The activity of communists and socialists in trying to capture control of the labour movement forced the unions to divert much of their fighting strength to resisting this "boring from within." (Cf. Perlman and Taft, Chapter XI.) The bitterly fought strike of woollen textile workers at Passaic, New Jersey, in 1927, which lasted more than a year, involved throughout its duration a strug gle between a group of communists, led by Albert Weisbord, and the United Textile Workers' Union for control of the strike.
From 1927 to 1929 a series of strikes in the southern textile mills resulted from the efforts both of the United Textile Work ers and of the communists to organize the textile workers and bring about wage increases. The employers, backed by company controlled politicians and by the prejudice of the southern popu lace against leaders from the North, applied the "blackjack" to the strikers ruthlessly. Much bloodshed, convictions of arrested strikers upon comparatively slight evidence, and the acquittal of police officers guilty of inexcusable shootings, characterized the handling of the textile strikes.
The American Federation of Labor, during the first two years of the depression of the thirties was singularly helpless. The aggressive courage of the Gompers-led labour movement seemed to have disappeared. It required Section 7a of the National In dustrial Recovery Act of June 1933 to put new life into the move ment. This section provided that employees should have the right to organize and bargain collectively, free from interference, re straint or coercion in their union activities. Labour interpreted this to mean that employers working under the N.I.R.A. had to bargain with labour organizations. But employers in steel, auto mobile, and 29 other industries, in codes submitted shortly after the Act was approved, incorporated clauses interpreting Section 7a as permitting individual bargaining, the open shop, and com pany unions. The issue was as prominent in the strikes of 35 as the open shop issue in the early twenties.
One of the most important disputes on this issue was at the Weirton Steel Company. Thirteen thousand workers struck for the right to organize and bargain collectively. The Labor Board asked the union to call off the strike until the Board could hold an election to determine the type of collective bargaining desired by the workers. But the company proceeded to put through the election themselves. The Board asked the Department of Justice to get an injunction preventing the company from interfering with the election but the Court held that injunctions could no longer be issued in labour disputes.
The Houde Engineering Company strike raised the question whether an employer who recognized a union including but a part of his employees had the right to bargain separately with other organizations representing other parts of his labour force. A rul
ing of the Recovery Administration, February 1934, apparently sustained the contention of the Company. On March 25, in the terms of settlement of a threatened general strike in the automo bile industry, President Roosevelt stated that when employees were organized in separate groups, each group should have a pro rata membership in the bargaining committee, but in an Execu tive Order, June 28, 1934, he said that where elections were held the choice of the majority should be accepted as the choice of all.
The National Labor Board in the Houde case (August 30, 1934) held that the representatives of a majority were the representa tives of all the workers. Step by step, practical developments under Section 7a set aside the obvious meaning of the section as originally drafted and permitted company unions and the open shop. In the epidemic of strikes in organized labour was unable, apparently, to win from industry with government assist ance what it could not win by its own strength.
The longshoremen's strike at San Francisco, May 1934, devel oped into a "general strike," something rare in American history.
Union recognition and control of the hiring halls and better wages and hours were at issue. Serious rioting began when the employ ers attempted to operate the docks by force. A number were killed and many injured. The California National Guard was called out. Labour became steadily more embittered. In July sympathetic strikes started, and the principal highways into the city were closed. Panic swept through the city, the people fear ing inability to buy the necessaries of life. A general strike was called for 8 A.M., July 16. For the first few hours the tie-up was complete, but before the first day was over the General Strike Committee authorized the Municipal Street Railways to operate and gave permits for food trucks to enter the city. On the second day, they allowed restaurants to open. The third day all restric tions were taken off the food, gasoline, and fuel oil industries, and President Green of the American Federation of Labor dis claimed any connection of his organization with the strike. On the fourth day the general strike was called off. The first general strike in the United States was in Seattle in 1919. (J. R. Co.; X.) As the expansion of the labour movement gained momentum after 1933, strikes increased. Between 1934 through 1938 they numbered more each year than during any year since 1921, and in 1937 reached a mark higher than in any year in the nation's his tory. The passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, the declaration of its constitutionality in 1937, the split in the la bour movement followed by vigorous competitive organization drives, the general upgrade of business and the rise in prices, are factors accounting for the large number of strikes.