In this segment of the larger lecture on labor
and the underclass, we really get into
the emergence of organized labor in the United States.
In 1877, with the railroad strike and
for that matter with the Knights of Labor, you begin to see the
elements of organization but
for instance at Haymarket most of the action is carried out by anarchists
who are not necessarily affiliated with any specific organization.
And much of what happens even in 1877
tends to be kind of a leaderless violence, a
product of shared ideas and expectations.
But by the early 1890's,
we get examples that are far more clearly the result
of labor organization
and the emergence of unions with very practical and specific goals
in mind. So I want to introduce then
the organization, specifically the Union, that follows up
Haymarket and in many ways displaces the Knights of Labor
in representing the American worker. And that of course
is the American Federation of Labor or you will also hear me refer to it
as the AF of L. After 1886,
after the riots had occurred at Haymarket
Square, Terrence Powderly
denounced what had happened in '86, he denounced the strikes,
but the Knights had gone,
you know, well events had gone beyond the Knights of Labor.
The Knights had been painted with the brush of radicalism,
they were revolutionaries,
and in some ways again their ideas were
pretty idealistic if not utopian. But the point of it all is that after the
Haymarket Riots
the Knights of Labor numerically their,
their numbers begin to decline. And whether it's
true or not there's a very clear pattern there that
the Association, the taint of radicalism
that was connected with Haymarket became connected with the Knights of Labor
and their numbers suffered. The American Federation of Labor
which would emerge sort of to take the place of the Knights of Labor, the
Knights don't entirely ever go away,
but the American Federation of Labor was founded in 1881. So it was in existence
before the Haymarket Square riots occurred and
the bombings. Initially it consisted of about
about a hundred and forty thousand members. But what makes it different from the
Knights of Labor and
allows it perhaps to avoid some of the taint of radicalism
is that it's focused on the craft unions.
Now what that means is this: okay,
the Knights of Labor had tried to represent or create an organization
which had included all labor: men,
women, African-Americans,
whites, but also
skilled and unskilled workers.
The problem of course is that
since it's time unskilled workers sell
they can be replaced by anyone else willing to sell time.
Skilled workers on the other hand
are more difficult to replace because there's an element that they own, that they
control
which is intimately caught up with the success of production.
Without that skill, that skill that the worker possesses,
you can't produce the good you want to produce. Well the simple result is
the skilled worker has leverage. The American Federation of Labor,
by focusing on the craft unions,
is focusing on skilled labor. And that
is an idea about leverage that the AF of L will be able by focusing on
skilled workers to have leverage
in negotiations with employers.
But the other side of this is that by focusing on the craft unions and skilled
labor,
the AF of L will be able to push out of their union
or keep out of their union the unskilled labor
that's often connected with ethnicity,
race and radicalism.
So that the taint of radicalism
won't infect the AF of L to the same extent it had
affected the Knights of Labor.
The leader of the AFL
is Samuel Gompers. And you know alot of this emerges from Gompers ideas about
labor and about the practicality of the situation labor is in
in this new American economy. Gompers is an immigrant
who's come from London. He was born in 1850
and you think, there you know you're kind of thinking about Dickens, Charles Dickens
and all that, that
kind of idea of London. But
he had become the head, before becoming a leader of the AFL, he had become the head
of the cigar makers Union. He was
a roller of cigars in other words. He was
connected with a craft. He understood skilled labor and the value that those
skills still had
even in this changing economic and industrial climate.
So the AFL
will reject this notion of the brotherhood of all workers,
not everybody, but focusing on
the skilled worker, the crafts.
That excludes many women who aren't going through the process of apprentice,
journeyman, master,
to become a master of the craft. It also excludes
many immigrants
who are coming to this country and often lack the skills
or don't have the connections to get into existing craft
networks. Their goals,
the goals of the AFL are very practical. They're not utopian.
They felt that labor should work within existing
economic system, or within the existing economic system,
rather than trying to create an entirely new system.
The Knights of Labor had called for changes that would have in essence
undermined the system as it existed.
Instead of calling for things like an eight hour day or
the rights of women or equal pay for equal work,
for calling for an international banks, anything of that nature,
the AFL's going to shoot for far more practical goals that they believe can be
achieved
and gradually will lead to improvement of conditions for America's working
people.
The key and the really most important of these practical goals would be the
recognition
of unions to represent workers in negotiation.
In other words, a recognition by employers
of the rights of unions, labor unions, to bargain collectively
on behalf of workers. You see if you could get that,
if you could get unions recognized as an agent for workers
then unions have in essence been recognized as part of the existing
economic system.
Really it's a major, it's a fundamental kind of change we're talking about
by getting unions and the idea that you negotiate with unions
integrated into the economic system that exists.
In terms of other practical goals let me suggest that rather than going after an eight
hour day,
the AFL was perfectly happy going after a shorter day.
Similarly, in terms of higher wages, it wasn't
X amount or a certain amount or equal wages or anything else it was just
efforts to achieve higher wages,
to see improvement in the returns coming back to workers
in the new economic system. After 1886,
after what had happened at Haymarket Square, the AFL
is basically reorganized and
its goals though are reaffirmed. In other words, nothing new is coming out of here.
The AF of L's just emphasizing more firmly its basic practicality.
By 1902, will have more than a million
members. By 1917,
the year that the United States enters the First World War,
the AF of L and its affiliated unions will claim
2.5 million members.
Well, moving forward here, I need to tell you
a bit about the Homestead Steel Strike.
In 1892, in the summer of 1892,
workers at
a steel manufacturing facility in Homestead, Pennsylvania,
owned by Andrew Carnegie,
had gone on strike. And
they had been locked out.
That is to say that once they went on strike
they had been locked out of the plant and what they then done was to actually
surround the plant. It was a common tactic
to be used or that was used by
owners of facilities like factories and plants
basically ensuring that the workers had no access and then seeking,
seeking once they have sort of denied workers access,
seeking ways to bring in strike breakers so that
production could go forward and continue at the plant.
That's effectively what was happening at Homestead.
Day-to-day management of the Homestead Steel
Plant had fallen or been given over by Andrew Carnegie
to a fellow named Henry Clay Frick, Henry C. Frick.
He was known for his ferocity. He was known to be a
very harsh man to deal with. He
didn't take much guff.
And on the other side of the equation opposite Frick of course is
the Union. Among others represented at Homestead was the Amalgamated
Association of
Iron and Steel Workers.
The major issues at Homestead in 1892
strike was for the strike were wage cuts
and working conditions.
In essence, in this new economy and under Frick
and really Carnegie too, Carnegie I think knew what was going on at Homestead,
workers felt that they were being pushed beyond their capacity.
That the working conditions were simply
too heinous, too dangerous
to continue without walking off and saying enough's enough.
And they weren't willing to simply surrender their jobs, they needed those
jobs, but they were willing to say
we will go on strike unless we are paid
for the work we do and
unless there are changes made to the way were asked to work.
For Frick and for many owners of plants,
or managers of plants, the question had always been a
a question of efficiency. How do you get the most out of workers?
Less concern was paid in the late nineteen, nineteenth century
to how workers were to be treated. It wasn't their call how work was run.
It was the call of the owners. The call of those who
who control the property. You worked for them.
That was sort of the mentality. Well
as I mentioned, there's a lockout at Homestead. And what makes this strike so
fascinating
and worth consideration, is that for the first time,
unlike the previous episodes we've talked about involving labor unrest,
we see here the active
part that's played by a Union by a labor organization
with structure. During the railroad strike back in 1877
you're talking about sort of a shared vision,
a shared sense of grief
and pain that leads people to sort of
naturally without the aid of an organization
to express that and take it out on the railroads
and sort of attack that vague and ambiguous thing which they see happening
but they can't quite put their finger on.
At Haymarket with relationship of the Knights, the Knights will
fare very poorly because of Haymarket but understand that they're not
specifically involved. More so they're involved with the McCormick plant.
And there too it's not as if you have
what we would consider a true labor union
at work. It's more that sense of
shared grievance leading to this kind
of cooperative effort, but it's not a directed thing.
By the time you get to Homestead in 1892
the efforts of the strikers are being directed
and the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers
is largely responsible for that direction.
And they have by the summer of 1892, they have
the steel plant virtually surrounded and inside the plant
are a small number of guards
who were denying the workers entry.
Frick develops a plan, and I'll try to be brief here, Frick develops a plan
to send approximately 300 Pinkerton Agents, these are part of that
Pinkerton Detective Agency, and they're often the people called in,
really they're called in when you need
to use force.
They can be deputized, but they serve as sort of mercenaries oftentimes when you
have
a labor situation develop, you bring in the Pinkertons.
It's a long way from their Civil War origins.
But at any rate, Frick develops a plan to send some 300 Pinkerton's by river
into the plant.
Remember the plant is cut off by strikers who have surrounded it by land
and only river access seems to allow
an opening, an avenue, for access.
Strikers hear about the plans and they actually send out
groups of strikers to meet the Pinkertons
along the river and when the Pinkertons try to cross,
they're fired upon. Some will ultimately make it
into the plant but the resistance that occurs
will leave a number of strikers
and Pinkerton detectives dead and many more casualties.
The failed effort to put you know many more Pinkerton's into the plant
will ultimately lead the Pinkerton's to surrender,
they agree to surrender their position inside the plant.
But, but guess who's going to step in here.
You remember that I mentioned the precedent,
the role that government would have in this early kind of
labor unrest. And as you saw with the 1877 strike, what you saw,
what you saw with the enforcement that goes on after Haymarket in Haymarket
Square unrest,
here again the state steps in but on behalf of
the owner. Pennsylvania will call in
the state militia, sort of the National Guard of it's day,
and they will take up positions inside the factory and
on high ground just beyond the factory.
It takes them a matter of hours to drive
strikers away and end the lockout.
And that's an amazing thing. How quickly that's done
and how quickly Frick and other company managers
can return to the plant.
And then how quickly strike breakers or
workers hired to replace those on strike
can resume operations.
As the original Homestead workers saw what was happening that
the strike breaking workers were attempting to relight the furnaces
to get production going again, there were instances where they tried to intervene
but they were stopped summarily by the state militia of
Pennsylvania.
The strike had failed miserably at Homestead
and it had failed in no small part because of
the choices the government had made
when it came to American labor.