The American Federation of Labor was the most important labor organization of the Progressive Era. It brought workers together primarily from the skilled trades into a national organization that had as its purpose improving the conditions of labor through collective bargaining. In what was often called “pure and simple trade unionism,” the Federation gave priority to economic demands for wages and control over the labor process. The AFL claimed to be the political voice not only of organized labor but also of the working class in the United States. As such, it became increasingly involved in politics in the early 20th century, using its clout to push for state and federal legislation to prohibit child labor, restrict immigration, control the conditions of federal employees, bar labor injunctions, and grant injured workers compensation.
Radical in its origins, the AFL by 1900 had taken on the conservative attitudes and old boy persona of its leaders, President Samuel Gompers, a cigar maker; Adolph Strasser, who belonged to the same trade; and Peter McGuire, the head of the carpenters’ union. The AFL’s primary constituents were workers in the skilled trades. Unlike the rival Knights of Labor, the AFL’s avoided mobilizing workers across industry and occupation, targeting instead craft workers. Moreover, the AFL saw itself as an organization exclusively for workers, and it barred labor reformers, small business allies, and labor scholars from its ranks. There was a logic to the AFL’s policy of exclusion. The Knights, many trade unionists believed, had misdirected their energies toward reform. Further, skilled workers such as cigar makers, printers, carpenters, machinists, iron molders, barrel makers, had, by virtue of their knowledge and training, greater control over their work and greater power in negotiating with employers. The length of apprenticeships and the limited pool of skilled labor made it difficult for employers to replace strikers with new workers or to substitute machines for those on strike. Skilled workers also were, due to strict rules and discrimination, primarily male, white, and native-born or naturalized citizens. These characteristics gave their trade unions greater bargaining power and political clout. The AFL’s weapon of choice was a small, short, and focused strike against employers. It avoided the lengthy political programs and broad-based community protests that had characterized its predecessors.
At the turn of the century, the AFL was in the midst of an unprecedented expansion. In 1898, it had 278,000 members, and by 1903, its ranks had grown to 1,500,000. Under the influence of the New Unionism trade unions as well as the new semi-industrial unions like the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, and the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), organized those previously outside their domain. Benefiting from massive strikes, AFL unions enrolled growing numbers of skilled workers, especially in the metalworking trades. Indeed, the International Association of Machinists (IAM) was one of the fastest growing unions. Further, as new technologies of power (such as electric lighting) and methods of construction (such as steel-reinforced girders) were created, new groups of workers organized, among them the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and the Bridge and Structural Ironworkers. Growth in city streetcar systems also meant growing numbers of drivers and conductors, who organized their own unions. The building trades (carpenters, masons, bricklayers, etc.) were among the chief beneficiaries of urban growth. Their power within the AFL increased proportionately with their numbers. The new organizational strength of labor gave rise to a new wave of labor militancy and an increase in the rate of strike success.
As the labor federation grew, so too did its areas of interest. While it had experimented from time to time with political campaigns, the AFL chose, for the most part, to maintain a non-partisan strategy in politics by rewarding labor’s friends and punishing its enemies. In general, the labor movement had been wary of government regulation of the workplace. It preferred to leave the issues of wages, hours, and working conditions to private bargaining and viewed the arena for state intervention as relatively limited. The only legislation it endorsed was concerned with limiting access to the labor market or with specific occupations, such as Chinese exclusion laws and the regulation of child labor.
In the face of growing employer hostility, the AFL began to seek federal relief from court injunctions. Key court decisions such as Danbury Hatters and Buck’s Stove sharply restricted labor’s ability to bargain with employers by penalizing labor for the costs of strikes and even informal boycotts, such as “We Don’t Patronize” lists. The AFL now sought legislation to limit the use of labor injunctions and to pass new measures to regulate child labor and institute an eight-hour day for government employees. Under the presidency of WoODROW WiLSON, the AFL lobbied for and obtained the passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act, which gave labor unions protection from antitrust laws. It witnessed the creation of a Department of Labor and supported new federal legislation for workers’ compensation. With the Adamson Act, railroad workers saw the eight-hour day become a reality. When the United States entered WORLD War I, the AFL cooperated with the war effort and took part in government efforts to mobilize labor and war industries. It also helped make the first steps toward government intervention in negotiating wages and working conditions during the wartime emergency through the Railroad Administration. In many sectors, workers signed no-strike pledges for the duration of the war. The payoff was the new and privileged role the AFL played in the federal government through the National War Labor Board.
After the war, the massive strikes of 1919, and the political reprisals of the Red Scare, the labor movement went into shock. Experiments in industrial unionism ended in the losses of the Steel Strike of 1919 and the postwar strikes in meatpacking and textiles. Labor’s defeat in the coal and railroad shopmen’s strikes of 1922 signaled a sharp decline in its political clout, as government intervention effectively repressed conflict. In stark contrast to the moderate Wilson administration, Warren G. Harding’s presidency demonstrated hostility toward labor. Under Harding and his successor, Calvin Coolidge, the chief labor victory was in the area of immigration restriction. Labor’s interest in limiting the influx of new workers complemented nativist concerns, and it joined them in endorsing the 1921 Quota Act and the National Origins Act of 1924. By the 1920s, national union leaders rarely touched on issues that concerned the mass of workers politically, such as work accidents, insurance, and relief. State labor federations experienced in politics did try to pass unemployment insurance in such states as Massachusetts, California, and Minnesota. The emphasis on state-level action was a response to the Supreme Court’s tendency to declare unconstitutional the extension of federal power to protect the conditions and wages of labor. It also followed from the preference of organized labor for local activism and voluntary association.
With the 1924 death of Samuel Gompers, who had been federation president since 1886, the conservatism of the AFL was set in stone. His successor, William Green, was, if anything, more averse to state intervention in labor relations and demonstrated even greater hostility toward African-American, immigrant, and women workers. Faced with the growing discontent among workers in the late 1920s and the looming unemployment crisis, the AFL tread water. Ambivalent toward mass production industries, it resisted efforts to modernize or to embrace the coming wave of industrial unionism.
Further reading: Julie Greene, Pure and Si-mple Politics: The American Federation of Labor, 1881-1917 (Cambridge, U. K.: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Philip Taft, The AF of L in the Time of Gompers (New York: Harper, 1957).
World History
