On this day in labor history, the year was 1900.
That was the day the newly formed Building Contractors Council locked out 40,000 building tradesmen in Chicago.
The Contractors Council was founded in opposition to the power of the Building Trades Council.
Solidarity among the trades galvanized their ability to determine wages and working conditions throughout the city.
Hard-won gains included use of sympathy strikes, restriction of laborsaving machinery and apprentices, and work pace and production limits.
In 1899, citywide building trades contracts expired.
Backed by financiers, manufacturers and engineers, the new council demanded the unions abandon these gains and cut all ties with the Building Trades Council.
The contractors cited the more than 20 walkouts at the Montgomery Ward construction site as but one example.
The bosses’ were driven to destroy what historian Andrew Wender Cohen refers to as ‘craft governance’ in the city.
Incredulous, the crafts refused to recognize the contractors council or its demands.
The contractors locked them out.
They brought in 6000 scabs to continue construction work throughout the city.
Pitched battles continued daily in the streets between locked out tradesmen and scabs.
Many contractors brought in cots and food to non-union workers, keeping them on job sites until completion.
Labor-friendly Mayor Carter Harrison II offered to mediate, but refused police protection of scabs.
The contractors built up their own private force.
Then they injected an added racial dimension to the conflict.
Among the non-union workers, some were black tradesmen, briefly hired as construction workers and job site guards.
The lockout ended in a 1901 defeat for the Building Trades, whose ranks were decimated by 90%.
The building trades bounced back and were soon a formidable force in Chicago.
October 10 - Mill Workers Strike and Win
October 9 - Mary Ann Shadd Cary is Born
October 8 - Locked Out and Ready to Fight
October 7 - Remembering Joseph Labadie
October 6 - Fannie Lou Hamer is Born
October 5 - Labor Candidates Step Up
October 4 - Truman Seizes the Nation’s Oil Refineries
October 3 - The Father-Son Strike
October 2 - Striking for a Future
October 1 - Molding the Future
September 30 - Homestead Strikers Tried for Treason
September 29 - Murdered in Estevan
September 27 - Uprising of the 20,000
September 28 - The Journey Toward Equal Treatment
September 26 - Shays’ Rebellion
September 25 - Lewis Hine is Born
September 24 - The Build of the Supreme Court
September 23 - The Nixon Plan in Philadelphia
September 22 - A Pepperoni Pizza and a Union
September 21 - The March of Mother Jones
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Resilient Mind
Positive Thinking Mind
In the Great Khan’s Tent
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast