THE HISTORY OF LABOR

IN THE

UNITED STATES

 FOCUS: The Iowa Experience

Printed by the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO

1991

INTRODUCTION

The History of Labor in the United States:  The Iowa Experience is based on oral histories conducted with Iowa workers.  Over one thousand interviews were collected under the auspices of the Iowa Labor History Oral Project.  Excerpts of a number of these interviews have been selected for this book.

The interviews deal with the general subjects of union organizing, collective bargaining, political action and community service.  Each of these four subjects have an introduction and interviews dealing with the general subject.  Further, each interview excerpt has questions to guide your study.

This book is designed as a supplement to an American History or other social studies text, although it could stand alone as the basis for a unit dealing with labor.  A list of other readings dealing with organized labor is available from your library or from the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This material would not be possible without the help of many.  The Iowa Labor History Oral Project has collected over a thousand oral interviews upon which this curriculum is based.  Thank you to the interviewers, Paul Kelso, Greg Zieren, and Merle Davis, and to Mona Lepic who transcribed most of the interviews and coordinated the mechanics of the project for 10 years.  Thank you also to the members of the advisory committee, past and present, who guided the project:  Fred Adams, Professor of History, Drake University; David Crosson, Executive Director Iowa State Historical Department; Jack Fiorito, Professor of Industrial Relations, University of Iowa; Richard Gage, Consultant, Department of Public Instruction; Ellis Hawley, Professor of History, University of Iowa; Loren Horton, Iowa State Historical Department; Richard Kottman, Professor of History, Iowa State University; Paul Mann, I.S.E.A.; Roger Morse, Business Agent, Teamsters; Gene Paul, Professor, Management Department, Drake University; Gene Redmon, Labor Liaison, Cedar Valley United Way; Ralph Scharnau, Professor of History, University of Dubuque; Shelton Stromquist, Professor of History, University of Iowa; Roberta Till-Retz, Director, Labor Center, University of Iowa; James Wengert, President, Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO; Ed Czarnecki, AFL-CIO; Hugh Clark, past President of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO; Adrian Anderson, Executive Director, Iowa State Historical Department; Richard Byerly, President South  West Community College; Lloyd Freilinger, former Vice-President of the Grain Millers, AFL-CIO; Lynn Feekin, former Director of the Labor Center, University of Iowa; Marian Moffitt, Representative, C.W.A.; Harry Wilford, Business Agent, Teamsters.

Thank you to Professor S. Samuel Shermis, Purdue University and to Lulla Shermis who provided the initial conceptual framework upon which the format and general direction of the guide is based.  Thank you to Mark Smith and Merle Davis who put together the first guide.  Thank you to the Directors of the Project, Ed Czarnecki, Lynn Feekin and Roberta Till-Retz.

A special thank you to the members of affiliated unions of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, who have funded the project through their per capita tax since 1975.  Thank you also to the Teamsters Union and the Iowa U.A.W. Cap Council, who have also contributed to the funding of the project.

Another special thank you to Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO President James Wengert, who was one of the early and key supporters of the project and whose persistent encouragement and commitment to the project kept it moving.

The life of the project, emanates from the hearts and souls of the union men and women of Iowa, whose interviews make the ILHOP one of the finest collections of oral labor history in the country.  Their willingness to take the time to share their recollections, and to reconstruct their union histories, give this guide its unique spirit of history in the making.

SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Des Moines history teachers James Bush and Tom Long and Social Studies Supervisor, Carol Brown, along with other Des Moines teachers piloted these materials in 1990.  Their additions to and deletions from the materials provided by the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO made this book more useable and more meaningful.  Their changes, as well as their time spent, was invaluable.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A QUICK GLANCE AT AMERICAN LABOR HISTORY

(most of which you probably never saw in your history books)

A Brief History of Organized Labor in Iowa

Introduction

Workers organized in the state of Iowa for exactly the same reasons they did elsewhere in the United States: to improve salaries and working conditions, but also for dignity and a more just and humane social order.  As an individual, no single worker could bargain successfully with his or her employer for better wages, shorter hours, and safer working conditions.  But in association with others, workers recognized they would have greater bargaining power.

As early as 1778, journeymen printers in New York City combined to demand wage increases.  In Philadelphia a few years later, shoemakers formed a local union for the purpose of collective bargaining.  Since the end of the nineteenth century, workers have struggled to gain recognition from employers and the general public as members of legitimate unions.  They sought—and continue to seek—higher wages, shorter hours, a safer and more pleasant workplace, better fringe benefits, the elimination of racial segregation, and the end to discrimination against women and minorities.

Nineteenth Century unions in Iowa and the United States

The first trade unions in Iowa date from the late 1850s.  Printers in Dubuque and Davenport formed local Typographical Unions.  During and after the Civil War, union formation increased rapidly, due to the growth of large-scale industry.  Unions of printers, shoemakers, tailors, blacksmiths, machinists, carpenters, cigar makers, iron molders, locomotive engineers, coal miners, and team drivers made their appearance.

Knights of Labor

Many of these unions fell apart in the economic depression that followed the Panic of 1873.  But as economic conditions began to improve in the late 1870s and 1880s, the union movement took on new life and the ranks of organized labor began to swell.  Of particular importance during the 1880s was an early union known as the Knights of Labor.  Founded in 1869 in Philadelphia, the Knights grew steadily as a secret organization until the late 1870s.  In 1886, more than 750,000 workers could be found among its ranks.  Its rallying cry, “An injury to one is the concern of all,” appealed to all workers without regard to skill, race, or gender.

Coal miners from the east side of Des Moines organized the first local assembly of the Knights of Labor in Iowa in 1877.  In 1879, various locals in Iowa formed a district assembly which eventually included all of the state local assemblies.  In 1886, it was reorganized under the name, the Iowa State Assembly of the Knights of Labor.  By 1888, the Knights consisted on 188 locals with 30,000 members in Iowa alone.  When the Iowa Legislature met, the Knights maintained local representatives in Des Moines to protect the interests of working people.  As a result of these efforts, the Iowa Legislature established a Bureau of Labor Statistics and passed several laws dealing with mine safety in the 1880s.

During 1881, as the Knights of Labor continued to grow, several national trade unions formed a new and separate organization, called the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions.  Under the initiative of this organization, a crusade was launched to establish the eight-hour work day, a movement which was regarded by many as radical and extremely disturbing.  On May 1, 1886, when tens of thousands of workers took part in mass demonstrations demanding the eight-hour day, a new tradition was begun.  May 1 continued to be observed as Worker’s Day in many parts of the world, but in the United States, the first Monday in September became the holiday when organized labor celebrated by calling attention to its achievements and goals through parades and speeches.  Today it is known as Labor Day.

The A. F. of L. Replaces the Knights

In 1886, the Knights peaked in strengths, but soon after, its numbers began to decline.  During the same decade, a new organization of laborers was born and became the dominant national labor body in this country.  This new force was known as the American Federation of Labor, simply called the A. F. of L.  The A. F. of L. was generally composed of skilled craftsmen from various trades.  Until the mid-20^th century, the A. F. of L. continued to organize primarily along craft lines.  This new federation of national unions consisted of skilled workers such as:  typesetters, cigar makers, plumbers, and electricians.

Union Demands

The first president of the A. F. of L. was Samuel Gompers, a cigar maker.  Except for a single interruption lasting only one year, Gompers remained at the helm of the A. F. of L. until his death in 1924.  In this position, Gompers became the acknowledged head of the American Labor Movement.  His goals were quite modes:  he sought to use the tool of peaceful collective bargaining to improve the conditions of working people.  In response to the question, “What does labor want?”  Gompers replied: 

"It wants the earth and the fullness thereof.  There is nothing too precious, too lofty, unless it is within the scope and comprehension of labor’s aspirations and wants.  We want more school houses and less jails, more books and less arsenals, more learning and less vice, more constant work and less crime, more leisure and less greed, more justice and less revenge, in fact more of the opportunity to cultivate our better natures."

Strong Opposition to Organized Labor

Working people faced many obstacles in their effort to form and sustain trade unions.  Federal and state courts issued injunctions that forbade unions to strike or even to organize.  Courts sided with owners and managers in crushing strikes.  State and Federal officials frequently called out the U.S. Army or the State National Guard to break strikes.  One of the first labor injunctions used in the United States was issued in Boone County, Iowa, in 1885, to prevent picketing by striking coal miners.  Iowa governors called out the state militia whenever large numbers of working people went out on strike.

Resistance to trade unions and hard times caused by the Panic of 1893 forced many unions to collapse.  Thousands of men and women were thrown out of work as mines, shops, and factories closed by the hundreds.  Workers who managed to keep their jobs faced drastic wage cuts.  Unemployment, bank failures, loss of savings, and other problems caused by economic depression continued until 1897.

Limited Gains

On the eve of the economic collapse that followed the Panic of 1893, Iowa trade unionists created a new umbrella organization entitled, the Iowa State Federation of Labor.  This organization, with statewide authority, was intended to serve as the political arm of the Iowa trade union movement.  Its purpose was to work for the interests of labor in the State Legislature and also to serve as the principal voice of the working people of Iowa.  A year later, it was granted a charter from the A. F. of L., signed by Samuel Gompers.  By 1900, it bean to maintain a permanent lobbyist at each session of the General Assembly.

The State Federation of Labor worked successfully to build coalitions with forces they hoped would prove friendly, such as teachers, farmers, and religious organizations.  With their assistance, the State Federation began to shepherd labor legislation, such as workers’ compensation, factory inspection, and child labor laws through the Iowa General Assembly.

Unions Enter the Twentieth Century

During the final years of the 19^th century and the first decade of the 20^th, the trade union movement in Iowa and throughout the nation grew rapidly.  By 1890, most of Iowa’s more than 5,000 coal miners were members of the United Mine Workers of America.  In that same year, most of the Iowa miners won the eight-hour day.  Railroad workers in Iowa were numerous and among the earliest to organize, initially along craft lines and briefly in the 1890s along industrial lines in the American Railway Union.  Other trades also joined existing unions.  By 1902, working people in Des Moines could boast 53 separate crafts organized into unions.

Most unions were created by highly skilled craftsmen, but less skilled workers also sought and found protection in the union fold.  In Des Moines, for example, women telephone operators formed a union.  Button workers in Muscatine joined the ranks or organized labor as did retail clerks in numerous Iowa towns.

The Industrial Workers of the World (I. W. W.) was organized in 1905 and sought to build a revolutionary alternative to the American Federation of Labor.  Its most spectacular successes came in the lumber camps, mining towns, and settlements of agricultural laborers in the West and among unskilled immigrants in factory towns in the East.  The I. W. W. was briefly present in a few Iowa communities, notably Sioux City.  It also provided a direct and powerful experience in industrial unionism for numbers of young workers who left Iowa, but later returned to play important roles in building industrial unions among packinghouse and farm equipment workers during the C. I. O. era.

After the United States entered World War I, increasing numbers of semiskilled and unskilled industrial workers began to form or join unions.  Large numbers of packinghouse workers in Ottumwa, Des Moines, Sioux City, and elsewhere formed unions, as did workers in the gypsum mills and mines in the Fort Dodge area.  This was the direct result of Federal wartime measures which gave workers the legal right to organize for the purpose of collective bargaining. This battle was not won then, nor was it won 15 or 20 years later. Employers fought with all the weapons at their disposal to smash existing unions and prevent the formation of new ones.

Unions at the Lowest Ebb

During the 1920s, many of the working people’s wartime gains were wiped out.  Some employers instituted the “American Plan,” a systematic effort to destroy trade unions.  They refused to recognize unions established by their employees and refused to engage in collective bargaining.  They set up “company unions,” that were actually controlled and manipulated by employers.  They also hired armed guards and placed union workers on blacklists, making it easier for all factory owners to identify and refuse employment to potential union organizers. 

During this time, there were long, bitter strikes which often became violent.  Who committed how much violence is debatable.  Some retired workers have admitted to engaging in scattered violence.  However, it was the employer who could afford weapons and armed guards, who hired scabs, and who prevailed on governors to send the National Guard to break up strikes.

The “Roaring Twenties” was a dismal and bitter period for organized workers.  Despite the appearance of economic prosperity, affluence was extremely spotty.  Since the end of World War I, Iowa farm owners and workers had suffered their own economic depression.  As mines closed in Iowa, thousands of coal miners lost their livelihood.  In 1921, employers succeeded in crushing gypsum mill and packinghouse unions. A year later, a strike of railroad shopmen went down in defeat.

Without the protection of a recognized union, workers had little say about anything that affected their working lives.  Needle trade workers were forced to work in badly lighted and ventilated sweatshops, bakers worked in bakeries where the temperature was 130 degrees in the summer, and machinists, miners, and foundry workers seldom had adequate protective clothing.  Workers were not provided treatment for accidents on the job such a