A History of Trade Unionism in the United StatesPerlman, Selig
History
A History of Trade Unionism in the United States
Perlman, Selig
Labor unions -- United States -- History
The drift towards independent labor politics, which many anticipate,
also remains quite inconclusive. A Farmer-Labor party, launched in 1920
by influential labor leaders of Chicago (to be sure, against the wishes
of the national leaders), polled not more than 350,000 votes. And in the
same election, despite a wide dissatisfaction in labor circles with the
change in the government's attitude after the passage of the War
emergency and with a most sweeping use of the injunction in the coal
strike, the vote for the socialist candidate for President fell below a
million, that is behind the vote of 1912, notwithstanding a doubling of
the electorate with women's suffrage. Finally, the same convention of
the American Federation of Labor, which showed so much sympathy for the
ideas of the Plumb Plan League, approved a rupture with the
International Trade Union Federation, with headquarters in Amsterdam,
Holland, mainly on account of the revolutionary character of the
addresses issued by the latter.
FOOTNOTES:
[89] The most plausible argument in favor of the position taken by the
employing group is that no employer should be forced to decide matters
as intimately connected with the welfare of his business as the ones
relating to his labor costs and shop discipline with national union
leaders, since the latter, at best, are interested in the welfare of the
trade as a whole but rarely in the particular success of _his own_
particular establishment.
[90] The turn in public sentiment really dated from the threat of a
strike for the eight-hour day by the four railway brotherhoods in 1916,
which forced the passage of the Adamson law by Congress. The law was a
victory for the brotherhoods, but also extremely useful to the enemies
of organized labor in arousing public hostility to unionism.
[91] See below, 259-261, for a more detailed description of the Plan.
[92] The Transportation Act included a provision that prior to September
1, 1920, the railways could not reduce wages.
[93] A Protestant interdenominational organization of influence, which
investigated the strike and issued a report.
[94] The union had not been formally "recognized" at any time.
[95] Coppage _v._ Kansas, 236 U.S. (1915).
[96] Hitchman Coal and Coke Co. _v._ Mitchell et al, 245 U.S. 229
(1917).
[97] Duplex Printing Press Co. _v._ Deering, 41 Sup. Ct. 172 (1921).
[98] Montana allows the "unfair list" and California allows all
boycotts.
[99] American Steel Foundries of Granite City, Illinois, _v._ Tri-City
Central Trades' Council, 42 Sup. Ct. 72 (1921).
[100] Truax et al. _v._ Corrigan, 42 Sup. Ct. 124 (1921).
PART III
CONCLUSIONS AND INFERENCES
CHAPTER 12
AN ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION
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