History and Philosophy of American Labor Unions: The Knights of Labor and the AFL

The Knights of Labor (1869–1886)

Founding and Early History: * The Knights of Labor was organized in Philadelphia in $1871$ by garment cutters. * Initially, it was established as a secret society, which led to widespread rumors in the press regarding the group being dangerous or violent. * These rumors were often encouraged by factory owners who feared that worker organization would inevitably lead to strikes. * Between the years $1877$ and $1880$ , the number of national unions in the United States grew from $3$ to $18$ .
Expansion and Membership: * Within a few years of its founding, the organization expanded its scope to include all workers: men and women, regardless of color. * An explicit exception was made for the Chinese, who were not allowed to join. * By $1886$ , the Knights of Labor had grown to become one of the largest labor unions in the United States, boasting a membership of $500,000$ .

Platform and Statement of Goals (1878)

Core Concerns: * In $1878$ , the Knights released a public statement expressing alarm over the "unjust accumulation" of wealth by capitalists and corporations. * They feared "pauperization" (impoverishment) and the "hopeless degradation of the toiling masses."
Key Labor Demands: * Reduction of the workday to $8$ hours. * Prohibition of child labor for children under the age of $15$ in factories, workshops, and mines. * Equal pay for men and women. * Use of arbitration and negotiations to settle labor disputes instead of recurring to strikes.
Political Ideology: * The group was not formed as a political party but aimed to organize the industrial masses and direct their power. * They believed many objectives could only be achieved through legislation and encouraged members to vote for candidates who pledged support for their measures, regardless of the candidate's party affiliation. * Their guiding principle was "securing the greatest good to the greatest number." * They cited the divine injunction: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread."

Declaration of Principles: Demands of the State and Congress

Social and Industrial Goals: * To make industrial and moral worth, rather than wealth, the standard for individual and national greatness. * To ensure workers enjoy the full wealth they create and have sufficient leisure for intellectual, moral, and social development.
Specific Demands to the State: 1. Labor Statistics: Establishment of bureaus to analyze the financial, moral, and educational conditions of workers. 2. Public Lands: Reservation of lands for actual settlers; cessation of land grants to railroads or speculators; taxing speculative lands at full value. 3. Legal Equality: Abrogation of laws that do not bear equally on capital and labor; removal of technicalities and discriminations in justice. 4. Health and Safety: Adoption of measures for those in mining, manufacturing, and building; indemnification for injuries resulting from a lack of safeguards. 5. Incorporation: Recognition of trade unions and other associations through incorporation. 6. Weekly Payment: Laws compelling corporations to pay employees weekly in lawful money; providing mechanics/laborers a first lien on the product of their labor for wages. 7. Contract System: Abolition of the contract system on national, state, and municipal works. 8. Arbitration: Enactment of laws for arbitration between employers and employees. 9. Child Labor: Prohibition of employment for children under $15$ in workshops, mines, and factories. 10. Convict Labor: Prohibition of hiring out convict labor. 11. Taxation: Implementation of a graduated income tax.
Demands to Congress: 1. Monetary System: A national system where the circulating medium is issued directly to the people without bank intervention; all national issues to be full legal tender; no recognition of private banking corporations. 2. Debt Policy: Government should never issue interest-bearing bonds, bills of credit, or notes; emergencies should be met by issuing non-interest-bearing legal tender. 3. Foreign Labor: Prohibition of importing foreign labor under contract. 4. Postal Services: Government organization of financial exchanges and safe deposits at post offices for people's savings. 5. Public Ownership: Government possession (via purchase/eminent domain) of all telegraphs, telephones, and railroads; no future charters for private corporations in these sectors.

American Federation of Labor (1886)

Declaration of Principles: * The AFL identified a global struggle between capital and labor, or the "oppressors and oppressed." * They argued that while the minority (non-producers) is thoroughly organized, the majority (wage workers) suffers from ignorance and disunion. * The Impact of Industrialization: Machinery and the subdivision of labor, alongside the use of female and child labor and a lack of apprentice systems, were noted as forces reducing skilled trades to the level of "pauper labor." * Objective: To protect skilled labor from beggary and sustain the standard of American workmanship.
Philosophy of the Movement (George E. McNeill): * The labor movement is "born of hunger"—for food, shelter, warmth, clothing, and pleasure. * Logic of demand: Satisfaction of one hunger awakens an aspiration for more; aspiration creates desire; desire forces demand; demand compels supply.

The Philosophic Basis of Organized Labor (Samuel Gompers, 1916)

The Problem of Property: * Samuel Gompers defined the "eternal problem" of the labor movement as the control of property—bringing it into a relation where it serves rather than injures human life. * Trade unions view property laws as human institutions intended to help individuals develop independence and security.
Methods of Progress: * Progress occurs through three main processes: 1. Evolution: Appeals to reason and self-interest. 2. Revolution: Sacrificing life and blood to establish new ideals of rights (e.g., The French Revolution/Louis XVI, The American Civil War). 3. Strike: Oppressed classes interposing their economic power to maintain rights and recognition.
The Modern Industrial Order: * With the decline of feudalism, the relationship between employer and hired became purely industrial and impersonal. * Workers lost standing as individuals, lost ownership of tools and land, and became "part of the machinery of production." * Gompers warned of "sweatshop standards" and the threat of grinding creative energy out of generations, leading to "undernourished weaklings."
Industrial Democracy: * Democracy must be realized in the factory and shop before it can be realized in the nation. * As long as factory bosses have "irresponsible power to hire and fire," employees have no real freedom. * Strikes are the tool used to match the economic power of property, forcing employers to value the human element in production.

The Inevitability of Unions

John Mitchell on the Status of the Wage-Earner (1903): * The average worker has accepted their status as a permanent wage-earner rather than hoping to become a capitalist. * Unions offer the only way for the "weak" individual to enforce just demands through the principle of united action and the goal of a "living wage."
E. G. Manion on the Social Urge (1924): * Man is a "gregarious creature" and a "social being" who must cooperate to exist. * The urge to organize is "the urge of the universe itself." * Since bankers, doctors, and lawyers organize, it is natural for wage-earners to do the same to protect their manhood and right to live decently. * Denying the right to organize is compared to "rainbow chasing" because it attempts to set aside the laws of the universe.