 (§§ 6 and 20) • Paternalism • Physical violence

  33. Pre-NLRA Labor Legislation • Clayton Act of 1914 (§§ 6 & 20) • Overrode Loewe v. Lawler. • Railway Labor Act (RLA) of 1926 • Applied only to railways, steamships, and later airlines. • Gave covered workers the right to organize without interference and to bargain collectively.

  34. Pre-NLRA Labor Legislation • Railway Labor Act (RLA) of 1926cont’d • Objectives • Avoid service interruptions • Eliminate restrictions on joining a union • Guarantee workers right to self-organize • Provide for prompt grievance resolution • Enable prompt grievance settlement

  35. Pre-NLRA Labor Legislation • Railway Labor Act (RLA) of 1926cont’d • Two agencies • National Railroad Adjustment Board (NRAB)- addresses grievances • National Mediation Board (NMB) - mediates impasses during negotiations • Norris LaGuardia Act of 1932 • Yellow dog contracts unenforceable in federal courts • More difficult to getfederal injunctions

  36. Pre-NLRA Labor Legislation • National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933 • “Employees shall have the right to organize and to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and shall be free from interference, restraint , or coercion of employers...” • Declared unconstitutional in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. U.S., 295 U.S. 495 (1935).

  37. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. U.S. • It is not the province of the Court to consider the economic advantages or disadvantages of such a centralized system. It is sufficient to say that the Federal Constitution does not provide for it. Our growth and development have called for wide use of the commerce power of the federal government in its control over the expanded activities of interstate commerce, and in protecting that commerce from burdens, interferences, and conspiracies to restrain and monopolize it. But the authority of the federal government may not be pushed to such an extreme as to destroy the distinction, which the commerce clause itself establishes, between commerce "among the several States" and the internal concerns of a State. 295 U.S. 495, 540-550.

  38. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. U.S. • The actions of the federal government had exceeded the powers granted to it by the Constitution. • However, in two short years the federal government would exceed these powers in NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Co., 301 U.S. 1 (1937).

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