From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend Read online

  FROM THE FOLKS

  WHO BROUGHT YOU

  THE WEEKEND

  © 2001 by Priscilla Murolo, A. B. Chitty, and Joe Sacco.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, without written permission from the publisher.

  Published in the United States by The New Press, New York, 2001

  Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York

  Designed by Kathryn Parise

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Murolo, Priscilla.

  From the folks who brought you the weekend: a short, illustrated history

  of labor in the United States / Priscilla Murolo and A. B. Chitty;

  illustrated by Joe Sacco.

  p. cm.

  Includes index.

  ISBN 978-1-5955-8856-2

  1. Labor—United States—History. 2. Working class—United States—History. 3. Labor movement—United States—History.

  I. Chitty, A. B. II. Title.

  HD8066 .M86 2001

  331'.0973—dc21 2001030978

  The New Press was established in 1990 as a not-for-profit alternative to the large, commercial publishing houses currently dominating the book publishing industry. The New Press operates in the public interest rather than for private gain, and is committed to publishing, in innovative ways, works of educational, cultural, and community value that are often deemed insufficiently profitable.

  The New Press, 450 West 41st Street, 6th floor, New York, NY 10036

  www.thenewpress.com

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  For David, Marty,

  and Meridith

  CONTENTS

  FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

  CHAPTER 1—Labor in Colonial America: The Bound and the Free

  Legacies of Conquest

  Indentured Labor in British Colonies

  Slavery

  Free Labor

  Unruly Labor

  CHAPTER 2—The American Revolution

  From Resistance to Independence

  The People’s War and the Gentlemen’s Republic

  Republican Legacies

  CHAPTER 3—Slavery and Freedom in the New Republic

  “If You Can’t Fight, Kick”

  Wage Workers and Activism

  Solidarity and Fragmentation

  Westward Expansion and Irrepressible Conflict

  CHAPTER 4—Civil War and Reconstruction

  The Civil War

  Southern Reconstruction and Counterrevolution

  Labor Movements and Struggles

  Whose Government?

  CHAPTER 5—Labor Versus Monopoly in the Gilded Age

  Industrial Capitalism: Consolidation and Crisis

  The Working Classes

  The Knights of Labor

  The American Federation of Labor

  Populism and Racism

  CHAPTER 6—Labor and Empire

  Empire Abroad, Empire at Home

  The Labor Movement in the Progressive Era

  The Great War

  The War’s Aftermath

  CHAPTER 7—America, Inc.

  The Roaring Twenties

  The Labor Movement of the Twenties

  Early Years of the Great Depression

  Labor Rising

  CHAPTER 8—Labor on the March

  Grassroots Unionism

  The Rise of the CIO

  Whose America?

  CHAPTER 9—Hot War, Cold War

  America at War

  The Postwar World

  “Big Labor”

  CHAPTER 10—The Sixties

  In the Spirit of Montgomery

  “Power to the People”

  The Sixties in the Workplace

  A House Divided

  CHAPTER 11—Hard Times

  Lean and Mean

  Race to the Bottom

  Fighting Back

  CHAPTER 12—Brave New World

  Making Change

  Steps Forward, Steps Back

  Turn of the Century

  EPILOGUE

  SUGGESTED READING

  INDEX

  FOREWORD AND

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Why this book now? For two reasons, mainly. When we started this project in 1998, no comprehensive survey of U.S. labor history for the general reader had appeared for more than a decade. Recent scholarship had added new dimensions and many details to the story of working people in America. It was past time to compile these insights into a new general history.

  Also, the labor movement itself had changed—most dramatically in the 1995 election of the “New Voice” slate to the leadership of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations. This change reflected a belated recognition that the labor-government-management accord achieved after the Second World War had already been scuttled by both corporations and government, that without reorientation to new economic and political realities unions and the federation itself could become as irrelevant as any boss or banker might wish, and just wither away. Compared to the men they succeeded, the new generation of leaders had different ideas about the role of organized labor in society. These ideas are not new: They are revivals and developments of labor traditions that had long been subordinated to the demands of the scuttled accord of the Cold War era. It was a good time to look again at these traditions.

  As we began drafting the story, a third reason appeared and became clearer as we continued. Even a casual look at American history reveals how much of what we learn and teach in school is just not true. Sometimes these misreadings are errors of fact—the extent of the U.S. war in the Philippines at the turn of the last century is one example. More often they are errors of omission—the African American role in the Civil War, for example. Mostly they concern perspective: Looking at historical events from the bottom up alters our understanding of historical agency and causation. Adopting the perspective of people organizing to achieve common goals gives an account of historical events that is truer, and surely more useful.

  Compared to conventional labor history, we tried mainly to be more inclusive in terms of “workers” and “working peoples’ movements,” and to incorporate as much recent research, historiography, and events as we could. Almost none of the material comes from our own research. We found an abundance of materials—in fact, too much. To keep the narrative from expanding beyond our publisher’s mandate, or our control, we had to exclude more than we could include at every turn. There are some interesting books we did not write. We did not write a comprehensive account of trade unions, their internal affairs, or their complicated relationships with one another in and out of federations. We did not write a history of work, nor a history of labor and capital. We did not write a history of labor politics. These would be good and useful books. We also tried to keep from straying too far into major reinterpretations of American history, perhaps with mixed results. That would be a great book too, but beyond our ambition, and probably our competence.

  Besides, for us the significance of the past is found in the present, and the present moment is full of rapid changes, even surprises. We are hopeful for the future, but certain of very little. We do know that in the past people have always found a way to struggle to make life better for themselves and their posterity. We know their struggles have generally been effective in proportion to the range and depth of the solidarity of their movements. We know the incessant and implacable adversary is privilege, legitimated by law, custom, and popular ideology, which never yields without challenge, to which
democracy is anathema. We side with democracy. We write for the people who work too hard for too little, whose families and communities are hostage to the greed and arrogance of the same privilege that deforms our humanity and threatens our common welfare. We write for the people who can change history.

  Our debts to historians and activists are too numerous to list. Our publisher, André Schiffrin and The New Press, and our editors, first Matt Weiland, then Marc Favreau, encouraged our work. Copyediting by David Allen helped to reconcile inconsistencies and force clarification. A Flik grant from Sarah Lawrence College gave Priscilla some money for travel. Feedback from students in labor history courses at Sarah Lawrence, the Midwest Summer School for Women Workers, and summer workshops sponsored by Hospital and Health Care Workers District 1199 in Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky sharpened the analysis and the narrative. Friends and comrades like Kim Scipes, David Cline, and Gideon Rosenbluth helped us at particular points. Without the intellectual, emotional, and logistical support of Mary Reynolds, Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Women’s History at Sarah Lawrence College, this book most likely would never have appeared.

  We dedicate this book to three people. David Montgomery has been our personal intellectual guide to American labor history. His life and work combine the long view with mastery of historical detail and with activism to a degree all too rare in the profession of history. Martel Montgomery, David’s wife, has been our good friend, steadfast and practical in seeing the possibility of change for the better, constant in her conviction that the principles by which we work for social justice apply with equal force to our everyday lives. Finally, our student and friend Meridith Helton learned labor history and then lived it, long enough at least to realize a personal dream working for the union victory at the Fieldcrest Cannon mills in North Carolina. She died too suddenly and too soon, leaving us with an indelible and fiery memory of beauty, youth, and energy, love of music, adventure, and life, and passion for justice. She and her generation carry our hopes and quiet our fears. They have already started making our history.

  Yonkers, New York

  January 2001

  LIST OF

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  The Boston Massacre

  Pre-Industrial Era Workers

  Slave and Worker

  Mother Jones and the Miners

  Industrial Era Workers

  The Flint Sit-Down Strike

  Migrant Labor’s Heroine

  Post-Industrial Era Workers

  The Last Gasp?

  LIST OF

  ABBREVIATIONS

  1199 Hospital and Health Care Workers Union 1199

  AAFLI Asian American Free Labor Institute

  AAPL Alliance of Asian Pacific Labor

  ACORN Association of Communities for Reform Now

  ACTWU Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union

  ACW Amalgamated Clothing Workers

  AFL American Federation of Labor

  AFL-CIO American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations

  AFSCME American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees

  AFT American Federation of Teachers

  AIFLD American Institute for Free Labor Development

  AIM American Indian Movement

  APALA Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance

  APRO Asian Pacific Regional Organization of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions

  ARU American Railway Union

  AUD Association for Union Democracy

  AWO Agricultural Workers Organization

  AWOC Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee

  B&O Baltimore and Ohio Railroad

  BAGL Bay Area Gay Liberation

  BIA Bureau of Indian Affairs

  BRU/SdP Bus Riders Union/Sindicato de Passajeros

  CAP Congress of African Peoples

  CAT Contract Action Teams

  CBTU Coalition of Black Trade Unionists

  CFI Colorado Fuel & Iron

  CFUN Committee for a Unified Newark

  CGT Confederación General de Trabajadores

  CEO chief executive officer

  CIA Central Intelligence Agency

  CIO Committee for Industrial Organization; later, Congress of Industrial Organizations

  CIO-PAC CIO Political Action Committee

  CLUW Coalition of Labor Union Women

  CNLU Colored National Labor Union

  COF Congreso Obrero de Filipinas

  COINTELPRO Counter Intelligence Program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

  COLA cost of living adjustment

  COPE Committee on Political Education

  CORE Congress on Racial Equality

  COSH Committee on (or Coalition for) Occupational Safety and Health

  CP Communist Party

  CROC Confederación Revolucionario de Obreros y Campesinos

  CTM Confederación de Trabajadores Mexicanos

  CUA Chinese Unemployed Alliance

  CUTW Connecticut Union of Telephone Workers

  CWA Communications Workers of America

  EEOC Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

  ENA Experimental Negotiations Agreement

  ERP employee representation plan

  FAT Frente Autentico de Trabajo

  FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation

  FEPC Fair Employment Practice Committee

  FLOC Farm Worker Organizing Committee

  FLT Federación Libre de Trabajadores

  FLU federal labor union

  FOTLU Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions

  FSLA Fair Labor Standards Act

  FTA Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers

  FTUI Free Trade Union Institute

  FWIU Food Workers Industrial Union

  G&W Gulf & Western Corporation

  G.E. General Electric Corporation

  G.M. General Motors Corporation

  HERE Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees

  IBEW International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers

  ICC Interstate Commerce Commission

  ICFTU International Confederation of Free Trade Unions

  ILA International Longshoremen’s Association

  ILGWU International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union

  ILO International Labor Organization

  ILWU International Longshore and Warehouse Union

  INS Immigration and Naturalization Service

  IUE International Union of Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers

  IWW Industrial Workers of the World

  JMLA Japanese-Mexican Labor Association

  JwJ Jobs with Justice

  K of L Knights of Labor

  LAANE Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy

  LCFO Lowndes County Freedom Organization

  LCLAA Labor Council for Latin American Advancement

  LFLRA Lowell Female Labor Reform Association

  MFDP Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

  MFLU Mississippi Freedom Labor Union

  Mine Mill Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers’ Union

  MOU Movimiento Obreros Unidos

  NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

  NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement

  NAM National Association of Manufacturers

  NCA National Contractors Association

  NCF National Civic Federation

  NEA National Education Association

  NFU Newfoundland Fishermen’s Union

  NFWA National Farm Workers Association

  NIRA National Industrial Recovery Act

  NLC National Labor Committee

  NLRA National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act)

  NLRB National Labor Relations Board

  NLU National Labor Union

  NRA National Recovery Administration

  NTU National Trades Union

  NTU National Typographical Union

  NWLB National War Labor Bo
ard

  NWRO National Welfare Rights Organization

  OAAU Organization of African American Unity

  OCAW Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers

  OPA Office of Price Administration

  OPM Office of Production Management

  ORIT Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers

  OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration

  PACE Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy International Union

  PAFL Pan-American Federation of Labor