By the 1880s, unions had grown in strength, but big industrialists frequently conspired with state and federal governments to put down labor activism at every turn. In the process, acts of violence against workers became more common, and industrialists often hired company guards or enlisted private detectives known as Pinkertons to suppress workers and to prevent them from organizing and unionizing, which resulted in even more frequent violent clashes between capital and labor. These developments, in addition to the desolate working and living conditions at this time, led many working people to believe that unrestrained industrial capitalism and political democracy were not compatible. American workers became increasingly class conscious, and even experimented with socialist or anarchist ideas.
By the mid-1880s, when American labor movements began to honor and observe May 1 as International Labor Day, even more violence ensued. The first big May Day celebrations in the US were held by labor unions on and around May 1, 1886. In demonstrations and protests around the country, workers reinforced their calls for industrial democracy and fair labor practices, and especially the adoption of the 8-hour workday. In cities across the country, working people came out to jubilant celebrations, much to the chagrin of industrialists and their allies in government. In Chicago, the situation took a dramatic turn. During May Day demonstrations on May 3, a kerfuffle erupted between workers and police, and in the process, the police shot and killed four workers. The next day, workers held a rally in Chicago’s Haymarket Square to protest and condemn these killings. During this rally, a bomb exploded, which killed one policeman. Almost immediately, the police opened fire, killing several people and wounding several more, including a few police officers. And while the origin of the bomb and the identity of the person or persons responsible remained undetermined, law enforcement violently put down any type of organized labor activity and raided the offices of labor groups.
The corporate-controlled press quickly blamed workers, labor unions, and anarchists for the violence, and worked to and publicly delegitimize organized labor. These tactics proved to be successful, because in the aftermath of the Haymarket riot, the labor movement took heavy blows. In August that year, eight alleged anarchists, who had been arrested in the Haymarket affair, were tried and convicted by a biased jury without tangible evidence. Most of them were sentenced to death, and four of them were executed in November that year. In the years following the Haymarket affair, big business, government, and the press continued their concerted attacks and propaganda campaigns against organized labor, and by the end of the decade, the Knights of Labor were left severely weakened and in disarray. Yet, their legacy would inspire other labor organizations, such as the American Railway Union or the Socialist Party, in the years to come.
But by the early 1890s, capital had seemingly won primacy over labor, and corporate capitalists cemented their stranglehold over working people’s lives in a number of ways. Big industrialists often used mechanization and technological advancement to reorganize their business operations to de-skill their workers and compartmentalize production processes in order to wrest away from workers what little power and autonomy they had left. Some industrialists built entire company towns, where their employees would live, work, and spend their spare time. In these company towns, the company owners controlled all institutions of public life, including housing, supply chains, and facilities. The inception of these company towns placed even greater control over working people’s lives into the hands of big industrial capitalists, and workers felt the effects of this, especially during economic downturns. To protect their profits and power, industrialists used recessions to cut workers’ pay, raise their rents, raise prices in company stores, and thus further exploit their already vulnerable workforces. Still, workers sought to organize and fight back where they could.
One such example came in the shape of the Pullman strike in the summer of 1894. During the most recent recession, George M. Pullman, owner of the Pullman Palace Car Company and the company town of Pullman, Illinois, had cut wages, raised prices, and fired unionized workers. In protest over these actions, workers at the Pullman company town went on strike. Aided by leading members of the growing American Railway Union (ARU), which included future presidential candidate and Socialist Party icon Eugene V. Debs, the striking Pullman workers also staged a nationwide boycott of Pullman train cars. Incensed by their actions, Pullman hired armed guards to break the strikes, and he relied on the press to agitate against the striking workers and the ARU. Moreover, Pullman also enlisted the federal government for assistance when he got President Grover Cleveland to sanction the use of mail cars belonging to the United States Postal Service as props. That way, when workers tried to shut down operations, they could be arrested and charged with obstruction of the mail, a federal offense. As a result, state and federal courts issued injunctions and jailed union leaders, including Debs. Additionally, Pullman also convinced federal, state, and local authorities to employ police and military troops to break up strikes and shoot striking workers.
Such instances of brazen violence and exploitation of workers were hardly isolated incidents. In 1892, two years before the Pullman affair, a similar episode took place at Andrew Carnegie’s steel works in Homestead, Pennsylvania. Here, Carnegie and his right-hand man Henry C. Frick fired thousands of unionized workers, locked them out of the factory, and replaced them with non-unionized workers. The workers organized to fight back by blockading the steel works and trying to shut down operations, but Frick quickly called in armed mercenaries and even the Pennsylvania state militia, which then brutalized and killed several workers. As such, the Homestead Strike and the Pullman Strike constitute two high-profile examples of the violent suppression of organized labor at the hands of industrial capitalists in conjunction with local, state, and federal governments and their law enforcement apparatuses, that was so common in the United States during the late 19th century.
At the heart of the conflict between capital and labor lay two competing visions of what constituted liberty. For working people, liberty meant economic security and autonomy from the tyranny of their employers. For capitalists, liberty meant unrestricted property rights, with no restraints from unions or governments. Wealthy industrialists and members of the upper classes in society were particularly fearful of organized labor as potential harbingers of anarchism or socialism. Thus, they argued that the government must use its power to keep labor in check, and to help capital interests quell any sort of rebellious sentiments. And by and large, governments tended to side with capital interests. In frequent confrontations between labor and capital during the late 19th century and even into the early 20th century, governments often firmly and violently supported capital. Ironically, the armies and militias that were used to quell the secessionist rebellion in the Confederate states and to ensure the victory of free labor over forced labor during the Civil War, were used by the 1870s and 1880s to put down strikes and labor uprisings in industrial center in the North. Put another way, one can argue that by the late 19th century, the federal government in particular no longer protected oppressed and marginalized people, but instead firmly supported and protected the interests of big business and wealthy industrialists.
In this generally hostile climate, organized labor enjoyed only few victories, and often had to accept consolation prizes in the shape of symbolic gestures. Ironically, one such symbolic gesture was the conceptualization of a public holiday dedicated to the labor movement. While Labor Day celebrations in the United States can be traced back to as early as 1882 in some states, it was not until 1894, when Congress passed, and President Grover Cleveland signed into law, a bill to make Labor Day a federal holiday. Of course, this Labor Day holiday was nothing but a conciliatory gesture to appease workers. Moreover, given the frequent violent clashes between labor and capital, and especially high-profile incidents like the Haymarket Affair or the Pullman Strike, both of which occurred at the beginning of May and thus coincided with International Workers Day, American lawmakers went out of their way to distinguish the American Labor Day holiday from International Workers Day. As such, they deliberately designated the first Monday in September as Labor Day, so as not to acknowledge or give credibility to the more radical history and significance of International Workers’ Day. And while working people, both then and now, surely appreciate a much-deserved day off work, let our appetite for full-fledged worker democracy not be dulled by the table scraps that the capitalist class throws down to us.
