Great Railroad Strike of 1922

The Great Railroad Strike of 1922, or the Railway Shopmen's Strike, was a nationwide strike of railroad workers in the United States. Launched on July 1, 1922, by seven of the sixteen extant railroad labor organizations, the strike continued into August before collapsing. A sweeping judicial injunction by Judge James Herbert Wilkerson effectively ended the strike on September 1, 1922.

At least ten strikers or family members were killed during the work stoppage. The collective action of some 400,000 workers in the summer of 1922 was the largest railroad strike since the American Railway Union's Pullman Strike of 1894 and the biggest American strike of any kind since the Great Steel Strike of 1919.

The strikes were seen as a major failure for the Harding Administration; the administration's handling of the strikers led by Attorney General Harry Daugherty, were criticized for their heavy handed tactics, and the inability to resolve the dispute damaged their credibility further. The Republicans would suffer major losses in the 1922 United States elections as a consequence of the strike.

Background

thumb|right|220px|[[George Wallace William Hanger|G.W.W. Hanger, R.M. Barton, and Chairman Ben W. Hooper of the Railroad Labor Board, which approved the wage cut for train maintenance workers that prompted the 1922 Railroad Shopmen's Strike.]]

During American participation in World War I, the American railroad system, the primary mode of freight and passenger transportation in the era, was nationalized by an executive order by President Woodrow Wilson. Operation of the railways was turned over to an institution known as the United States Railroad Administration. A period of relative labor harmony followed, marked by the establishment of the 8-hour day across the railroad industry.

This interval of labor peace proved short-lived, however, following the return of control of the rail system to private hands by the Transportation Act of 1920. A new bureaucratic entity for coordination of the industry was created at this time, a 9-member panel known as the Railroad Labor Board.

Launch of strike

In 1922 the Railroad Labor Board approved yet another cut in wages, this time a cut of 7 cents an hour targeted at railway repair and maintenance workers, representing a loss of an average of 12% for these workers.

Strike ballots were sent out to the members of all railway unions over the 1922 wage cuts, but when the votes were counted the members of the "Big Four" brotherhoods broke ranks over the question of a work stoppage. Seven unions representing the railroad shopmen and maintenance of way workers voted to go on strike, however, and the date July 1, 1922, was set for the launch of a coordinated work stoppage. On that day some 400,000 railway workers walked off the job, including nearly 100,000 in the Chicago metropolitan area alone. Railroads were encouraged by the Railway Labor Board to hire replacement workers, who were to be regarded as permanent by the board. In Easton, Pennsylvania, for example, a crowd of 50 women and children pelted strikebreakers with sour milk, rotten eggs, and spoiled produce.

Attempts by state and federal authorities to impose order proved to be an accelerant to the physical nature of the conflict. In the initial phase of the conflict, strikers attempted to set up pickets to close down railroad roundhouses and repair shops. Private guards and law enforcement authorities were quick to remove strikers from private property, however, and with the strikebreakers frequently domiciled on the job site, new and more-violent tactics were used, including the issuance of physical threats, the vandalism of strikebreakers' homes, the destruction of railroad property, and instances of physical violence against strikebreakers.

For their part, armed company guards fired upon striking workers with a number of deaths resulting, including incidents in Cleveland, Ohio (July 8 and July 16), Buffalo, New York (July 8), Clinton, Illinois, (a worker's teenaged son, July 8; the worker was wounded), Port Morris, New Jersey (July 12), and in Needles, California (July 12). In Wilmington, North Carolina, a company guard took exception to being called a "scab" by a non-striking railroad engineer and shot him dead. In Buffalo, a woman and two boys were shot by railroad detectives; the boys suffered mortal injuries according to contemporary newspaper accounts. In addition, at least one company guard was shot and killed following the stopping of a train at Superior, Wisconsin, on August 12.

Some strikers did not hesitate to sabotage trains and tracks when the opportunity arose. In one case a train was switched onto side tracks and the cars set upon by a mob, with rocks and metal parts thrown through glass windows. Sections of track were occasionally disrupted with explosives. Vigilante violence was particularly acute in the South and Southwest, with kidnappings and floggings of strikebreakers common. Union leaders condemned the spontaneous violence of strikers and the sometimes-brutal response of company guards and police officials but with little practical effect.

Termination of strike

thumb|right|180px|Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty sought an aggressive approach to end the 1922 Railroad Strike and made use of legal injunctions and US Marshals on the railway companies' behalf.

The opportunity for a mediated solution to the strike was brief. On July 11, 1922, President Harding issued a proclamation that attempted to split the difference between the two sides in the conflict, recognizing the merit of the workers' grievances and promising not to destroy organized labor but also recognizing the decision of the Railroad Labor Board that strikebreakers were to be regarded as permanent employees, with "the same indisputable right to work as others have to decline work."

There was widespread opposition to the injunction, and a number of sympathy strikes shut down some railroads completely, but the strike eventually died out, as many shopmen made deals with the railroads on the local level. The often-unpalatable concessions, coupled with memories of the violence and tension during the strike, soured relations between the railroads and the shopmen for quite some time. The outcome of the strike was a major blow to the Harding administration who were criticized for their inability to resolve the situation and would be a major factor to the Republicans losing the 1922 midterms along with Harding's controversial veto of the Bonus Bill.

References

Sources

Brenner, Aaron, ed. (2009) The Encyclopedia of Strikes in American History p 524
Railway Age: Volume 73, July–December 1922.

External links

James Rada Jr., "Nation’s 1922 Railroad Strike Became Matter of Life and Death," Cumberland [MD] Times-News, June 4, 2011.
"1922 Railroad Strike," Bloomington and Normal Trades and Labor Assembly, www.bntrades.org/