Fitzpatrick and Foster: Behind America's Steelworkers

steel industry

The steel-manufacturing industry provided many jobs; John Fitzpatrick and William Z. Foster worked hard to improve working conditions and improve safety at plants like the one pictured here.

Fitzpatrick and Foster

Behind America's Steelworkers

Anne Lim
Carbondale Community High School, Carbondale

As far back as the American Revolution, there have been disputes between laborers and their employees. The idea of organizing common work groups to seek protection against overbearing employers is certainly nothing new, but it was not until the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries that unionizing was popularized, and at times necessary for industrial workers. Many industries, including the coal mining, railway, and textile industries, had by this time formed their own unions. Efforts to organize America's steelworkers, however, did not take hold until the late 1910s. Two prominent Chicago men are largely responsible for the steel industry's call for unionization. John Fitzpatrick and William Z. Foster pushed for organized labor, and they were welcomed by those who had suffered under the exhausting hours and the deplorable working conditions of the steel mills. After the establishment of their own union, steelworkers throughout the nation were given a voice. It was primarily through the persistent efforts of Fitzpatrick and Foster that the workingmen of America's largest industry finally found representation and a way to forge a better life for themselves.

The steelworkers' demands for a better life were not foreign to John Fitzpatrick; he understood all too well the meaning of a difficult life. Born in Athlane, Ireland, Fitzpatrick lost both of his parents before his tenth birthday. He was cared for by an uncle, and in 1882 when he was eleven, they traveled to America, settling in Chicago. Tragedy followed the young Fitzpatrick. His uncle died soon after, leaving him to fend for himself. With only five

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years of schooling behind him, he was forced to take any meager job that might support him. He found work first on the killing floor of a local stockyard, later as a blacksmith, and then as a horseshoer. One of Fitzpatrick's earliest tastes of leadership came when he was appointed president of the horseshoers' union. He would later head other labor organizations and movements, most notably as a leading figure in the American Federation of Labor.

The major labor headlines of 1886 and 1894 sparked Fitzpatrick's interest in the workers' cause. The anarchist strikes of 1886 and the Pullman Strike of 1894, the latter of which he participated in, left deep and lasting impressions on the young man. His involvement with the Pullman Strike especially impacted him as it opened his eyes to the world of unfair working relations. Fitzpatrick was compelled to take a more active role in labor relations, and he soon rose to greater heights within the labor ranks. By the turn of the century, he held the esteemed position of president of the Chicago Federation of Labor.

Like his partner, William Foster was no stranger to hardship. He moved to Philadelphia from Massachusetts in 1888 and immediately fell into a life in the slums. He joined a gang called the Bulldogs, who drank, smoked, and stole. Foster's first of many brushes with strikes came in 1894 when he was clubbed by police during the Philadelphia streetcar-men's strike. He remembers it as his "baptism in the class struggle and [that] it exerted a profound influence upon [his] general outlook." Perhaps the lasting impression from this, his first strike, was his realization of the power of the union. He wrote "that the individual worker is helpless against

Foster

Fitzpatrick

William Z. Foster (top) and John Fitzpatrick (above) worked in tandem to win an eight-hour work day and higher wages for Chicago-area meatpackers. The duo then moved on to fighting for rights for steelworkers.

the employer and that only by combining his forces with other workers can he exercise any influence in the vital matter of his wages." In addition, the Homestead Strike, Coxey's Army, and the hardships of the Western Federation of Miners deeply affected his outlook on the labor movement. He was "profoundly stirred by all these great events." There is no doubt that what Foster saw and felt shaped him into the man he was to become.

Together, John Fitzpatrick and William Foster made a great team in their uphill battle for labor. Their combination of resourceful organization, discipline, and true compassion for the workers earned them much respect. Fitzpatrick and Foster first met and gained recognition as a pair, when in March 1918 they fought for and won meatpackers the rights to an eight-hour day and higher wages. Before that decision had even been reached, Foster was already busy planning for their next industrial target: the great steel industry.

America was built by steel. There were steel bridges and steel rails; the steel industry fenced in lawns with barbed wire and kept houses up with wire nails. Steel was the staple product of America, yet its laborers had not prospered as the industry had. Workers were forced to labor under deplorable and very often dangerous conditions. They had little control over the pace of their work, for it was the quick machines that determined it. Wages were not better; the annual income of the average worker in 1918 was $121 below the minimum of subsistence. One study showed that 38 percent of the steelworkers were at that level while an additional 34 percent lived below the minimum of comfort. Topping their list of grievances, though, was the issue of work

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hours. Most worked twelve-hour days, six days a week, with a twenty-four-hour shift every two weeks. Many ended up sleeping three or four hours on the job. "Eight hours and the union" became the universal cry. The workers knew they needed a change. They needed to take their grievances somewhere but had no union to turn to Fitzpatrick and Foster were their saving light.

A week after Fitzpatrick and Foster's meatpackers settlement, Foster introduced a resolution proposing an organizing drive in the steel industry before the Chicago Federation of Labor. It was adopted and forwarded to the American Federation of Labor (AFL). At the AFL convention in June 1918, Foster—as Chicago's delegate—proposed a conference to further discuss the matter. He undertook most of the organization for this event, and on August 1, 1918, thirty union leaders, mostly of craft unions, met in Chicago. There, the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel was formed. John Fitzpatrick was appointed chairman of the committee. Many believed he was the best choice for the position, because he was understanding and best suited to keeping together the independent-minded unions. Foster was appointed secretary-treasurer. He had proven himself as a good organizer and tactician in regards to the stockyards situation.

During the first week of September 1918, organizers from the National Committee canvassed Chicago's steel district to arrange mass meetings and organize the steelworkers. The first of these was held in Gary, Indiana. More than fifteeen thousand laborers attended with similar turnouts in the three other Chicago-area cities. There was a great rush by steelworkers to sign up. It was their chance to unite in their common cause, and all that was required was an application form and three dollars. Once the workers were accepted, they were placed in a common pool. Then, each man was placed in a particular inter-industry union according to his trade.

The launching of the National Committee was a true success. Never had steelworkers been as enthusiastic. They now possessed a certain amount of control over their lives—something that had been missing for a long time. They took advantage of their new-found strength in numbers and demanded better working conditions and higher wages from their employers. Real income rose and welfare programs were extended. Working conditions improved, and most importantly for the workers, they won their eight-hour day. Unionization of the steel industry was in fact such a success that by late spring of 1919, membership had soared to an impressive five million workers. Enthusiasm and appreciation for a steel union was certainly widespread.

These laborers owed much of what they gained to John Fitzpatrick and William Foster. The steelworkers' success was a direct result of the work of these two men. They had provided the spark to start the fire, and not only were they important figures early on, but also in the industry's immediate history, especially during the upcoming steel strike. Fitzpatrick and Foster breathed life into the steel industry's unionization. Had it not been for their original effort to organize the steel laborers, who knows when, if ever, America's steelworkers would have been given a voice.—[David Brody, Labor in Crisis; David Brody, Workers in Industrial America, Arundel Cotter, The Authentic History of the United States Steel Corporation; William Z. Foster, From Bryan to Stalin; William Z. Foster, Pages from a Worker's Life; Sidney Lens, The Labor Wars: From the Molly Maguires to the Sitdowns; Colston E. Warnc, The Steel Strike of 1919.]

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