Labor Unions in the United States

I

Introduction

Labor Unions in the United States, the various labor organizations in the United States, each of which serves to consolidate, represent, and protect the rights of workers in a specific industry or trade.

II

Pre-Civil War Era

The trade union movement in the United States originated during the early years of the republic. As in other countries, skilled workers were the first to organize and form unions. During the 1790s unions were formed by the carpenters and shoemakers of Philadelphia, the tailors of Baltimore, Maryland, the printers of New York City, and groups of crafts workers in other large cities. These unions, usually small, were organized to conduct particular strikes, after which they were dissolved. Actions in the 18th century were few, although journeyman printers did occasionally strike in New York City and Philadelphia in the late 1700s. Sporadic work stoppages also occurred during the early decades of the 19th century, although strike leaders frequently were fined and imprisoned for what was termed “conspiracy to raise wages.”

In 1827 several trade unions in Philadelphia banded together to form the Mechanics' Union of Trade Associations, the first U.S. labor organization to unite workers in different crafts. Other cities soon had similar local federations. Besides acting to raise wages and improve working conditions, the federations espoused certain social reforms, such as the institution of free public education, the abolition of imprisonment for debt, and the adoption of universal manhood suffrage. Perhaps the most important effect of these early unions was their introduction of political action.

The first nationwide federation, the National Trades Union, was founded in 1834, but it was short-lived. Despite additional attempts to confederate during the next few years, the economic crisis of 1837 and the ensuing depression led to a sharp decline in union membership, halting the movement temporarily.

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Unions resumed their growth after the revival of business in the 1840s and early '50s. Organization was stimulated by the decision of a Massachusetts court (Commonwealth v. Hunt, 1842) that strikes to improve labor conditions were lawful and were not criminal conspiracies. The growing local unions sought again to combine, but instead of trying to set up a federation like the National Trades Union, they concentrated on forming national unions of workers in the same craft. Among the skilled workers who established such unions were the typographers (organized in 1852), the stonecutters (1853), the hat finishers (1854), the blacksmiths and the machinists (1857), and the iron molders (1859). The economic crisis of 1857 resulted in drastic declines in trade union membership and in the dissolution of several national unions.

Before the American Civil War (1861-1865), many influences conspired to limit the growth of trade unionism. Perhaps most important was the scarcity of large-scale industry in the United States before the war. Most laborers were employed by small firms, in which they generally enjoyed close personal relationships with their employers. What mattered more was that many employees had reasonable hopes of establishing similar businesses of their own someday. The relative absence of barriers between employer and employee minimized class consciousness and class conflict. Furthermore, the existence of an open frontier in the United States meant that any enterprising worker could become a farm proprietor instead. Before the Civil War the United States was predominantly a nation of small proprietors and of those who aspired to this status. It was natural for many workers to share the hostility of small proprietors to trade unionism, and therefore to refrain from organizing.

III

Post-Civil War Growth

The Civil War altered the situation drastically. During and especially after the conflict, the industrialization of the country accelerated. The period was marked by the development of large enterprises employing thousands of workers, most of whom no longer expected to escape their working class status. As a result, unionization advanced rapidly. More than 30 national craft unions were established during the 1860s and early 1870s. Particularly significant was the formation in 1863 of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the first of the railroad brotherhoods (see Railroad Labor Organization).

The National Labor Union (NLU), a federation of national and local unions and of city federations, was founded in 1866. Within two years it had more than 600,000 members. The NLU leadership, however, through immoderate emphasis on political action, alienated many of the constituent unions, whose members regarded only purely economic struggles to be the proper function of labor organizations. The withdrawal of several national unions caused the collapse of the NLU in 1872.

The decade of the 1870s was a period of widespread labor agitation and unrest, largely because of the distress suffered by workers after the disastrous economic crisis of 1873. Numerous unions struck against wage cuts and displacement of workers by laborsaving machinery. Most employers vigorously opposed trade union activity. The resulting struggle between workers and employers often took violent forms. The activities of the Molly Maguires, a secret organization of workers operating lawlessly in the anthracite coalfields of Pennsylvania, reached a peak during this period. Labor disputes in other areas were hardly less bitter. In the railroad workers' strike of 1877, federal troops had to be used to restore order. The 1870s were marked also by the steady growth of the Knights of Labor, originally a secret fraternal order but later a so-called inclusive union, that is, one embracing workers in all trades as well as common laborers.

IV

American Federation of Labor

A number of trade unions combined in 1881 to form the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada as a means of influencing legislation in behalf of labor. This federation was never very effective, and by 1886 it was in decline, as was the Knights of Labor. In December of that year, delegates from various affiliates of both organizations as well as from certain unaffiliated unions met in Columbus, Ohio, for the purpose of organizing a trade union movement more enduring and effective than any of its predecessors had been. They established the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and elected as its first leader Samuel Gompers, president of the Cigarmakers International Union and of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions. The initial membership of the AFL was estimated at about 140,000 workers grouped in 25 national unions.

The AFL represented a form of so-called business unionism, a labor philosophy contrasting sharply with the broad-based unionism of the Knights of Labor. Whereas the latter was an integrated organization, the AFL was a loose confederation of autonomous unions, each with exclusive rights to deal with the workers and employers in its own field. The AFL concerned itself primarily with organizing skilled workers. Instead of campaigning for sweeping reform programs such as were advocated by the Knights, the AFL confined itself to the pursuit of specific, attainable goals, such as higher wages and shorter hours. The AFL renounced identification with any political party or movement and adopted instead the policy of urging its members to support candidates for public office, federal, state, and local, considered friendly to labor, regardless of party affiliation, and to vote against those regarded as hostile.

During the 1890s several AFL unions, including those of the printers and of the building trade workers, finally achieved the long-sought goal of the 8-hour day. Nevertheless, the trade union movement grew slowly until the beginning of the 20th century. Prevailing popular sentiment was still hostile to the organization of labor, and both the government and the courts acted to restrain trade union activity. The depression of the early 1890s and several disastrous strikes also stunted union growth. In the historic strike (1892) at the Homestead Mill of the Carnegie Steel Company in Pittsburgh, large numbers of private detectives and guards as well as National Guard troops were used against the strikers, with the result that the strike was lost and the union that conducted it virtually destroyed. In 1894 a strike by the American Railway Union against the Pullman Palace Car Company was defeated by an injunction issued under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which made a combination or contract in restraint of trade illegal. Thereafter employers used injunctions with increasing frequency and effectiveness as an antistrike weapon. See also Hours of Labor; Haymarket Square Riot.