Hippocampus United States History: Union Organizations

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In the 1842 case Commonwealth v. Hunt, the Massachusetts Supreme Court held that it was not illegal for workers to organize a union or try to compel recognition of that union with a strike. This was certainly an important step for labor, but the idea of permanent unions was slow to catch on. Since many laborers were immigrants, they often spoke different languages and harbored racial and cultural biases. Many only planned to stay in America long enough to earn sufficient money to return to their homelands and live comfortably, and therefore saw no point in joining a union. For nearly 20 years after the Commonwealth v. Hunt ruling, labor unions tended to be small and limited to skilled trades.

Eventually, the increase in cost of living after the Civil War, coupled with the rising number of large corporations that decreased wages, lead industrial laborers to organize into unions. In 1866, the first national coalition of these unions was founded—The National Labor Union.

The struggle for the right to unionize was a remarkable event in the history of the United States labor movement. It not only involved overcoming resistance from the corporations, but also cultural divisions within the working class itself. The National Labor Union consisted of delegates from labor and reform groups who supported an eight-hour workday, arbitration of industrial disputes, and inflationary greenbacks—the printing of paper money to expand the supply of currency and relieve debtors.

The National Labor Union lasted approximately six years and attracted nearly 600,000 members. It included skilled and unskilled laborers, farmers, and some women and blacks, but excluded the Chinese. The depression of the 1870s, along with the sudden death of its leader, put an end to the union. During its existence, the union persuaded Congress to enact an eight-hour workday for federal employees and to repeal the Contract Labor Law (a law that was passed during the Civil War to encourage importation of labor). Many industrialists had employed the Contract Labor Law to recruit immigrants who were willing to work for lower wages than Americans.

Another national union group emerged in 1869 called the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor. The organization was founded by Uriah S. Stephens and a group of Philadelphia garment workers. Stephens made the Knights a secret organization with an elaborate initiation ritual, which kept membership to a minimum until his successor, Terence V. Powderly, discarded secrecy. At that time membership increased greatly.

In a step that resembles modern industrial unionism, the Knights of Labor welcomed both skilled and unskilled laborers, blacks (though mostly in segregated locals), women, and immigrants (excluding Chinese). The Knights upheld reform measures that had been endorsed by previous unions (eight-hour workday, greenbacks, producers’ cooperatives, codes for safety and health, etc.), and were ahead of their time when they called for equal pay for equal work by men and women. The group rejected the suggestion that laborers would forever remain wage earners, and instead encouraged the idea that by joining together working people could advance up the corporate ladder.

In 1885, the Knights of Labor staged a successful strike over Jay Gould’s Wabash Railroad. Gould had cut workers’ wages and a strike on his railroad lines led to Gould restoring the wage cuts. This victory helped to increase membership, and by 1886 the Knights of Labor surpassed 700,000 members. The Knights had reached their peak, and closely after they went into rapid decline. One historical interpretation is that the Knights of Labor failed in part because they tried to be all things to all working-class people.

In 1886, there was a great upheaval of labor and the Knights became involved in several May Day strikes, which included several hundred thousand workers across the country. In Chicago about 80,000 workers were involved in a strike for the eight-hour workday. Tension built between the strikers and the police, and during a clash at McCormick Harvester Company one striker was killed.

Coincidentally, Chicago was home to an active group of anarchists who tried to take advantage of the excitement to win support for their cause. On May 4, 1886, the day after the McCormick incident, anarchists gathered at Haymarket Square to protest the killing and other brutalities by the authorities during the May Day strikes. Chicago police arrived to break up the meeting. A bomb was thrown into the crowd and gunfire ensued, killing several policemen and civilians and wounding approximately 100. Panic seized the city and several anarchists were arrested, although there was never any evidence linking them to the bomb-throwing.

One of the anarchists held a membership card in the Knights of Labor, which provoked widespread antipathy against the Knights and labor groups in general. No direct tie could be proven between the Knights and the anarchists or between the Knights and the bombing, but the public tended to associate the Knights with violence and radicalism from then on. Subsequent strikes by the Knights were unsuccessful. By the 1890s, the Knights of Labor had only 100,000 members who ultimately left to join other protest groups, so that by 1893 the union had dissolved. One of the lasting achievements of the Knights was their drafting a bill that resulted in the creation of the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1884.

The labor movement in general was still gaining strength, and various craft unions began to organize. An association of national craft unions called the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was established in 1886. The AFL was an alliance that unified the strategy for various independent self-governing national unions. Samuel Gompers, a cigar maker who came to America as a teenager, served as president of the AFL every year except for one until he died in 1924.

Gompers did not become involved with politics or champion utopian ideas like other union leaders, instead he focused on concrete economic gains for AFL members. The AFL generally believed that most workers would remain laborers their whole lives, and so tried to create a sense of pride in their skills and jobs. Rather than open its membership to all, the AFL allowed only skilled workers to enter the union. The federation worked for things like employers’ liability, mine-safety laws, favorable trade agreements, closed shops (shops that could only hire union members), increased wages, and above all, a standard eight-hour workday. Since the AFL focused on a select number of basic goals, it was sometimes called a “bread and butter” union.

Gompers and the AFL members used walkouts, boycotts, and negotiations to achieve their goals. A strike fund collected from workers’ dues enabled the AFL members to strike for extended periods of time and still get paid. This put more pressure on management to negotiate fair deals with workers. Gompers’ approach to labor problems resulted in solid growth for the AFL. By 1900, unions with a total of about 500,000 members formed the federation, and by 1920 it reached a peak of four million members.

Over the years, the public tired of the frequent union strikes and was often unsympathetic to the workers’ plight since strikes disrupted their daily lives. However, in the early 1900s, attitudes toward labor slowly changed as people began to understand the workers’ need to organize, bargain, and strike.