George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, 1980), 124.
Pavlito Geshos, "Working Class Heroes," Clamor, March/April 2002, 50. Greensboro was not the first time the KKK took an interest in destroying unions. To offer just one example, in the autumn of 1936, the Klan burned across near the rubber factory in Akron, hoping to intimidate striking workers who had occupied the factory. Jeremy Brecher, Strike! (Boston: South End Press, 1972), 185.
Quoted in Dennis C. Rousey, Policing the Southern City: New Orleans, 1805-1889 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996), 167. The majority of the strikers were Black, but not all of them.
Anatole France, The Red Lily (New York: The Modern Library, no date), 75.
Quoted in Eric H. Monkkonen, Police in Urban America, 1860-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 129.
See chapter 3 for more on this point.
Allen Steinberg, The Transformation of Criminal Justice: Philadelphia, 1800-1880 (Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Carolina Press, 1989), 127. This combination of class bias and Puritanical moralism was characteristic of the period, and translated into rigid standards ofconduct for women especially. Its effect was evident, for example, in New York's campaign against prostitution. "In a city so concerned with defining both women's proper place and the place ofthe working class, the alarm over prostitution stemmed in part from general hostilities to the milieu of laboring women from which prostitutes came." Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 175.
Quoted in Steinberg, Transformation of Criminal Justice, 153.
Gang suppression is discussed in greater detail in chapter 4. The drug war, quality-of-life policies, and related efforts are addressed in chapter 9.
Sidney Harring, Policinga Class Society: The Experience of American Cities, 1865-1915 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1983), 201.
Charles Ogletree, Jr. et al., Beyond the Rodney King Story: An Investigation of Police Conduct in Minority Communities (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1995), 22-23.
Frank Donner, Protectors of Privilege: Red Squads and Police Repression in Urban America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 37.
Raymond B. Fosdick, American Police Systems (New York: The Century Company, 1920), 322-323. Emphasis in original.
See, for example: Roger Lane, Policing the City: Boston 1822-1885 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 206-207.
A Pinkerton agent, James McParland, joined the Molly Maguires, aided in the commission of crimes, and then testified against them to gain a conviction. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the practice in its 1877 Campbell vs. Commonwealth decision. Nineteen Molly Maguires were executed on the basis of such evidence. Donner, Proctectors of Privilege, 10; and Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, 1492-Present (New York: Harper Perennial, 1995), 239.
Donner, Protectors of Privilege, 24.
Bruce Smith, The State Police: Organization and Administration (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1925), 33.
Quoted in Donner, Protectors of Privilege, 25.
For example, the commission remarked that "the resentment expressed by many persons connected with the strike at the presence of the armed guards and militia of the State does not argue well for the peaceable character or purposes of such persons" and that "a labor or other organization whose purpose can be accomplished only by the violation of law and order ofsociety. has no right to exist." Quoted in Katherine Mayo, justice To All: The Story of the Pennsylvania State Police (New York: GP Putnams Sons. 1917), 4.
Quoted in Mayo, justice To All, 5.
Mayo, justice To All, 1.
Diane Cecelia Weber, "Warrior Cops: The Ominous Growth of Paramilitarism in American Police Departments," Cato Institute Briefing Papers 30 (August 26, 1999): 6.
Quoted in Pennsylvanian State Federation of Labor, The American Cossach (New York: Arno Press St The New York Times, 1971), 17.
Quoted in Pennsylvanian State Federation of Labor, American Cossack. 28-29.
Quoted in Smith, State Police, 33-34.
"Capitals turn to the police to handle some aspects of the reproduction of the working class cannot be separated from a more general move by the bourgeoisie, beginning in the 1840s, with the industrial revolution, to use public institutions in general for that purpose. This socialization of expenditures necessary for the reproduction and expansion of capital encompasses public expenses for education, public health, welfare, police and fire protection, building inspection and housing, and public works. The post-Civil War period saw a rapid expansion of these early efforts, with local capitalists devoting substantial resources in order to control and direct the various components of the state apparatus to the ends of the capitalist class." Harring. Policing a Class Society, 27-28. See also: James Weinstein, The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State: l900-1918 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), 95.
The Texas Rangers were an example of the military type. Created by the Republic of Texas in 1835, the Rangers, under military command, were mostly used to guard the Mexican border. Bruce Smith. Rural Crime Contra/(New York: Institute of Public Administration, 1933), 127-28. Massachusetts provides the model of the state-level vice squad: In 1 864, the legislature created the Constables of the Commonwealth "to repress and prevent crime by the suppression of liquor shops, gambling places, and houses of'ill-fame.'" Quoted in Lane, Policing the City, 137.
In 1868, South Carolina's Reconstruction legislature created a state constabulary with a Chief Constable in Columbia and deputies in every county. It was intended to suppress Klan activity, but proved ineffective. Allen W. Trelease, White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction (New York: Harper 8( Row, 1971), 73.
Bruce Smith, Police Systems in the United States (New York: Harper Brothers, 1940), 187-188.
Quoted in Donner Protectors of Privilege, 41.
Donner Protectors of Privilege, 42-43.
Huey P. Newton, War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America (New York: Harlem River Press, 1996), 18.
See chapter 4.
Quoted in the Commission of Inquiry, The Interchurch World Movement, Report on the Steel Strihe of1919 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Howe, 1920), 238. The brunt of repression was felt in Allegheny County and western Pennsylvania. There, the authorities responded by deputizing five thousand scabs and banning all public assemblies - including, in some places, indoor meetings. Mass arrests and physical attacks became common, with strikers facing violence from police, deputy sheriffs, scabs, company guards, vigilantes, and sometimes state troops. Many were injured, twenty were killed. Under such pressure, the strike collapsed in January 1920. The workers returned to work, having won nothing. Samuel Yellen, American Labor Struggles, 187741934 (New York: Pathfinder, 1936), 261-263 and 271; Brecher, Strike! 123; and Zinn, People's History, 3714372.
James F. Richardson, Urban Police in the United States (Port Washington, NY: National University Press and Kennikat Press, 1974), 159. In extreme cases the police even aided strikers. During the steel strike of 1919, Cleveland Mayor Harry L. Davis had the police turn away scabs trying to enter the city. Potential strikebreakers were treated as suspicious persons, and - until a court forbade the practice - either run out of town or arrested. Richardson, Urban Police, 161. Likewise in small, homogenous communities, where the police had familial and social ties with the workers, they were less likely to serve as effective strikebreaking forces. A most dramatic case of this phenomenon occurred in Mattewan, West Virginia, where the police chief himself was a former miner. Brecher, Strike! 136. Such cases are noteworthy precisely because they are exceptional.
Smith, State Police, 58-59.
Yellen, Labor Struggles, 169.
Yellen, Labor Struggles, 172-173.
Yellen, Labor Struggles, 179. On the Lawrence textile strike, see also: Zinn, People's History, 323-330.
Quoted in Peter Bollen, Great Labor Quotations: Sourcebook and Reader (Los Angeles: Red Eye Press, 2000), 22.
Yellen, Labor Struggles, 176. By the end of the strike, 296 had been arrested. Yellen, Labor Struggles, 189.
Yellen, Labor Struggles, 178-179.
Yellen, Labor Struggles, 194.
Quoted in Yellen, Labor Struggles, 181. A similar argument was used to convict the Haymarket defendants a quarter-century before. See chapter 7.
Yellen, Labor Struggles, 193.
Yellen, Labor Struggles, 182.
Quoted in Zinn, People's History, 328.
Yellen, Labor Struggles, 185-187.
Quoted in Zinn, People's History, 329.
Yellen, Labor Struggles, 190-191.
Quoted in Yellen, Labor Struggles, 193.
Yellen, Labor Struggles, 195-197.
Yellen, Labor Struggles, 308-313 and 316-3l7.
One oft-cited example: Oregon lumber mills shut down, because there was no way to ship the wood. Brecher, Strike! 151; and Yellen, Labor Struggles, 315.
David F. Selvin, A Terrible Anger: The 1934 Waterfront and General Strikes in San Franeiseo (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996), 91-92.
Selvin, Terrible Anger, 93.
Brecher, Strike! 152.
Violence was less common in Portland and Seattle, where the persistent threat of a general strike discouraged any attempt at opening the docks. Selvin, Terrible Anger, 104. The most notable incident in the northwest came as the San Francisco General Strike was winding down. Seattle mayor Charles Smith ordered 300 police to remove 2,000 picketers from the city's pier at Smith's Cove. The cops used tear gas and nausea gas against the crowds, and the police chief resigned in protest. Selvin, Terrible Anger, 225; and Yellen, Labor Struggles, 332.
Selvin, Terrible Anger, 144-146; and Yellen, Labor Struggles, 318.
Quoted in Selvin, Terrible Anger, 156.
Yellen, Labor Struggles, 318.
Selvin, Terrible Anger, 149. The police naturally reversed this chronology in their Official statements, claiming that the inspectors merely defended themselves against the hail of rocks coming from the crowd. Several witnesses, including Harry Bridges, testified that nothing was thrown until after the shots were fired. Selvin, Terrible Anger, 14.
Selvin, Terrible Anger, 11-12 and 14.
65 Quoted in Selvin, Terrible Anger, 150.
Yellen, Labor Struggles, 319; and Brecher, Strike! 153.
Brecher, Strike! 153; and Yellen, Labor Struggles, 319.
Quoted in Selvin, Terrible Anger, 161-162.
Quoted in Yellen, Labor Struggles, 319.
Selvin, Terrible Anger, 166-167; and Yellen, Labor Struggles, 323.
Selvin, Terrible Anger, 166-167.
Quoted in Selvin, Terrible Anger, 168, 177. and 182.
Selvin, Terrible Anger, 178.
Yellen, Labor Struggles, 325.
Selvin, Terrible Anger, 185.
Selvin, Terrible Anger, 192-200; and Yellen, Labor Struggles, 328.
Selvin, Terrible Anger, 221 and 227.
Selvin, Terrible Anger, 224.
Selvin, Terrible Anger, 233.
Yellen, Labor Struggles, 334-335.
Selvin, Terrible Anger, 237. Between January 1, 1937, and August 1, 1938, 350 strikes occurred on the West Coast docks, mostly brief and localized "quickies." Brecher, Strike! 158.
Quoted in Selvin, Terrible Anger, 240.
Tony Bartelme, "Indicted Longshoremen Adopted as Union Crusade," Postana' Courier (Charleston, SC), September 3, 2001.
Bartelme, "Indicted Longshoremen," and "Analysis: South Carolina Longshoremen Accuse Attorney General of Playing Politics in Riot Indictments of Union Members," Morning Edition, National Public Radio, July 16, 2001 [database: Newspaper source, accessed September 29, 2002].
Among those injured was "A Local 1422 president Ken Riley, who was struck in the head with a baton. One "A member was run over with a state police car. The cops later admitted that they were surprised no one had been killed. Bartelme, "Indicted Longshoremen" and Ashaki Binta, "Solidarity Grows for Dockers Victimized by "Police Riot, Labor Notes. April 2001, 1 and 14.
Quoted in Morning Edition (July 16, 2001). Condon later sponsored an ad for George W. Bush's presidential campaign, stating, "The Charleston union riot reminds us why South Carolina is a right-to-work state. A year later, as the trial date approached, he publicly compared the ILA to the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center. Such antics led defense attorneys to file motions accusing him of prosecutorial misconduct. Tony Bartelme, "Condon Gives Up Charleston Five Case; 1st Circuit's Walter Bailey to Prosecute Union Members on Rioting Charges," Post and Courier (Charleston, SC), October 11, 2001.
The defense was not alone in the view that Condon was taking things too far. Jeff Osburn, a Charleston Police detective assigned to the case, said: "Having these guys under house arrest for this long is ridiculous... These are normal, everyday, hard working citizens, the backbone of the community. They had a right to be there that night and a right to make a statement. It's just unfortunate that it got out of hand, and it's a shame that the prosecution has gone as far as it has." Quoted in Bartelme, "Indicted Longshoremen."
Even Mayor Joseph P. Riley wrote to Condon that the case "should be resolved far short of these defendants proceeding to trial on the current charges against them." Quoted in Bartelme, "Condon Gives Up."
Tony Bartelme, "Remaining 'Charleston 5' Make Plea Bargain," Post and Courier (Charleston, SC), November 9, 2001; Tony Bartelme, "Charleston 5 Case Ends With No-Contest Pleas," Post and Courier (Charleston, SC), November 14, 2001; Bartelme, "lndicted Longshoremen," Bartelme, "Condon Gives Up;" Alicia Chang, "Thousands Rally at South Carolina Statehouse to Support Dockworkers Charged in Riot," AP Worldstream (June 9, 2001) [database: Newspaper Source, accessed September 29. 2002]; and Morning Edition (July 16, 2001).
Bartelme, "Remaining 'Charleston 5;", and Bartelme, "Charleston 5 Case."
Jeremy Brecher, "Organizing the New Workforce," Z Magazine, July/August 1998, 71. A later Justice for Janitors campaign in Sacramento supplies a brief catalog of the despicable tactics still in use against union organizing. Over the course of four years, as the workers fought for a contract with Somers Building Maintenance, they faced firings, a Congressional investigation, and a citywide ban on union marches, as well as mass arrests and bearings at the hands of the police. Nevertheless, the union prevailed, and in March 1999, Somers signed a contract with SEIU. David Bacon, "Janitors Get Justice,n Labor Notes, May 1999, 1 and 14.
Ann Mullen, "A Million-Dollar Question," Metro Times (Detroit, MI), April 19, 2000, http://www.metrotimes.com/mtframes.asp?Page-/20/23/Features/musCinune.html (accessed September 9, 2002); and Mia Butzbaugh, "Media Giants Take Aim at Newspaper Unions," Labor Notes, September 1995, 3.
A Sterling Heights Police memo dated July 18, 1995, described a meeting between police and management. It said that the Detroit News Agency's representatives were "very impressed and very happy with the performance of our department and that they will do their best to assist us, so as to keep things running smoothly." Quoted in Mullen, "Million-Dollar Question."
David Bacon, "Labor Slaps the Smug New Face of Union busting," Court Action Quarterly (Spring 1997): 36.
Butzbaugh, "Media Giants," 3; and Mia Butzbaugh, "Newspaper War in Detroit," Labor Notes, October 1995, 9.
Jim Dulzo, "Striking Out," Metro Times (Detroit, MI), January 23, 2001, http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=1210 (accessed February 13, 2003). Some strikers won court settlements related to excessive force and unlawful arrest. Mullen, "Million-Dollar Question;" Zachem, "Kicking Case;" and "Striking Newspaper Worker Wins $2.5 Million Verdict," Yeamster Magazine, June/July 2001, http://www.teamster.org/comm/newsletters/0601.htm#02 (accessed February 3, 2003).
Butzbaugh, "Newspaper War," 9.
Quoted in Butzbaugh, "Newspaper War," 9.
Quoted in Jim West, "Unions Focus on Advertiser/Circulation Boycott As Detroit Newspapers Reject Peace Offer," Labor Notes, November 1995, 5.
Paul A. Gilje, Rioting in Ameriea (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996). 151 and 180.
"In March 1937, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Wagner Act in the Jones and Laughlin case, and the machinery of the National Labor Relations Board began to work....
Having accepted the NLRB as a legal body with authority over employers engaged in interstate commerce, the court then set about restricting workers' rights under the Wagner Act. In 1939, it outlawed the sit-down strike in the Fansteel case, and decided that the Wagner Actcould not force employers to make concessions to workers. In other decisions, the courts reinforced employers' rights and limited workers' rights by holding: (1) that the Act did not interfere with the '71 employer's right to select employees or discharge them; (2) that, if the employers bargained to 'an impasse,' they could unilaterally impose terms, but the workers could not strike while under contract; (3) that the employees' right to strike did not include the license to 'seize the employers' plants' as in sit-down strikes; (4) that unions were institutions apart from their members and that union leaders, therefore, had to police their unions and ensure 'responsible behavior.' In sum, the courts allowed unions to engage in collective bargaining over a limited range of issues, but prohibited them from using the kind of militant, direct action that had built the CIO." James R. Green, The World of the Worker.' Labor in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Hill E; and Wang, 1980), 165-166. See also: Harring, Policing a Class Society, 257.
"The institutionalization of the new unions began soon after their explosive creation in the mass strikes of the mid-thirties. The top leaders hastened this process, especially after the employers' vicious counterattack in 1937. Moreover, the whole structure of collective bargaining, as determined by the courts and the NLRB, favored a more routinized, businesslike relationship between top leaders oflabor and management, with the government as referee. As a result, many of the issues, such as speedup, that precipitated the original labor revolts were shunted aside." Green, World ofthe Worker, 172.
One high-ranking police official attributed the General Strike to just this change of leadership: "the rank-and-file workers became convinced that their leaders were too much hand-in-glove with the industrial interests of the city." Quoted in Brecher, Strike/252.