The Kern-McGillicuddy Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1916 enabled workers to collect compensation for injuries sustained in the workplace. Prior to the passage of the act, workers alone were deemed responsible for their actions and ensuring their own safety. Following the “fellow-servant rule,” employers were not held responsible for injuries sustained as a result of negligence on the part of other employees. Prior to 1900, state and federal courts interpreted this rule to mean that employers were almost never responsible for work-related injuries. As greater numbers of employees worked in dangerous industrial workplaces, which were often made even more hazardous by the employer’s failure to provide safeguards, the need for effective workmen’s compensation increased.
One ofthe immediate stimuli behind the push for workmen’s compensation was the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York City, which killed 146 female employees. The workers were unable to escape the blaze because exits were either blocked or locked from the outside. The disaster and subsequent acquittal of the company’s owners shocked many and convinced reformers and labor leaders of the need for legislative action. In the absence of federal legislation, individual states had begun to enact workmen’s compensation legislation. In 1902, Maryland became the first state to pass legislation. By 1910 many others had followed its lead. The organized labor movement was among the first to support state and federal legislation. The American Federation oe Labor began calling for effective workmen’s compensation in 1894. Other labor organizations, including the American Association for Labor Legislation (AALL), also supported compensation for injured workers.
By 1916, 35 states had passed workmen’s compensation legislation, but the effectiveness of these laws varied greatly. Some state laws, such as the one passed in New Jersey in 1911, were comprehensive and highly effective. Other states, however, had much weaker laws. The problem was complicated by the fact that state laws were consistently challenged and undermined by state judiciaries. Arguing the fellow-servant clause, employers convinced state and federal courts that workmen’s compensation legislation violated equal protection under the law and freedom of contract. In 1909, in an important case, Ives v. South Buffalo Railway Company, the New York State law was ruled unconstitutional, this time by the state supreme court.
Pressure to pass federal legislation mounted in the aftermath of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Concerned about maintaining the support of organized labor as he prepared for the inevitable entry of the United States into World War I, President Woodrow Wilson announced his support for the Kern-McGillicuddy Act in 1916. Drafted by the AALL, the act received widespread support. Wilson signed it into law in 1916. The Workmen’s Compensation Act was an important step in improving working conditions and protecting workers. The law was given greater weight in 1917, when in New York Central Railroad Company v. White, the Supreme Court finally upheld legislation passed in New York. Nevertheless, the ability of workers to collect compensation for employer negligence remained limited. Employer negligence remained difficult to prove, and many state courts continued to be reluctant to hold employers responsible.
Further reading: Claudia Clark, Radiwm Girls: Wo-men and Indus-trial Health Reform, 1910-1935 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997).
—Robert Gordon
World History
