So much for the employers' counter attacks on trade unions on the strictly industrial front. But there were also a legal front and a political front. In 1902 was organized the American Anti-Boycott Association, a secret body composed mainly of manufacturers. The purpose of the organization was to oppose by legal proceedings the boycotts of trade unions, and to secure statutory enactments against the boycott. The energies of the association have been devoted mainly to taking certain typical cases to the courts in order thereby to create legal precedents. The famous Danbury Hatters' Case, in which the Sherman Anti-Trust law was invoked against the hatters' union, was fought in the courts by this Association.
The employers' fight on the political front was in charge of the National Association of Manufacturers. This association was originally organized in 1895 for the pursuit of purely trade interests, but about 1903, under the influence of the Dayton, Ohio, group of employers, turned to combating trade unions. It closely cooperated with other employers' associations in the industrial and legal field, but its chief efforts lay in the political or legislative field, where it has succeeded through clever lobbying and manipulations in nullifying labor's political influence, especially in Congress. The National Association of Manufacturers saw to it that Congress and State Legislatures might not weaken the effect of court orders, injunctions and decisions on boycotts, closed shop, and related matters.
The "open-shop movement" in its several aspects, industrial, legal, and political, continued strong from 1903 to 1909. Nevertheless, despite most persistent effort and despite the opportunity offered by the business depression which followed the financial panic of 1907, the results were not remarkable. True, it was a factor in checking the rapid rate of expansion of unionism, but it scarcely compelled a retrogression from ground already conquered. It is enough to point out that the unions managed to prevent wage reductions in the organized trades notwithstanding the unemployment and distress of 1907-1908. On the whole trade unionism held its own against employers in strictly competitive industry. Different, however, was the outcome in industries in which the number of employers had been reduced by monopolistic or semi-monopolistic mergers.
The steel industry is the outstanding instance.[68] The disastrous Homestead strike of 1892[69] had eliminated unionism from the steel plants of Pittsburgh. However, the Carnegie Steel Company was only a highly efficient and powerful corporation, not yet a "trust." The panic of 1893 dealt another blow to the Amalgamated Association of Iron & Steel Workers. The steel mills of Alleghany County, outside Pittsburgh, were all put upon a non-union basis before 1900. In Pittsburgh, the iron mills, too, became non-union between 1890 and 1900. There remained to the organization only the iron mills west of Pittsburgh, the large steel mills of Illinois, and a large proportion of the sheet, tin, and iron hoop mills of the country. In 1900 there began to be whisperings of a gigantic consolidation in the steel industry. The Amalgamated officials were alarmed. In any such combination the Carnegie Steel Company, an old enemy of unionism, would easily be first and would, they feared, insist on driving the union out of every mill in the combination. Then it occurred to President Shaffer and his associates that it might be a propitious time to press for recognition while the new corporation was forming. Anxious for public confidence and to float their securities, the companies could not afford a labor controversy.
Accordingly, when the new scales were to be signed in July 1901, the Amalgamated Association demanded of the American Tin Plate Company that it sign a scale not only for those mills that had been regarded as union but for all of its mills. This was agreed, provided the American Sheet Steel Company would agree to the same. The latter company refused, and a strike was started against the American Tin Plate Company, the American Sheet Steel Company, and the American Steel Hoop Company. In conferences held on July 11, 12, and 13 these companies offered to sign for all tin mills but one, for all the sheet mills that had been signed for in the preceding year and for four other mills that had been non-union, and for all the hoop mills that had been signed for in the preceding year. This highly advantageous offer was foolishly rejected by the representatives of the union; they demanded all the mills or none. The strike then went on in earnest. In August, President Shaffer called on all the men working in mills of the United States Steel Corporation to come out on strike.
By the middle of August it was evident that the Association had made a mistake. Instead of finding their task easier because the United States Steel Corporation had just been formed, they found that corporation ready to bring all its tremendous power to bear against the organization. President Shaffer offered to arbitrate the whole matter, but the proposal was rejected; and at the end of August the strike was declared at an end.
The steel industry was apparently closed to unionism.[70]
(5) Legislation, Courts, and Politics
While trade unionism was thus on the whole holding its ground against the employers and even winning victories and recognition, its influence on National and State legislation failed for many years to reflect its growing economic strength. The scant success with legislation resulted, on the one hand, from the very expansion of the Federation into new fields, which absorbed nearly all its means and energy; but was due in a still greater measure to a solidification of capitalist control in the Republican party and in Congress, against which President Roosevelt directed his spectacular campaign. A good illustration is furnished by the attempt to get a workable eight-hour law on government work.
In the main the leaders of the Federation placed slight reliance upon efforts to shorten the working day through legislation. The movement for shorter hours by law for women, which first attained importance in the nineties, was not the work of organized labor but of humanitarians and social workers. To be sure, the Federation has supported such laws for women and children workers, but so far as adult male labor was concerned, it has always preferred to leave the field clear for the trade unions. The exception to the rule was the working day on public work.