Craft unionism
Encyclopedia
Craft unionism refers to organizing a union in a manner that seeks to unify workers in a particular industry along the lines of the particular craft
or trade that they work in by class or skill level. It contrasts with industrial unionism
, in which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union, regardless of differences in skill
.
Craft unionism is perhaps best exemplified by many of the construction unions that formed the backbone of the old American Federation of Labor
(which later merged with the industrial unions of the Congress of Industrial Organizations
to form the AFL-CIO
). Under this approach, each union is organized according to the craft, or specific work function, of its members. For example, in the building trades, all carpenter
s belong to the carpenters' union, the plasterers
join the plasterers' union, and the painters
belong to the painters' union. Each craft union has its own administration, its own policies, its own collective bargaining agreements and its own union halls. The primary goal of craft unionism is the betterment of the members of the particular group and the reservation of job opportunities to members of the union and those workers allowed to seek work through the union's hiring hall.
This distinction between craft and industrial unionism was a hotly contested issue
in the first four decades of the twentieth century, as the craft unions that held sway in the American Federation of Labor sought to block other unions from organizing on an industrial basis in the steel and other mass production industries. The dispute ultimately led to the formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, which split from the AFL to establish itself as a rival organization. The distinction between craft and industrial unions persists today, but no longer has the political significance it once had.
tradition, in which skilled workmen often owned their own shops or, if they worked for another, had a good deal of control over how the work was done, which they policed by maintaining standards for admission into the trade, requiring entrants to go through an apprenticeship
program controlled by the union, rather than the employer, and dictating the processes, tools, standards and pace of work. These traditions persisted into the twentieth century in fields such as printing, in which the International Typographical Union
would enforce its own rules determining how work was done in union shops, and in the construction industry.
The concept of organizing a strong federation on the basis of craft evolved out of conflict between the Knights of Labor
(KOL), which organized mass organizations of unskilled, semiskilled and skilled workers by territory, and the American Federation of Labor
(AFL), which organized only skilled workers. The craft workers were capable of demanding more from their employers due to their skills, and therefore organized into stronger organizations pursuing narrower interests. The AFL was formed as a direct result of the perceived need by skilled workers to defend their individual craft organizations from poaching by the Knights of Labor. The Knights of Labor believed that skilled workers should dedicate their greater leverage to benefit all workers. Selig Perlman wrote in 1923 that this resulted in "a clash between the principle of solidarity of labor and that of trade separatism." The trade unions "declared that their purpose was 'to protect the skilled trades of America from being reduced to beggary'."
In 1901, the AFL issued a statement referred to as the Scranton Declaration
, which asserted that unions were formed on the basis of the trade practiced by a group of skilled workers. The Scranton Declaration would be invoked – except in the case of powerful industrial unions that resisted, such as the United Mine Workers – to enforce craft autonomy as the cornerstone of the organization.
The principle of craft autonomy began to give way in many trades, however, with the advent of industrialization in the second quarter of the twentieth century. The most impressive example was in the textile industry, which created massive new factories staffed by unskilled workers that displaced the small scale and home workshops of weavers in New England
. New industrial processes and markets also gave rise, however, to many small shops in which semiskilled and unskilled workers did a discrete portion of the work that a skilled worker might have done a decade earlier. The wholly new industry of ready-made clothes, as an example, replaced the workshops run by established master tailors with small operations where unskilled workers were "sweated" – a term that entered popular usage in the middle of the nineteenth century – to produce clothes for all classes of customers, from slaves to gentlemen. Gender and ethnicity also played a part in these new patterns of work: the cotton and woolen mills in New England hired primarily young unmarried girls, often straight from the farm, to tend their machines, while sweatshops most frequently exploited immigrant workers.
Those workers who could hold on to their skill and their control over work processes, such as carpenters, butchers and printers, resisted by forming craft unions. They not only extolled the dignity of work and the dignity of the master worker, but frequently defined themselves by what they were not: to that end, craft unions often developed rigid entrance requirements that excluded women, immigrants, African-Americans and other minority workers.
These craft distinctions in the railroad industry were remarkably long-lived; the Railway Labor Act
, passed in 1925, recognized the prevailing pattern of division of the workforce into "crafts" and "classes" and the separate craft patterns persisted into the late twentieth century. While both the Knights of Labor
and Eugene V. Debs
' American Railway Union
attempted to organize railroad workers on an industrial basis, those efforts were defeated, in some cases by government intervention, injunctions, and force of arms.
The attempt to impose craft distinctions in other industries was not so successful. In the steel industry, for example, after the routing of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers in its titanic strike against Andrew Carnegie
's steel operations at Homestead, Pennsylvania
in 1892, and the defeat, a generation later, of the 1919 steel strike
, the craft unions within the AFL claimed that any attempt to organize steel workers must recognize their separate craft jurisdictions: workers who used bricks to build kilns or similar structures would have to belong to the brickmasons union, workers who sawed wood to build structures within the plant should be carpenters, and so forth. Those demands effectively ruled out any possibility of organizing the industry.
In other cases unions within the AFL organized on an industrial basis: the United Mine Workers
, the United Brewery Workers
and the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
admitted to membership all workers in the industry, or attached to it. Even in those unions, however, craft distinctions sometimes surfaced. In the ILGWU, for example, the cutters – who were often primarily of English, Irish and German stock, were almost exclusively males, were better paid, and were typically more skilled – often looked down on the immigrant, largely female, unskilled "operators" who ran sewing machines in their shops or elsewhere. The ILGWU also tended to group its workers based on seemingly trivial distinctions between the type of garment they produced: among the locals created by the ILGWU in the first decade of its existence was one titled the Wrapper, Kimono and House Dress Makers' Union. Decades later, as the industry changed, it created sportwear locals.
One early challenge came from outside: the Western Federation of Miners
, a union that had fought a series of violent battles with mine owners over the right to represent mill workers as well as hard rock miners, joined with activists from other unions and from the Socialist Labor Party of America
to form the Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW), which aimed to organize all workers, regardless of craft, nationality, gender or race, into one big union. In practical terms the IWW pursued organizing on an industrial basis.
In at least one sense the IWW practiced (and practices) the most egalitarian form of industrial unionism, organizing and accepting membership of workers in any given industry whether they are currently employed or not. The IWW also welcomed immigrant workers, minorities and women as equals.
The IWW was successful in some cases, leading a strike of immigrant workers employed in the woolens industry in Lawrence, Massachusetts
, and many smaller strikes in longshore, agriculture and the lumber industry. In its first three years it was greatly hampered by deep political divisions, such as the question of unions engaging in electoral politics (resolved in favor of ruling out alliances with political parties). The IWW was seriously damaged by government prosecution and vigilantism in the post-war red scare
that reached its peak in 1919, and in the Palmer Raids
of the same period.
The next challenge to the dominance of craft unions within the AFL came from inside, as John L. Lewis
of the Mine Workers, David Dubinsky
of the ILGWU, Sidney Hillman
of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America
, Charles Howard of the International Typographical Union, Thomas McMahon, head of the United Textile Workers, John Sheridan of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union (the descendant of the WFM), Harvey Fremming from the Oil Workers Union and Max Zaritsky of the Hatters, Cap and Millinery Workers joined to form a Committee for Industrial Organizing within the AFL. The craft unions demanded that Lewis and his committee stop; Lewis persisted.
This dispute came to a head at the AFL’s convention in Atlantic City in 1935, when William Hutcheson
, the President of the Carpenters
, made a slighting comment about a member of the fledgling union of tire factory workers who was delivering an organizing report. Lewis responded that Hutcheson’s comment was “small potatoes,” to which Hutcheson replied “I was raised on small potatoes, that is why I am so small.” After some more words Lewis punched Hutcheson, knocking him to the ground, then relit his cigar and returned to the rostrum. The incident – which was also “small potatoes,” but very memorable – personified the conflict between craft and industrial organizing.The CIO proceeded to organize mass production workers on an industrial basis.
The AFL's response to the challenge from the CIO was twofold: both fighting a rearguard action before the National Labor Relations Board
to preserve its right to represent the skilled trades in many of the plants that the CIO was organizing, and attempting to emulate it. Thus, within a decade of the founding of the CIO, unions that had been primarily craft unions, such as the International Association of Machinists
, originally a railroad union with much of its membership in the construction industry, began to make serious efforts to organize on an industrial basis as well. Even the Carpenters took in sawmill workers who had organized on an industrial basis, although the union continued to treat them as second-class members until they seceded to form the International Woodworkers of America
in 1937.
Craft
A craft is a branch of a profession that requires some particular kind of skilled work. In historical sense, particularly as pertinent to the Medieval history and earlier, the term is usually applied towards people occupied in small-scale production of goods.-Development from the past until...
or trade that they work in by class or skill level. It contrasts with industrial unionism
Industrial unionism
Industrial unionism is a labor union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union—regardless of skill or trade—thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in bargaining and in strike situations...
, in which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union, regardless of differences in skill
Skill
A skill is the learned capacity to carry out pre-determined results often with the minimum outlay of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills...
.
Craft unionism is perhaps best exemplified by many of the construction unions that formed the backbone of the old American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
(which later merged with the industrial unions of the Congress of Industrial Organizations
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
to form the AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...
). Under this approach, each union is organized according to the craft, or specific work function, of its members. For example, in the building trades, all carpenter
United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America
The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America is one of the largest building trades union in the United States. One of the unions that formed the American Federation of Labor in 1886, it left the AFL-CIO in 2001.-Early years:...
s belong to the carpenters' union, the plasterers
Operative Plasterers' and Cement Masons' International Association
The Operative Plasterers' and Cement Masons' International Association of the United States and Canada is a trade union of plasterers and cement masons in the construction industry in the United States and Canada. Members of the union finish interior walls and ceilings of buildings and apply...
join the plasterers' union, and the painters
International Union of Painters and Allied Trades
The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades is a union representing about 140,000 painters, glaziers, wall coverers, flooring installers, convention and trade show decorators, glassworkers, sign and display workers, and drywall finishers in the United States and Canada...
belong to the painters' union. Each craft union has its own administration, its own policies, its own collective bargaining agreements and its own union halls. The primary goal of craft unionism is the betterment of the members of the particular group and the reservation of job opportunities to members of the union and those workers allowed to seek work through the union's hiring hall.
This distinction between craft and industrial unionism was a hotly contested issue
Labor federation competition in the U.S.
A labor federation is a group of unions or labor organizations that are in some sense coordinated. The terminology used to identify such organizations grows out of usage, and has sometimes been imprecise. For example, nationals are sometimes named internationals, federations are named unions,...
in the first four decades of the twentieth century, as the craft unions that held sway in the American Federation of Labor sought to block other unions from organizing on an industrial basis in the steel and other mass production industries. The dispute ultimately led to the formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, which split from the AFL to establish itself as a rival organization. The distinction between craft and industrial unions persists today, but no longer has the political significance it once had.
Origins in the United States
The first unions established in the United States in the early nineteenth century tended, by nature of the industries in which their members worked, to be craft unions: shoemakers, cordwainers (shoemakers who work with cordovan leather) and typesetters all worked, as a rule, in small shops in which they had little contact with workers in other fields. Some of these early unions also came out of a guildGuild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
tradition, in which skilled workmen often owned their own shops or, if they worked for another, had a good deal of control over how the work was done, which they policed by maintaining standards for admission into the trade, requiring entrants to go through an apprenticeship
Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...
program controlled by the union, rather than the employer, and dictating the processes, tools, standards and pace of work. These traditions persisted into the twentieth century in fields such as printing, in which the International Typographical Union
International Typographical Union
The International Typographical Union was a labor union founded on May 3, 1852 in the United States as the National Typographical Union. In its 1869 convention in Albany, New York, the union—having organized members in Canada—changed its name to the International Typographical Union...
would enforce its own rules determining how work was done in union shops, and in the construction industry.
The concept of organizing a strong federation on the basis of craft evolved out of conflict between the Knights of Labor
Knights of Labor
The Knights of Labor was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. Its most important leader was Terence Powderly...
(KOL), which organized mass organizations of unskilled, semiskilled and skilled workers by territory, and the American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
(AFL), which organized only skilled workers. The craft workers were capable of demanding more from their employers due to their skills, and therefore organized into stronger organizations pursuing narrower interests. The AFL was formed as a direct result of the perceived need by skilled workers to defend their individual craft organizations from poaching by the Knights of Labor. The Knights of Labor believed that skilled workers should dedicate their greater leverage to benefit all workers. Selig Perlman wrote in 1923 that this resulted in "a clash between the principle of solidarity of labor and that of trade separatism." The trade unions "declared that their purpose was 'to protect the skilled trades of America from being reduced to beggary'."
In 1901, the AFL issued a statement referred to as the Scranton Declaration
Scranton Declaration
A statement passed in 1901 by the American Federation of Labor , the Scranton Declaration made craft autonomy the cornerstone of the organization. Craft unionism meant that unions were formed on the basis of the trade practiced by a group of skilled workers.For example, in the printing trades, a...
, which asserted that unions were formed on the basis of the trade practiced by a group of skilled workers. The Scranton Declaration would be invoked – except in the case of powerful industrial unions that resisted, such as the United Mine Workers – to enforce craft autonomy as the cornerstone of the organization.
The principle of craft autonomy began to give way in many trades, however, with the advent of industrialization in the second quarter of the twentieth century. The most impressive example was in the textile industry, which created massive new factories staffed by unskilled workers that displaced the small scale and home workshops of weavers in New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
. New industrial processes and markets also gave rise, however, to many small shops in which semiskilled and unskilled workers did a discrete portion of the work that a skilled worker might have done a decade earlier. The wholly new industry of ready-made clothes, as an example, replaced the workshops run by established master tailors with small operations where unskilled workers were "sweated" – a term that entered popular usage in the middle of the nineteenth century – to produce clothes for all classes of customers, from slaves to gentlemen. Gender and ethnicity also played a part in these new patterns of work: the cotton and woolen mills in New England hired primarily young unmarried girls, often straight from the farm, to tend their machines, while sweatshops most frequently exploited immigrant workers.
Those workers who could hold on to their skill and their control over work processes, such as carpenters, butchers and printers, resisted by forming craft unions. They not only extolled the dignity of work and the dignity of the master worker, but frequently defined themselves by what they were not: to that end, craft unions often developed rigid entrance requirements that excluded women, immigrants, African-Americans and other minority workers.
New industries
Workers carried these patterns of organizing into new industries as well. The railroad brotherhoods, the unions formed in the latter half of the nineteenth century, made minute distinctions between groups that worked alongside each other; as an example, more than twenty years passed between the original chartering of the International Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen and the amendment of its charter to permit the union to represent the oilers and helpers who worked with them. Those who saw themselves at the top of the ladder took their elevated status very seriously; as an example, locomotive engineers on many railroads made a point of wearing top hats and a good suit of clothes while at work to demonstrate that they did not get their hands dirty or perform manual labor.These craft distinctions in the railroad industry were remarkably long-lived; the Railway Labor Act
Railway Labor Act
The Railway Labor Act is a United States federal law that governs labor relations in the railroad and airline industries. The Act, passed in 1926 and amended in 1934 and 1936, seeks to substitute bargaining, arbitration and mediation for strikes as a means of resolving labor disputes...
, passed in 1925, recognized the prevailing pattern of division of the workforce into "crafts" and "classes" and the separate craft patterns persisted into the late twentieth century. While both the Knights of Labor
Knights of Labor
The Knights of Labor was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. Its most important leader was Terence Powderly...
and Eugene V. Debs
Eugene V. Debs
Eugene Victor Debs was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World , and several times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States...
' American Railway Union
American Railway Union
The American Railway Union , was the largest labor union of its time, and one of the first industrial unions in the United States. It was founded on June 20, 1893, by railway workers gathered in Chicago, Illinois, and under the leadership of Eugene V...
attempted to organize railroad workers on an industrial basis, those efforts were defeated, in some cases by government intervention, injunctions, and force of arms.
The attempt to impose craft distinctions in other industries was not so successful. In the steel industry, for example, after the routing of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers in its titanic strike against Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...
's steel operations at Homestead, Pennsylvania
Homestead, Pennsylvania
Homestead is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA, in the "Mon Valley," southeast of downtown Pittsburgh and directly across the river from the city limit line. The borough is known for the Homestead Strike of 1892, an important event in the history of labor relations in the United...
in 1892, and the defeat, a generation later, of the 1919 steel strike
Steel strike of 1919
The Steel Strike of 1919 was an attempt by the weakened Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers to organize the United States steel industry in the wake of World War I. The strike began on September 22, 1919, and collapsed on January 8, 1920.The AA had formed in 1876. It was a...
, the craft unions within the AFL claimed that any attempt to organize steel workers must recognize their separate craft jurisdictions: workers who used bricks to build kilns or similar structures would have to belong to the brickmasons union, workers who sawed wood to build structures within the plant should be carpenters, and so forth. Those demands effectively ruled out any possibility of organizing the industry.
In other cases unions within the AFL organized on an industrial basis: the United Mine Workers
United Mine Workers
The United Mine Workers of America is a North American labor union best known for representing coal miners and coal technicians. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing workers and public employees in the United States and Canada...
, the United Brewery Workers
International Union of United Brewery, Flour, Cereal, Soft Drink and Distillery Workers
The International Union of United Brewery, Flour, Cereal, Soft Drink and Distillery Workers was an labor union in the United States. The union merged with the Teamsters in 1973.-Early history:...
and the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membership, and a key player in the labor history of the 1920s and 1930s...
admitted to membership all workers in the industry, or attached to it. Even in those unions, however, craft distinctions sometimes surfaced. In the ILGWU, for example, the cutters – who were often primarily of English, Irish and German stock, were almost exclusively males, were better paid, and were typically more skilled – often looked down on the immigrant, largely female, unskilled "operators" who ran sewing machines in their shops or elsewhere. The ILGWU also tended to group its workers based on seemingly trivial distinctions between the type of garment they produced: among the locals created by the ILGWU in the first decade of its existence was one titled the Wrapper, Kimono and House Dress Makers' Union. Decades later, as the industry changed, it created sportwear locals.
Challenges
As long as the craft unions were the dominant power in the AFL, they took every step possible to block the organizing of mass production industries. This led to challenges from both inside and outside the Federation.One early challenge came from outside: the Western Federation of Miners
Western Federation of Miners
The Western Federation of Miners was a radical labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles...
, a union that had fought a series of violent battles with mine owners over the right to represent mill workers as well as hard rock miners, joined with activists from other unions and from the Socialist Labor Party of America
Socialist Labor Party of America
The Socialist Labor Party of America , established in 1876 as the Workingmen's Party, is the oldest socialist political party in the United States and the second oldest socialist party in the world. Originally known as the Workingmen's Party of America, the party changed its name in 1877 and has...
to form the Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
(IWW), which aimed to organize all workers, regardless of craft, nationality, gender or race, into one big union. In practical terms the IWW pursued organizing on an industrial basis.
In at least one sense the IWW practiced (and practices) the most egalitarian form of industrial unionism, organizing and accepting membership of workers in any given industry whether they are currently employed or not. The IWW also welcomed immigrant workers, minorities and women as equals.
The IWW was successful in some cases, leading a strike of immigrant workers employed in the woolens industry in Lawrence, Massachusetts
Lawrence, Massachusetts
Lawrence is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States on the Merrimack River. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a total population of 76,377. Surrounding communities include Methuen to the north, Andover to the southwest, and North Andover to the southeast. It and Salem are...
, and many smaller strikes in longshore, agriculture and the lumber industry. In its first three years it was greatly hampered by deep political divisions, such as the question of unions engaging in electoral politics (resolved in favor of ruling out alliances with political parties). The IWW was seriously damaged by government prosecution and vigilantism in the post-war red scare
First Red Scare
In American history, the First Red Scare of 1919–1920 was marked by a widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism. Concerns over the effects of radical political agitation in American society and alleged spread in the American labor movement fueled the paranoia that defined the period.The First Red...
that reached its peak in 1919, and in the Palmer Raids
Palmer Raids
The Palmer Raids were attempts by the United States Department of Justice to arrest and deport radical leftists, especially anarchists, from the United States. The raids and arrests occurred in November 1919 and January 1920 under the leadership of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer...
of the same period.
The next challenge to the dominance of craft unions within the AFL came from inside, as John L. Lewis
John L. Lewis
John Llewellyn Lewis was an American leader of organized labor who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960...
of the Mine Workers, David Dubinsky
David Dubinsky
David Dubinsky was an American labor leader...
of the ILGWU, Sidney Hillman
Sidney Hillman
Sidney Hillman was an American labor leader. Head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, he was a key figure in the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and in marshaling labor's support for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democratic Party.-Early years:Sidney Hillman was...
of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America
The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America was a United States labor union known for its support for "social unionism" and progressive political causes. Led by Sidney Hillman for its first thirty years, it helped found the Congress of Industrial Organizations...
, Charles Howard of the International Typographical Union, Thomas McMahon, head of the United Textile Workers, John Sheridan of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union (the descendant of the WFM), Harvey Fremming from the Oil Workers Union and Max Zaritsky of the Hatters, Cap and Millinery Workers joined to form a Committee for Industrial Organizing within the AFL. The craft unions demanded that Lewis and his committee stop; Lewis persisted.
This dispute came to a head at the AFL’s convention in Atlantic City in 1935, when William Hutcheson
William Hutcheson
William Hutcheson was the leader of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America from 1915 until 1952. A conservative craft unionist, he opposed the organization of workers in mass production industries such as steel and automobile manufacturing into industrial unions...
, the President of the Carpenters
United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America
The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America is one of the largest building trades union in the United States. One of the unions that formed the American Federation of Labor in 1886, it left the AFL-CIO in 2001.-Early years:...
, made a slighting comment about a member of the fledgling union of tire factory workers who was delivering an organizing report. Lewis responded that Hutcheson’s comment was “small potatoes,” to which Hutcheson replied “I was raised on small potatoes, that is why I am so small.” After some more words Lewis punched Hutcheson, knocking him to the ground, then relit his cigar and returned to the rostrum. The incident – which was also “small potatoes,” but very memorable – personified the conflict between craft and industrial organizing.The CIO proceeded to organize mass production workers on an industrial basis.
The AFL's response to the challenge from the CIO was twofold: both fighting a rearguard action before the National Labor Relations Board
National Labor Relations Board
The National Labor Relations Board is an independent agency of the United States government charged with conducting elections for labor union representation and with investigating and remedying unfair labor practices. Unfair labor practices may involve union-related situations or instances of...
to preserve its right to represent the skilled trades in many of the plants that the CIO was organizing, and attempting to emulate it. Thus, within a decade of the founding of the CIO, unions that had been primarily craft unions, such as the International Association of Machinists
International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers is an AFL-CIO/CLC trade union representing approx. 646,933 workers as of 2006 in more than 200 industries.-Formation and early history:...
, originally a railroad union with much of its membership in the construction industry, began to make serious efforts to organize on an industrial basis as well. Even the Carpenters took in sawmill workers who had organized on an industrial basis, although the union continued to treat them as second-class members until they seceded to form the International Woodworkers of America
International Woodworkers of America
International Woodworkers of America was an industrial union of lumbermen, sawmill workers, timber transportation workers and others formed in 1937....
in 1937.