HISTORY OF THE LABOUR MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

[GM111]

The 1880s saw a fundamental turning point in the history of the American labour movement: the foundation of the American Federation of Labour. Based purely on trade unionism, it was an association which was very different from the Knights of Labor, with which it would compete in its early years before finally emerging as the true representative of the organised American proletariat.

As far as proletarians were concerned, what set the two organisations apart was that the federation defended clear class positions and fought for the eight hour day, and it was this, after years of stagnation, that determined the Federation’s growth. In 1886, at a congress in Philadelphia, it adopted the new denomination, A.F.L.

The new federation distinguished itself from the K.L. in some key respects. Firstly, membership was restricted purely to wage-earners; secondly, it considered the strike weapon as fundamental. In its early years it also had a distinctively socialist perspective, introduced by its main founder, Samuel Gompers, according to which the interests of capital and labour could never live together in harmony.

Also with regard to the type of trade union, initially the industrial union seemed clearly superior, being inherently more susceptible to attracting non-specialised workers, while the craft unions tended to be more corporativist, making the mobilisation of large numbers of proletarians much more difficult. But when several unions threatened to withdraw their support, Gompers was quick to change his mind. The defence of the weakest categories of workers: women, blacks, immigrants (not to mention the Chinese) would also soon get watered down. After a period of increasing openness, when it was still competing with the K.L., the A.F.L. would later become increasingly discriminatory and focus just on skilled workers.

The speaker then paused to dwell on the two great strikes which shook the United States from East to West in 1892: the Homestead Strike in the iron and steel industry in Pennsylvania, and the Miners’ strike in Coeur d’Alenes in Idaho. Although different in many respects, what was common to both strikes was the bosses’ attack on the trade unionisation of the workers, and the sheer violence of their attack, using all the various means at their disposal, and to which the workers responded by meeting force with force. Thus the story of these strikes is also one of armed struggle, and one in which proletarians, in a number of different situations, would demonstrate their exceptional military and organisational capacity, and a tenacity which would win grudging admiration even from their adversaries.

[GM112]

The study now moved on to consider the major downturn which affected the United States between 1893-1897, a crisis on scale hitherto unknown in the country which was characterised by extremely high rates of unemployment, large movements of people in search of work, and a generalised attack by the bosses on the working class.

The federal government refused to provide assistance to the unemployed, who were thus forced to rely on what was available locally, often provided by trade unions. And this despite a march on Washington by thousands of unemployed; the famous “Coxey’s Army”.

The struggle was a matter of survival. There were important strikes by the miners in the West and East, against the mining companies and the whole of the apparatus of public authority ranged alongside them, with violence the common denominator during all the various phases of the struggle.

It was clear that American trade unionism needed to change tack, but the forces in play, in the AFL, had no intention of doing so. And yet if the importance of unity continued to be the subject of debate, its advantages were before the eyes of all. In fact a new union, the American Railway Union, had been formed on the basis of the principle of the unity of all workers in a given sector, creating an industrial union, which before long had succeeded in notching up victories the railwaymen had never dared hope for until then. It was clear now that the model for a united American labour movement was the industrial union, which could unite skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers under its banner.

With previous victories behind it, the ARU would come out in support of the employees of the Pullman company, who built railway carriages. In just a few months the company had cut its employees’ wages by 25%, 30% and then by over 50% while still awarding its shareholders huge dividends; meanwhile it had refrained from making any corresponding cuts to the rents of the tied accommodation where its employees lived. On May 11, 1894, 4,000 workers downed tools.

For a month, supported by the working class of Chicago, the workers managed to hold out. On June 12, on the occasion of the ARU’s first national convention, the strikers’ representatives called for delegates to support them by boycotting the Pullman company. The sector’s response surprised even the trade union: almost a quarter of a million railwaymen, mainly from the lowest and worst paid grades, were prepared to show their solidarity against an employer who typified the intolerable exploitation which everybody was having to put up with at the time.

Soon the railway bosses had to admit that the companies couldn’t defeat the struggling workers on their own, and concluded that “it is now the government’s responsibility to deal with the problem”. Ignoring constitutional law, the federal government intervened directly by sending in numerous troops and issuing injunctions that in practice removed from workers their right to strike. There were fierce struggles in which dozens of people died and the ARU leaders were thrown into jail.

Defeat seemed inevitable. The only hope was a general strike, which only the other trade unions, and in particular the AFL, could decide whether to call, But this didn’t happen,; a decision which was sanctioned under the banner of what was then described as “prudential unionism”, but which today we have no compunction about describing as trade unionism collaborating with Capital.