Chapter 5: To Rule or Ruin: The Struggle for Control

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Welcome to The Deep Dive.

Good to be here.

So today, we're taking you to the New Orleans waterfront.

We're talking early 20th century.

Right, a really major port, hugely successful, commercially speaking, for the South.

Yeah, but behind all that commerce, the labor situation, it sounds like it was, well, constantly exploding, a real battlefield.

Oh, definitely.

Yeah.

But maybe even more than a battlefield.

It was a shock to the established order, you could say.

A shock?

How so?

Well, the biggest threat wasn't really business competition or anything like that.

It was the workers themselves.

Okay.

Specifically, the unity they found,

the deeply entrenched unity between black and white workers.

That's what really shook things up.

And the reaction from, say, the state government,

sounds pretty extreme based on our sources.

It really was.

There was this Port Investigation Commission in 1908.

Louisiana General Assembly set it up.

Right.

And they weren't even looking for racial issues initially, were they?

More commercial problems.

Exactly.

But what they found just, well, it floored them.

There's this quote from State Senator C .C.

Cordell.

Uh -huh.

A cotton planter.

Yeah, a prominent one.

He was, and this is the word he used, disturbed when he found out how much control these joint union committees had.

Joint committees meaning black and white workers together.

That's it.

A 24 -member committee,

12 black, 12 white.

And Cordell's reaction, his exact words,

quite shocking.

What did he say?

He apparently exclaimed that the state was practically under Negro government and then called New Orleans the worst nigger -ridden city in the South.

Wow.

Okay, that really sets the scene.

That kind of intense reaction tells you a lot.

It certainly does.

Yeah.

And it makes our mission for this deep dive pretty clear, I think.

The commission immediately pointed the finger.

On interracial equality.

Yep.

They called it the fruitful source of most of the trouble.

Because, I mean, it's pretty straightforward.

A united labor front, black and white together, was just immensely stronger than a divided one.

And that power directly challenged, well, everyone.

Management, the white planter class.

Everyone in charge.

So yeah, today we're going to unpack that intense struggle for control on the job, specifically between, say, 1901 and 1908.

And look at how these black and white workers, the screwmen and longshoremen, use this fragile solidarity.

Fragile but effective.

How they used it to fight back against the employers trying to basically dominate the entire work process.

You mentioned the employers drive for dominance.

There was a term for that, right?

Rationalization.

Exactly.

Rationalization.

It sounds kind of neutral, but it wasn't just about efficiency.

It was about stripping workers of their power, their decision -making.

Replacing their skill and knowledge with just manager rules.

Pretty much.

Define every little task, maximize output, often at the workers' expense, control.

Okay, so let's get into that struggle.

What exactly were the workers trying to hold onto?

You mentioned functional autonomy.

What did that actually mean day to day on the docks?

Functional autonomy, yeah.

It's basically the collective power workers had over how the job got done.

So like setting the pace.

Setting the pace, deciding how many people were in a crew, and crucially, setting the stint.

The stint.

Yeah, the stint.

That was the negotiated limit on how much work they had to do in a day.

Say, how many cotton bales got loaded.

And the unions saw these limits as essential.

Absolutely essential.

They said it was the only protection against driving and killing a man.

Their words.

It's about survival, really.

So if the union stint was, I don't know, 160 bales a day.

Then management couldn't just demand 200 because a ship was in a hurry.

The union limit stood.

Okay.

And this fight seems to have really centered on one group initially.

The screwmen.

Very much so.

The screwmen were the elite, you know, highly skilled guys.

When did they do excess?

They packed cotton bales into the holds of ships.

Really tight.

It was crucial work.

Incredibly skilled.

If that cotton shifted at sea because it wasn't packed right,

well, the ship could be lost.

That skill gave them power.

And that power obviously attracted attention from the big shipping companies.

Oh yeah.

The big four, they were called.

The dominant lines.

And they made a move in 1902 to try and break the screwmen's control.

How?

By getting rid of the need for skill.

Precisely.

They brought in this new system called shoot the shoot.

Shoot the shoot.

Sounds fast.

It was meant to be.

Used gravity, basically.

Slides or shoots to send bales down into the hold.

It completely bypassed the careful skilled hand stowing the screwmen did.

Which sounds like a direct assault on their autonomy and their whole craft.

It was.

And it meant a massive speed up.

The screwmen figured that under this new system, a small crew would have to handle maybe 400 to 700 bales a day.

Compared to their old stints.

Like 160.

Exactly.

It was an attempt to just completely destroy their work rules, their skill, everything.

Which brings us right back to that interracial unity.

The white screwmen's union realized they couldn't fight this alone, right?

They knew they couldn't.

Because if they struck, the companies could just bring in the black screwmen's union, Benevolent Association number two, probably at lower wages.

So it was pragmatism over prejudice, essentially.

You got it.

Pure economic necessity.

The black union leader, A .J.

Ellis, put it really clearly.

He said they were, quote, tired of being used as an instrument to starve our brother workmen, the white men.

So joining forces was the only way.

It was the only way to have any real power.

And that led to this amazing agreement, the Amalgamation Compact, October 29th, 1902.

Amalgamation.

What did that actually involve?

What were the terms?

Okay.

First, they pledged to act together on everything.

All demands, all negotiations,

joint action.

Unified front.

Makes sense.

Second, the half and half rule.

They agreed to split all the available work down the middle.

50 % for white union members, 50 % for black.

Wow.

Equal division of work.

That's huge for that time.

It was revolutionary.

And maybe the most dramatic part, they integrated the actual work crews.

So black and white workers side by side in the same gang.

Exactly.

Each gang would have two black workers and two white workers.

Even the foremen could be either race.

That's just astonishing considering the Jim Crow laws and the general atmosphere.

It really was.

And they immediately used this newfound power to make some pretty bold demands.

Aimed right at management control.

Straight at it.

They demanded that union members could be foremen.

And that the gangs, the workers, would only take orders from a specific union guy, a walking foreman.

Basically cutting out the company supervisors.

Pretty much giving the union control over day -to -day supervision.

You can imagine how well that went down.

One shipping agent said, if that rule went through, then we might as well close up the port in New Orleans and get off the map.

Strong words.

So they struck the big four in November 1902.

How did that play out?

Did they win?

They did win.

Crucially because the employer front broke.

The smaller shipping lines, the ones who still really needed the screwmen's traditional skills.

They couldn't use the chute.

The chute maybe.

Right.

Or weren't equipped for it yet.

They settled with the unions pretty quickly.

Ah.

So that divided the employers.

Exactly.

Without a united front, the big four couldn't hold out.

They had to concede.

It was a huge victory.

Proving the power of that interracial alliance through just sheer economic leverage.

Okay.

So the screwmen won that round, but the fight wasn't over.

The employers came back in 1903.

They did.

A renewed offensive, this time focused more broadly on

managerial prerogatives and targeting the longshoremen too.

Longshoremen being the next step down the skill ladder, general cargo handlers.

Right.

And this push happened alongside a sort of national anti -union wave.

You had groups like the National Association of Manufacturers actually meeting in New Orleans that year, pushing back against labor power everywhere.

And for the longshoremen, the issue was speed up.

Just working them harder.

Intensification of labor, yeah.

Speed up.

There's a really stark quote from E .S.

Swan, who was a former president of the Black Longshoremen's Union.

What did he say?

He said, work in the penitentiary, under the guns, is no harder than what we do on the levy front.

That paints a grim picture.

So the longshoremen fought back too.

They did.

They struck over a key work

eight man to a hatch rule, trying to maintain crew sizes to resist the speed up.

And the outcome.

They ended up accepting a contract in 1903.

It wasn't a total victory on the speed up itself, but they got something really important in return.

Which was?

An institutional structure, a standing arbitration committee to handle disputes about overwork.

Okay, arbitration.

How did that work?

Was it just like a complaints box?

Oh no, much more powerful than that.

It was a genuine power sharing setup.

The committee had equal representation.

Equal.

Three Black Longshoremen, three White Longshoremen, three steamship agents, and three stevedores.

Six unions, six management.

So balanced.

Exactly.

And while the unions sort of accepted an anti -limit clause on paper, this committee structure gave them real clout.

They could effectively veto what management called a fair day's work, and even stop work if there was a dispute.

So they traded a rule on paper for actual political power within the system.

That's a good way to put it.

They gained a mechanism for continuous negotiation and control.

So we see the screwmen protecting their turf through their skill, and the longshoremen gaining power through this arbitration system.

But this power wasn't universal on the docks, was it?

No, definitely not.

It really depended on your union's strength and control over a specific part of the labor process.

We see the limits really clearly with the Illinois Central freight handlers.

The railroad workers.

Yeah.

In 1903, about 400 of them, Black and White, went on strike.

They had moral support from the dock guys, the DCC unions, but that was about it.

And they failed.

Why so quickly compared to the screwmen?

Simple reason.

They couldn't control the labor supply.

The railroad just went around them.

Brought in strikebreakers.

Easily.

They shipped in 800 strikebreakers, and these weren't even professionals.

They were just regular IC employees brought in from other cities like St.

Louis, Chicago.

Put them up, protected them with armed guards, and just broke the strike flat.

Crushed it.

So that really highlights how critical that control over specialized labor was for the screwmen and longshoremen's success, if the employer could easily replace you.

Your leverage disappeared.

Exactly.

Okay.

So this constant push and pull, it eventually leads to a really big confrontation in 1907.

Yeah.

1907 was the climax, really.

The employers went all out.

Their goal this time was basically to abolish the screwman's trade limits entirely.

What was the specific demand?

They demanded Galveston parity.

Galveston parity.

Meaning match the work rates in Galveston, Texas.

Right.

Galveston was a rival port, apparently known for higher productivity, maybe different systems.

So the demand was for New Orleans screwmen to stow 250, maybe 300 bales a day.

Which was way above their hard -won 160 bales stint.

A clear attempt to break the union's power.

Absolutely transparent.

And the response from the dock and cotton council, that central interracial body was massive.

There was a general strike.

Huge general strike.

Over 8 ,000 workers walked out.

And how solid was the solidarity this time?

Extremely solid.

The DCC refused to handle any cotton that non -union workers had touched.

It basically brought the port to a standstill.

Even wider support.

Yeah.

Even Patrick McGill, leader of the teamsters who actually had a history of fighting with the dock unions over jurisdiction.

Even he called his guys out in sympathy this time.

It showed how high the stakes were.

And this crisis, this huge strike, leads right back to that government investigation in 1908 we started with.

Exactly.

That's the context for Senator Cordell's shock at seeing the joint executive committee, 12 black men and 12 white men, effectively running things.

And the commission's reaction wasn't just shock, it was outrage.

Calling for racial separation.

Oh yeah.

They repeatedly called for separating the races on the levy.

For sociological reasons, they said.

It just shows how deeply this interracial power structure offended the dominant white supremacist ideology of the time.

But despite all that political heat, the final settlement imposed by the commission, it was still kind of a win for the unions, wasn't it?

It was definitely compromised.

But yeah, fundamentally a union victory.

The commission set the stint at 187 bails, hand -stood per gang today.

Higher than the union's old 160.

True.

Higher than 160.

But nowhere near the 250 or 300 the employers were demanding with that Galveston parody push.

So the unions held the line, more or less.

They defended the core principle of a negotiated limit.

They did.

It proved the resilience of their structure, even under immense pressure.

We do have to acknowledge, though, this interracialism, this amalgamation.

It wasn't exactly equality in all aspects, was it?

The sources point out limitations.

Absolutely crucial point.

It was definitely an unequal equality, if that makes sense.

White supremacy still shaped things.

How so?

Well, for one thing, while they shared the work 50 -50, the presidency of the Maine Dock and Cotton Council, always held by a white man.

Okay, so leadership remained white.

And there was a flashpoint in 1904.

Black longshoremen pushed for an equal share of the foreman positions.

You know, the supervisory roles on docks.

And how did the white longshoremen react to that?

Badly.

Outright refusal.

There's a quote from one enraged white worker saying,

uh, we'll have no nigger bossing us as foremen.

So direct resistance to black authority.

Yes.

And the black union leaders, faced with that backlash, decided to drop the issue.

Why?

To keep the peace, basically.

To preserve the economic alliance, the half -and -half work share, which is still incredibly valuable.

They prioritized the functional power they did have.

Which brings us back to that core idea you mentioned earlier, the pragmatism of it all.

Exactly.

Black leaders like A .J.

Ellis were very clear about this.

They consistently framed their demands as a labor problem.

Not a civil rights issue.

Not primarily.

It was about economics.

About, quote, conserving the peace of the poor and bringing added prosperity.

They explicitly denied seeking social equality, which was the big fear for many whites.

So the demand for economic equity was a strategy.

A tool.

A necessary tool for survival and strength in the labor market.

But interestingly, this economic pragmatism did spill over into political action sometimes.

Oh.

In what way?

Well, some of these same black doc leaders, James Porter, E .S.

Swan, were involved in the Equal Rights League.

What was that?

It was formed specifically to fight the disenfranchisement of black voters that happened after Louisiana's 1898 Constitution.

So they were fighting politically for the right to vote.

Yes.

And they even pushed their own union members to pay the poll tax, which was a requirement to vote, using union funds sometimes to maintain their citizenship status and fund education.

That's fascinating.

So there's this unique economic cooperation on the docs, but also links to broader political struggles.

Right.

And it really makes the doc and cotton council stand out.

You compare them to the main white labor body in the city, the central trades and labor council.

The CTLC actively excluded black workers, forced them into segregated unions, even held separate Labor Day parades.

Total segregation.

So the DCC on the waterfront was truly an exception.

A really conspicuous exception in the Jim Crow South.

Its ability to bridge that racial divide, even imperfectly, was the key to its strength.

Its organizational strength gave it power that few other southern workers, black or white, could match.

Precisely.

That unity born of necessity allowed them to achieve a degree of control over their working lives that was pretty remarkable for the time and place.

Okay.

So let's wrap this up.

What are the main takeaways for you, the listener from the steep dive?

Well, I think the big picture is seeing how in this specific context, early 20th century New Orleans,

this alliance between black and white workers, fragile as it sometimes was, it proved strong enough to repeatedly push back against powerful companies, the big four, and even resist pressure from the state government itself.

They carved out real control over the work process.

Control that was almost unheard of elsewhere in the South.

Exactly.

And the core reason, according to the sources we've looked at, wasn't really about some shared belief in racial equality or civil rights, though some individuals surely held those views.

It was more grounded.

Much more grounded in pragmatism.

The self -interested need to control the work, control the labor supply and resist those really harsh employer tactics like the speed up, survival and dignity on the job.

So that leaves us with a final thought for you to chew on.

If this powerful, effective interracial cooperation could emerge and sustain itself largely out of pragmatic necessity.

Right.

Even while broader societal racism, like white supremacy, was still very much present, even among some of the participants.

Then it raises a question.

Can significant social change, like achieving a measure of workplace equality against the grain of the dominant culture, sometimes arise mainly from practical needs and shared economic interests rather than from purely ideological shifts?

Something to think about.

Definitely.

Thanks for taking this deep dive with us.