|
CHICAGO'S STRIKE ORDEAL
HOW A GREAT CITY FACED A STATE OF WARFARE IN ITS STREETS—THE
RISE OF THE GARMENT WORKERS THROUGH UNITED ENDEAVOR—HOW
THEIR STRIKE WAS MERGED INTO THE RIOTOUS PROTEST OF THE TEAMSTERS—THE
EMPLOYERS' TACTICS —A FIRST-HAND INVESTIGATION OF CHICAGO'S
STRUGGLE FOR ITS OWN FREEDOM
BY
STANLEY POWERS
Scanned from The World's Work, Vol. 10,
1905.
|
| In Chicago last May the slightest disturbance might
end in a serious riot. Often a union teamster stopped his wagon at
a cross street, a non-union caravan halted a moment, almost instantaneously
other wagons hemmed it in, cars were stalled, there was cursing and
cutting of traces and exchange of blows and shots. Perhaps a shower
of inkstands and rulers and bottles came from the windows of the tall
office buildings. The police rang in a riot call, and with their reinforcements
beat back the jeering crowd, dragged away the blockading trucks by
sheer force, and the train of strike-breaking wagons moved on with
a dozen broken heads among its drivers. |
| This was in the business heart of the city. Farther
out men used more primitive methods of combat. They knocked each other
down with clubs and blackjacks, and then kicked in heads and ribs,
and gouged out eyes, and slashed and stabbed with knives. |
| Such scenes hurt the reputation of a city, but Chicago
herself is guiltless here. No city in America to-day is more essentially
democratic in spirit and none has higher ideals of municipal life.
When such a city is suddenly divided against itself and made the battleground
of two armies fighting to the death the condition requires an explanation
and a remedy. |
| HOW THE STRIKE BEGAN |
Chicago was in that position last spring. The Employers'
Association and the Federation of Labor were the combatants, and
the helpless citizens stood between the battle lines. The question
at issue was one far deeper than any strike: Shall any body of citizens
be permitted to jeopardize the peace, comfort, prosperity and personal
safety of their fellows in the settlement of a private quarrel?
Or, as one man puts it, "Who is Chicago for, anyway—all
of us or just a few ? "
This condition arose from two distinct strikes which occurred in
the autumn of 1904. On November 19th some six thousand employees,
members of the United Garment Workers of America, struck in the
twenty-seven wholesale houses which were then members of the National
Wholesale Tailors' Association. Justice seems to incline to the
side of the employees. For three years now the larger employers
of Chicago, through the Employers' Association, have been fighting
for the principle of the open shop, and in a majority of industries
that principle prevails to-day. It did not prevail in the tailoring
industries when this strike occurred last fall. The National Tailors'
Association had agreed with its employees, as members of District
Council No. 6, U.G W. of A., by a contract dated June 26, 1903,
to employ in their shops only members of the union and to send out
work only to union contractors. This is the closed-shop principle
in its strictest form. |
| THE RISE OF THE GARMENT WORKERS |
| You may know more or less of the conditions of a place
like the East Side of New York City a generation ago, the swarming
tenements, the half-brutalized, diseased men and women tottering to
the Potter's Field, the puny children growing up into replicas of
their parents at best. Perhaps you felt the hopelessness of it all,
for there seemed no way to help them. They were too many and too hopeless
themselves. |
 |
Of all those hideous nests of misery— the worst
were the tenements occupied by the Jewish families, who made up the
bulk of the garment workers then, as they do to-day. And yet it was
not as hopeless as it seemed. The East Side is changed to-day, and
no small part of the improvement is due to the courage and patience
of Mr. Henry White and a dozen other devoted men who taught these
helpless people to help themselves by standing together and demanding
with the power of organization behind them better hours, better pay,
better conditions of labor. What they did in New York has since been
done in Chicago and a dozen other cities by the same means. That was
the origin of the union called the United Garment Workers of America,
and it is justified by its fruits even now, when its work is not half
done.The closed-shop principle is almost vital to the effectiveness
of this particular union. Down at Ellis Island, New York, any day
during the immigration season you can see the inpouring supply of
garment workers in those crowds of stupid, frightened folk, who teach
here with little money, and must have work at once. Have they an inalienable
right to do that work in any way they choose, to crowd into sweatshops
and restore the old conditions? The United Garment Workers think not,
and therefore the rule of the closed shop is part of their religion.
They say to these newcomers, "You can't work as you choose. You
are Americans now, you must stand with us and we'll all help ourselves
and our children to better conditions."
Whether the garment
workers are right or wrong in this makes no difference on the point
we are considering, that they hold this belief with all the tenacity
of their stubborn, untrained minds. Unless an employer really desires
a strike he must approach them very diplomatically when he proposes
a change from a closed shop to an open one.
The National Tailors' Association was not diplomatic at all. That
closed-shop contract, dated June 26, 1903, and expiring March 1,
1905, contained two other important clauses.
The first clause provided that if one party desired to change the
provisions of the existing contract he must present his proposal
to a joint meeting not later than November 1st. The second clause
provided for the arbitration of all disputes. |
| A Crowd of Strike Breakers in Hostile Territory |
 |
| Bundle Boys as Substitutes for Wagons |
| |
|
What Happens When Shooting Begins |
| THE EMPLOYERS BECOME AGGRESSIVE |
 |
This is what happened. It could not be proved, of course,
and perhaps it would not be fair to say that the manufacturers desired
a strike last fall, but it can easily be shown that they did everything
likely to bring one about. Early in October, when their contracts
with the unions still had five months to run, some of these wholesale
houses began discharging union employees and hiring non-union men
to take their places. Of course, the union immediately applied for
a conference on this, but it was refused them, as was also a conference
on the terms of a renewal contract, due before November 1st. The negotiations
dragged on for weeks, and all the time more manufacturers were "opening"
their shops by hiring nonunion help or by sending out garments to
contractors who ran open shops. At last, on November 17th, a committee
of the union, authorized only to deal with these grievances, succeeded
in obtaining an audience with a committee of the wholesale tailors.
In reply to the garment workers' statement, the tailors' committee
cited grievances of its own, and the union committee at once offered
to submit the whole case to arbitration. The manufacturers, instead
of replying to this offer, asked that the committee proceed to arrange
new agreements with their association, more elastic than the old.
The union men very properly replied that they had authority to confer
only on the present grievances, but offered to arrange with their
union for a conference on the preparation of new agreements. The reply
of the manufacturers was not an acceptance of this offer, but the
statement that a new agreement must be made at once or they would
be compelled to "open" their shops. A heated discussion
followed and the conference was broken off with affairs in this unsettled
state. |
| A Promise of Trouble- A Blockade Formed By Union
Teamsters |
| The union took no further action that day. On the morning
of the 18th, the employers informed their help that their various
places of business were now being run under the open-shop policy.
The next day, November 19th, the six thousand garment workers in these
twenty-seven houses struck. We must remember that the employers were
bound to the closed-shop policy till March 1, 1905, and that the unions
had been unable to obtain a conference to adjust the difficulties
in the peaceful way provided for by their contracts. Above all, we
must remember what a fetich those words, "closed shop,"
are to a garment worker. It is very hard to believe that all peaceable
means of settling the difficulty were exhausted before radical action
was taken. |
|
The second strike was of an entirely different sort,
and it is difficult to find any justification for the men. The firm
of Montgomery Ward & Co. was not a member of the Wholesale Tailors'
Association. It had a special contract with the unions, agreeing
to employ only union cutters, fixing hours of labor and compensation
therefor, providing for arbitration of all differences, and stating
most specifically that no further demands should be made by the
union during the life of the contract. On December 15th the nineteen
cutters of the house walked out because it dealt with unfair houses.
This was their only grievance, and the manager, after trying for
four days to meet the officers of the union and confer on the difficulty,
secured new cutters.
THE TEAMSTERS GO OUT
The Brotherhood of Teamsters is the most powerful fighting body
among the unions of Chicago, for a strike of teamsters paralyzes
the business of the city. It has grown to be a habit on the part
of other unions, when in difficulties, to call on the teamsters
for a sympathetic strike, and the six thousand beaten garment workers
did it in this case. Rumor is rife in Chicago that the leaders of
the teamsters long ago realized the moneymaking possibilities inherent
in their strategic position and have demanded and received round
sums for their services before ordering their men to strike. No
one, however, has come forward who was able, or willing, to prove
these charges in any specific case. The garment workers solicited
in vain for a long time, but at last, about the first of April,
the teamsters voted to take up the cause of the strikers. |
| Sometimes It Took Many Police To Protect A Few
Wagons |
 |
On April 6th a joint committee of fifteen men, five
from the Garment Workers, five from the Teamsters and five from the
Federation of Labor waited, not on the Wholesale Tailors' Association,
against whom the strike had been directed, but upon Mr. Thorne, of
Montgomery Ward & Co. After three months and a half of silence
on the part of his nineteen cutters, Mr. Thorne claims he concluded
that the strike was ended. There has been much conjecture on all sides
as to the cause of this choice of the point of attack by the unions,
and opinion is about evenly divided in regarding it as complete stupidity
or attempted strategy. At any rate, the committee asked Mr. Thorne
to arbitrate his difference with his cutters. Mr. Thorne replied that
there was nothing to arbitrate in a dead issue, that a strike must
be assumed to cease sometime, and that he assumed his had ceased when
his tailoring department had been running peaceably for three months
without a word of protest on the part of the former employees or the
official representatives of their union. Furthermore, he held, it
would be manifestly unjust to discharge nineteen faithful and efficient
men, and give their places to others, solely because those others
had worked for him some months before, and after leaving and thinking
it over had decided that they wanted their places back. He had no
prejudice for or against union men, but he could not arbitrate an
issue which the union had refused to arbitrate at the time it arose,
though it broke its contract in the refusal. Mr. Thorne's attitude
was so uncompromising that it left the teamsters no choice but to
"put up or bust," and that night of April 6th, President
Shea, of the Brotherhood, ordered out the forty drivers employed by
Montgomery Ward & Co. and declared the house "unfair,"
which means in every-day words, boycotted. No union teamster could
receive or deliver goods at that store. It is pitiable to see how
completely the ordinary union man is in the hands of a few leaders
whose leading is too often blind. Already these leaders had chosen
a point of attack which was untenable, and which was soon to lead
them against the antagonist the teamsters of Chicago dread most of
all, the Employers' Association, which has defeated them time and
time again. |
| Mr. Frank Curry; Who handled the employer's forces
in the field. |
 |
That Association was formed with the express purpose
of combating the unions of Chicago on two points, the closed shop
and the sympathetic strike. It comprises the greatest mercantile interests
of the city, it has unlimited capital, and it has never failed to
win a contest. It meets the unions by their own methods, a combination
of forces and interests, and a sharing of hardships. All the great
department stores, the so-called "State Street stores,"
are members, and they all have contracts with their teamsters permitting
them to employ either union or non-union drivers. The three great
stores of Marshall Field, Farwell, and Carson, Pirie, Scott &
Co., hired non-union men for a few days to make their contracted deliveries
to Montgomery Ward's, but soon they directed their union drivers also
to deliver to the boycotted store, and discharged them when they refused.
The teamsters accused the stores of bad faith in this, and they had
some show of reason. Of course it made no difference in the end whether
the stores (as they could under their contracts) discharged some union
men at once and filled their places with nonunionists or waited until
the union men refused to do their work and then discharged them. But
in the latter case they brought the boycott issue squarely to the
front. The employers had the unions in a very tight place and were
forcing the fight to a finish. |
| Under Protection of the Federal Courts |
 |
The teamsters made one even less well considered
move in trying to prevent the seven national express companies operating
in Chicago from making deliveries to Montgomery Ward & Co. Whenever
a company contracts in New York, say, to deliver a package to a firm
in Chicago, it must do it or be subject to a suit for damages. The
issue was soon joined, for the union had either to acknowledge defeat
at once or declare a strike against the nine department stores, the
seven express companies, and the three or four big coal companies
who were making deliveries to Montgomery Ward & Co. The strike
was declared. The employers met it squarely by forming under the laws
of West Virginia a corporation called the Employers' Teaming Company.
With the capital of the employers behind it, the new corporation was
soon well enough equipped to make a fair number of deliveries, and
the issue was once more squarely put to the strikers, "Will you
give up now, or will you go on?" With the stubbornness of men
who know they are fighting in the last ditch, they chose to go on. |
| Swearing In Special Deputy Sheriffs |
The only weapon the strikers had was violence, for
under present conditions a peaceful and successful strike is an
impossibility. As some one said recently, "What are they going
to do? Say to the employer, 'I don't like the way you're treating
me, so I'm going home and sit on the front steps. When you want
me to come back just drop me a postal' ?" While there are in
all our cities so many non-heroic, non-professional strike-breakers
lounging on every street corner ready to die for unlimited beer,
the striker, whether his cause is just or unjust, must be prepared
to say to them, "See here! If you try to take our jobs while
we're looking for a square deal we'll just break your heads."
Intimidation is the only argument that appeals to a certain class
of minds.
Yet nothing hurts the cause of the striker with the public more
than violence, and public sympathy says the last word in a strike.
The Employers' Association understood that thoroughly, and it gave
the strikers every opportunity to injure themselves. From the start
it marched its wagons in long trains. Of course the claim was that
protection could be given more easily to a train of wagons than
to the same number singly. But this formation was the very one most
calculated to cause violence, since it was the most conspicuous
and also the most likely to cause blockades, with their attendant
dangers.
The strikers claimed that this was done expressly to incite such
violence as would necessitate the calling in of troops, and they
pointed out one very concrete instance. On the morning of May 5th,
Sheriff Barrett telephoned the strikers' headquarters, asking that
any men who desired to be sworn in as deputy sheriffs should come
to his office between three and four that afternoon. As the strikers
had long been requesting this, a number of them responded. When
they approached City Hall at the hour named they met a train of
some ten wagons of the Employers' Teaming Association loaded to
their limit with colored strike-breakers. When the strikers entered
Sheriff Barrett's office he refused to swear them in. They returned
to their quarters without violence, but full of very evil suspicions.
By such methods as these the employers drove the strikers relentlessly
from ditch to ditch. At any time the union would have snatched at
a merely nominal compromise for the sake of peace, but the Association
would offer no terms save unconditional surrender, and the strikers
had grown too desperate for that.
Finally the Association induced the Team Owners' Association, composed
of the transfer, trucking and local express company owners, to direct
their union drivers to deliver to all stores or be discharged. The
team owners had up to that time held the balance of power by remaining
neutral. Again the issue was put squarely to the teamsters: they
must give up entirely or go on to the end. To go on meant to call
out all the 35,000 teamsters, paralyze the business of the city,
and run the risk of violence little short of civil war. And the
Employers' Association announced its fixed purpose of fighting it
out on this line if it took all summer. No wonder the ordinary citizen
grew weary.
For weeks his city had no government. From one end of the City
Hall the Mayor proclaimed that no violence would be tolerated, and
urged well-disposed citizens to keep off the streets as much as
possible. Why should they keep off their own streets? From the other
end of the Hall the Sheriff of Cook County was sending out numberless
deputies, with orders to shoot to kill if attacked. Down in the
Monadnock and Marquette Buildings the officials of the Employers'
Association were handling the situation by means of armed strike-breakers
and private police and deputies. From the strikers' headquarters,
President Shea assured the Secretary of War that Federal property
in transit would not be held up in the streets of Chicago, and issued
permits (" passes ") to certain favored individuals to
have goods delivered to them. Homicides and vicious assaults were
of daily occurrence; a man going about his day's work on the streets
might be struck at any moment by a missile thrown from a tenth-story
window or shot by some wildly firing deputy or strike-breaker; their
very children in the schools were striking and rioting—the
whole situation was chaos. |
| THE MEANING |
| Beside these considerations, the whole
question of the open shop or the sympathetic strike faded into insignificance.
Here was a whole city disrupted simply because two parties of its
citizens were fighting out in the public streets a quarrel started
in private. The only wholesome thing about the whole situation was
that the ordinary citizen awoke to the fact that such conditions are
intoler able, and his impatience, inarticulate as it was, made itself
felt in the actions of all the parties. In spite of the ultimatum
of the team owners the teamsters did not strike, but called a council
of the American Federation of Labor. The Mayor announced with some
determination that if violence increased he would call for troops.
It was the first firm stand that the executive of the city had taken
in six weeks of anarchy. And the Employers' Association quietly removed
all the lawless city toughs and loafers from its force of strike-breaking
teamsters and replaced them with young men from the country, who at
least were not vicious. The public sentiment of the citizens at large
might have accomplished the same result much earlier, but Americans
have fallen too much into the habit of stepping aside and meekly leaving
their cities and towns for the convenience of any persons who have
a labor controversy to settle. It is sincerely to be hoped that not
only the citizens of Chicago but the rest of us will draw our lesson
of disgust from this newest strike, and refuse hereafter to abrogate
our rights with quite such prompt facility. "Who is the country
for, anyway?" |
|
|
