Labor strikes in the 1920s

Labor strikes in the United States during the 1920s were infrequent as compared to the previous two decades. The largest strikes of the decade involved seamen, coal miners, and railroad shop craftsmen. These strikes helped define the future of the U.S. labor movement, especially with regard to the disappearance of craft unions and the future of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA).

The 1920s in the United States are generally considered to be years of economic growth and satisfaction, at least until the stock market crashed in October 1929. More Americans were steadily employed, although wages remained low for many workers. The labor upheavals of the previous decades had convinced corporate America of the need to be tough in labor relations. In addition, the post–World War I mood in the country, combined with government and business attempts to minimize the power of labor unions, caused union membership to shrink considerably. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) had been effectively destroyed due to relentless attacks on the group’s members and leadership by national and local law enforcement, as well as certain elements in the American Federation of Labor (AFL). This left only the AFL as a national union organization. Its dependence on craft unionism rather than the industrial model of other unions exposed the weakness of that model as corporations increased their attacks on organized workers over the course of the decade. The few major strikes that did occur were most often resolved with workers accepting wage cuts and other loss of compensation.

Seamen’s, Printers’, and Clothing Workers’ Strikes

In 1921, industrial production shrank by 15 percent, and the number of factory workers fell by almost 25 percent. The American Shipowners’ Association was not the only entity that wanted to cut workers’ wages. However, the group’s demand that members of two different seamen’s unions accept a 25 percent wage cut was met with a strike by the workers that year. On May 1, 1921, members of these two unions walked off their jobs at midnight. The result was the largest work stoppage in American shipping history. More than three hundred vessels were left unattended in New York Harbor alone. The shipping companies responded and, with the assistance of the governmental regulatory agency known as the United States Shipping Board, arrested hundreds of strikers. They then hired strikebreakers and, after fifty-two days, broke the strike. The internal struggles in the aftermath of the strikers’ defeat led to a schism within the affected unions, weakening them ever after.

Almost simultaneously, a series of strikes broke out in the printing industry. Hundreds of printing companies had earlier agreed to a forty-four-hour workweek. The strikes began on May 1, 1921, when some companies backed out of the deal. The strikes lasted four years. They cost the International Typographical Union (ITU) approximately $16 million and the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants’ Union $1 million in strike benefits, respectively. However, the unions won most of their demands and survived.

Over 100,000 textile workers went on strike in New England in 1928 and ended up reducing the proposed wage cut of 42.8 percent to 22.5 percent. In New York, a similar strike by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America saw the union accept a compromise that allowed workers to continue being represented by the union while accepting a 15 percent wage cut. In Gastonia, North Carolina, workers at the Loray Mill went on strike after the company began firing workers on April 1, 1929, for attending a meeting called by organizers from the National Textile Workers Union (NTWU) the day before. The company action led to a vote in favor of a strike. The strike was notable for its interracial character, something almost unheard of in the South at the time. The mayor of Gastonia called in the National Guard on April 3, 1929. On April 19, a gang of around one hundred masked vigilantes destroyed NTWU headquarters. A tent city was constructed outside Gastonia city limits, and armed strikers guarded the encampment. The company resumed production with the support of strikebreakers. On June 7, 1921, a group of strikers went to the mill to urge those inside to join the strike. The strikers were attacked by sheriff’s deputies and dispersed. Later that night, the sheriff and four deputies went to the tent city and demanded that the armed guards turn over their weapons. A battle ensued, leaving the sheriff dead and wounding two deputies and several strikers. Eight union organizers and sixty-three strikers were arrested, and some were indicted for murder. Vigilantes roamed the countryside, terrorizing strikers and running them out of the county. One striker, folksinger Ella Mae Wiggins, was killed on September 14, 1929, in an attack on a group of strikers. Seven men were indicted for the murder but were found not guilty in the subsequent trial.

Railroad Strike of 1922

After the enactment of the Transportation Act of 1920, federal operation of the railroads, which had been implemented during World War I, was ended, and the Railroad Labor Board took its place. In essence, this made the federal government the only arbiter of labor and wage issues involving all railroads in the United States. The board’s first action in July 1920 was to grant an increase of thirteen cents per hour to all railroad shop employees. Its next action less than a year later, however, essentially decreased wages. Extra pay for working weekends and holidays was also abolished, and some railroad lines began to contract out work to nonunionized companies, paying by the piece instead of an hourly wage. In May 1922, the board heeded the request of the railroad companies and instituted another wage cut. In response, the affected unions sent out over one million strike ballots. The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of a strike.

Railroad workers were organized along a craft union model instead of an industrial model, so only those workers that were affected by the wage cuts and other demanded concessions went on strike. To add to the woes of the affected workers, the leadership of the maintenance-of-way workers unions ignored the majority’s vote to strike and merely asked the Railroad Labor Board for a rehearing. Meanwhile, the other 400,000 affected workers—all members of the various unions representing shop craftsmen—walked off the job in July 1922. Despite threats from the Railroad Labor Board to take away their seniority rights, the workers stayed out for three months. In what can only be called a complete surrender to the railroad magnates, federal judge James H. Wilkerson issued an injunction against the striking union members, their leaders, and their attorneys that forbade them from communicating in any way with fellow workers. Union meetings were barred, and unions were forbidden to use their strike funds to support the strike in any way. As a result, the affected unions were destroyed, close to half of the striking workers were deprived of independent union representation, and workers were forced to join company unions if they wanted to keep their jobs.

Coal War

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) was the strongest union in the United States in 1920. It had survived the attacks of the previous decade on the labor movement and increased its numerical and political strength exponentially. The federal government had taken over the administration of the industry during World War I and increased miners’ wages across the board. In exchange, the unions had agreed not to strike until April 1, 1920. By this time, the wage increases provided during the war were insufficient to meet the rising living costs of the miners. Despite the agreement, 75,000 miners in Illinois disobeyed the instructions of the union leadership and went on strike anyway. The union responded by pulling the charters of twenty-five Illinois locals. In Kansas, a similar scenario prompted UMWA president John L. Lewis to discipline thirty-three locals there.

On May 1, 1920, a strike broke out in Mingo County, West Virginia. Of the over 92,000 soft-coal miners in West Virginia at the time, less than half were unionized. After the miners struck in Mingo, coal company operators called in private detectives from the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to evict striking miners from their company-owned homes. Police chief Sid Hatfield of Matewan, West Virginia, sympathized with the miners and tried to stop the Baldwin-Felts men from entering his town. A gun battle ensued. Both Albert and Lee Felts (the Felts of Baldwin-Felts) and four of their men were killed, along with the town mayor, a miner, and a young boy. The governor of West Virginia sent in state troops. Armed skirmishes continued throughout the summer. By this time, over 90 percent of the miners in the area had joined the union. After six people died in a gun battle on August 21, 1920, five hundred federal troops were sent into Mingo County. Legendary labor organizer Mary Harris “Mother” Jones joined the strikers. Meanwhile, the strike continued to spread throughout West Virginia and into Kentucky. Martial law was declared in Mingo County in the spring of 1921. On August 1, 1921, after being acquitted on charges relating to the deaths of Baldwin-Felts agents, Hatfield and Ed Chambers, another participant in the earlier shootout, were gunned down on the courthouse steps by Baldwin-Felts agents. On August 7, 1921, a rally was held in Charleston, West Virginia, protesting the killings. William Blizzard and Frank Keeney, UMWA militants, called on miners to fight. On August 24, 1921, thousands of miners began a march on the county seats of Logan and Mingo counties in West Virginia. After a relatively peaceful beginning, armed battles broke out among miners, national guardsmen, private detectives, and coal company vigilantes. After the union was told that the men could be charged with treason, Keeney urged the miners to return home. However, many stayed on after trains failed to pick them up as promised, and West Virginia state police killed two miners in a raid. On September 1, 1921, President Warren Harding sent in 2,100 federal troops. Although many miners went home, many others remained and fought what became known to local residents as the Battle of Blair Mountain. Over 1,000 indictments were drawn up against the miners, including 325 for murder and 24 for treason. The only man who was convicted of treason skipped bail. William Blizzard, whom authorities considered the general of the miners’ army, was eventually cleared of all charges, as were most of the rest of those indicted.

Impact

The ongoing attacks on the labor movement from industry and government during the early part of the twentieth century finally took their toll on union growth by the early 1920s. In addition, the increasing distance between the militancy of labor’s rank-and-file and the conservatism of union leadership led to irreconcilable schisms within various unions, contributing to the overall decline in the numerical and bargaining strength of unions. Furthermore, the failure of the craft union model would lead labor activists to consider other strategies. The strikes of the 1920s and the lessons learned from them influenced the tactics and strategies of labor organizers in the following tumultuous decades, especially the 1930s.

Bibliography

Blizzard, William C. When Miners March. Oakland, Calif.: PM Press, 2010. A collection of West Virginia labor newspaper articles on the 1920–1921 miners’ strike in Mingo and Logan counties.

Dubofsky, Melvyn. The State and Labor in Modern America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994. Examines the history of labor, business, and the federal government from the 1870s through 1973 in the United States by decade.

Goldberg, David J. Discontented America: The United States in the 1920s. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Challenges the myth of the so-called Roaring Twenties and the idea that all of the United States was a happy and harmonious place, also discussing the weakening of labor unions during the 1920s.

Huber, Patrick. “Mill Mother’s Lament: Ella May Wiggins and the Gastonia Textile Strike of 1929.”Southern Cultures 15, no. 3 (Fall, 2009): 81–110. A biographical sketch of folksinger and labor activist Ella May Higgins, who was killed by vigilantes during the 1929 Gastonia textile workers’ strike.

Lens, Sidney. The Labor Wars: From the Molly Maguires to the Sitdowns. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973. A survey of U.S. labor history written by an eminent labor historian.