During the last third of the 19th century, labor organizations fell into two categories: trade unions focusing on job-related issues and reform unions seeking basic social change. Most trade unions recruited members from a single craft, such as iron molders, machinists, or carpenters. A small number organized on an industrial basis, admitting all those working in a particular industry.
Proponents of both trade and reform unions agreed on the eight-hour day. As early as 1866, representatives of trade unions, eight-hour leagues, and other reform groups founded the National Labor Union (NLU). Although it spearheaded an organizational drive that established several national trade unions, the NLU sought a better world based upon cooperatives, and it embraced the idea of a cheap currency to finance those cooperatives. In 1872 the NLU transformed itself into the Labor Reform Party, causing it to lose the support of many trade unionists. A disaster at the polls and the onslaught of the depression of 1873 caused the NLU to disintegrate. Federated into decentralized national organizations, nearly three-fourths of the trade unions existing in 1870 did not survive the economic depression of 1873-79.
The Knights of Labor (Knights) inherited the NLU’s reform mantel. Although founded in 1869, the Knights did not become a significant organization until its membership vastly expanded as a result of the Great Strike of 1877. It, like the NLU, envisioned the wage system being replaced by a cooperative society, and it emphasized arbitration rather than strikes. The Knights, as an inclusive union, organized all “productive people” into local assemblies that were grouped into larger district assemblies. Its general assembly and grand master workman (president) provided direction at the national level.
The disastrous 1873-79 depression forced trade-union leaders to rethink their organizational plans. One of the influential leaders of this “new unionism” was Samuel Gompers of the cigar makers. Drawing on his experience in the British trade union movement, Gomp-ers centralized control at the national level and charged high dues to build a reserve fund and a strike fund and to cover operating expenses. Many unions also provided their members with life insurance plans, disability insurance programs, or both.
But the primary purpose of the trade union was the improvement of wages and working conditions through collective bargaining supported by the strike and boycott. The strategy required each union to exclusively control its segment, be it craft or industry, of the labor market or jurisdiction. As a result “dual unionism” (two or more unions operating in the same occupational niche) was denounced as an abomination while unions also attempted to expand their jurisdictions.
Resolution of jurisdictional disputes, combined with the need to present a united front on political issues, required a coordinating body. Citywide federations of labor unions first appeared in the 1830s, but to centralize power a national organization was necessary. In November 1881 more than 100 delegates meeting in Pittsburgh created the
Federation of Organized Trade and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada (FOOTALU). The new federation was not a success; only 19 delegates attended its second convention. In an effort to revive its fortunes, FOOTALU resurrected agitation for an eight-hour day and called for a general strike on May 1, 1886, if the shorter day had not been achieved. That call resulted in the tragic Haymarket riot and failed to resuscitate the FOOTALU.
It was possible for a worker to belong to both the Knights and a trade union without an apparent conflict of interest as long as the local assembly of the Knights drew its membership from a number of occupations. But when local assemblies represented members of only one craft, they became a dual union. Soon craft assemblies and trade-union locals began raiding each other for members. The raids led to the dissolution of the weak FOOTALU and the formation of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886. The AFL then demanded that the Knights refuse membership to anyone working in the jurisdiction of an established trade union.
The Knights refused and ordered its single-craft locals to withdraw from their district assembly and join one of the 22 newly formed national trade assemblies. Open warfare soon broke out, with AFL unions and the Knights supplying workers to break the strikes of the other’s organization. But the Knights were ill-prepared to fight such a war; its leadership was philosophically opposed to strikes, and the creation of national trade assemblies caused many trade unionists, especially those in mixed assemblies, to leave the order.
The AFL’s defeat of the Knights enabled “pure and simple unionism” to prevail among labor organizations by 1900. It was pure because only working people were permitted to join and simple because it focused on economic issues, but since virtually all its members were skilled craftsmen, it was also exclusive and elitist.
Further reading: Melvin Dubofsky, Industrialism and the American Worker, 1865-1920, 2d ed. (Arlington Heights,
Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1985); David Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865-1925 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Irwin Yellowitz, Industrialism and the American Labor Movement, 1865-1900 (Port Washington, N. Y.: Kennikat, 1977).
—Harold W. Aurand
World History
