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Book Review
| Robert Michael Smith, From Blackjacks to Briefcases: a History of Commercialized Strike Breaking and Unionbusting in the United States, Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio, 2003. pp. xviii + 179. US $16.95 paper.
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| I spent rather too much of my twenties with my nose in a detective novel. During that time I got to know the characters of Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe and their ilk very well. While these men were hard-bitten mercenaries who inhabited the seedier realm of society, they at least had a strongly defined sense of 'right and wrong' and they usually took the side of the powerless against those who would push them around. The same cannot be said of the characters portrayed in Robert Michael Smith's book From Blackjacks to Briefcases: a History of Commercialized Strike Breaking and Unionbusting in the United States. |
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Smith's book presents the story of union busting and strikebreaking through four chapters corresponding to what he identifies as the four eras of union busting in the United States: the late nineteenth century; 1900 to 1920; the 1920s to the mid-1930s, the late 1930s and beyond. These chapters bring to life the armed heavies who policed picket lines in the late 1800s; the hooligan strike breakers who were employed by the likes of James A. Farley and Pearl Bergoff in the early 1900s; the sneaks and moles who infiltrated hundreds of unions and ruined innumerable organising campaigns in the 1930s; and, the slippery consultants and lawyers who assisted employers to get around regulations designed to allow workers access to union representation since the mid-thirties. It is by no means a sympathetic portrayal. |
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While the first two chapters present a lively history of the violence and thuggery of the private police forces and strike breaking agencies in the period from the 1890s to the 1920s, I found chapter three 'Spies, propagandists, missionaries, and hookers' far more engaging. Here Smith discusses the role of the undercover operatives of organisations such as the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in thwarting organising drives, creating divisions in union ranks, and undermining community support for unionisation and industrial action. Undercover agents used a variety of methods to achieve these ends. One was infiltrating the union ranks. They took jobs on the shop floor of thousands of American companies in order to spy on workers, to gauge union sympathies and to identify union activists. Their findings were reported to company managers and owners who would use the information to construct strategies to avoid unionisation. These operatives were also remarkably successful in penetrating union leadership roles. For example, Smith claims that in the mid-1930s 'nearly one third of those in the employ of the Pinkertons Agency ... held high positions, including one national vice-presidency, fourteen local presidencies, eight local vice-presidencies and numerous secretaryships' (p. 88). At the same time industrial spies fuelled dissent on picket lines, spread rumours designed to damage union campaigns, set up company unions, and attempted to convince the families of unionists of the dire consequences of unionisation. |
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Chapter four, which deals with union busting since the Wagner Act, is equally fascinating. Smith argues that a new breed of 'effective and subtle' mercenaries emerged during this period. They 'carried briefcases rather than blackjacks' as they provided services to employers including: drawing up contracts with 'tame' unions; establishing bogus 'vote no' tickets in union certification elections; bribing and buying off union officials; encouraging managers to take a more systematic approach to recruitment and selection in order to 'weed out' union sympathisers; and, giving employers the tools to engage in 'psychological warfare' with shop floor workers in order to avoid union certification. |
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Smith's central argument is that, during the century to 1990, union busting agencies were forced to adapt their tactics to fit with changes in the regulatory environment and in public sympathy toward unions. While this meant that post-Wagner they adopted a more sophisticated approach in their dealings with unions, it did not mean that their strategies were in substance or aim too different to those used generations before. Indeed he argues that the 'strike breaker kings' of a the late nineteenth century would not have felt at all out of place in the mid-1980s, when union busting came 'full circle'. |
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I have two criticisms of the book. First, it is diminished by the fact that Smith does not attempt to make an argument about the link between the role of anti-union and strikebreaking agencies and the broader fortunes of organised labour in the United States. Second, the book is written for an American audience and lacks some of the information which international readers might need in order to understand the context for the agency of these organisations. However, given the underground and secretive nature of union busting firms, Smith's slim book makes an impressive analysis of the rationale and methods of these organisations. From Blackjacks to Briefcases is a great book which brings its subjects to life, to the point where you almost feel like you are reading a novel. |
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| The University of Sydney |
RAE COOPER | |
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