From Blackjacks to Briefcases

Autorentext
Robert Michael Smith is the author of a number of articles on labor relations and the progressive movement. He is a professor of history at Sinclair Community College, Dayton, Ohio.

Klappentext
Athens, Ohio--Robert Smith uncovered the sordid practices and the extent of a uniquely American industry by reading the subpoenaed documents of strikebound companies and their mercenary strikebreakers, by digging through newspaper archives for articles on long-forgotten strikes, and by studying the testimony of executives and strikebreakers who appeared before private, state, and federal governmental inquiries. Smith describes incidents, often bloody, involving strikebreakers in industrial, transportation, and mining disputes across the nation--including infamous or revealing strikes in California, Colorado, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, and West Virginia. While the activities of such hired guns are occasionally touched upon in broader studies, or in accounts of specific strikes, the lack of primary evidence has made a thorough examination of this industry difficult. Many of the earliest anti-union entrepreneurs carried their offices in their hats, and their secretive nature and the business community's efforts to disassociate itself from these often-unsavory characters left little for historians to record. As the United States became an industrial power after the Civil War, much of the business community steadfastly resisted labor's efforts to bargain collectively. The judicial system, police and other militia forces, as well as government authorities, historically have helped anti-union employers cow workers and maintain their dominance. The role played by anti-union entrepreneurs, however, was obscured until the 1950s. Workers first challenged this heirarchy in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877--an uprising thatspurred creation of the National Guard--and industrial violence did not significantly abate until the federal government sanctioned collective bargaining with the passage of the Wagner Act in 1935. In response, unionbusters became increasingly more sophisticated and more subtle.


Zusammenfassung
From the beginning of the Industrial Age and continuing into the twenty-first century, companies faced with militant workers and organizers have often turned to agencies that specialized in ending strikes and breaking unions.

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