Our History, From the Birth of the Labor Movement to WWI
Workers at work on a line change project in Utah for the transcontinental railroad, which was built between 1863 and 1869. (Courtesy of the University of Utah J. Willard Marriott Library via Mountain West Digital Library)
For workers actively engaged in efforts to rebuild the US labor movement, a firm grasp of US history is essential. Studying this history above all brings out the central role that the struggle between the working class and the capitalist class plays in shaping our society.
From the perspective of the present, in which the working class is just beginning to stir into action after decades of peace organized by the trade-union bureaucracies and the state, it is hard to imagine that the US working class was once the most advanced and militant working class in the world. This short article, based on an internal RWU-STR Union School presentation, surveys this important period of sharp working-class struggle, which coincides with the birth of the US labor movement.
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I. The Rise of Monopoly Capitalism
The US labor movement dates from the end of the Civil War (1861-1865), in which the capitalist class swept away the institution of slavery, an obstacle to capitalist development. Industry expanded dramatically, some 1,800% between 1859-1914. Its character was also transformed, from light industry (textiles, flour mills, wood processing, etc.) before the war to heavy industry after the end of the war. By the early 1880s, US industry was in first place in the world, and domestically, industry bypassed agriculture for the first time.
This rapid development of capitalism was not due to some “exceptional” character of the US. It had nothing to do with an alleged “work ethic,” nor was it the result of “values” announced in the Declaration of Independence and enshrined in the Constitution. Rather it was due to a series of factors:
There was no deeply-rooted feudal system, so there were few barriers to capitalist development, e.g., there was a relatively free labor market. After the Civil War, all political obstacles to the expansion of capitalism were swept away.
There was a vast, unified internal market, made possible by the abolition of slavery and unification of the North and South, Westward expansion, the influx of immigrant labor, and the construction of railroads on a large scale.
The US developed capitalism late, using workers, capital, and techniques imported from abroad. Immigrant labor was particularly important in the expansion of US capitalism from an early moment.
The US grew wealthy through violence visited on other peoples and nations: first, the pillage of the indigenous population of North America and the enslavement of Africans; later, aggression in South and Central America, East Asia, and the Caribbean.
The growth of US capitalism created possibilities of productivity never dreamt of by humanity. But the same colossal forces of production led to crises that were deeper than any that had been experienced in world history. Between the Civil War and WWI, there were six major economic crises, each leading to sharp drops in production and massive unemployment. As weaker companies failed, the strongest companies grew larger and larger, leading to the emergence of monopoly capitalism.
The first monopoly trust in the US was Standard Oil Company. Trusts were essentially centralized “unions” of capitalists. In order to gain enormous monopoly profits, trusts used their large size and market dominance to set prices by controlling production throughout a given industry.
Monopolies also appeared in banking. Monopoly banks (Morgan, Rockefeller) made long-term loans to industry, investing in production, while industrialists controlled banks through share purchases. In the 1890s, banking and industrial capital thus fused to create an all-powerful finance capital. By the start of the 20th century there were 8 large finance groups: Morgan, Rockefeller, Kuhn, Loeb & Co. Mellon, Dupont, Chicago, Cleveland, Boston. Through the large monopolies, the finance oligarchy controlled the whole economy and dominated the US state, with representatives of the monopolies filling leading government positions. This remains the case today.
II. The Situation of Labor
In the US, as in every capitalist country, the working class created the wealth of society. And the working class was increasingly productive. For example, the Taylor system, developed in the last decades of the 19th century, involved extreme specialization and the reduction of work to simple, repetitive tasks, with all “useless” movements eliminated. Under this system, workers were paid per unit of product, which encouraged them to produce as much as possible in the shortest possible amount of time.
An assembly line
But the rise in labor productivity was met by increased exploitation and worse conditions of labor and life.
—As workers were displaced by labor-saving machinery, unemployment increased. Between 1897 and 1914, the unemployment rate averaged 10%.
—Black workers had the lowest-paying jobs, with wages 30-50% those of white workers.
—The conditions of labor were terrible, with work-related accidents and illness very widespread.
The overall situation: at one pole, monopoly capital was growing tremendously wealthy thanks to the increasingly-productive working class; at the other pole, the working masses lived in misery. This is the inevitable consequence of a system of production in which a small handful own the means of production while the vast majority can only make ends meet by selling their capacity to work for a wage.
III. Labor Fights Back
The first major worker organization in the US was the Knights of Labor (KL), founded in 1869 by nine tailors from Philadelphia. It was a transitional organization that reflected changes underway in society. On the one hand, the KL represented disappearing skilled artisan labor, while on the other, it anticipated the organized solidarity of the developed working class. The ultimate weakness of the KL was that it included petty owners, and not just workers.
In 1881, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (FOTLU) – the precursor organization of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) –was founded in Pittsburgh. FOTLU, and later the AFL, restricted their organization of the working class to skilled workers, organized by nationality. This amounted to rowing against the tide of history, as the labor process was increasingly simplified, requiring few skills, while the working class was constantly replenished by waves of immigration. Nevertheless, FOTLU and the AFL marked an improvement over the KL.
During this period, the struggles of the working class against capital grew increasingly regular and violent. Two examples:
During the Long-Strike of 1874-1875, 10,000 largely Irish immigrant miners struck for 7 months against a wage reduction. The coal authorities formed their own police force to kill strikers, while the Pinkerton Detective Agency was hired as a private militia to inflict violence on workers. The governor sent in armed troops to attack the strikers. The strike failed, and 20 of the striking workers were sentenced to death by hanging.
After the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad cut wages in 1877, 100,000 workers went on strike for 69 days in the Great Railroad Strike. The strike spread to numerous other cities, and was the first strike on a national scale.
A meeting of Molly Maguires in preparation for the strike in the coal mines in Coal Castle, Pennsylvania.
The US government sent federal troops to battle the workers, while the railroad companies formed militias. Around 100 workers were killed before the strike was defeated. The US working class emerged from the strike with a clearer understanding of the class struggle and a renewed militancy.
IV. The Struggle for an 8-Hour Day
In 1884, FOTLU resolved to strike until an 8-hour working day was granted. They picked May 1, 1886 as the day for the establishment of the 8-hour day. At that time, FOTLU had 50,000 members, and it grasped the reality that the fight for the 8-hour day would need to involve strikes by not only its own members, but members of the larger KL, as well as the unorganized worker masses.
Agitation around the 8-hour day led to an increase in labor militancy. In 1881-1884, strikes and lockouts involved some 150,000 workers per year. But in 1885, 250,000 workers went on strike, and by 1886, strikes involved some 600,000 workers.
The strike center was Chicago, where the 8-Hour Association was formed to prepare the May 1 strike. This organization was made up of unions affiliated to the Socialist Labor Party, the AFL, and the KL, whose leaders openly worked to sabotage the movement. (This sabotage contributed to the decline of the KL and the growth of the AFL.)
On May 1, 1886 workers in every sector in Chicago went on strike. Against the workers, the government and bosses worked to destroy the militant leaders. On May 3, police attacked a worker meeting at McCormick Reaper Works, killing six workers. On May 4, a demonstration was held in Haymarket Square to protest the brutal police attack from the day before. A bomb was thrown into the crowd, killing a sergeant. In the battle that followed, seven policemen and four workers were killed. In the aftermath, four militant labor leaders were hanged to death, while others were imprisoned. Thus began the offensive by capital against the working class.
In 1888, the AFL decided to renew the struggle for the 8-hour day, this time picking May 1, 1890 for another national strike. On July 14, 1889, the 100th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille prison in the French Revolution, workers from all over the world gathered to establish the Second International, the successor organization of the First International, the organization of 8 million workers which had been dissolved in 1876. At the founding Congress of the Second International, it was resolved to organize an international demonstration on May 1 in support of the demand for the 8-hour day.
V. May Day
On May 1, 1890, workers in the US and Europe held a general strike for the 8-hour day. In Union Square in NYC, the leaders of the demonstration spoke of their program: “While struggling for the 8-hour day, we will not lose sight of our ultimate aim – the abolition of the wage system.”
The working class for the first time marched as one army, under one flag, fighting for one immediate aim – the 8-hour day – in the line of a future society in which workers will be its masters.
Today, May 1 is International Workers’ Day. Through force of numbers, through the organized character of the labor detachments, and through the display of class consciousness, May Day exists to demonstrate the power of the working class, united both within and across borders.
However, in the US – the country whose worker martyrs are commemorated the world over on May 1 – the state refuses to recognize International Workers’ Day. In 1947, the US government instead proclaimed May 1 to be “Loyalty Day.” Our class adversaries have never shied away from displaying their open hostility to the working masses of this country and the world. On May 1, 2020, Joe Biden lived up to the vulgar traditions of his class by again declaring May Day to be “Loyalty Day.” We, the multi-national working class of the US, can only greet such insults by intensifying our preparations – already underway – for the great class battles to come.