The Labor Movement in the United States of America – Part 12

The Era of the A.F.L. Begins

The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions

1881 was a fateful year for the American labor movement. After a brief prologue in Indiana, a congress was held on November 15 in Pittsburgh, attended by 107 delegates from various trade unions, representing almost half a million proletarians. The congress had been convened to respond to the need to combine the many forces that had arisen from the working class in a structure that would coordinate them in order to obtain greater effectiveness from the struggles for demands, and to conduct agitation on particular issues of interest to the class.

The newly established structure, which gave itself the name of “Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada”, and which intended to be inspired by the English Trades Union Congress, from the beginning discussed an aspect that would be central for the years to come: some delegates proposed that only trade associations should be admitted to the federation; a choice in this sense would have excluded all non-organized workers, especially non-specialized workers, who included a large number of women and Blacks. The proposal was rejected by a large majority.

“Whereas, a struggle is going on in the nations of the civilized world between the oppressors and the oppressed of all countries, a struggle between capital and labor, which must grow in intensity from year to year and work disastrous results to the toiling millions of all nations if not combined for mutual protection and benefit. This history of the wage-workers of all countries is but the history of constant struggle and misery engendered by ignorance and disunion; whereas the history of non-producers of all ages proves that a minority, thoroughly organized, may work wonders for good or evil… Conforming to the old adage “In union there is strength”, the formation of a Federation embracing every trade and labor organization in North America, a union founded upon a foundation as broad as the land we live on, is our only hope” (Foner P.S., 1947-94. History of the labor movement in the United States. Vol.I).

The Platform set out numerous principles, both trade union and political, to be defended, first of which was the abolition of child labor; from the beginning, however, it was clear that the fundamental objective of the participants was to effectively defend wages and working conditions against an increasingly aggressive capital. As F. K. Foster, the first secretary, said: “The growing power of associated capital must be fought by associated labor. Federation is the motto of the future”.

The Clash with the Knights of Labor

In its early years, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada had a difficult life. Its member unions gave it little importance, nor were they generous in granting funds; the Federation produced little more than statements that remained on paper. The K.L. still seemed like they were up to the task of defending the interests of the proletariat. Even in 1884 Secretary Frank Foster had to admit that no progress had been made in attracting the major unions, in political/legislative action, in the unification of the workers’ movement. But at the same convention two resolutions were expressed that would have profound effects on the future of the American workers’ movement: the establishment of Labor Day, as a celebration of labor, and May Day, as a celebration of the 8-hour struggle; both understood as abstention from work, hence as general strikes of the whole class.

The initiatives received an enthusiastic response from the class: while Labor Day would be held on the first Monday in September, it was decided that the 8-hour timetable would come into effect on May 1, 1886. The first goal was achieved without major problems: within a few years many States accepted it as a public holiday, and it became a national holiday in 1894.

The path of the initiative for the eight hour day was not so simple, as we saw in the previous chapter. But the fact that the Federation was the advocate of this initiative made its reputation within the trade union movement rise again. At the same time the K.L. did their best to alienate it, with increasingly anti-worker and collaborationist attitudes, as we have described above.

The turning point was the occasion of a hard struggle of the New York cigar workers: in 1886 the employers decided to apply a salary cut of 20% in the whole sector. The Cigar Makers’ International Union, affiliated with the K.L., refused the cut, and as a consequence the owners decreed a lock-out in 19 factories. After 4 weeks the struggle was about to be won, with the owners offering advantageous proposals. But in New York there was another union, the Progressive Union, that was also affiliated with the K.L., which the International Union had never had good relations with because of their poor positions. In this case, the Progressive Union came forward, offering the bosses jobs on a reduced salary, with the sole condition that only its members were hired.

Needless to say, the International Union appealed to the central organs of the K.L.; but the anti-union positions prevailed, giving justification to the Progressive Union. The immediate consequence was that all over the union world it was understood that one could not continue to work with the K.L. if they wanted to lead struggles successfully, and they began to look around for other ways to build a greater unity in the union field.

A conference was convened on May 18, 1886 in Philadelphia, whose participants represented nearly 400,000 organized workers. They prepared a document which basically called for the autonomy of the individual trade unions. A document, however, that could allow the K.L. a continuation of its central role; However, at an assembly held in Richmond in October, the leadership of the Order, drunk on the power and majority in the assemblies it enjoyed, rejected all demands and ordered the Cigar Makers International Union to choose between staying in the Order or remaining in the union. At that point, many union leaders, apart from the one in the crosshairs, understood that there was nothing more to do: the arrogance of the leading and more reactionary part of the K.L. would sooner or later hit everyone, and they began an exodus that was then defined as a “mortal wound” for the Order.

The leaders who had organized the Philadelphia conference convened all unions in Columbus, Ohio on December 8, 1886. The convention decided to unite all the trade unions present, about fifty national and local, into a federation, which took the name of American Federation of Labor. The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions transferred all personnel and means to the new organization, and ceased to exist as such. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the new organization.

The First Steps of the A.F.L.

So, as was to be expected, the new organization brought in a dowry of many characteristics from the old organization. The preamble of 1881: “a struggle is going on in the nations of the civilized world between the oppressors and the oppressed of all countries, a struggle between capital and labor» had displeased public opinion outside the unions, and some hoped for a greater spirit of concord between capital and labor; but the moment was particularly hot, after the Haymarket attack and the bosses’ offensive that followed, the preamble remained in the new statute, after a unanimous vote.

For the rest, there were no major innovations; attention was paid to emphasizing the autonomy of the individual unions, and that the members all belonged to the class of salaried workers, in open polemic with the recent past.

The new Federation did not have an explosion of membership as had been the case for the K.L., but it grew in a regular and uninterrupted way. The 13 national unions that founded the A.F.L. in 1886 had become 40 in 1892; many were small, but some were also important, such as those of foundry workers, carpenters, printers, iron and steel workers, and cigar makers. However, the first years were hard, both for President Gompers and for the union activists, who dedicated themselves to their apostolate without any salary or reimbursement, risking everything, often even their lives, to defend a principle of social justice in which they believed. Here it is not possible to tell even succinctly the epic of these heroes of the workers’ movement, who found themselves operating in the presence of the most ruthless and bloody capitalism of the time, supported without hesitation by an equally bloody structure of the State.

Despite the difficulties, one of the key points of the union policy defended by Gompers was the exclusion from the union of any element that was not a pure wage earner. In this he even referred to Karl Marx, who he had read in German (he had learned the language on purpose); the non-worker elements, whose support on the other hand was considered valuable, could not be admitted to run the union. In addition, their presence tended to distract the proletarians from the immediate problems they were facing; this had been one of the causes of the K.L.’s failure, and the A.F.L. should not fall back into it.

In the following years Gompers would have denied the existence of class struggle, but in that first period of growth of the Federation it was not so. In the first issue of The Union Advocate, the official organ of the Federation, in June 1887, Gompers writes:

“Life is at best a hard struggle with contending forces. The life of the toiler is made doubly so by the avarice of the arrogant and tyrannical employing classes. Greedy and overbearing as they are, trying at nearly all times to get their pound of flesh out of the workers, it is necessary to form organizations of the toilers to prevent these tendencies more strongly developing, as wealth is concentrating itself into fewer hands to prevent engulfing and drowning us in an abyss of hopelessness and despair”.

Gompers therefore did not believe the doctrine defended by Powderly and others that the interests of capital and labor could coexist in harmony. At that time, instead, he maintained that it was impossible to have harmonious relations «with cruel and iniquitous employers and companies who think more of dividends than of human hearts and bodies (…) The production of profits is the primary and constant object of the capitalistic system».

The first consequence of these considerations was a total and unconditional support of the use of the strike weapon, this was also a very clear break from the tradition of the Order.

But there is more in the early Gompers of the AFL’s green years. One of the Federation’s objectives, he declared in 1887, was the emancipation of the working class from the capitalist system. In this sense the refusal to support political movements was not based on an uncritical refusal to have any relationship on a political level, as was the case in the following decades, but a political critique of the individual movements, as it was in the those years against the movement and ideas of Henry George.

Gompers, however, did not disdain to maintain relations with the political representatives of the European proletariat, contacts that raised his prestige without compromising his freedom of movement at home. A prestige that would bring him to the international limelight on the occasion of the resumption of the eight-hour campaign.

Continuation of the Fight for 8 Hours

The bosses’ counter-offensive following the events of May 1886 had caused a stop to the agitation for the reduction of the working day, but it certainly had not erased the dream that the goal represented in the minds of the American proletarians. In the two following years the workers had rebuilt their organizational structures and were ready to relaunch the struggle. At the A.F.L. convention of December 1888 it was decided that the organizational efforts would focus on the date of May 1, 1890, as a day of struggle for the conquest of the 8-hour working day; in the meantime, there would be preparatory mobilization days all over the country. The slogan was to be: “Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will”.

The A.F.L. immediately understood that agitation would be an important springboard for the Federation. And so it was: the mobilizations of 1889 were so successful that they had repercussions across the Atlantic. On July 14, 1889, on the occasion of the centenary of the French Revolution, the representatives of European socialism met in Paris to found the II International, where, among other things, it was decided to adopt May 1, 1890 as the date for an international strike, in the wake of the successful American mobilization.

In the meantime Gompers reconsidered the tactic to be adopted; the Knights of Labor had disdainfully rejected the offer of collaboration, and the line he decided to follow was to strike only those categories whose unions were certain of success, and to follow the others in time, in the wake of the former. A tactic that was perhaps understandable, but impaired a strategically fundamental fact, that of making proletarians feel that they belonged to a class which, if united, possessed invincible strength. The choice fell on the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, who at the time were the backbone of the construction industry.

The international strike on May 1 was a success in all the industrialized countries where it was called. Engels was moved by it:

“The eternal union of the proletarians of all countries created by it [the International] is still alive and lives stronger than ever, there is no better witness than this day. Because today, as I write these lines, the European and American proletariat is reviewing its fighting forces, mobilized for the first time, mobilized as one army, under one flag, for one immediate aim: the standard eight-hour working day to be established by legal enactment, as proclaimed by the Geneva Congress of the International in 1866, and again by the Paris Workers’ Congress of 1889. And today’s spectacle will open the eyes of the capitalists and landlords of all countries to the fact that today the proletarians of all countries are united indeed. If only Marx were still by my side to see this with his own eyes!” (Preface to the 1890 German edition of the “Manifesto”).

The strike in America went well beyond the most optimistic expectations: the carpenters won the 8 hours in 137 cities, and in other situations they obtained a reduction of the working day to 9 or 10 hours. But what was more important was the effect of galvanizing the class: while in 1889 union membership increased by 3000, in 1890 it increased by 22000. The success extended to other categories, which obtained the eight hours, and membership exploded in practically all the unions of the A.F.L. Another effect was the raising of the international prestige of the Federation.

The Knights of Labor on the other hand, as had been the case in 1886, after rejecting as we have seen any kind of collaboration because the proposal was according to them “extraneous to the workers and radical”, had as a consequence the continuation of the loss of members and influence on the class; with anger they saw the center of gravity of the workers’ unionism moving towards the unions of the Federation, but instead of reacting by changing their attitude they continued to move away from the class with sectarian attitudes, when not openly collaborative.

Samuel Gompers

In the first years of life of the A.F.L., the statements of principle, usually in person by President Gompers, were generally acceptable. Among them was the unity of interests of all workers all over the world, and therefore more so the American ones. Unfortunately, these statements did not correspond to the practice of the Federation. Of course, it was the individual unions that chose how to behave, but in the face of certain general principles, it was simply a matter of enforcing them. This was not the case. In fact, we will see how in the following years, and for most of his presidency, Gompers committed himself to fighting the most sacrosanct cornerstones of class unionism.

It is not in our habits when telling the story of the class, and generally the whole story, to referring to individual characters, large or small, in accordance with our fully Marxist revolutionary principle that individual characters do not decide, do not determine, do not create anything, but are only vectors of historical and economic needs, no matter by what words, symbols or clowning these needs are achieved. The higher on the social scale, the more illustrious they are, and the more insignificant they are on the historical level, the less they affect the true events of history, unless by event one considers making senator a horse or a mafioso, a perversion, the name of a courtesan. So we are not impressed by these “battilocchi”, poor puppets with no real decision-making power, often conscious of this or, in the most pathetic cases, convinced that they are really creators of history.

In Gompers’ case it is not easy to talk about the American workers’ movement at the turn of the century without following him and his stances. As we will see Gompers personifies the corruption exercised by the ruling class over the working class, and his stances are emblematic of aristocratic syndicalism that in every important development has been the most valuable tool of social preservation, more than the militia, the army, the Pinkertons, and the judges, from then until today.

The first thing you can say about Gompers is that he has taken on all positions, but that he had not been faithful to any of them whenever it suited him. If a continuity can be recognized, it is that he has always made the most suitable choices to keep the president’s chair, which he never lost, from the foundation of the Federation in 1886 to his death in 1924, except for a short period when he was not re-elected after successfully fighting against the attempts of the socialists to influence the unions.

Another aspect of continuity in his presidency is the fact that he never bothered to stick to the constitution of the A.F.L., nor to the deliberations of the congresses, whenever it suited him, and the choices he considered the most suitable, were invariably the most conservative, nationalist and collaborative.

He was basically a bureaucrat, an opportunistic bureaucrat, who adapted his behavior to the specific situation. Thus, when he wrote to the International, he appeared to be a passionate radical, while when he spoke in front of an assembly of businessmen, he gave them the comforting feeling of being a solid conservative. In a moment of radicalization of the movement, fighting against the monopolies and the government, Gompers was able to represent their radical feelings; but when the movement was defeated, and the unions were forced to give in to the triumphant bosses, he did not hesitate to repudiate every single word spent only a short time before.

Gompers was smart enough to understand that during the early years of the A.F.L. he was dealing with workers who had lived through the hard battles of the 1880s, who were influenced by socialist propaganda and the principles of solidarity among the workers that the K.L. had actually defended. To attract these workers to the Federation it was necessary to convince them that the Federation did not reject the class struggle, nor the final goal of a new social system, and that therefore it maintained all the positive characteristics of the Order while rejecting those that were leading it to its inglorious end. Of course, all of it was expressed in a sufficiently vague and generic way, to the point of being practically incomprehensible.

Which Union?

Of the K.L.’s positions, one aspect that had initially been absorbed and shared by proletarians was the defense of industrial unionism, as opposed to trade unionism, generally linked to skilled workers. So in the early years Gompers became a convinced defender of the industrial union, and tried to shape the Federation in this sense.

But the individual unions, or rather their leaders, did not agree at all on this line, which was certainly progressive but which threatened the autonomy of many Unions and many positions. Gompers did not take long to understand that on that way he would have risked losing his job in a short time. He was equally fast in abandoning the project, to become a convinced supporter of the organization by trade, the Trade Unions. Not only that, in doing so, he also began to support another position, of no small importance in the strategy of class struggle: the autonomy of the trades. This ridiculed any pseudo-radical statement: in fact, any trade union could laugh at it, violating with impunity any principle that could be written or enunciated. When Gompers made his outbursts, in so far as they were generic, everyone agreed; but it had to be clear that what mattered was to defend the interests of the skilled workers, and that «the tragic mistake of K.L. should not be repeated by uniting in the same union skilled and non-skilled workers».

Therefore, from the very first steps of the American Federation of Labor there was a conflict between workers’ solidarity and the narrow-mindedness of the trades, between the principles on which it was founded, which stated that the federation pursued the organization of all workers, without distinction of ability, color, gender, religion and nationality, and the principles enunciated and practiced by the heads of trade unions, in substantial defense of the skilled workers, the vast majority of whom were white, male and born in America. A conflict that would have influenced the A.F.L.’s policy towards women, Blacks and immigrants.

In theory women had equal rights to men, but in practice it was quite different. In the first place, women’s tasks in factories were generally non-skilled, which excluded them from the majority of trade unions, which formed the nucleus of the A.F.L. Moreover, the female workforce was on average very young, and most of the girls soon married and left the factory to take care of their families; therefore, capable and experienced trade union leaders hardly emerged. On the other hand, given the times, male executives often had difficulty operating among women. It must be added the ungenerous attitude of the male workers themselves, who often did not hide the fact that it was not wrong that women earned half as much as men. In cases where women were organized, almost always in the factories there were two trade unions, one male and one female, which fought together and negotiated with the bosses, but then different wage conditions emerged, with great dissatisfaction on the part of the female workers who were invariably discriminated against.

However, there were also substantial struggles, such as that of the
clothing workers in Troy, New York, in 1891, which ended with complete
success. But on the whole the unions federated in the A.F.L. were
reluctant to accept the resolutions adopted at the conventions, which
called for the organization of female workers.

The situation did not present itself in a very different way for colored workers, even if the behavior of the A.F.L. in its first years was better in this sense.

In fact, the Federation never failed to support the need to organize Blacks as well; an appeal that was little heeded, especially in the South. The solution, considered temporary, was to organize them in separate unions, waiting for better times. In reality, as time went by, this temporary solution became the ideal one of unionizing the black labor force. On the other hand, Gompers, in defending these workers and their integration into the union, used not only the humanitarian and therefore moral argument, but also a very practical one: if black workers were left to themselves, how could white workers blame them if they were found against them in struggles, perhaps employed by the bosses as blackmail weapons or as scabs?

This attitude of the Federation led to an unprecedented success in New Orleans, in October-November 1892, when a general strike in the city was called: the membership was as many as 25,000 workers in struggle, black and white, belonging to 49 unions. The employers’ provocations, which tended to put whites against blacks, were unsuccessful, and the strikers remained firm and peaceful, sure of their numbers and the complete blockade of the city’s activities. The bosses had to capitulate, and negotiate at the same table with the black delegates.

In spite of the progressive trade union policy of its early years, the A.F.L. failed to lay the foundations for an effective integration of Blacks, and also of foreign workers who were arriving by the millions, because it could not overcome, except in isolated cases, the prejudice of possession of specialization for access to its unions; not only were Blacks not skilled, they did not even have access to specializations, and this pushed them back into the limbo of the unorganized. In the end, the Federation’s capitulation to racism was consecrated in the 1894 Convention

A separate case was the attitude towards Asian workers. As it had been for the K.L., Gompers never hid a real aversion to the Asians, mainly Chinese, who had arrived in large numbers to work on the railway lines, who worked in terrible conditions and dropped like flies. An aversion that took simply racist colors, and that not only implied the non-acceptance in the unions of these misfortuned people, but also demanded their expulsion; an attitude, however, that within many years would not have spared even the immigrants of Eastern Europe, regardless of whether or not it was officially proclaimed.

Homestead

The year 1892 was the richest in bloody conflicts in the entire history of the American labor movement. In addition to New Orleans, an important but peaceful strike despite the efforts of the bosses, there was a very hard-fought switch-men strike in Buffalo, in the mining areas of Tennessee and Idaho, and in the steel mills of Homestead on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The latter was particularly bloody and had an international prominence.

Homestead’s skilled workers belonged to the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, the strongest union in the country, which had also taken a strong position in the steel mill. In 1889 Carnegie, the “Robber Baron” who owned the plant, tried to reduce the union’s strength by proposing a twenty-five percent wage reduction and individual contracts. To cope with the strike that followed, the company hired policemen and tried to bring in scabs, but the maneuver failed, and the mass picketing repelled the sheriff’s troop. The company had to sign a three-year contract, which expired in 1892.

As the deadline approached, the company again made proposals for strong wage reductions; this time, however, the proposals had a provocative purpose, the intention to provoke the clash was practically declared, and with the clash the goal was to destroy the union and its power in the factory. For this purpose the company, led by Henry Clay Frick, had carefully prepared itself: it had greatly increased production in the previous months, had built a sort of wall around the factory, had hired as many as three hundred Pinkerton mercenaries. Pinkerton, with its 2,000 agents on permanent duty and 30,000 reserves, had a force greater than that of the federal army itself in peacetime.

Frick issued an ultimatum, according to which if the union did not accept its terms by June 24, the company would deal with employees as individuals. Four days later, 800 workers were fired; on July 2, the entire workforce had been expelled: technically, it was a lockout rather than a strike. It was a clear declaration of war. The 3,800 workers voted by a large majority for an all-out strike: it should be noted that there were only 800 skilled workers, the others were unskilled and not part of the union, but they were rightly afraid that once the skilled workers and their union would be defeated, it would be their turn, as they had much narrower margins between wages and poverty.

The workers consequently prepared themselves for the war declared by the management of the steelworks: after voting for the strike they were organized into three divisions, one per 8-hour shift; the divisions were organized militarily. The important positions were therefore constantly manned. An efficient communication service kept the contacts between the departments and the organizational center. The roads leading to Homestead were blocked, while strikers ensured order (bars were closed) and the functioning of services, by issuing specific orders.

On the night of July 5, Pinkerton’s troops (who were supposed to take possession of the factory, now called “Fort Frick” by the strikers) arrived near the city of Pittsburgh, and were put on barges that were supposed to take them up the river inside the factory. The activity did not escape the union’s lookouts, who immediately telegraphed the Homestead strike committee. At 4 a.m. a siren sounded the alarm and the Pinkertons found a crowd of 10,000 people waiting for them on the banks of the river, the strikers and their families. Many of them were armed, some with rifles or pistols, others with spiked clubs, stones, sticks. The Pinkertons were all well armed with Winchester rifles. When attempting to disembark they were invited to give up, then, inevitably, the shooting was unleashed: as always in these cases everyone blamed the other side for the first shot. Surely the Pinkertons fired on the crowd on the shore, hitting many workers in the pile; then the shooting started, which lasted a day. In the end the mercenaries found themselves in an exposed position with no chance of escape. They had to surrender and go ashore between two wings of an angry crowd, there had been a very high number of wounded on both sides, as well as nine dead among the strikers and seven among the Pinkertons. The Committee had to work hard to make them pass unharmed, or almost unharmed, through the crowd; but the beatings, which seems not to have been spared, did not kill any of them.

The clash was widely reported in the press, which as usual treated the strikers as murderers and communists, but in the eyes of the other workers of the country, especially those who had some experience of hard struggles, the actions of the Pinkertons did not require much explanation, and the strikers received strong support; in addition, two other Carnegie plants struck in solidarity, even if they already had a new contract. Everyone had understood that more than wages, union freedom was at stake.

The company had a well articulated plan to break the strike, of which the Pinkertons and the militia were only the first moves. The next move was the unleashing of the courts against the strikers: with the most fanciful accusations the strikers were imprisoned, and then released on bail of $10,000. When, of course, the money ran out, many of the accused, including a large part of the strike committee, either remained in jail until the trial, or absconded. Even though in the end not even one of the strikers could be convicted, this massive action led to a great weakening of the strike, which lasted 4 and a half months.In the following days the strikers were the masters of the camp; the town was peaceful, everything was working, and the sheriff had not been able to find a foothold to request the National Guard mobilize. Nor did it seem that this was the Governor’s intention. Instead, on July 12, unexpectedly (only for those who believe in the impartiality of the institutions), the militia arrived in town, who occupied the factory and prepared to allow the influx of scabs. However, it was not easy to find them: many were not willing to do so, and were brought to the factory under false pretenses, and moreover, although laborers could be replaced, it would have been much more difficult, and it was, to replace the specialized.

A further complication came from an attack on Frick by a young anarchist; Frick was only wounded, but this fact gave further breath to the anti-workers’ gazettes, as one can easily imagine, even though the committee distanced itself from the attack.

There is no evidence that the A.F.L. had actively participated in the struggle; relieved by the union’s renunciation to launch a boycott of Carnegie products, which would have involved the entire unionized class, the Federation decided, on November 12, to launch a “Homestead Day”, for fundraising, for December 13: too little, and too late, on November 20 the strike had ended.

On the 18th the non-skilled had asked permission to return to work, which was granted by the committee; by then the situation was no longer sustainable, especially for the non- skilled. The management took some, refused others, on its own terms. After two days, even the skilled capitulated: of 800 of them, only 200 had remained to vote, many were ashamed, many had left to look for work elsewhere. But no one had broken the solidarity of the struggle, no one had shown up at the gates during the strike. Nevertheless, the majority in favor of returning to the factory was only by a few votes. The management of the steelworks gave them the same arrogant treatment, even though they were happy to take back the skilled workers they so badly needed.

The union, the Amalgamated, continued to exist, but was excluded from the most important steelworks, and almost completely lost its meaning and membership. It was not possible to involve the whole sector, which would have brought the bosses to their knees; it had not been replied with a preparation comparable to that organized by Frick; it hadn’t been addressed the class in an organized way if not too late, and this because it was not clear what was at stake. This was not understood by the A.F.L. either, which had its faults even if at the time it was not the Leviathan organization that it later became. The only positive side was the solidarity and tenacity of the Homestead workers, skilled and not, union members or not, Americans and immigrants: nobody betrayed their comrades by going back to work. Frick himself had to admit it in a letter to Carnegie: «The firmness with which these strikers held is surprising». A potential that Amalgamated was unable to exploit to rebuild a more militant, more open industrial union (after 1892 they continued to exclude Blacks), better equipped structurally to challenge monopolistic capital.

The Struggles of the Miners

While the country focused on the very hard struggle in the steel industry, equally bloody battles took place in other States. Among them were those of the miners in Idaho and Tennessee.

In the mining district of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, the Consolidated Miners’ Union was formed in 1890, which brought together several small miners’ unions. Its tasks were the coordination of relief activities and support for strikers, as well as the direct management of strikes. In 1891, a strike that had been very successful extended the unionization to the whole region, with the consequence that all mines paid union wages.

A fact little appreciated, as you can imagine, to the owners, who responded by forming their own association, the Mine Owners’ Association, or M.O.A. Already in January 1892, M.O.A. announced a new salary grid, which basically provided for a 25% reduction in wages. Considering it a first step in an attempt to wipe out the union, the union rejected the proposal, and M.O.A. decided to expel the union members from work, which was tantamount as a lockout. The mines remained closed for months, then gradually activity resumed partially thanks to the arrival of scabs collected among the farmers of the State by armed guards unleashed on the countryside. The strikers had managed to keep most of the scabs away from the mines thanks to the support of the population and an efficient action of peaceful persuasion on the scabs themselves, which in large numbers passed between their ranks. In July, however, the situation had not improved, when they heard of the victorious battle of the Homestead workers against the Pinkerton mercenaries. The discovery that a union secretary was in fact a Pinkerton agent infiltrated by the M.O.A. eventually contributed to the inflammation.

On July 11 it was then decided to take action, and an armed clash broke out between workers on the one hand, and deputy sheriffs, Pinkertons and scabs on the other. The clash was resolved when a cart full of explosives was thrown against the mine, causing it to collapse and forcing its defenders to surrender. The battle continued for a few more days, resulting in the departure of the scabs.

Naturally the bosses reacted in the usual way, appealing to the authority, the governor, who responded promptly declaring the existence of an insurrection, and sending 1500 soldiers, partly National Guard and partly Federal Army. As many as 600 strikers were arrested and thrown into prison on punitive conditions. The scabs returned and the mines reopened. But the trials that were held in August, also thanks to adequate support from the A.F.L., led to the release of almost all those arrested. When they got out of jail, they discovered that the strike had actually been won, because in spite of everything the owners could not make the mines work, and they decided to capitulate.

This resounding victory had as a predictable consequence the foundation, in May 1893, of a federation of miners’ unions of the West, the Western Federation of Miners.

The other great miners’ struggle took place at the opposite end of the continent, in the northeast of Tennessee. The motive was different, and concerned the use of convicts’ labor.

It had become common practice for the State to rent prisoners to private businessmen who managed them and made them work according to the criteria they arbitrarily decided, without any control by authorities. The use of prisoners on plantations, in buildings, in mines, was such a lucrative activity that many innocent people, especially Blacks, were imprisoned to provide hands for businessmen. In the years until 1891, public opinion, led by trade unions, had managed to force many States to abolish the forced labor of convicts for private individuals. But in a fair number of southern States, including Tennessee, the system continued to flourish.

In April 1891 the miners of Briceville, in Anderson County, refused a contract that prohibited strikes for labor complaints, granted authority to the coal weight controller appointed by the company in place of the existing one, appointed by the miners as a result of specific struggles, and provided that the pay was attributed through “vouchers” valid only for purchases in the company’s store: the last two points among other things were contrary to State law. On July 5, the executives brought in a shipment of forty convicts, who dismantled the miners’ homes to erect a fence.

Ten days later in a mass gathering the miners decided to act before the arrival of the bulk of the convicts. Three hundred armed miners advanced towards the fence, demanding the release of the convicts. Officers and guards had to surrender, and the miners escorted prisoners and jailers to the train station, where they sent them back to their home town, Knoxville.

Then the miners wrote to the governor explaining the reasons for their action, aimed at protecting their families from hunger and misery. The governor responded by sending three militia companies and other convicts to Anderson County. This time as many as two thousand miners were concentrated in a small army that surrounded the mine where the convicts were, and for the second time they and their guards, without injury, were accompanied to the station.

Irreducible, the governor commanded for a third identical mission as many as 14 militia companies (600 men). The miners were offered a truce, with the prospect of a repeal of the forced labor law; but the power of the companies obtained that the result was the opposite, with more repressive powers to the governor. The miners decided to resort to mobilization again, and with night actions, their faces covered with handkerchiefs, they freed many convicts, then set fire to the installations they had built. Most of the mines decided to give in, the miners were rehired, they had the controller of the weights of their choice, and better rules in the contracts. It seemed as if everything was going well, but the owners were not willing to give in, and the scene of the little army armed to the teeth was repeated in the summer of 1892; but also the guerrilla action of the miners was repeated. Until in a mine the guards refused to surrender and shot at the miners, wounding several of them. This triggered the reaction of the miners, who once again organized a force that besieged the mine and started a real battle; a battle that was ended by another small army sent by the governor. Even if in the end, thanks to numerous arrests (a real manhunt that also resulted in workers killed by the governor’s thugs), the militia managed to tame the revolt (which, however, had a revival in 1893), the system of renting prisoners ended up in disrepute even before public opinion, and shortly after was abolished in Tennessee.