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Colonial Period
The roots of our country's trade unions extend deep into the early history of America. Europeans began arriving after 1492 upon the shores of the Americas in search of economic opportunity unavailable in the Old World. They found a land rich in resources and native culture. As news reached Europe, it sparked a wave of explorations in America and ultimately colonization. Several of the pilgrims arriving at Plymouth Rock in 1620 were working craftsmen. To help build settlements, Captain John Smith pleaded with his sponsors in London to send him more craftsmen and working people. Primitive unions, or guilds, of carpenters and cordwainers, cabinet makers and cobblers made their appearance.
Many, if not most, of the early colonists in America arrived under some version of bound labor, either as a slave or an indentured servant. This was the way many free persons could pay for their passage. Upon arrival they would be sold out to an artisan gentleman or farmer according to his or her abilities. They would then work for 5-7 years which would repay their passage costs. The southern colonies developed slave systems based on the free and forced labor of enslaved Africans. Slaves obviously had little chance to earn their freedom, though some did. Common laborers provided the foundation for a stable society in the New World. However, they lacked an effective voice as well as freedom and choice in a New World which was remnant of feudal systems in parts of Europe.
Revolution
In the colonies' struggle for independence, workers and their interests played an important role in the success of the revolutionary movement. For Example, the Boston Massacre had roots in the unhappiness of Boston rope makers over competition from off duty British soldiers who sought casual work to supplement their wages. What began as a verbal confrontation between one rope maker and a soldier moved to a confrontation between workers and sentries and then ended as a battle cry for the revolution. Carpenters dressed as Mohawk Indians helped lead the Boston Tea Party in 1773 which led to the Revolution. Ideally, the Revolution stood to create a government and society based on equality of free men. In reality, its aftermath maintained an elitist system that favored the educated upper class.
Further evidence of the importance of common people in the movement is the success of Thomas Paine's 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense, which was written for the masses and not the upper class. The tremendous sales (over 150,000 and three printings) indicate the level of interest the average person had in the emerging ideology of independence. During this period, people continued to work and there were instances of workers uniting to better their condition. Support of Adam Smith's free trade ideology grew and was the foundation of which workers used to fight wartime monopolies and price controls. Political organization and action grew. Crafters of the Declaration of Independence deliberately failed to address slavery.
Growth of a New Nation (1789-1830)
During this period, there was debate and struggle between agrarian democrats and industrial interests. Jefferson had warned of the evils of an industrialized society where wealth separated men. He argued that an industrial class system would erode democracy and equality. He and his supporters hoped that America would remain a rural agricultural society where equality and a man's dignity could be maintained by tying men to the land. The Jeffersonians lost this struggle to retain their vision of America in the face of industrialization, yet there were some who sought to blend these competing interests. A fine example of this is the experiment at Lowell. The founders of the Lowell experiment sought to preserve America's agricultural base by employing rural women who would supplement the income on the farm. The experiment failed and soon Jefferson's vision would be relegated to the history books or curriculums.
Also during this period, a pattern of economic hard times (depression and recession) followed by periods of prosperity emerged. During these hard times labor was weak. Sweatshops began to form in the eastern cities. The northern textile industry began to grow. Cordwainer Conspiracy Cases weaken the union movement by ruling that organizations of workers were conspiracies.
Expansion and Sectionalism (1830-1850)
This was a significant period of reform in American history. Emerson and Thoreau contemplated the essentials of life and William Lloyd Garrison founded the abolition movement. Out of this climate came the ten-hour movement The ten-hour movement grew and achieved legislative success in several states for the ten-hour work day. These laws contained one loophole which employers used to their full advantage-employees could contract for longer hours "if they wanted." Employers manipulated this loophole to apply to all workers and fired and/or blacklisted those who refused. Immigration caused the presence of an eager labor pool which weakened employee's bargaining power on this and other issues. Reversal of previous court decisions in Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842) lifted the threat of conspiracy lawsuits. Land reform movements called for the free distribution of the public domain to help cure labor ills. In the 1830s, children under age 16 made up about one-third of the New England labor force. Manufacturers had earned a strong voice in determining the nation's destiny along with agricultural and commercial interests. Reform organizations sought a wide range of changes from abolition, to child labor restrictions, to the ten-hour day. Women's labor organizations increased its voice and militancy.
Debate the arguments in the Geneva shoemakers' case of 1835.
- Union Defense- Without the union, the workers are powerless. "You forbid these men that union which alone can enable them to resist the oppressions of avarice....You deprive them of the means and opportunity of learning the rights and duties which they are to exercise as citizens."
- New York State Supreme Court Chief Justice Savage- The union is guilty of "a statutory offence because such practice was injurious to trade and commerce."
Note: The above is from Philip S. Foner's History of the Labor Movement in the United States: From Colonial Times to the Founding of the American Federation of Labor. (New York, International Publishers,1947) pp. 154-5. Foner found the quotes in John R. Commons' Documentary History of American Industrial Society, vol. IV.
Civil War & Reconstruction (1850-1877)
As Northern workers sought to increase their share of the wealth, their brethren workers in the South labored without compensation. A long road toward complete freedom was ahead for all workers.While the "peculiar institution" of slavery was obviously a major cause of the Civil War, the war was not solely a moral issue. Northern workers did not want to and simply could not compete against slave labor. Northern labor leaders and industrialist thought the South was trying to destroy capitalism and spread its slave power aristocracy on the nation. Unfortunately there was no solution except war. With the North's victory and passage of the 13th Amendment, slavery was abolished.
The needs of the war further spurred industry growth. Wartime labor organizing led to the formation of 12 national unions as labor was in high demand and could wield a voice.American industry and population grew dramatically. The Eight hour movement began. The depression which follows the Panic of 1873 hits industrial America harder than earlier depressions when the agrarian nature of America allowed more to provide for themselves. Trade unionism spread to the more skilled factory workers. Slavery ended, but the struggle for blacks being acknowledged as a laboring class was far from over.
Industrial Revolution and the Progressive Era (1877-1913)
This period was an amazing time of growth in America. The population was growing at a staggering rate. In 1860, the US population was 31,443,321 and grew to 76,212,168 in 1900 and then to 92,228,496 in 1910. Railroads, the epitome of the industrialization, expanded from about 30,000 miles of track before the Civil War to nearly 270,000 miles in 1900. The industrial labor force nearly tripled between 1880 and 1910 to about 8 million. Large factories, which had existed only in the textile industry before the Civil War, increasingly became more common in a variety of industries.
Labor was in high demand to run these new industries. The continued high population growth spurred by immigration helped to keep the value of individual workers low as there was a ready supply of people to fill the positions. Large factories created an impersonal workplace. Mechanization of industry set the pace of work and led to the decline of traditional skilled labor jobs.
Yet this was an active and fascinating period in our nation's labor history. Workers continued to organize and resist when their way of life and or health were threatened. Workers struggled to secure safe working conditions, and reasonable compensation. Producer cooperatives and the elimination of the wage system was a philosophy of many unionists.
World War I (1914-1920)
The mobilization for war brought thousands of women and minorities into industrial plants to replace the men who went off to war.
Roaring Twenties (1921-1929)
Laborers made some gains and some losses. The Supreme Court ruled that nothing in the Clayton Act legalized secondary boycotts or protected unions against injunctions brought against them for conspiracy in restraint of trade. In Truax v. Corrigan, the Supreme Court ruled that an Arizona law forbidding injunctions in labor disputes and permitting picketing was deemed unconstitutional under the 14 amendment.
Great Depression (1929-1939)
The Great Depression was devastating to the common working man but saw dramatic growth in the labor movement. Use of the sit down strike strategy brings recognition of unions in several large industries including the auto industry. Many of labor movement battles were fought and decided in the courts. The condition of slaves still lagged far behind. The conditions in the South caused a massive migration of the region's Blacks to northern cities who were looking for a better way of life.
World War II (1939-1945)
Women and blacks enter the work force in large numbers as the main work force of white males go to war for a second world war. |
