At the turn of the century (19th to 20th) the labor question was a quest to suppress workers rights. Those that wanted labor to run smoothly and do what they are told wanted to keep labor from impeding production. The idea of having to negotiate with workers was a foreign concept to them. Organized labor was not codified in Federal law until 1932 with the “Norris-La Guardia Act”(The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2016) and in 1935 with the “National Labor Relations Act'' (National Labor Relations Act, n.d.). Prior to these court cases could not agree if unions were legal or illegal conspiracies (Primm, 1910). With shaky legal grounds, unions were more of a temporary entity. They generally arose from the specific need at a specific time and at the conclusion many would go dormant or dissolve all together. So times it was when labor and unions were successful in achieving desired change. When this happened there was little need for the resources to continue to be used. But more often it was when a labor dispute ended unfavorably for labor. In these cases the union was seen as ineffective at best or detrimental at worst.
The rise of mechanization and automation had an effect on labor. In some cases the automation made the need for skilled (higher paid) lessen. Other times the increase in production caused the skilled labor to work harder, and not at the previous leisurely pace. It is not to say that skilled labor had not previously worked hard, but compared to the new level they needed to work, the previous pace was leisurely. This could be that an intermediate task the worker needed to do on a product without automation may have taken several more minutes to complete, and after actomation they need to keep up with automation.
Another obstacle to unions was the lack of coordination. At times different unions had different competing goals. Or different businesses would interact differently with organized labor. This disorganization among organized labor gave business a tool to use against the unions. As still happens businesses use propaganda to discourage organized labor. A failed strike of one company in one industry could reverberate through the workforce better than a successful strike. Part of this was the inevitable passing of blame. Every failure is exposed, even if that failure was not a root cause of the overall failure; every failure tends to need a scapegoat. With these failures becoming somewhat public businesses and other elements that wanted to discourage organized labor could promote the failures. In many ways this was successful because the businesses and their allies generally had greater resources and at times were more organized.
Strikes that occurred during the time of early organized labor happened with no (almost no) government help and many resulted with direct conflict with the government. The Homestead strike of 1892 was one such strike (Labor Wars in the US, n.d.). The National Guard of Pennsylvania became involved when the conflict between the stickers and the Pinkerton’s that were hired to suppress the strikers became violent. This is a running theme in early American strikes. Without the legal protections or a legal framework to address their grievances violence became the answer. As with most of history (or current events for that matter) one needs to look at several different perspectives to try to get to the details. In sudden violent clashes different eye witnesses will have different perspectives. They will both have a physical perspective based on where they were during the event, and they may have a biased perspective based on what side of the conflict they relate to. And it is not to say that some are lying. They very well believe that the record of their account is accurate.
Even with the current protections that organized labor has today many companies can still excerpt much strength. Looking at news reports today you see big companies resisting union formation within their companies. They use legal consulting firms to straddle the line of illegal intimidation. Even if they are fined for illegal acts it is a slap on the wrist to larger companies (Union busting: Last week tonight with John Oliver (HBO),2021). And even workers voting in a union does not mean that the company has to be in a hurry to agree on an initial contract. It is rare that contract negotiations escalate to the level of binding arbitration. Many that do escalate because previous contracts had the requirements stated in it.
References:
Infiltrated Labor Unions. (2015, May 26). Justice.Gov. https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ocgs/infiltrated-labor-unions
Job Automation: What the 1920s can tell us about the 2020s. (2018, June 29). K2university.Com. https://k2university.com/job-automation-what-the-1920s-can-tell-us-about-the-2020s/
Murolo, P., & Chitty, A. B. (2018). From the folks who brought you the weekend: A short, illustrated history of labor in the United States. New Press.
https://ehistory.osu.edu/exhibitions/1912/labor_problem/default
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1886/07/the-labor-question/522606/
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/50929/summary
https://www.stetson.edu/law/lawreview/media/Liebman-Regilding-the-Gilded-Age.pdf
https://billmoyers.com/story/america-seeks-answer-labor-question/
https://www.britannica.com/event/Commonwealth-v-Hunt
https://web.archive.org/web/20150123211142/http://www.lovkoandking.com/commonwealth-v-hunt.html
Labor wars in the U.s. (n.d.). Pbs.Org. Retrieved December 14, 2021, from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/theminewars-labor-wars-us/
National Labor Relations Act. (n.d.). Nlrb.Gov. Retrieved December 14, 2021, from https://www.nlrb.gov/guidance/key-reference-materials/national-labor-relations-act
Primm, C. J. (1910). Labor Unions and the Anti-Trust Law: A Review of Decisions. The University of Chicago Press Journals, 18(2), 129–138. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1829777.pdf
The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. (2016). Norris–La Guardia Act. In Encyclopedia Britannica.
Union busting: Last week tonight with John Oliver (HBO). (2021, November 14). Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk8dUXRpoy8
