al in the eighties, did labor organizations make such important gains as during the following five years. True, in none of these years did the labor movement add over half a million member

210,000, bringing the total to 1,676,000. In 1905 a backward tide set in; and the membership decreased by nearly 200,000 during that year. It remained practically stationary until 1910, when the upward movement was resumed, finally bringing the membership to near the

t organized in 1900 and 7 percent in 1910.[45] Leo Wolman submits more detailed figures for 1910. Excluding employers, the salaried group, agricultural and clerical workers, persons engaged in personal or domestic service, and those below twenty years of age (unorganizable

percent, transportation 17.3 percent, clothing 16.9 percent, building trades 16.2 percent, iron and steel 9.9 percent, metal 4.7 percent, and textile 3.7 percent.[47] By separate occupations, railway conductor

f semi-skilled labor. Down to the "boom" period brought on by the World War, the Federation did not comprise to any great extent either the totally unskilled, or the partially skilled foreign-speaking workmen, with the exception of the miners and the clothing workers. In other words, those below the level of the skilled trades, which did gain admittance, were principally the same e

ties, the Typographical Union had endeavored to establish a nine-hour day in the printing offices. This was given a setback by the introduction of the linotype machine during the period of depression, 1893-1897. In spite of this obstacle, however, the Typographical Union held its ground. Adopting the policy that only journeymen printers must operate the linotype machines, the union was able to meet the situation. And, furthermore, in 1898, through agreement with the United Typothet? of America, the national association of employers in book and job printing, the union was able to gain the nine-hour day in substantially

rtnership of organized labor and organized capital in the management of industry, which, ever since the

The

by a small and well knitted group of employers, generally considered a "trust," and by a no less difficult situation in bituminous mining due to cut-throat competition among the mine operators, the United Mine Workers have succeeded in a

n the coal operators and the union entered into a collective agreement. However, its scope was practically confined to Ohio and even that limited agreement went under in 1890. [51] With the breakdown of this agreement, the membership dwind

n the strike started, but the miners struck to a man. The tie-up was practically complete except in West Virginia. That State had early become recognized as the weakest spot in the miners' union's armor. Notwithstanding the American Federation of Labor threw almost its entire force of organizers into that limited area, which was then only beginning to assume its present day importance in the coal mining industry, barely one-third of the miners were induced to strike. A contributing factor was a more energetic interference from th

20 percent increase in wages, the establishment of the eight-hour day, the abolition of company stores, semi-monthly payments, and a restoration of the system of fixing Interstate

years, established for Illinois the run-of-mine[53] system of payment, while the size of the screens of other states was regulated; and it also conceded the miners the check-off system[

European immigrants, who formed the majority in the other districts. And yet West Virginia as a growing mining state soon assumed a high strategic importance. A lower wage scale, the better quality of its coal, and a comparative freedom from strikes have made West Virginia a formidable competitor of the other districts in the central competitive field. Consequently West Virginia operators have been able to operate their mines more days during the year than elsewhere; and despite the lower rates per ton, the West Virginia miners have earned but little less annually than union miners in other States. But above all the United Mine Workers have been handicapped in West Virginia as nowhere else by court interference in strik

gh they might have won higher wages had they struck, the miners observed their contracts. A more severe test came in 1902 during the great anthracite strike.[57] A special union convention was then held to consider whether the bituminous miners should be called out in sympathy with the hard pressed striking miners in the anthracite field. By a large majority, however, the convention voted not to strike in violation of the agreements made with the opera

al autonomous district organizations. The Pittsburgh operators, however, objected. They preferred the existing system of agreements under which each district organization possessed a veto power, since then they could keep the advantage over their competitors in Ohio and Indiana with which they had started under the original agreement

the central competitive field the miners were paid for screened coal only. With the operators of each State having one vote in the joint conference, it can be understood why the handicap against Illinois continued. Theoretically, of course, the Illinois operators might have voted against the acceptance of any agree

perations were suspended throughout the central competitive field. By July agreements had been secured in every State save Illinois, the latter State holding out until September. This long struggle in Illin

main a party to the Interstate agreement. The union justified its special treatment of the operators in Illinois on the ground that the run-of-mine rates were 40 percent below the screened coal rates, thus compensating them amply for the "slack" for which th

system of grading tonnage rates paid to the miner, whereby competitive advantages of location, thickness of vein, and the like were absorbed in higher labor costs. This doubtless tended to eliminate cut-throat competition and thus stabilize the industry. On the

he fulcrum which it found in Illinois with its large proportion of English-speaking miners accustomed to organization and to carrying on a common purpose. Secondly, the employers, instead of being numerous and united only for joint dealing with labor, as in bitumi

on economic strength. However, the impending Presidential election led to an interference by Senator Mark Hanna, President McKinley's campaign manager. Through him President John Mitchell of the United Mine Workers was informed that the operators would abolish the objectionable sliding scale system of wage payments, increase rates 10 percent and agree to meet committees of their employes for the a

every means for practically enforcing the closed shop, which was not granted in the understanding. In the early months of 1902 the miners presented demands for a reduction of the hours of labor from 10 to 9, for a

railroads and the leading union officials for a conference in the White House and urged arbitration. At first he met with rebuff from the operators, but shortly afterward, with the aid of friendly pressure from New York financiers, the operators consented to accept the award of a commission to be appointed by himself. This was the well-known Anthracite Coal Strike Commission. Its appointment terminated the strike. Not until more than a half year later, however, was the award of the Commission made. It conceded the miners a 10 percent increase in wages, th

hat for the first time a labor organization tied up for months a strategic industry and caused wide suffering and discomfort to the public without being condemned as a revolutionary menace to the existing social order calling for suppression by the government; it was, on the contrary, adjudged a force within the preserves of orderly society and entitled to public sympathy. The public identified the anthracit

For by refusing to grant formal recognition, the Commission failed to constitute unionism into a publicly recognized agency in the

he union is furnished by the fact that the wage-scale in that field remained stationary until 1912 despite a rising cost of living. The wages of the anthracite miners in 19

outlook for a strike the Slav and Italian miners refused to pay union dues. The original award was to be in force until April 1, 1906. In June, 1905, the union membership was less than 39,000. But by April 1, 1906, one-half of t

ership fell off only to return in the spring of 1909. Again the union demanded formal recogn

oards provided by the award of the Commission. A strike of 180,000 anthracite miners followed on April 1, 1912, during which the operators made no attempt to run their mines. The strike ended within a month on the basis of the abolition of the sliding scale, a wage increase of approximately 10 percent, and a revision of the arbitration machinery in local disputes. This was coupled with a somewhat larger degree of rec

nt was renewed, the miners were accorded not only a substantial wage increase and the eight-hour day but also full recognition. The United Mine Workers have thus at last succeeded in wresting a share of industrial control from one of the strongest capitalistic powers of the country

ing figures. In 1898 it was 33,000; in 1900, 116,000; in

e Rail

lacksmiths, Drop Forgers, and Helpers; the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America; the Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' International Alliance; the Brotherhood of Boilermakers and Iron Ship Builders and Helpers of America; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and the International Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen and Oilers. A third and more miscellaneous group are the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, the Order of Railway Telegraphers, the Switc

and sixties in England.[59] Like these unions the brotherhoods stressed mutual insurance and benefits and discouraged when they did not actually prohibit striking. It should, however, be added that the emphasis on insu

e and not on a free selection by the officials. Seniority was all the more important since the train personnel service is so organized that each employe will pass several times in the regular course of his career from a lower to a higher rung on the industrial ladder.[61] For instance, a typical passenger train engineer starts as fireman on a freight train, advances to a fireman on a passenger train, then to engineer on a freight train, and finally to engineer on a passenger train. A similar sequence is arranged in advancing from brakeman to conductor. Along with seniority the brotherhoods receiv

ntrol of either railway companies or brotherhoods. The steady rise in the cost of living forced the brotherhoods to intensify their demands for increased wages. At the same time an ever ti

n which they figured.[62] The outcome taught them that the public will give them only limited support in

h for the interests involved and five representing the public. The award was unsatisfactory to the engineers, first, because of the meager raise in wages and, second, because it contained a strong plea to Congress and the country to have all w

quit work. This threatened strike occasioned the passage of the so-called Newlands bill as an amendment to the Erdman Act, with increased powers to the government in me

a plea made by the men for uniformity of the wage scales East and West, and denied the demanded time and a half

rs and the public. A characteristic aftermath of this case was an attack made by the unions upon one of the "neutrals" on the board. His impartiality was questioned because of his relations with several concerns which owned large

way service. These had rarely had the good fortune to bask in the sunshine of their employers' approval and "recognition." Some railways, of the more liberal sort, m

the Illinois Central Railroad and on the Harriman lines in general, involving the issue of system federations, a Federation of System Federations was formed by forty systems upon an aggressive program. In 1908 a weak and rather tentative Railway Employes' Department had been launched by the American Federation of Labor. The Federation of Federations was thus a rival organization and "illegal" or, at best, "extra-legal" from the standpoint of the American Federation of Labor. The situation, however, was too acute to permit the consideration of "legality" to enter. An adju

hinery and

the International Association of Machinists and the International Molders' Union, with a half dozen smaller and very small unions.[66] The molders' International united in the same union the stove molders, who as was

ime "recognition" and its implications seemed to all concerned, the employer, the unions, and the public, a sort of cure-all for industrial disputes. Accordingly, in March 1899, the National Founders' Association (organized in the previous ye

stment of the difficulty; failing to do which, either party shall have the right to ask its reference to a Committee of Arbitration which shall consist of the President of the National

ty vote shall be considered final in so far as the futu

rk at the instance of either party to the dispute. The Committee of Arb

h sides preferred to run the risk of a possible deadlock in the conciliation machinery to throwing decisions into the

achusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island, for a minimum wage which the employers had refused. In each city one member of the National Founder

ame deadlocked. The question of a minimum wage was the most important issue. From 1899 to 1902 several joint conventions were held to discuss the wage question. In 1899 a settlement was made, which,

and, the union restrictions as to the employment of apprentices should be removed. The union argued that a removal of the restriction would cause unlimited c

the agreement. July 1, 1901, the molders struck in Cleveland for an increase in wages; arbitration committees w

ituation to reduce wages and finally practically abrogated the New York agreement. In April, 1904, the founders and molders tried to reach a decision as to how the agreement could be made effective, but gave it up after four days and nights of constant consideration. The founders claimed that th

g plants. The spur to action was given by a strike called by the machinists in Chicago and other cities for the nine-hour day. After eight weeks of intense struggle the Association made a settlement granting a promise of the shorter day. Although hailed as one of the big agreements in labor history, it lasted only one year, and b

d in strikes with more or less success. But the industry as a whole never again came so near t

mployers'

continue. Therefore, it was not until the industrial depression of 1907-1908 had freed the employers' hands that agreements were disrupted wholesale. In 1905 the Structural Erectors' Association discontinued its agreements with the Structural Iron Workers' Union, causing a dispute which continued over many years. In the course of this dispute the union replied to the victorious assaults of the employers by tactics of violence and murder, which culminat

that is to say, the restrictive rules which unions strove to impose on employers in the exercise of their managerial

iceship along with higher wages and shorter hours. As a union advances from an ephemeral association to a stable organization more and more the emphasis is shifted from wages to working rules. Unionists have discovered that on the whole wages

prohibition of piece work and of bonus systems (including those associated with scientific management systems), are primarily devices to protect the wage earner's rate of pay against being "nibbled away" by the employer; and in part also to protect his health against undue exertion. Other rules like the normal (usually the eight-hour) day with a higher rate for overtime; the rule demanding a guarantee of continuous employment for a stated time or a guarantee of minimum earnings, regardless of the quantity of work available in the shop; again the demand for the sharing of work in slack times among all employes; and further, when layoffs become necessary, the demand of recognition by the employer of a right to continuous employment based on "seniority" in the shop;-all these have for

roximately equal in bargaining strength (and lasting agreements are possible only when this condition obtains), a promising line of compromise, as recent experience has shown, has been to extend to the unions and their members in some form that will least obstruct shop efficiency the very same kind of guarantees which they strive to obtain through rules of their own making. For instance, an employer might induce a union

ainly require more faith in government by agreement and more patience than one could expect in the participants in these earlier agreements. It is not

furnishing men to their members whenever additional help was needed, and keeping a complete card system record of every man in the employ of members. By this system occasion was removed for employers communicating with the busin

o break a strike, was authorized to offer rewards to the men who continued at work, and even to compensate the employer for loss of production to the limit of one dollar per day for each man on strike. Also a system was adopted of issuing cards to all employes, which the latter, in case of changing employment, w

These organizations were frequently started by employers and secured cooperation of citizens generally. In some places there were two associations, an employers' and a Citizens' Alliance. A good example of this was the Citizens' Al

ly of manufacturers. The purpose of the organization was to oppose by legal proceedings the boycotts of trade unions, and to secure statutory enactments against the boycott. The energies of the association have been devoted mainly to taki

oyers, turned to combating trade unions. It closely cooperated with other employers' associations in the industrial and legal field, but its chief efforts lay in the political or legislative field, where it has succeeded through clever lobbying and manipulations in n

were not remarkable. True, it was a factor in checking the rapid rate of expansion of unionism, but it scarcely compelled a retrogression from ground already conquered. It is enough to point out that the unions managed to prevent wage reductions in the organized trades notwithstandi

n-union basis before 1900. In Pittsburgh, the iron mills, too, became non-union between 1890 and 1900. There remained to the organization only the iron mills west of Pittsburgh, the large steel mills of Illinois, and a large proportion of the sheet, tin, and iron hoop mills of the country. In 1900 there began to be whisperings of a gigantic consolidation in the steel industry. The Amalgamated officials were alarmed. In any such combin

trike was started against the American Tin Plate Company, the American Sheet Steel Company, and the American Steel Hoop Company. In conferences held on July 11, 12, and 13 these companies offered to sign for all tin mills but one, for all the sheet mills that had been signed for in the preceding year and for four other mills that had been non-union, and for

teel Corporation had just been formed, they found that corporation ready to bring all its tremendous power to bear against the organization. Pre

was apparently clos

ion, Courts,

ength. The scant success with legislation resulted, on the one hand, from the very expansion of the Federation into new fields, which absorbed nearly all its means and energy; but was due in a still greater measure to a solidificatio

attained importance in the nineties, was not the work of organized labor but of humanitarians and social workers. To be sure, the Federation has supported such laws for women and children

directory to the officials of the Federal government, but did not invalidate contracts made by them not containing an eight-hour clause. To counteract this decision a special law was passed in 1888, with the support of the Federation, establishing the eight-hour day in the United States Printing Office and for letter carriers. In 1892 a new ge

r the opposition of the National Manufacturers' Association was first manifested. In 1904 the House Labor Committee sidetracked a similar bill by recommending that the Department of Commerce and Labor should investigate its merits. Secretary Metcalf, however, declared that the questions submitted to his Department with reference to the eight-hour bill were "well-nigh unintelligible." In 1906 the House Labor Committee, at a very late stage in the session, reported "favorably" upon the eight-hour bill. At the same time it eliminated all chances of passage of the bill through the failure of a majority of the members of the committee to sign the "favorable" report made. This session of Congress, also, allowed a "rider" to be added to the Panama Canal bill, exempting the canal construction from the provisions of the eight-hour law. In the next two Congresses no report could be obtained from the labor committees of eit

pt cases passed the Senate in 1896 only to be killed in the House. In 1900 only eight votes were recorded in the House against a bill exempting labor unions from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act; it failed, however, of passage in the Senate. In 1902 an anti-injunction bill championed by the American Federation of Labor passed the

man Act which prohibited discrimination by railways against workmen on account of their membership in a union.[73] One year later, in the Buck's Stove and Range Company boycott case, Gompers, Mitchell, and Morrison, the three most prominent officials of the American Federation of Labor, were sentenced by a lower court in the District of Columbia to long terms in prison for violating an injunction which prohibited all mention of the fact that the plaintiff firm had ever been boycotted.[74] Even though neither these nor subsequ

h further steps as will secure the nomination-and the election-of only such men as are fully and satisfactorily pledged to the support of the bills" championed by the F

were sent into the districts of the most conspicuous enemies of labor's demands to urge their defeat. The battle royal was waged against Congressman Littlefield of Maine. A dozen union officials, headed by President Gompers, invaded his district to tell the electorate of his insults to organized labor. However, he was reelected, although with a reduced plurality over the preceding election. The only positive success was the election of McDermott of the commercial telegraphers' union in Chicago. President Gompers, however, insisted

its enemies, whether "candidates for President, for Congress, or other offices." The next step was the presentation of the demands of the Federation to the platform committees of the conventions of both parties. The wording of the proposed anti-injunction plank suggests that it had been framed after consultation with the Democratic leaders, since it omitted to demand the sweeping away of the doctrine of mali

leaders, proceeded to nominate for President, William H. Taft, who as a Federal judge in the early nineties was responsible for some of the most sweeping injunctions ever issued in labor disputes. A year earlier Gompers

of a political party, labor does not become partisan to a political party, but partisan to a principle." Substantially, all prominent non-Socialist trade-union officials followed Gompers' lead. That the trade unionists did not vote solidly for Bryan, however, is apparent from the distribution

ed as strong support as did Democratic candidates. Nevertheless the Democratic majority in the new House meant that the Federation was at last "on the inside" of one branch of the government. In addition, fifteen men holding card

bor with a seat in the Cabinet. It also attached a "rider" to the appropriation bill for the Department of Justice enjoining the use of any of the funds for purposes of prosecuting labor organizations under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law and other Federal laws. In the presidential campaign of 1912 Gompers pointed to the legislation favorable to labor initiated by the Democratic House of Re

. Wilson was given the place of Secretary of Labor. Hereafter, for at least seven years, the Federation was an "insider" in the national government. The road now seemed clear to the at

l attempts, the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor now became the directing force. The rank and file seem to have been much less stirred than the leaders; for the member who held no union office felt less intensely the menace from injunctions than the officials who might face a prison sentence for contempt of court. Probably for this reason the "delivery

TNO

ayers became af

the United States, 1897-1914," in Quarter

" in Annals of American Academy of

] I

" in Annals of American Academy of

n which a national union does not yet exist) are forms of organization which the Federation designed for b

ern Pennsylvania where the only anthracite c

e scale established by this first Interstate conference probably because more than half of the operators present came from that State, and because the chief strength of the miners' union also lay in that State. To prevent friction over the interpretation of the Interstate agreement, a board of arbitration and conciliation was established. This board consisted of five miners and five operators chosen at large, and one miner and operator more from each of the

ee abo

y weight of the coal as brought out of the

hat the employer agrees to deduct from the wage of each miner the amount

ict the check-off

nd Coke Company v. M

below,

iners out on strike are exempted from the payment of all dues. The number of miners who always act with the union is much larger still.

story of Trade Un

ought strike on the Chicago, Burlington and

er greatly in desirability, and it gives preference over junior

8. In 1898 it was superseded by the well known Erdman Act, w

y, like the East or the West, by a single group of employes; after 1912 two or more brotherhoods initiated

below,

tem federations were initiated by the brotherhoods and were confined t

kers' League, the International Union of Stove Mounters, the International Union of Metal Polishers, Platers, Brass and

At the same time the agreements were national only in so far as they provided for national conciliation machinery; the fixing of wages was left to local bodies. Consequently, the national employers' associations lacked the power to o

apter X of the Steel Workers by John A. Fit

above,

e agreement systems in the structural iron-erecting industry in 1905 and in the carrying industry on the

e above

Lawlor, 208 U.

U.S., 208 U.

for thirty days and the other two defendants were fined $500 each. These penalt