Unions and the Violence - Loudoun County Public Schools



Unions and the Violence

The Knights of Labor was a labor union founded as a fraternal organization in 1869, by Uriah S. Stephens. Originally called The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, it was designed to protect all who worked for a living. Labor Day can be traced to two Knights' parades in New York City in 1882 and 1884.Most unions of that era organized workers by trade and skill level. The Knights grouped workers by industry, regardless of trade or skill.With the motto "an injury to one is the concern of all," the Knights of Labor attempted to attain its goals of:

• Shortening the hours of labor to an eight-hour day

• Ending the use of child labor

• Equal pay for equal work

• The use of arbitration rather than strikes

• The promotion of cooperative businesses

• Currency reform based on the principles of the Greenback-Labor Party

The Knights had a reputation for being all-inclusive. Women, blacks (after 1883), and employers were accepted as members.

The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio in 1886 by Samuel Gompers as a reorganization of its predecessor, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions. Gompers was the president of the AFL until his death in 1924..

The AFL was the largest union grouping in the United States for the first half of the twentieth century, even after the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) by unions that left the AFL in 1938 over its opposition to organizing mass production industries. While the union was founded and dominated by craft unions throughout the first fifty years of its existence, many of its craft union affiliates turned to organizing on an industrial basis to meet the challenge from the CIO in the 1940s.

The AFL was formed in large part because of the dissatisfaction of many trade union leaders with the Knights of Labor, an organization that contained many trade unions and which had played a leading role in some of the largest strikes of the era, but whose leadership had supported several rival unions that had bargained for lower wages and provided strikebreakers during other unions' strikes. The new AFL distinguished itself from the Knights by emphasizing the autonomy of each trade union affiliated with it and limiting membership to workers and organizations made up of workers, unlike the Knights, who also admitted employers as members.

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies) is an international union currently headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. At its peak in 1923 the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict and government repression. Today it is actively organizing and numbers about 2000 members worldwide, of whom roughly half (approximately 900)are in good standing (that is, have paid their dues for the past two months). IWW membership does not require that one works in a represented workplace, nor does it exclude membership in another labor union.

The IWW's first organizers included Big Bill Haywood, Daniel De Leon, Eugene V. Debs, Thomas J Hagerty, Lucy Parsons, Mary Harris Jones (commonly known as "Mother Jones"), William Trautmann, Vincent Saint John, Ralph Chaplin, and many others.

Its goal was to promote worker solidarity in the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the employing class; its motto was "an injury to one is an injury to all," which echoed the 19th century Knights of Labor's creed, "an injury to one is the concern of all." In particular, the IWW was organized because of the belief among many unionists, socialists, anarchists and radicals that the American Federation of Labor (AFL) had utterly failed to organize the U.S. working class, as only about 5% of all workers belonged to unions in 1905. The Wobblies differed from other union movements of the time by its promotion of industrial unionism. One of the IWW's most important contributions to the labor movement and broader push towards social justice was that, when founded, it was the only American union to welcome all workers including women, immigrants, and African Americans. Indeed, many of its early members were immigrants, and some, like Carlo Tresca, Joe Hill and Mary Jones, rose to prominence in the leadership.

The IWW was condemned by politicians and the press, who saw them as a threat to the status quo. Factory owners would employ means both non-violent (sending in Salvation Army bands to drown out speakers) and violent to disrupt their meetings. Members were often arrested and sometimes killed for making public speeches, but this persecution only inspired further militancy

The American Railway Union (ARU), was the largest union of its time, and the first industrial union in the United States. It was founded on June 20, 1893, by railway workers gathered in Chicago, Illinois, and under the leadership of Eugene V. Debs (locomotive fireman and later Socialist Presidential candidate), the ARU, unlike the trade unions, incorporated a policy of unionizing all railway workers, regardless of craft or service. Within a year, the ARU had hundreds of affiliated local chapters and over 140,000 members nationwide.

Beginning in August 1893, the Great Northern Railroad cut wages repeatedly through March 1894. By April, the ARU voted to strike and shut the railroad down for 18 days, pressuring the railroad to restore the workers' wages. It was the ARU's first and only victory.

Similarly, the Pullman Palace Car Company cut wages five times – 30 to 70 percent – between September and March. The Company was based in the town of Pullman, Illinois, named after its owner, millionaire George Pullman. The town of Pullman was his "utopia." He owned the land, homes and stores. Workers had to live in his homes and buy from his stores, thereby ensuring virtually all wages returned directly back into his pockets. Upon cutting wages, the workers suffered greatly from this setup as rent and product prices remained the same. The workers formed a committee to express their grievances resulting in three of its members being laid off, resulting in a full stop in production on May 11, 1894.

In June, the ARU convened in Chicago to discuss the ongoing Pullman Strike. On June 21, the ARU voted to join in solidarity with the strikers and boycotted Pullman cars. ARU workers refused to handle trains with Pullman cars and the boycott became a great success, especially along the transcontinental lines going west of Chicago.

In response, Pullman ordered Pullman cars be attached to U.S. mail cars creating a backup of the postal service and bringing in the Federal Government. Under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890, which ruled it illegal for any business combination to restrain trade or commerce, an injunction was issued on July 2 enjoining the ARU leadership from "compelling or inducing by threats, intimidation, persuasion, force or violence, railway employees to refuse or fail to perform their duties." The next day President Cleveland ordered 20,000 federal troops to crush the strike and run the railways.

By July 7, Debs and seven other ARU leaders were arrested and later tried and convicted for conspiracy to halt the free flow of mail. The strike was finally crushed while Debs spent six months in prison in Woodstock, Illinois. The ARU eventually dissolved and Pullman reopened with all union leaders sacked. During Debs' time in jail, he spent much of his time reading the literature works of Karl Marx.

Strike and Violence

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 began on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and ended some 45 days later after it was put down by local and state militias, as well as by federal troops.

The great railroad strike of 1877 started on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in response to the cutting of wages for the second time in a year by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Striking workers would not allow any of the stock to roll until this second wage cut was revoked. The governor sent in state militia units to restore train service, but the soldiers refused to use force against the strikers and the governor called for federal troops. Meanwhile, the strike spread to Baltimore, causing violent street battles between the striking workers and the Maryland militia. When the outnumbered federal troops fired on an attacking crowd, they killed 11 and wounded 40. [3]

Pittsburgh, PA became the site of the worst violence. Thomas Alexander Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad, often considered one of the first robber barons, suggested that the strikers should be given "a rifle diet for a few days and see how they like that kind of bread."[4] However, local law enforcement officers refused to fire on the strikers. Nonetheless, his request came to pass on July 21, when militiamen bayoneted and fired on rock-throwing strikers, killing twenty people and wounding twenty-nine others.[5] Rather than quell the uprising however, this action merely infuriated the strikers who then forced the militiamen to take refuge in a railroad roundhouse, and then set fires that razed 39 buildings and destroyed 104 locomotives and 1,245 freight and passenger cars. On July 22, the militiamen mounted an assault on the strikers, shooting their way out of the roundhouse and killing 20 more people on their way out of the city. After over a month of constant rioting and bloodshed, President Rutherford B. Hayes sent in federal troops to end the strikes. Three-hundred miles to the east, Philadelphia strikers battled local militia and set fire to much of Center City before federal troops intervened and put down the uprising.

The strike then spread to the American Midwest and Western, increasing in brutality and intensity. On July 21, disgruntled workers in East St. Louis, Illinois, halted all freight traffic, with the city remaining in the control of the strikers for almost a week. The strike was finally halted by a combination of military force, and an injunction that ordered workers not to interfere with railroad operations.

On July 24, rail traffic in Chicago was paralyzed when angry mobs of groups of unemployed citizens wreaked havoc in the rail yards, shutting down both the Baltimore and Ohio and the Illinois Central Railroads. Soon, other railroads were brought to a standstill, with demonstrators shutting down railroad traffic in Bloomington, Aurora, Peoria, Decatur, Urbana and other rail centers throughout Illinois. In sympathy, coal miners in the pits at Braidwood, LaSalle, Springfield, and Carbondale went on strike as well.

In Chicago, the Workingmen’s Party organized demonstrations that drew crowds of twenty thousand people. The mayor of Chicago, Monroe Heath, asked for five-thousand vigilantes to help restore order (they were partially successful), and shortly thereafter the National Guard and federal troops arrived. On July 25, violence between police and the mob erupted with events reaching a peak the following day. These blood-soaked confrontations between police and enraged mobs occurred at the Halsted Street viaduct, at nearby 16th Street, at Halsted and 12th, and on Canal Street. The headline of the Chicago Times screamed, "TERRORS REIGN, THE STREETS OF CHICAGO GIVEN OVER TO HOWLING MOBS OF THIEVES AND CUTTHROATS."[6] Order was finally restored, however, with the deaths of nearly 20 men and boys, the wounding of scores more, and the loss of property valued in the millions of dollars.

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 began to lose momentum when President Hayes sent federal troops from city to city. These troops suppressed strike after strike, until at last, approximately 45 days after it had started, the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 was over.

Haymarket Strike

On May 1, 1886, labor unions organized a strike for an eight-hour work day in Chicago. Albert Parsons, head of the Chicago Knights of Labor, with his wife Lucy Parsons and seven children, led 80,000 people down Michigan Avenue in what is regarded as the first May Day Parade. In the next few days they were joined nationwide by 350,000 workers, including 70,000 in Chicago, who went on strike at 1,200 factories.

On May 3 striking workers met near the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. plant where a fight broke out on the picket lines. Chicago police intervened and attacked the strikers, killing four, wounding several others and sparking outrage in the city's working community.

Local anarchists distributed fliers calling for a rally at Haymarket Square, then a bustling commercial center (also called the Haymarket) near the corner of Randolph Street and Desplaines Street in what was later called Chicago's west Loop. These fliers alleged police had murdered the strikers on behalf of business interests and urged workers to seek justice. In response to the McCormick killings, prominent anarchist August Spies published "Revenge! Workingmen to Arms!" This pamphlet urged workers to take action: To arms we call you, to arms!

The rally began peacefully under a light rain on the evening of May 4. August Spies spoke to the large crowd while standing in an open wagon on a side street. According to many witnesses Spies said he was not there to incite anyone. Meanwhile a large number of on-duty police officers watched from nearby. The crowd was so calm that Mayor Carter Harrison, Sr., who had stopped by to watch, walked home early. Some time later the police ordered the rally to disperse and began marching in formation towards the speakers' wagon. A bomb was thrown at the police line and exploded, killing one policeman (see Mathias J. Degan); seven other policemen later died from their injuries. The police immediately opened fire on the crowd, injuring dozens. Many of the wounded were afraid to visit hospitals for fear of being arrested. A total of eleven people died. Eight people connected directly or indirectly with the rally and its anarchist organisers were charged with Degan's murder. The jury returned guilty verdicts for all eight defendants, with death sentences for seven. Neebe (who seemed to have been almost forgotten by the prosecution) received a sentence of 15 years in prison. After the appeals had been exhausted, Illinois Governor Richard James Oglesby commuted Fielden's and Schwab's sentences to life in prison. On the eve of his scheduled execution, Lingg committed suicide in his cell, ironically using a smuggled dynamite cap, which he reportedly held in his mouth like a cigar (the blast blew off half his face and he survived in agony for several hours).

The next day, November 11, 1887, Spies, Parsons, Fischer, and Engel were hanged together before a public audience.

Homestead Strike 1892

The Homestead Strike was a labor lockout and strike which began on June 30, 1892, with a battle between the strikers and private security agents erupting on July 6, 1892. It is one of the most serious labor disputes in U.S. history. The dispute occurred in Homestead, Pennsylvania, between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (the AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company. The AA was an American labor union formed in 1876. A craft union, it represented skilled iron and steel workers.

The AA's membership was concentrated in ironworks west of the Allegheny Mountains. The union negotiated national uniform wage scales on an annual basis; helped regularize working hours, workload levels and work speeds; and helped improve working conditions. It also acted as a hiring hall, helping employers find scarce puddlers and rollers.[1]

As this expiration date of the workers contracts neared, steel baron Andrew Carnegie, who had often publicly communicated union sympathies, departed for Scotland leaving the notorious Henry Clay Frick with managing authority. Frick was known for his ruthless anti-union policy and as negotiations were still taking place he ordered the construction of a solid board fence topped with barbed wire around mill property. The workers dubbed the newly fortified mill "Fort Frick."

Union and non-union workers joined forces under the leadership of Hugh O'Donnell and kept guard around the steel works to prevent any black sheep, or scabs, from entering. Frick meanwhile, had already made arrangements with Pinkerton's National Detective Agency of New York for the arrival of 300 strikebreaking detectives, commonly known as "Pinkertons."

When this army was spotted on the Monongahela in the early morning of July 6, workers sounded alarms and townspeople of all ages gathered to meet the approaching barges. Once it was clear that the detectives planned on docking at and entering mill property, workers tore through a company fence to stop them.

The battle lasted from 4 a.m. on July 6 until 5 p.m., with workers finally agreeing to the surrender of the Pinkertons. Three Pinkertons and seven workers died and many more were wounded in the fight.

Six days later the National Guard of Pennsylvania arrived in Homestead under the orders of Governor Robert E. Pattison. The company then used several tactics to weaken union forces. They evicted workers from company homes, arrested individuals repeatedly just to charge them bail, and involved the workers in a series of costly court cases.

Pullman Strike 1894

The Pullman Strike occurred when 50,000 Pullman Palace Car Company workers reacted to a 25% wage cut by going on a wildcat strike in Illinois on May 11, 1894, bringing traffic west of Chicago to a halt.[1]

The owner of the company, George Pullman was a "welfare capitalist." Firmly believing that labor unrest was caused by the unavailability of decent pay and living conditions, he paid unprecedented wages and built a company town by Lake Calumet (Pullman, Chicago) in what is now the southern part of the city. Instead of living in utilitarian tenements as did many other industrial workers of the day, Pullman workers lived in attractive company-owned houses, complete with indoor plumbing, gas, and sewer systems, in a beautifully landscaped little town with free education and a free public library stocked with Pullman's own personal library, which he donated.

While the company town did make a high-quality life possible, the system of interrelated corporations that owned and operated it all did presuppose that workers would live within their means and practice basic budgetary prudence. Some workers did find themselves locked into a kind of "debt slavery" (one form of truck system), owing more than they earned to the company stores and to the independent sister company that owned and operated the town of Pullman. Money owed was automatically deducted from workers' paychecks, and a worker who had overspent himself might never see his earnings at all.

During the major economic downturn of the early 1890s, the Pullman Palace Car Company cut wages, but, inexplicably, the corporation that operated the town of Pullman didn't decrease rents. Discontented workers joined the American Railway Union (ARU), led by Eugene V. Debs, which supported their strike by launching a boycott of all Pullman cars.

The strike effectively shut down production in the Pullman factories and led to a lockout. Many supply routes were cut off for everyone when railroad workers across the nation striking in sympathy strike blocked Pullman cars (and subsequently Wagner Palace cars) from moving.

On July 5, in an act of arson that may or may not have been related to the strike, the buildings of the World's Columbian Exposition around the Court of Honor were torched. Buildings caught in the blaze included the administration hall, the manufacturer's hall, the electricity hall, the machinery hall, the mining hall, the agricultural hall, and the fair's train station. This increased national attention to the matter and fueled the demand for federal action.

The strike was broken up by United States Marshals and some 2,000 United States Army troops, commanded by Nelson Miles, sent in by President Grover Cleveland on the premise that the strike interfered with the delivery of U.S. Mail. During the course of the strike, 13 strikers were killed and 57 were wounded. An estimated 6,000 rail workers did $340,000 worth of property damage, and Debs was tried for, and found guilty of, interfering with the mail. He was sent to prison for six months.

At the time of his arrest, Debs was not a Socialist. However, during his time in prison, he read the works of Karl Marx. After his release in 1895, he became the leading Socialist figure in America. He ran for President for the first of five times in 1900.

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