¹ These views are associated with Perlman, Selig, A Theory of the Labor Movement (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1949)Google Scholar, and Kerr, Clark et al. , Industrialism and Industrial Man (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960).Google Scholar

² Montgomery, David, Workers' Control in America: Studies in the History of Work, Technology, and Labor Struggles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), esp. 4–5. Montgomery is well aware that craftsmen had a special interest in workshop control (e.g., p. 106). But given his more general interest in labor's resistance to management authority, the defeat of movements for workers' control after World War I appears more as a temporary setback than a significant turning point.Google Scholar

³ Stone, Katherine, “The Origins of Job Structures in the Steel Industry,” in Labor Market segmentation, Richard Edwards, Reich, Michael and Gordon, David, eds. (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1975), 45–49Google Scholar, 76; Edwards, Richard, Contested Terrain: The Transformation of the Workplace in the Twentieth Century (New York: Basic Books, 1979), 145Google Scholar; Burawoy, Michael, Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process under Monopoly Capitalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), ch. 6.Google Scholar

⁴ Edwards, , Contested Terrain, 110, 118, 145'46.Google Scholar

⁵ For my purposes, the “labor process” refers to the social and technical organization of production and how this organization influences relations of workers to their work, their workmates, and management. Especially relevant here are the skill levels “required” by production techniques, how workers are assigned to specific tasks or machines, how they are supervised, and how they are paid.

⁶ This peculiarity is convenient for comparative purposes. The analysis emphasizes how contrasting union, industrial relations, and government conditions shaped engineers' and machinists' responses to challenges at work. It is thus useful to examine a British case where workshop practices more closely resemble those in the United States.

⁷ For Britain, Samuel, Raphael, “The Workshop of the World: Steam Power and Hand Technology in Mid-Victorian Britain,” History Workshop, 3 (Spring 1977), 40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jefferys, James, The Story of the Engineers, 1800–1945 (London: Lawrence and Wishart Ltd., 1945), 55–58Google Scholar, 122–33; Littler, Craig, “Deskilling and Changing Structures of Control,” in The Degradation of Work? Skill, Deskilling and the Labour Process, Wood, Stephen, ed. (London: Hutchinson, 1982)Google Scholar; Hinton, James, The First Shop Stewards' Movement (hereafter cited as FSSM) (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1973), 58–62Google Scholar; and, generally, Amalgamated Engineers' Monthly Journal. For the United States, Montgomery, Workers' Control, chs. 1, 5; Fred Colvin. 60 Years with Men and Machines: An Autobiography (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947), 43–45Google Scholar; Buckler, William, “The Minimum Wage in the Machinists' Union,” in Studies in American Trade Unionism, Hollander, Jacob and Barnett, George, eds. (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1907)Google Scholar; Conlon, P. J., “Past, Present and Future of Our Association,” Machinists' Monthly Journal (07 1909); and, generally, the Machinists' Monthly Journal.Google ScholarClegg, H. A., Fox, Alan and Thompson, A. F., A History of British Trade Unionism since 1889 (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 139–41Google Scholar; Weekes, B. C. M., “The Amalgamated Society of Engineers, 1880–1914; A Study of Trade Union Government, Politics, and Industrial Policy” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Warwick, 1970), 82; Hinton, FSSM, introduction, and 5861Google Scholar; Perlman, Mark, The Machinists: A New Study of American Trade Unionism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961), 303Google Scholar; Montgomery, , Workers' Control, 15–18Google Scholar; Questionnaire prepared for the Industrial Commission, IAM Miscellaneous Pamphlet No. 5, Department of Labor Library, Washington, D.C., 8.

⁹ Minutes of the ASE Coventry and District Committee (hereafter cited as CDC), e.g., meetings of 18 February 1908, and 5 November 1913; Friedman, Andrew, Industry and Labour: Class Struggle at Work and Monopoly Capitalism (London: Macmillan, 1977), 193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰ National ASE policy regarding payment by results was embodied in the 1902 Carlisle agreement with the Engineering Employers' Federation. A similar strategy was advocated unsuccessfully by IAM President O'Connell, James. Machinists' Monthly Journal (06 1899), 336Google Scholar; (October 1909), 928.

¹¹ The need to organize specialists and thus protect the economic position of union members is a common refrain in the Machinists' Monthly Journal and the Amalgamated Engineers' Monthly Journal. See, e.g., the editorial in Machinists' Monthly Journal (July 1903), 537.

¹² For Britain, Pribicevic, Branko, The Shop Stewards' Movement and Workers' Control, 1910–22 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1959), 65–82Google Scholar, Jefferys, , Story of the Engineers, 164Google Scholar. For the United States, John, Laslett, Labor and the Left: A Study of Socialist and Radical Influences in the American Labor Movement, 1881–1924 (New York: Basic Books, 1970)Google Scholar, ch. 5; Ramirez, Bruno, When Workers Fight: The Politics of Industrial Relations in the Progressive Era, 1898–1916(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978), 105–21Google Scholar; Montgomery, , Workers' Control, 67–82, 93, 107–8.Google Scholar

¹³ Congress, Trade Union, Report on Premium Bonus Systems (Manchester: n.p., 1910)Google Scholar; the series of articles on scientific management by Shann, George, Workers' Union Record (02, 05, 06, and 07, 1914)Google Scholar; Goodrich, Carter, The Frontier of Control: A Study of British Workshop Politics (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Howe, 1920), 163Google Scholar, 172; Yates, Morris, Wages and Labour Conditions in British Engineering (London: Macdonald and Evans, 1937), 72Google Scholar; Machinists' Monthly Journal (06 1891), 184; (May 1897), 139; (July 1901), 465; (May 1904), 435; (October, 1909), 928.Google Scholar

¹⁴ E.g., Abstract Report of Provisional Executive Committee Proceedings, Amalgamated Engineers' Monthly Journal: Brown, E. H. Phelps, The Growth of British Industrial Relations: A Study from the Standpoint of 1906–1914 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1959)Google Scholar; Bridgeport Herald, 26 05 1901Google Scholar; U.S. Industrial Commission, Final Report (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1901–1902), XIX, 968–69Google Scholar; Machinists' Monthly Journal (01 1906), 71.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Hinton, , FSSM, 80–81Google Scholar; Brown, , The Growth, 290–91Google Scholar; Weekes, , “Amalgamated Society of Engineers,” 9–11Google Scholar; Keith, Burgess, The Origins of British Industrial Relations: The Nineteenth-Century Experience (London: Croom Helm, 1975), 75Google Scholar; Jefferys, , Story of the Engineers, 140–44Google Scholar, 159. For the United States, Machinists' Monthly Journal (05 1899), 404Google Scholar; (February 1901), 103; (September 1902), 596; (June 1903), 481, and, generally, issues in late 1908 and early 1909; U.S. Commission of Labor, 11th Special Report, Regulation and Restriction of Output(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1904), 103–5Google Scholar; on the strike at the American Tube and Stamping Co., Bridgeport Post, 16, 17, 20 July 1907; Ramirez, , When Workers Fight, 105–21Google Scholar; Montgomery, , Workers' Control, 124–25.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Jefferys, , Story of the Engineers, 159Google Scholar; Burgess, Origins, 36–41Google Scholar; Croucher, Richard, “The Amalgamated Society of Engineers and Local Autonomy, 1898–1914” (M.A. thesis, University of Warwick, 1971), 3.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Wigham, Eric, The Power to Manage: A History of the Engineering Employers' Federation (London: Macmillan, 1973), 63–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Burgess, , Origins, 70–71Google Scholar; Weekes, , “Amalgamated Society of Engineers,” 227–33Google Scholar; Croucher, , “Amalgamated Society of Engineers,” 4.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Hinton, , FSSM, 311–12Google Scholar; Jefferys, , Story of the Engineers, 164Google Scholar; Pribicevic, , Shop Stewards' Movement, 65–72Google Scholar; Hyman, Richard, The Workers' Union (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 117.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Great Britain, Ministry of Munitions, History of the Ministry of Munitions (hereafter cited as HMM) (London: HMSO, 1922), VI, pt. 2, 33Google Scholar. Even during the militant times immediately before World War I, ASE members voted in 1914, by a larger than two-to-one margin, to reinstate the procedure for avoiding disputes following the union's withdrawal from the Terms. Amalgamated Engineers' Monthly Journal (09 1914), 3.Google Scholar

²⁰ On the latter point, see Salvatore, Nick, Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982). Populist traditions were especially strong in the IAM; see Laslett, Labor and the Left, ch. 5.Google Scholar

²¹ As of 1914, in firms belonging to the Engineering Employers' Federation, 60 percent of employees were skilled engineers, 20 percent semiskilled, and 20 percent unskilled. Yates, , Wages and Labour Conditions, 32s.Google Scholar In Detroit in 1891, by contrast, the roughly corresponding figures for metal-industry employees were 39.8, 30.6, and 29.6 percent, respectively. Meyer, Stephen, The Five Dollar Day: Labor Management and Social Control in the Ford Motor Company, 1908–1921 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981), 46.Google Scholar The figures have been adjusted to exclude foremen. “In any of the factories in Connecticut men will be found running from two to as high as ten or twelve machines” (Bridgeport Herald, 19 04 1901)Google Scholar. For a general view, see Habbakuk, H. J., American and British Technology in the Nineteenth Century: The Search for Labor-Saving Inventions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967).Google Scholar

²² Shadwell, Arthur, Industrial Efficiency: A Comparative Study of Industrial Life in England, Germany, and America (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1906), 141.Google ScholarJefferys, , Story of the Engineers, 129Google Scholar, states that, in 1906, of the men and youths employed in engineering and boilermaking, 27.5 percent were on piecework. Montgomery, , Workers' Control, 123Google Scholar, finds that, by 1909, “many more” machinists and operatives were working under incentive schemes than under IAM standard rates.

²³ U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Hearings before the Special Committee of the House of Representatives to Investigate the Taylor and Other Systems of Shop Management, 3 vols. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1912)Google Scholar; Montgomery, , Workers' Control, 113–27Google Scholar; Clawson, Dan, Bureaucracy and the Labor Process: The Transformation of U.S. Industry, 1860–1920 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1980), 223–50.Google Scholar

²⁴ U.S. Commission on Industral Relations, Final Report and Testimony (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1916), I, 132, 135–36Google Scholar; Shadwell, , Industrial Efficiency, 142–43Google Scholar; Machinists' Monthly Journal (05 1897), 137; (July 1901), 465; (May 1904), 435; (October 1909), 928; (June 1912), 541.Google Scholar

²⁵ Perlman, , Machinists, 28–29Google Scholar. In 1897 the IAM had about 15,000 members (the ASE, 78,450), and between 1901 and 1913 enrolled about 11 percent of American machinists. But these were concentrated in railway shops and well-organized cities like Chicago. Montgomery, , Workers' Control, 49Google Scholar, 63, 92. As late as 1891, only 3 of 189 lodges were in New England—where many of the most progressive metal-trades centers were located. Perlman, , Machinists, 7.Google Scholar

²⁶ E.g., Bridgeport Herald, 10 05 1903, 14Google Scholar, 21 April 1907, 2 June 1907. See also Bonnett, Clarence, Employers' Associations in the United States: A Study of Typical Associations (New York: Macmillan, 1922), 102–3.Google Scholar

²⁷ Montgomery, , Workers' Control, 79–82Google Scholar, 93, 107–8, 124–26; Ramirez, , When Workers Fight, 105–21Google Scholar; Machinists', Monthly Journal (07 1903), 621–22; (November 1911), 1134–35; (May 1913), 475; (April 1914), 375.Google Scholar

²⁸ Ramirez, , When Workers Fight, 116–21Google Scholar; Perlman, , Machinists, 36Google Scholar; Machinists' Monthly Journal (11 1909), 1044–79Google Scholar. The failure of the 1911–15 Illinois Central and Harriman railroad lines strike—initiated by a system federation of shop crafts over IAM executive opposition—contributed to the “socialist” union leadership's conservative preferences in organizational matters. Perlman, , Machinists, 41–42Google Scholar; Montgomery, , Workers' Control, 107–8.Google Scholar

²⁹ Unity around economic demands appears in Bridgeport in the 1901 and 1907 strikes for a nine-hour day, among different grades at Pacific Iron Works in 1903 (Connecticut Bureau of Labor Statistics, Annual Report, 1903), among different crafts and grades at Coe and Stapley Company in 1913 (Machinists' Monthly Journal (07 1913), 680), and during the 1915 wave of strikes. By contrast, between 1901 and 1915, the Connecticut Bureau of Labor Statistics reports and a survey of local newspapers turn up eleven strikes in which issues of control (e.g., piecework, work rules, foremanship) were involved. Of the eleven, only the 1901 strike—part of a national dispute—involved more than one firm, and only one strike involved concerted action among members of different crafts or grades.Google Scholar

³⁰ Notably, Edwards, Contested Terrain. See also Stone, “Origins of Job Structures”; Clawson, Bureaucracy and Labor Process; Meyer, Five Dollar Day, esp. ch. 5.Google Scholar

³¹ Esp. Hinton, FSSM; Burgess, Origins. See also Cole, G. D. H., Workshop Organization (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923)Google Scholar; Croucher, “Amalgamated Society of Engineers,”; Hyman, Richard, “Trade Unions, Control and Resistance,” in The Politics of Work and Occupations, Esland, Geoff and Salaman, Graeme, eds. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), esp. 324–25.Google Scholar Similar interpretations of United States labor history are Brecher, Jeremy, “Who Advocates Spontaneity?” Radical America, 7:6 (1973), 91–112Google Scholar; and Stanley, Aronowitz, False Promises: The Shaping of American Working-Class Consciousness (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974), ch. 4.Google Scholar

³² Great Britain, Annual Reports of the Registrar-General 1916 [Cd 8206], 14; 1920 [Cmd 608], 19; and HMM, II, 2, 101; V, 5, 50.

³³ Can, F. W., “Engineering Workers and the Rise of Labour in Coventry, 1914–1939” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Warwick, 1978), 32–33, 75–76Google Scholar, 246; Hinton, , FSSM, 217 n. 3.Google Scholar

³⁴ Hinton, , FSSM, 218–21Google Scholar; Friedman, , Industry and Labour, 192Google Scholar, 194; Carr, , “Engineering Workers,” 10Google Scholar. In the nation as a whole, females constituted 9.4 percent of employees in private metal-working firms in July 1914, and 24.6 percent four years later. HMM, VI, 3, 22–32. For general views, see HMM, IV, 4; Jefferys, , Story of the Engineers, 125–26Google Scholar, 135; Hinton, , FSSM, 62–67.Google Scholar

³⁵ E.g., CDC Minutes, 2, 16, 23 March, and 6 April 1915.

³⁶ CDC Minutes, 2 March, 2 October, 2, 24 November 1915; 14, 21 March 1916; HMM, II, 3, 68; V, 5, 50.

³⁷ HMM, V, 1, 167–68; Cole, , Workshop Organization, 60–61.Google Scholar

³⁸ For general assessments, see HMM, 1, 2, 98–99; VI, 1, 92–93; Cole, Workshop Organization; and Hinton, FSSM. For reactions in Coventry, see, e.g., CDC Minutes, 1 February 1916.

³⁹ Workers' Union Record (September 1916, January 1917, and November 1917); HMM, VI, 1, 44, 97–98.

⁴⁰ Great Britain, Commission of Enquiry into Industrial Unrest, Reports (London: HMSO, 1917). For Coventry, CDC Minutes, 31 August 1915, 27 June 1916.Google Scholar

⁴¹ CDC Minutes, 9 February, 27 July, 13 August 1915; 23 October 1916; HMM, VI, 1, 93; VI, 2, 32–33; Cole, , Workshop Organization, 47Google Scholar; Hodginson, George, Sent to Coventry (n.p.: Robert Maxwell and Co., 1970), 37.Google Scholar

⁴² CDC Minutes, 16 May, 6 June 1916; Can, “Engineering Workers,” 80.

⁴³ CDC Minutes, 7 April 1917; Can, , “Engineering Workers,” 80Google Scholar; Great Britain, Commission of Enquiry, Report of the Commissioners for the West Midlands Area, 9–10Google Scholar; Friedman, , Industry and Labour, 194Google Scholar; Hodginson, , Sent to Coventry, 37.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ HMM, VI, 1, 114 n. 1; Carr, , “Engineering Workers,” 85.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ CDC Minutes, 12 April 1916; 10 January, 6, 20 February, 6, 17 March, 3 April, 16 October 1917. On the CWC, see Carr, “Engineering Workers,” 79–84.

⁴⁶ CDC Minutes, 7, 10 April 1917; Carr, , 'Engineering Workers,“ 80.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ HMM, VI, 2, 32–33; Letter from Coventry Engineering Employers' Association (CEEA) to Engineering Employers'Federation (EEF), 14 April 1917, EEF Correspondance, Offices of the Engineering Employers' Federation, London; Carr, , “Engineering Workers,” 81Google Scholar; Friedman, , Industry and Labour. 194.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ CDC Minutes, 14 May 1917.

⁴⁹ CDC Minutes, 6 May 1917; Carr, , 'Engineering Workers,“ 82–83.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ CDC Minutes, 14 May 1917; Midland Daily Telegraph, 2105 1917Google Scholar; HMM, VI, 1, 113–14; Carr, , “Engineering Workers,” 82–83; Hinton, FSSM, 217.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Carr, , “Engineering Workers,” 86–90.Google Scholar

⁵² “Shop Rules and Instructions for Stewards,” issued by the CEJC, “Historical Documents” box, Offices of the Coventry and District Engineering Employers' Association; Hinton, FSSM, 221–22; Carr, , “Engineering Workers,” 85.Google Scholar

⁵³ CDC Minutes, 22 September, 6, 13, 20–29 November, 3 December 1917; Birmingham Post, 28 November 1917; Birmingham Gazette, 30 November 1917; HMM, VI, 2, 30–31; Hodginson, Sent to Coventry, 48; Hinton, FSSM, 223–24; Can, “Engineering Workers,” 95. While the Russian revolution occurred in the same month, neither Bolshevik sympathies nor antiwar feeling influenced the shop stewards' movement until 1918, and the influence was minor. Hinton, FSSM, 256–67. By then the tide had already turned in Coventry.

⁵⁴ HMM, VI, 2, 32–33. See also 21 December 1917 letter from Engineering Employers' Federation to Coventry Engineering Employers' Association, “Historical Documents, including Local Conferences” box, Coventry Engineering Employers' Association; and Hinton, FSSM, 213–15, 233–34.

⁵⁵ HMM, VI, 2, 31; Cole, , Workshop Organization, 76–79Google Scholar; Hodginson, , Sent to Coventry, 46Google Scholar; Hinton, , FSSM, 225Google Scholar; Carr, , 'Engineering Workers,“ 94–95.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ CDC Minutes, 2 January, 23 April, 18 June 1918; Workers' Union Record (February 1918), 2; HMM, VI, 2, 46; Carr, , 'Engineering Workers,” 96–98.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Mr. Justice McCardie's Committee of Inquiry, Interim Report on Labour Embargoes (London: HMSO, 1918)Google Scholar; Birmingham Gazette, 20 07 1918Google Scholar; Birmingham Daily Mail, 22 07 1918; HMM, VI, 2, 65.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Hinton, FSSM, 231.

⁵⁹ CDC Minutes, 12, 14, 17, 23 July, 22 September 1918; Midland Daily Telegraph, 20, 22–25, 29 July 1918Google Scholar; Birmingham Post, 22 July 1918; HMM, VI, 2, 65–68; Hinton, FSSM, 229–33; Carr, , “Engineering Workers,” 95–97, 174–77.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Potter, Zena, “War-Boom Towns I: Bridgeport,” The Survey (New York), 4 12 1915Google Scholar; Bridgeport Herald, 2612 1915Google Scholar; Bridgeport Post, 4 01 1916Google Scholar; 26 March 1922; Iron Age (Middletown, N.Y.), 3 February 1916, p. 296; Hewes, Amy, “Bridgeport on the Rebound,” The Survey, 14 10 1916, p. 50Google Scholar; Waldo, George, History of Bridgeport and Vicinity (New York: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1917), 153Google Scholar; Bucki, Cecelia, “Dilution and Craft Traditions: Bridgeport, Connecticut, Munitions Workers, 1915–1919,” Social Science History, 4:1 (02 1980), 107–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶¹ Machinists' Monthly Journal (08 1915), 748Google Scholar; Minutes of the Manufacturers' Association of Bridgeport, 4 November 1915, Bridgeport Public Library, Accession 1981.06. The estimate of peak IAM strength is based on “A. W. Reports,” 22 March 1916 (reports to the Manufacturers' Association of Bridgeport by a labor spy planted in the Bridgeport IAM), typescript in Bridgeport Public Library; Machinists' Monthly Journal (06 1916), 553.Google Scholar

⁶² Women comprised about 13 percent of the workforce in mid-1918, or half the British norm. Iron Age, 18 July 1918, pp. 146–47.

⁶³ See the data on Union Metallic Cartridge Company in hearings before the National War Labor Board, 17 July 1918, National Archives, Washington, D.C., Record Group 2 (hereafter cited as N.A., RG2), Box 3, Docket No. 132: IAM District 55 v. Bridgeport, Connecticut, Employers.

⁶⁴ Testimony by Willard Freeland, NWLB Hearings, 18 July 1918, N.A., RG2, Box 3, Docket No. 132.

⁶⁵ Bridgeport Herald, 8 September 1918; Bridgeport Post, 14 September 1918.

⁶⁶ Bing, Alexander, War-Time Strikes and Their Adjustment (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1921)Google Scholar; U.S. War Department, A Report of the Activities of the War Department in the Field of Industrial Relations during the War (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1919).Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Bridgeport Herald, 8 September 1918; The Labor Leader (weekly newspaper of IAM Lodge 30, B?dgeport), 31 January 1918.

⁶⁸ Machinists' Monthly Journal (09 1915), 836Google Scholar, 839, 848; (October 1915), 941; Bridgeport Post and Bridgeport Herald throughout July, August, and September 1915.

⁶⁹ Iron Age, 9 12 1915, p. 1394; “A. W. Reports,” 5, 12, 20 April, 1 May, 8 June, 31 July, 8 October 1916; Bulletin of the Manufacturers' Association of Bridgeport, 14 January 1917, Bridgeport Public Library, Accession 1977.25, Box 1; testimony by John Hart, NWLB Hearings, 2 July 1918, N.A., RG2, Box 3, Docket No. 132.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ “A. W. Reports,” 19 September 1916; Minutes of the Manufacturers' Association of Bridgeport, 2 November 1916; advertisement in the Bridgeport Herald, 24 June 1917; Perlman, , Machinists, 54Google Scholar; Bucki, , “Dilution and Craft Traditions,” 112.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Bridgeport Herald, 8, 22 August, 19 September 1915; “A. W. Reports,” 5 May, 8 June 1916; Bridgeport Post, 12 07 1917Google Scholar; Labor Leader, 15 08 1918.Google Scholar

⁷² “A. W. Reports,” 12 May 1916; Bridgeport Herald, 25 03 1917; letter from George Bowen to Robert McWade, 30 April 1917, U.S. Department of Labor, Conciliation Service, Series 33, File 347, N.A., RG280; Bucki, “Dilution and Craft Traditions,” 114. Lavit's successful campaign to replace George Bowen as business agent exploited rank-and-file dissatisfaction with Bowen's lack of support for victimized shop-floor activists and for efforts to eliminate piecework. “A. W. Reports,” 4 June, 9 August, 5 September, 10 November 1916.Google Scholar

⁷³ Labor Leader, 18 April, 9 May 1918; Bridgeport Post, 9 May 1918; Bing, , War-Time Strikes, 171–72.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Copy in U.S. Department of Labor, Conciliation Service, Series 33, File 817, N.A., RG280.

⁷⁵ Bing, , War-Time Strikes, 75.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ See Lavit's remarks, Minutes of the Local Board of Mediation and Conciliation, meeting of 21 November 1918, NWLB Case Files, N.A., RG2, Box 21, Docket No. 132.

⁷⁷ The strikes are covered by the Bridgeport Post, Bridgeport Herald, and Labor Leader, and are reviewed in testimony at the NWLB hearings. See also Bucki, , “Dilution and Craft Traditions,” 114Google Scholar, who overstates the retreat to craft exclusivism. The ambiguity of craft versus class politics is present from the start; the demands of May and June still include specialists, and those to the NWLB once again include production workers and unskilled helpers as well.

⁷⁸ NWLB Case Files, N.A., RG2, Box 19, Docket No. 132.

⁷⁹ E.g., testimony by Walter Merritt, NWLB Hearings, 2 July 1918, N.A., RG2, Box 3, Docket No. 132.

⁸⁰ Bridgeport Post, 30Google Scholar August-18 September 1918; Bridgeport Herald, 1, 8, 15 September 1918; Labor Leader, 5 September 1918.

⁸¹ Bridgeport Herald, 1 September 1918; telegram from Isaac Russell (NWLB field representative) to Jett Lauck (NWLB secretary), 29 August 1918, NWLB Case Files, N.A., RG2, Box 20, Docket No. 132.

⁸² Meeting of the Local Board of Mediation and Conciliation, 31 March 1919, NWLB Case Files, N.A., RG2, Box 21, Docket No. 132. See also telegram from Isaac Russell to Jett Lauck, 4 September 1918, NWLB Case Files, N.A., RG2, Box 20, Docket No. 132; Bridgeport Post, 4 September 1918; Bridgeport Herald, 23 March 1919; and Hawley, George, “Bridgeport Employers Report Shop Committees Successful,” New York Evening Post, 22 April 1920.Google Scholar

⁸³ “Organization and By-Laws for Collective Bargaining Committees Instituted by the NWLB for Bridgeport, Connecticut”; telegrams between Sam Lavit and Jett Lauck, 5, 6 May 1919; letter from Willard Aborn (temporary chairman of the Local Board of Mediation and Conciliation) to W. D. Angelo (assistant chief administrator of the NWLB), 12 May 1919: all in NWLB Case Files, N.A., RG2, Box 21, Docket 132.

⁸⁴ Bridgeport Herald, 23 March 1919; Bing, , War-Time Strikes, 80–81.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Labor Leader, 26 September 1918; meeting of the Local Board of Mediation and Conciliation, 31 March 1919, NWLB Case Files, N.A., RG2, Box 21, Docket No. 132. This problem was not peculiar to Bridgeport; see Bing, , War-Time Strikes, 161–62.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ This was notably the case at the Bullard Machine Tool Company and the Crane Company. See Bullard Company, Yankee Toolmaker (draft copy in possession of Jack Stupakevich, Manager for Labor Relations and Security, Bullard Co., 1980), 35; Bridgeport Herald, 19 December 1915, 19 November 1916, 7 January 1917, 24 February 1918. More generally, see Bulletin of the Manufacturers' Association of Bridgeport, 3, 24 March 1916; 16 April 1918.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ The details of these schemes are extensively documented in the NWLB Hearings, 17, 18 July 1918, N.A., RG2, Box 3, Docket No. 132. See also Labor Leader, 14 March 1918. On Bullard's “Maxi-Pay Plan,” see Bridgeport Post, 13 May 1916; Iron Age, 25 July 1918, p. 2046.

⁸⁸ For these strikes I have relied on reports in the Bridgeport Post, Bridgeport Herald, Labor Leader, and U.S. Department of Labor, Conciliation Service, Series 170, Files 649, 671, 672, 743, N.A., RG280.

⁸⁹ Bridgeport Post, 24 July 1919. For bickering over the composition of shop committees, see Bridgeport Post, 26, 31 July, 3, 5, 6 August 1919; Bridgeport Herald, 27 July 1919; Labor Leader, 31 July, 7 August 1919; U.S. Department of Labor, Conciliation Service, Series 170, File 649, N.A., RG280.

⁹⁰ Bridgeport Post, 1, 2, 8, 14 August 1919; Labor Leader, 7 August 1919; U.S. Department of Labor, Conciliation Service, Series 170, File 672, N.A., RG280; Hawley, “Bridgeport Employers Report Shop Committees Successful.”

⁹¹ Lavit's expulsion and the move to the Amalgamated Metal Workers of America are covered by the Labor Leader, passim, from August to the paper's demise late in 1920; Bridgeport Post, 10, 20 August 1919; Bridgeport Herald, 10 August, 7, 28 September 1919; 7 March 1920. The national view is in the Machinists' Monthly Journal (09 1919), 853; (October 1919), 953; (April 1920), 315–17.Google Scholar

⁹² Montgomery, , Workers' Control, 100, 122, 133–34, 160.Google Scholar

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