Chapter 6: The Search for Stability: Labor in WWI Era

Welcome to Last Minute Lecture.

This free chapter overview is designed to help students review and understand key concepts.

These summaries supplement, not replace, the original textbook and may not be redistributed or resold.

For complete coverage, always consult the official text.

Welcome to The Deep Dive.

Today we're jumping into a really crucial, really fascinating chapter of American labor history.

We're looking at the New Orleans waterfront, specifically between 1908 and 1923.

That's right.

It's a period with, well, a real paradox at its heart.

Exactly.

Our mission here is to understand how this waterfront, which had seen intense, almost legendary labor conflict earlier, managed to achieve nearly a decade of

unprecedented stability.

And this stability really revolved around the dock and cotton council, the DCC, a powerful, importantly, biracial union federation.

But then, almost as quickly as it formed, this stability just shattered after World War I.

By 1923, it was basically gone.

So the sources we're diving into, they track this whole arc.

You've got this system built on unique contracts, cross -racial cooperation, at least on the surface.

And yet, it couldn't stand up to the combination of forces that hit it, economic downturn, technological change, modernization, and a really sharp political backlash.

Right.

So the big question we need to unpack for you is, what exactly was powerful enough to tear down this really unique union structure?

And how did it lead to the open shop era of the 1920s?

So let's walk through it step by step.

We'll look at how the stability was built and then, crucially, how it all came apart.

Okay, let's start with that stable period, roughly 1908 to 1917.

The absolute key, it seems, was the five -year contract.

Yeah, this was a big deal.

Before that, you had these one -year contracts, constant tension, hardship, as the sources say.

But these longer deals, they gave the unions real security, real power.

Thomas Harrison, who was the president of the white screwmen's union, he actually boasted they had, and I quote, the best contract existing anywhere.

And let's just clarify for you who the screwmen were.

Good point.

These were the elite longshoremen, highly skilled.

Their job was to use screwjacks to pack cotton bales incredibly tightly into

top of the union food chain.

And their contract wasn't just about wages.

It let them control the work pace, like limiting how much cotton got stowed per day.

That's, you know, significant control over the actual production process.

It really is.

And interestingly,

the employers, the New Orleans Steamship Association, they kind of bought into it.

They figured out that industrial piece, well, it paid better than constant fighting.

So they backed off on what they called managerial authority.

Yeah, they encouraged using a grievance process instead of just walking out.

And they renewed those five -year deals in 1913 pretty readily.

They conceded on work rules because ultimately stable labor helped port development overall.

Stability was, you know, profitable for them too.

But this focus on stability, it wasn't without critics, was it?

Particularly from the more radical elements.

Not at all.

You had figures like Covington Hall, a socialist, a wobbly leader.

He was scathing.

He accused the DCC leaders of courting the favor of labor's enemies.

And he called those prized five -year contracts treasonable, right?

That's strong language.

Very strong.

Hall's point, and maybe he exaggerated a bit, but he argued the DCC had lost its militant edge.

It had become, in his words, just benevolent societies dispensing sick and death benefits.

So good pay for some, but maybe losing the broader fight.

That was Hall's critique.

And he did touch on something real.

The DCC absolutely maintained a very strict occupational hierarchy.

It was deeply institutionalized.

You mean the screwmen at the top.

Exactly.

Screwmen first, then longshoremen, then yardmen.

And right at the bottom, the lowest paid jobs, car loaders, freight handlers, coal wheelers.

And these jobs were overwhelmingly held by black workers.

So if the top unions, like the screwmen, focused just on protecting their own excellent contracts.

Yeah, the argument goes they often neglected the weaker unions below them and certainly didn't do much for the unorganized.

It raises that classic question.

If a union mostly serves its top tier, how solid is that solidarity, really?

And that tension stability versus solidarity, it really came to a head in 1911, didn't it?

With that big central railroad strike.

It really did.

This was a major test.

And the DCC's actions were, well, quite revealing.

How so?

Initially, the DCC leadership actually teamed up with the city's commercial elite, the Cotton Exchange, the Board of Trade, to try and prevent the strike from even happening.

Wow.

So prioritizing port business over supporting fellow workers.

That's certainly how it looked.

Their priority seemed to be keeping the port running smoothly above all else.

And when some white handlers did strike anyway in sympathy with the railroad guys.

The DCC leadership flatly refused to sanction it.

They pointed to the contract, the sanctity of the contract.

They wouldn't authorize breaking it.

The consequences sound pretty immediate.

They were.

And starkly racial.

Black union leaders publicly criticized the white handlers.

They said, essentially, we're doing the right thing by staying at work and honoring our contract.

We're not scabbing.

For them, scabbing meant breaking the union -approved contract.

That must have caused incredible friction.

Oh, absolutely.

The sources record intense hostility.

White strikers apparently yelled things like, all right, keep at work, nigger.

When we win this strike, we'll kick you out of the dock and cotton council.

Just awful.

And the outcome of that strike?

It was tragic for the white handlers.

Their strike failed.

Their union was destroyed.

But the black unionists who stuck to the contract, they ended up being the prime beneficiaries gaining control of that work at the Stuyvesant docks.

So upholding the contract benefited them directly in that instance.

It did.

And this whole episode just massively reinforced the DCC leadership's approach.

The contract is everything.

It's security.

You stick to it no matter what.

A deeply conservative impulse, really.

Okay, so the internal dynamic was defined by this contract conservatism.

But then external threats start mounting.

Let's talk about modernization.

Right.

Around 1910, you see a big push led by Mayor Martin Berman and the city's business leaders pouring money into port infrastructure.

Like that huge public cotton warehouse, three and a half million dollars.

But the goal wasn't just size.

It was mechanization, wasn't it?

Exactly.

They sold it as efficiency, arguing new tech would ultimately create more jobs, better jobs.

The line was something like you'd get remunerative wages for five men, where now there is employment at barely living wages for only one.

A familiar argument.

But the unions weren't buying it?

Not at all.

They saw mechanization as a direct threat to their control and probably their wages.

They pointed to examples like the United Fruit Company.

What was happening there?

United Fruit used these continuous moving conveyor belts for loading bananas.

They paid some of the lowest wages on the entire waterfront.

Unions saw that and thought, that's where this leads.

Especially for the screwmen, right?

Technology directly challenged their specific skills and work rules.

Precisely.

They had already fought to ban things like slides or shoot the shoots for loading cotton, citing safety, but also protecting their work.

New tech meant giving up that hard won And this fight boiled over in 1914.

The dock board tried to test new machines.

Yeah, the dock board.

A public body, remember, wanted to experiment with electric trucks, conveyor belts, things like that.

And the unions managed to stop them.

How?

They invoked a specific rule clause in their contract with the steamship companies.

And here's the really interesting part.

What's that?

The private employers, the steamship agents and stevedores, they actually sided with the unions against the

Seriously, why would they do that?

Because disrupting the piece,

the stability they'd finally achieved, seemed way more costly than whatever efficiency they might gain from a few machines.

As one agent apparently said, smoothness is essential to their business.

They didn't want to rock the boat, literally or figuratively.

So private industry valued the stable contract system, but the public agencies?

Completely different story.

Agencies like the public belt railroad, the dock board itself, they refused point blank to recognize unions or bargain collectively.

On what grounds?

The dock board claimed that as a state institution, it was legally barred from signing union contracts.

They framed union demands as illegitimate.

When switchmen tried to organize the public belt railroad in 1913, the leaders called their strike a revolt against the sovereign.

Wow.

So the state itself was setting this powerful anti -union precedent.

Absolutely.

It established a legal and political framework where public entities were inherently opposed to collective bargaining.

That was a huge vulnerability for the DSCC, one they couldn't really overcome.

Okay.

So the foundation is looking a bit shaky with modernization and state opposition.

Then comes World War I.

That must have just thrown everything up in the air.

Completely.

Federal government steps in, sets up the National Adjustment Commission, the NAC, to manage labor relations during the war.

And how did the unions react?

Black leaders, for instance?

Black leaders generally supported the war effort.

They saw it as an opportunity, actually.

They pushed for black enlistment in the new army stevedoring regiments, hoping to leverage wartime service for social gains back home.

But the war economy itself, huge disruptions, right?

Massive.

You had soaring inflation and at the same time, severe labor shortages.

Lots of workers, black and white, were heading north for better paying jobs in war industries.

Harry Keegan, the union president, noted men could make way more building army camps than working the docks.

So that collaborative system they'd built.

It started to crumble under the pressure.

Strikes broke out in 1917.

The old stability was evaporating fast.

And workers with leverage, they tend to use it, don't they?

They certainly did then.

Employers started complaining bitterly.

They said longshoremen were deliberately making loads smaller for almost all goods.

Slowing down the work.

Essentially, yeah.

And demanding more men for each gang, driving up labor costs.

Plus, they were accused of intentionally laying back for night work, basically dragging their feet during the day to get the higher overtime pay at night.

Managerial authority was definitely weakening.

So the NIC is trying to manage this.

What did they do?

Well, the NIC local board used arbitration to keep things from totally exploding.

But critically, it didn't challenge the basic structure.

It essentially enforced the existing occupational wage hierarchy.

Meaning the skilled guys still got way more.

Exactly.

The NIC confirmed much higher pay for the screwmen and deep sea longshoremen.

They were hitting 65 cents an hour by late 1918.

Meanwhile, some of the freight handlers and carloaders at the bottom were still only getting maybe 37 cents an hour.

That's a huge gap.

It is.

And the NIC's rulings basically hardened those internal divisions within the GCC, reinforcing that very hierarchy Covington Hall had slammed years before.

OK, so the war ends, but the tensions don't.

Let's get into the final period, 1919 to 1923.

This is where it all unravels.

It really does.

Postwar, you still have this spirit of unrest, as the sources call it.

You even see black women organizing a domestic workers union.

There's energy there.

But the national mood is shifting, right?

The American plan.

Yes.

The federal government quickly dismantled those wartime regulatory bodies like the NIC.

And employers across the country felt emboldened.

They launched the open shop drive, branding it the patriotic American plan, basically, an effort to break union power.

And the arbitration system collapsed almost immediately.

Pretty much.

In 1919, the longshoremen walked away from arbitration.

President Wilson had called for freezing wages nationally to lower the cost of living, and the workers knew the NIC would likely follow that line.

No more guaranteed wage increases.

So they struck.

They did.

A five -week strike.

Paralyzed the port.

Apparently executed with ironclad discipline.

They eventually accepted a compromise 80 cents an hour.

A victory, but the collaborative framework was dead.

And then came the political hammer blow.

Absolutely critical.

In 1920, two things happened.

First, the anti -labor John Parker was elected governor.

He saw the constant strikes as economically damaging and wasn't shy about using state power against them.

And the second thing.

The long -serving mayor, Berman, who despite everything had political connections and some level of understanding with the DCC, was defeated.

The unions lost their key political allies at both the state and local level almost simultaneously.

That sounds fatal.

It proved to be.

Governor Parker jumped right in, intervening against striking public workers, threatening to replace every single one.

The message was clear.

The state would actively side with employers against labor.

And this sets the scene for the 1921 screwman strike.

Yes.

The Steamship Association saw their chance.

You had this hostile political climate, plus rising postwar unemployment meant strikebreakers were easy to find.

They decided to use the screwman strike to impose a major defeat.

The DCC called a general strike, didn't they?

A huge mobilization.

They did.

Something like 12 ,000 to 15 ,000 workers walked out in solidarity.

A massive display.

But it wasn't enough.

They were forced to concede to the Galveston model.

What did that mean, specifically?

It was about intensifying the work.

The Galveston model, implemented after a defeat there, meant the New Orleans screwmen had to dramatically increase the number of cotton bales stowed per gang from 187 up to 225.

A huge rollback of their work rules.

A clear sign of weakening power.

And then came 1923, the final showdown.

The final nail, really.

The operators decided to go for broke.

Eliminate the specialized screwman unions entirely.

Get rid of that classification.

Pave the way for full mechanization, lower labor costs across the board.

And the opposition was unified.

Totally unified and overwhelming.

The mainstream press backed the employers.

The radical papers called them the prostituted press.

The dock board, the state agency, physically barred strikers from accessing the public wharfs.

And the courts.

Crucial role.

Judge Rufus Foster issued these sweeping injunctions.

They didn't just limit picketing.

They actually forbade workers from even congregating near the waterfront.

It essentially dismantled their ability to sustain the strike.

And the strike was broken.

Utterly broken.

The unions were facing complete annihilation.

The only thing that saved them from total extinction was a federal US shipping board.

How did they intervene?

They offered the unions what was called a separate peace pact.

It basically said, okay, we'll agree to pay union workers the 80 cents an hour rate.

But.

There's always a but.

But.

You have to give up your written contracts.

You have to give up your key work rules.

Meanwhile, the Steamship Association just resumed operations on a fully open shop basis.

The DCC, as a powerful contract holding federation, was effectively destroyed.

It's a devastating collapse.

Which brings us back to that question of internal weakness versus external pressure.

Some older histories pointed to race, right?

They did.

Specifically, people like Sparrow and Harris argued that tensions over the division of work principle.

The idea that black and white union gangs should get an equal share of the available work hours undermined the DCC, especially because black workers apparently outnumbered white workers.

But the source material we're looking at challenges that interpretation.

Quite strongly, yes.

First, it argues New Orleans didn't actually see the kind of dramatic surge in the black population and thus the labor force that occurred in some other southern cities.

The numbers didn't shift that drastically.

Second,

black union leaders held positions within the broader International Long Shoreman's Association hierarchy.

They had platforms at conventions to complain about the equal division system if they felt it was unfair.

But the records show they generally didn't.

So where was the real racial inequality, according to this analysis?

It was baked into the occupational hierarchy itself.

The fact that black workers were overwhelmingly concentrated in the lowest paid, least skilled jobs like teamsters, loaders and coal wheelers.

That structural inequality was far more significant than squabbles over dividing hours within the better paid tiers.

That's not to say there were no internal racial tensions.

No, absolutely not.

Tensions were definitely present.

We know there was a report from a labor spy in 1923, for instance, accusing the white leader Harry Keegan of basically using strong arm tactics, maybe even violence, to push the final strike forward when some black longshoremen were apparently hesitant.

So tensions existed.

Yes.

But the crucial point the source makes is that once that 1923 strike actually began,

black workers maintained a solid front alongside the white strikers.

They stuck together during the conflict itself.

So the conclusion is?

The source material concludes pretty definitively that racial tensions, what real, quote, did not undermine the Dock and Cotton Council strength to the point of causing its collapse.

The force that shattered this powerful waterfront labor movement came overwhelmingly from the outside.

The combination of political and economic forces.

Exactly.

The unified opposition of the state government, the court stepping in with injunctions, the employers coordinating their attack, and all of this happening during a period of post -war unemployment that made strike breaking easier.

That combination was lethal.

So to recap the whole trajectory for you, we start with this incredibly powerful Dock and Cotton Council built on a unique biracial structure, achieving amazing stability through those long -term contracts.

Right.

But it wasn't internal rot like racial infighting that brought it down.

It was this perfect storm of external factors.

The economic slump after the war, the relentless push for modernization and mechanization, and crucially a decisive political shift where both local and state governments turned actively hostile towards organized labor.

It really highlights the importance of political context for labor movements.

It absolutely does.

In New Orleans, these unions were powerful for decades.

Precisely because they managed to secure both contractability and a degree of political influence, or at least tolerance.

But when both of those pillars were knocked out simultaneously, as happened between 1919 and 1923, the entire structure collapsed.

And it leaves you with a really important question to think about.

Can any labor movement, no matter how strong its internal solidarity or how successful its past negotiations, truly survive when the machinery of the state, the government, the courts,

is fundamentally aligned against it?

Something to ponder.

A profound question indeed, stemming from this deep dive into the New Orleans waterfront.

Thank you for joining us today.

We'll see you next time on The Deep Dive.