Labor unions, or associations of workers with the purpose of consolidating bargaining power and protecting workers' rights, grew very rapidly during World War I. They emerged with large memberships, full treasuries and a temporary government guarantee of the right of collective bargaining. Total labor union membership soared to 5 million at its peak in 1919. After this expansion, however, radical union membership saw a public backlash while poor union leadership combined with maneuvers by corporations and government policies to cause a major decline in the labor movement in the 1920s.
Early Government Intervention
The collapse of radical unionism was significantly aided by federal repression during World War I by means of the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, the former making it a crime to pass information harmful to the success of American armed forces, while the latter prohibited speaking, writing or publishing anything opposed to the government or war effort. Famed labor leader Eugene V. Debs became one of the casualties of these sweeping laws when he was imprisoned in 1918 for speaking out against military conscription.
In 1922, President Warren G. Harding and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover convened a White House conference with manufacturers and unions to reduce the length of the 12-hour work day in a move to support the cause of labor, and the steel industry followed by reducing the 12-hour work day to eight hours. Overall, however, government intervention usually fell in favor of the corporations and their attempts to end strike actions.
Broken Strikes
The larger unions made an aggressive move for expansion in 1919 by calling for major strikes in clothing, meatpacking, steel, coal, and railroads. The corporations fought back, however, and the strikes usually failed. Between May and September 1921, an outbreak of violence near Matewan, West Virginia, grew to fighting on a 25-mile front between Stone Mountain Coal Company militia and thousands of United Mine Workers members. Harding dispatched federal troops to end the uprising, which resulted in the deaths of 50 to 100 miners and 30 strike busters, with another 985 miners tried and imprisoned.
A second major labor dispute broke out on July 1, 1922, when 400,000 railroad workers and shop men went on a national strike over hourly wages and the length of the work week. Strike busters were brought in to fill the positions and Harding proposed a settlement giving shop workers concessions, but railroad owners objected and Harding had to deploy the National Guard and 2,200 U.S. marshals to keep the peace.
The upward trend in labor unrest did not continue. In 1919, more than 4 million workers, 21 percent of the labor force, had participated in about 3,600 strikes. In contrast, in 1929 about 289,000 workers, 1.2 percent of the labor force, staged only 900 strikes.
Anti-Union Sentiment
In the decade following the war, economic prosperity led to stable prices, eliminating one major incentive to join unions. Unemployment rarely dipped below 5% in the 1920s, and few workers feared real wage losses. Unions weakened in heavy industries, such as automobiles and steel, but remained strong in construction, printing, railroads, and crafts.
Organized labor leadership weakened in the 1920s. Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) died in 1924 after serving as its president for 37 years, while successor William Green, secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers, "lacked the aggressiveness and the imagination of the AFL's first president." The AFL was down to less than 3 million members by 1925 after a peak of 4 million members in 1920.
Samuel Gompers
American Federation of Labor leader Samuel Gompers in 1911.
Most U.S. employers in the 1920s engaged in a policy of refusing to negotiate with unions, which became known as “The American Plan.” Endorsed by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) in 1920, the plan promoted union-free "open shops" and the practice of forcing employees to sign "yellow-dog contracts" in which they promised not to join unions. The campaign also depicted unions as "alien" to America's individualistic spirit with NAM and other employer groups discrediting unions through Red Scare tactics that linked them to Communism.
U.S. courts and the government also became less hospitable to unions. Corporations used twice as many court injunctions against strikes than during any comparable period. The Harding administration, which obtained a court injunction that destroyed the national railroad workers' strike in 1922, also helped to end a nationwide strike of about 650,000 miners. Neither the federal nor state governments tolerated strikes and allowed businesses to sue unions for damages incurred during strikes.
"Sick and tired of this nonsense!"
This cartoon published in the Los Angeles times illustrates the lack of public support for unions following World War I.
The unions held on to their gains among machinists, textile workers, and seamen and in the food and clothing industries, but overall membership fell to 3.5 million, where it stagnated until the New Deal passed the Wagner Act in 1935. There was, however, a resurgence of labor support in the textile industry, notably in the Loray Mill strike of 1929.
Loray Mill Strike
Textile mill managers in the South had introduced the "stretch-out" system in which spinners and weavers not only had to double their production, but also faced a reduction in wages. The emphasis on keeping prices down created dangerous and unsanitary conditions. In April 1929, the Communist-affiliated National Textile Workers Union (NTWU) focused its attention on the small town of Gastonia, North Carolina, where it helped organize a strike of 1,800 Loray Mill employees who demanded a 40-hour work week, minimum $20 weekly wage, union recognition, and the abolition of the stretch-out system.
Loray Mill
Workers, including an 11-year-old boy holding his coat, outside the Loray Mill in Gastonia, N.C.
In response, management evicted families from mill-owned homes and North Carolina Governor O. Max Gardner sent 250 National Guard troops. The strike escalated as the NTWU established a tent city protected by armed strikers. A clash left the police chief dead and people on both sides wounded, with 71 strikers arrested and eight strikers and eight NTWU members indicted for murder. A mistrial caused a wave of mob terror throughout the county until September 14, when a truck containing 22 strikers was fired upon, killing female strike leader Ella Mae Wiggins, who was known for writing popular, pro-labor songs. Seven men, including Loray Mill workers, were acquitted of the crime.
The strike in Gastonia collapsed, but during the same period a series of textile strikes intended to abolish the stretch-out system took place throughout the South. Strikers were branded by the press as "radicals" and labor organizers as "foreign agitators," but these spontaneous actions eventually resulted in the formation of the United Textile Workers, the "first significant breach in southern anti-unionism."
The labor movement fell in prominence during the 1920s, but the textile strikes in 1929 marked the beginning of a resurgence. The stock market crash later that year and the Great Depression that followed would ultimately bring it back to life.