Their defeat in 1909 had almost crushed unionism in steel. In 1918 the organization of the industry was again undertaken, and with considerable success, the companies retaliating with repres sive measures. The strike started September 22, 1919. The in. dustry stood implacably for the open shop and by December the strike was definitely lost. It is doubtful if the employers in any major strike have ever turned public opinion against the strikers as effectively as did the steel companies on this occasion.
A nation-wide strike of soft coal miners on Nov. 1, 1919, for the six-hour day and five-day week led to the enactment by Kansas of a compulsory arbitration law as a short cut to peace. The act was held unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Employers, as a class, were militantly anti-union in the post war period. Led by the National Association of Manufacturers, the United States Chamber of Commerce, and the American Bankers' Association, they promoted vigorously from 1920 onward "The American Plan," nominally a scheme to establish the "open shop" but actually a crusade to destroy unionism.
The bitterly fought strike in the shipping industry of the At lantic Coast, which began May 1, 1921, was one of the major struggles centring around this issue. The chairman of the United States Shipping Board led the employers. Arrests of hundreds of pickets as vagrants, injunctions, and the importation of strike breakers, were used to combat the unions. After 52 days, the defeat of the seamen's union was almost complete.
The union had been ousted in 1904 from the meat packing in dustry but re-established during the war. In March 1921 the Big Five packers announced their intention to abrogate their agree ment with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Work men. They began to put pressure on their employees to join a "company union." The Amalgamated called a strike for Decem ber 5. The packers refused to admit that a strike was in progress though 45,000 workmen were out. Mass picketing, national guardsmen, and injunction suits evidenced its reality. But the union's resources were meagre, it lacked experience, and the packers turned a deaf ear to Government mediators. When the strike was terminated in February 1922, the packing industry was again an open shop. In the printing trades the story was different. Agreement had been reached in 1919 that the 44-hour week should begin on May I, 1921. In the fall of 1920, the open shop element
in the book and job printers' associations led a rebellion against the 44-hour week agreement. The unions were equally determined. By May 25, 1921, 203 towns reported strikes. The Typographical Union alone paid out nearly $16,000,000 in strike benefits but the unions conquered.
The determined efforts of the clothing industries to establish the open shop in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Montreal were wrecked by the skilful tactics and generalship of the unions. In the cloak industry the union got an injunction against the Federation of Cloak Manufacturers' Associations to prevent them from violating their existing agreement with the union. This un usual resort of the unions to the injunction checkmated the em ployers but aroused considerable resentment in other unions.
The nineteen-twenties witnessed a record-breaking expansion of the construction industries and a terrific attack upon building trade unionism. In Chicago and New York corruption of union leaders was exposed by legislative investigating committees. In San Fran cisco $1oo,o00,000 of construction was tied up in 1921 by a lock out designed to break the building trades unions. Work was re sumed on an open-shop basis and the Chamber of Commerce raised a fighting fund of $1,000,000 to enforce the open shop. Contractors refusing to comply with the American Plan were re fused materials and bank credits. Late in August the unions sur rendered. The years 1923-33 were characterized by an ebb both of union strength and of strike activity. It was an era of employer domination. Led by such great industries as steel, automobiles, meat packing, and textiles, and resorting sometimes to force and in other circumstances to welfare capitalism, the employers came close to driving unions out of manufactures. The competition of the rapidly expanding non-union coal fields and factional disputes within the organization weakened the United Mine Workers. The open shop drive weakened the building trades unions. Welfare capitalism and company unions won a multitude of workers away from working class alignments. The comparative stability of wage and price levels and of employment tended to stability and adjustment in employer-employee relations.