Unionism in the 1920s

Unionism declined during the 1920s as unions faced significant challenges from businesses and the United States government. The overall prosperity of the period, along with widespread suspicion of leftist political groups and labor organizers, led to a significant decrease in union membership and influence. Nevertheless, unions such as the United Mine Workers of America continued to organize workers and engage in strikes throughout the decade.

Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, influential unions developed in the mining, railroad, and textile industries, among others. These organizations promoted labor reforms such as shorter workdays, higher wages, and safer working conditions and led workers in strikes when bargaining attempts failed. However, while unions made some significant achievements in earlier decades, unionism as a whole faced numerous challenges and setbacks in the 1920s. Direct opposition by businesses as well as the federal government hindered further progress, while changing public attitudes toward unions contributed to a decrease in membership over the course of the decade. Despite these factors, a number of unions continued to play a major role in the labor movement during the period.

Major Unions

Founded in the nineteenth century, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was an organization that worked to unite a number of craft unions. These member unions organized workers who performed a specific craft, rather than all those working in a particular industry. The AFL remained under the leadership of longtime president Samuel Gompers until his death in 1924, when he was succeeded by William Green. In comparison to some unions of the period, the AFL was relatively conservative. The organization’s efforts typically focused on areas such as wages, rather than on broad social reforms. In addition, the AFL opposed the various socialist and communist parties, although the organization did support the unsuccessful Progressive Party candidate, Robert M. La Follette, in the 1924 presidential election.

Like the AFL, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) was founded late in the nineteenth century and continued to operate throughout the 1920s. John L. Lewis was elected president of the union in 1920 and remained in the position throughout the decade. Wages and the length of the workday were major concerns of the union, and many of its efforts focused on the areas of health and safety, calling for the installation of proper safety measures within the mines, including ventilation systems to prevent respiratory diseases, and the banning of child labor. The UMWA was involved in several major strikes during the 1920s, including a nationwide 1922 strike that resulted in numerous violent conflicts.

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), much like unionism as a whole, declined in influence during the 1920s, largely due to the loss of leaders and union members to government efforts to suppress union and antiwar activity. Despite these difficulties and various internal conflicts, the union continued to organize workers and lead membership drives and strikes throughout the decade.

A number of unions active during the 1920s were affiliated with the communist organizations of the period, which took on various names throughout the decade. In 1929, the Communist Party USA founded the Trade Union Unity League, which comprised a number of trade unions, including the National Textile Workers Union. This union was responsible for organizing the Loray Mill strike, which began in April of 1929 at a textile mill in Gastonia, North Carolina. This controversial strike resulted in numerous arrests as well as several deaths, and while it failed to make an immediate impact on wages or working conditions, it succeeded in attracting public attention to the cause of the textile workers.

Despite their commitment to improving the lives of workers in various industries, many major labor unions neglected the concerns of and were often hostile toward women, African Americans, and immigrants, who collectively made up a substantial portion of the nation’s industrial workforce by the 1920s. Nevertheless, female workers continued to play a significant role in labor organizing, particularly in textile industry unions such as the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, which had been founded in 1900. Organized in 1925, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was an all-black union representing African American porters working for the Pullman Company. Particularly in the Southwest, Latino workers organized mutualistas, or mutual aid societies, some of which evolved into unions such as the Imperial Valley Workers Union, founded in 1928. In addition, some major unions accepted members regardless of race or national origin; UMWA, in particular, banned racial or ethnic discrimination in its constitution.

Challenges from Government and Business

Unions faced numerous challenges during the 1920s, some due to the events of the previous decade. The end of World War I began a period of prosperity for many in the United States, and workers who were satisfied with their wages and buying power often did not feel the need to join unions. In addition, following the 1917 revolution in Russia and the successful establishment of a communist regime there, the U.S. government and many American citizens became increasingly suspicious of leftist political groups and philosophies. Many unions included members with ties to socialist, communist, or anarchist groups, and the prevalence of foreign-born union members exacerbated fears of foreign interference in U.S. politics and industry. During a period at the beginning of the decade known as the Red Scare, numerous foreign-born union members and political activists were deported, and many of their native-born counterparts were jailed following government efforts such as the Palmer raids of 1919 and 1920.

Businesses were particularly hostile to unions in the 1920s, typically considering union goals such as increased wages and improved working conditions detrimental to their financial success. During World War I, the coal and textile industries, among others, had increased production dramatically in support of the war effort. After the war, the demand for these products decreased. In an attempt to increase revenue, some businesses, particularly textile mills, instituted a strategy known as the “stretch-out.” This strategy, which increased the workers’ responsibilities but often lowered their wages, became the cause of many strikes and other conflicts throughout the decade. Facing attempts by unions to organize dissatisfied workers, businesses worked to suppress union activity through coercion and violence, at times employing private police forces tasked with subduing strikers. Companies also made a number of successful appeals to business-friendly government bodies.

In addition to carrying out antileftist raids and prosecuting activists who had spoken out against the United States’ entry into World War I, the federal and state governments directly opposed unions on a number of occasions. The Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover administrations were all relatively business-friendly, and the Supreme Court of the 1920s, led by Chief Justice William H. Taft, regularly took action against unions. The Court often issued opinions that characterized union activities as illegal efforts to restrict trade and regularly invoked the Sherman Antitrust Act against unions. In American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Trades Council (1921), the Court limited picketing to only one picketer per mill gate, effectively eliminating picketing as a viable protest strategy. The Court also continued to uphold the legality of “yellow-dog contracts,” documents prohibiting workers from joining unions under penalty of dismissal. In Lewis v. Red Jacket(1927), the Supreme Court refused to grant a writ of certiorari, or a writ of judicial review, thus upholding the previous court’s decision to charge UMWA leadership with violating the Sherman Antitrust Act through the union’s attempts to organize the employees of Red Jacket Consolidated Coal and Coke.

Unions even faced military action, as in the 1921 West Virginia conflict known as the Battle of Blair Mountain. During this event, miners associated with the UMWA marched in solidarity with nonunionized miners, engaging in a violent conflict with local and federal troops that lasted for several days and resulted in deaths on both sides. In other states, government officials regularly used the National Guard and police to protect strikebreakers, arrest union leaders, and attack strikers.

Internal Conflict

While many of the challenges faced by unions during the 1920s came from businesses or the government, many unions also experienced internal conflicts during the decade. Ideological schisms within unions, including the split into multiple socialist and communist factions that greatly divided the Left during the decade, caused conflicts regarding the missions and goals of the organizations. Additional challenges stemmed from the rejection of female, African American, and immigrant workers by some unions, which thereby reduced the unions’ potential membership and influence. Such neglected groups of workers were often used as strikebreakers during the decade, further undermining union activities.

Another significant challenge facing the unions of the period was that of leadership. The authoritarian management styles of some earlier union heads, such as Samuel Gompers of the AFL, left their organizations with members ill prepared to assume leadership during the 1920s. In addition, a number of prominent union leaders of earlier decades had been jailed for their activist work, particularly those who had actively opposed the United States’ participation in World War I. These included such prominent activists as Eugene V. Debs, former organizer of the American Railway Union and the IWW and five-time Socialist Party presidential candidate, who was imprisoned for violating the Espionage Act of 1917. Other union leaders, such as IWW cofounder Big Bill Haywood, fled to the newly established Soviet Union to avoid imprisonment. Such arrests and emigrations contributed greatly to the problems faced by unions during the decade.

Impact

Unionism experienced a resurgence of popular support during the 1930s, as the harsh effects of the Great Depression on workers in the United States prompted many to seek labor reforms. In later decades, many unions joined under the banner of federations such as the AFL and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which merged in 1955 to form the AFL-CIO. While the membership of individual unions declined throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, such federations allowed unionized workers to exert political and economic pressure into the twenty-first century.

Bibliography

Bernstein, Irving. The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920–1933. Reprint. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2010. A discussion of the American worker and the impact of unions in the 1920s.

Cohen, Lizabeth. Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939. 2d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. A case study of workers and unions in Chicago.

Dubofsky, Melvyn, and Warren R. Van Tine. John L. Lewis: A Biography. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986. A biography of the influential leader of the UMWA.

Phelan, Craig. William Green: Biography of a Labor Leader. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989. A biography of the leader of the AFL.

Salmond, John A. Gastonia, 1929: The Story of the Loray Mill Strike. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. An account of the strike at the Loray textile mill in North Carolina and the role of the National Textile Workers’ Union.

Shogan, Robert. The Battle of Blair Mountain: The Story of America’s Largest Labor Uprising. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2004. An exploration of the massive 1921 strike in the West Virginia coal fields that places the strike within the context of union politics and attitudes toward unions.

Zieger, Robert H., and Gilbert J. Gall. American Workers, American Unions: The Twentieth Century. 3d ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. A history of American organized labor containing a chapter on unions in the 1920s.