from Poisoning Paradise: An Environmental History of Madison
By Maria C. Powell, PhD
While Kipp Profited, Workers Struggled and Faced Dangerous Working Conditions
Kipp doubled its capacity during World War I and profited greatly from large war contracts. Meanwhile, working conditions at Kipp were harsh, and making ends meet was difficult for workers. To meet their contracts, factory owners expected workers to put in ten-hour days, six days a week, and some workers pulled 13-hour shifts.[i] The cost of living rose significantly during the war, and according to Mollenhoff, “wages buying power lagged far behind costs.”
Increasingly stressful and exhausting work and life conditions undoubtedly contributed to accidents at Kipp during the war. Metal works processes involve inherently dangerous materials and activities that can cause fires and explosions. There were likely few worker safety practices in place in the die casting industry at the time. In 1910, Madison Kipp purchased a “chemical fire engine,” ensuring “as good fire protection as possible without waterworks.”[ii] Kipp’s early years were plagued with worker injuries, according to various brief reports in Madison newspapers. In 1910, a man was “badly hurt” at the factory. In the following years, there were several serious injuries at Kipp, including two finger amputations in 1918. Also that year, a female worker injured her eye, and another worker was injured when hit by a die cast part.[1]
In March 1918, while worker unrest about factory pay and conditions was on the rise, Madison eastside manufacturers invited “Safety First Expert,” C.W. Eldridge from Ohio, to address workers at Kipp and other factories. Newspaper summaries suggest that Mr. Eldridge’s lectures insinuated that the majority of worker injuries were caused by workers’ deficient physical and mental functions and/or genetics rather than inadequate workplace conditions and safety practices. He claimed that “only 25 percent of the accidents are from material force and that the remainder are caused when normal functions of the mind are disturbed either by outside elements or hereditary causes.” Mr. Eldridge, the article noted, “carries a very powerful microscope” and “microscopical portions of different articles that lend weight to his arguments” about how to improve workers’ “physical and moral condition.”[iii]
After this lecture—perhaps to deflect growing union organizing during this period (see below)—in 1918, Kipp purchased “safety equipment” including an “extra fire escape” and “ventilators,” and “The department in charge of the safety work has been devoting itself strenuously to the work and is showing good results.”[iv] Apparently, the safety committee’s “strenuous” work wasn’t completely effective, because two Kipp injuries were reported on the same day, right next to the article about the “good results” of safety committee. A few months later, another Kipp worker lost a finger.[v]
The War Labor Board
As the war progressed, workers in industries making war machinery and parts for government contracts (such as Kipp and several other eastside Madison factories) were being asked to work longer, harder and make more sacrifices in the name of patriotic duty—even as it become more and more difficult for them to make ends meet. Increasing numbers of disputes arose between workers and employers.
In January 1918, U. S. Secretaryof Labor Wilson appointed the War Labor Conference Board to create a “method of labor adjustments that would be acceptable to employees and employers.” This board recommended the creation of a National War Labor Board for the period of the war. Members of this board were appointed by the Secretary of Labor and approved by President Wilson on April 18, 1918. The “powers, functions, and duties” of this board were to “settle by mediation and conciliation controversies arising between employers and workers in fields of production necessary for the effective conduct of the war…to provide, by direct appointment, or otherwise, for committees or boards to sit in various parts of the country where controversies arise and secure settlement by local mediation and conciliation and to summon the parties to controversies for hearing and action by the National Board in event of failure to secure settlement by mediation and conciliation.” If the efforts of the National Board failed to bring about a voluntary settlement and members cannot unanimously agree on a decision, then “in that case and only as a last resort an umpire shall be appointed…”[vi]
Madison Metal Trades Organize
Before 1918, Madison’s union organizing was sporadic. In 1856, Madison printers organized the first union in Madison, a local of the International Typographical Union. In the decades following, other unions were formed, but most fell apart due to employer resistance and hard times. Many Madison employers, including the Madison Democrat, fought unions, forced strikes instead of bargaining, and hired scabs from other states. In the 1880s, Milwaukee activist Frank Weber helped Madison workers form unions, and toward the end of the century, unions started to rebound again. In 1893, printers, painters, cigarmakers, carpenters, and tailors formed the 375-member Federated Trades Council, which later became the South Central Federation of Labor.
However, even while other trades were successfully organizing, metal trades employers across the country were “the core of the anti-union Open Shop movement.”[vii] Madison metal trade employers, including Madison Kipp, were no different. An “open shop,” to these employers, meant one where no workers were in a union—and they worked hard to prevent their workers from unionizing. Though Madison metal workers attempted to unionize at various times, for the most part machinist and other metal trades union membership didn’t take off in Madison until World War I—especially in 1918.
During the war, stagnant pay, rising costs of living, and worker stress and injuries in the factories likely contributed to the rapid rise in labor union membership among metal workers. Visits from organizers from outside of Madison in 1918 also seemed to play critical roles in channeling worker dissatisfaction into union membership. At the beginning of 1918, for instance, there were only 38 Machinists union members in Madison, but after a union organizer came to town in February, that number grew to over 1100 very quickly.[viii] In March 1918, a Wisconsin State Journal post (ironically, next to the “Safety First” article suggesting that injuries were workers’ fault) reported that “the shop workers of east Madison are flocking to the standard of the union,” with 325 new members enrolling in that week, for a total of 500 eastside workers in the machinists union at that time.
Women Lead Fight for Improved Conditions and Minimum Wage
By 1917, at least 35 of Kipp’s workers were women, as more men went to fight in the war, and more women were supporting themselves and families.[ix] In 1918 Kipp workers started their own news monthly, “Kipp Lubricator,” edited by female Kipp workers and including joke section called “Kipp Quips” and a “women’s section.”[x] That year Kipp also built its first women-only bathroom.
Several of Kipp’s female workers joined the union during this period. Women industrial workers began to speak out about inequalities in pay and work conditions in Madison factories. Women employed in Madison industries during the war were not paid as much as the men they replaced. In 1918, students in a UW economics class interviewed women workers in several Madison factories, and Janet Van Hise wrote a series of articles in the Capital Times summarizing the results of this survey. Van Hise describe the plights of women who had to support themselves (and often children and other dependents) while men were off at war, or had died in war, but were being paid considerably less than male workers. According to her survey, 92% of the women investigated made less than a living wage. She argued that these women “…need all the protection from industrial exploitation that can be given them,” since “the whole course of labor legislation in regard to women shows the inability of the woman worker to protect herself in the industrial field.” Further, many suspected that women were being paid less than men under the “camouflage of war necessity,” also lowering wages for men when they returned from war. Enforcement of Wisconsin’s minimum wage law, and an increase in the minimum wage for women, Van Hise asserted, would protect both the women and the men—and “it is the only way that women can obtain justice.”[xi]
A followup article by Van Hise highlighted that though the metal industries in particular prospered during the war, and wages tended to be higher than in other industries, “This does not mean that all the workers get a relatively high wage.” The range of pay in the metal factories was $6 to $16 a week, with many female workers on the low end of this range. The survey showed that 87% of women made less than the $13 living wage, with the average making about $10 a week, even though the industry was being subsidized with $3 per woman employee per week. The article described the situations of many female workers in the lowest wage categories trying to support themselves and dependents, refuting the “pin money” fallacy (the assumption that women are working for extra luxuries and not to support themselves).
Interestingly, Van Hise’s article also noted that a small percentage of women in the metal industries were doing relatively well; industry foreladies and “women who are working as machinists at the Madison Kipp” made up all of the 10% of women in their survey in the “highest” pay category ($15-$15.99/week). Van Hise commented that “Those women have just been taken in the machinist union and it is probable that the union demand of equal pay for equal work will be granted and their wages will be raised. During the war this appears to be the best opportunity for high wages in Madison.”[xii]
Labor relations in Madison industries became increasingly tense as 1918 progressed. In June, the Capital Times reported that many leading industrialists from Madison and Milwaukee, including Thomas A. Coleman, met with the Association of Commerce to form the organization of the sectional industrial committee for the southern part of the state, “to make a canvass of all the manufacturers in the district.” At the meeting, Chester Rohn, Secretary of the Dept of Manufacturers of the Milwaukee County council of defense, explained the purpose of the commission (though the article didn’t say what it was). On the same front page an article announced that an “American Labor Mission” member, GH Johnson, International Association of Machinists, was to speak at Turner Hall. Johnson had just returned from Europe where he surveyed labor conditions, and the article noted that “Madison workers are particularly interested in the conditions in Europe” so a packed house was expected.[xiii]
Less than two months later, after weeks of building worker unrest, about a thousand workers walked out of Steinle Turret, Four Lakes Ordnance, and Madison Kipp after Machinists, Foundrymen, Electricians, and Federated workers’ unions voted to strike if a satisfactory settlement wasn’t made between them and employers. The workers from the eastside factories marched to Labor Hall, with several hundred women from the Federated Union joining them. As workers marched out of his plant, President Steinle of Steinle Turret declared them unpatriotic if they didn’t stick to their jobs and said he would meet with individuals, but refused to meet with unions. Government officials with the War Labor Board assured the workers that “immediate attention would be given to their demands,” and the workers returned to the factories the next day.[xiv]
Capital Times Reports on War Labor Board Hearings in 1918
Later in August 1918, workers were given an opportunity to testify before the War Labor Board at the Capitol. An August 21, 1918 Capital Times article by William Evjue described the at times “sensational” testimonies of workers and employers, and shared stories of female Kipp workers who told the board they were being paid lower wages then the men they replaced, were expected to do very heavy work (“pushing cars” and “shoveling barrels”), and were having a difficult time surviving on their low pay. Wages listed in the article were significantly lower for Kipp women workers than for others at Kipp and other factories.
Responding to the worker testimonies, Madison Kipp and Steinle Turret owners were arrogant and disdainful. George Steinle of Steinle Turret Lathe, smoking a cigar and chewing gum “with gusto”, made numerous audacious comments, highlighted in the article: “before I will let the union run my plant I will tear it or burn it down…This is my inherent right just as it was my right to start the plant….I never did anything in my life that I regret….I am selfish…everything in this world is done for selfish reasons…” Thomas Coleman, after hearing one of Kipp’s female workers describe to the board very difficult work she was expected to do for half (17.5 cents an hour) of what the man she replaced was paid (35 cents an hour), suggested to the woman that she was given the opportunity to get a position with better pay but chose not to do so—a claim the women denied. The woman testified that a Kipp superintendent told her “That’s why we have women workers here. The cheaper I get work done the better it is for me.” Male workers who testified listed wages significantly higher than the women shared—but still had many grievances about how they were treated. They complained of an unfair “piecework” payment system, in which foremen get bonuses for increased production in the plant (check this).
The testimonies before the War Board revealed factory owner’s (especially Steinle and Kipp owners’) efforts to break up collective bargaining. On August 21, one male Kipp worker who was on a shop committee and had expressed discontent with the piece work system, testified that Coleman called him into his office and told him he was “becoming undesirable” and that “there were 300 other undesirable men in the plant” (presumably meaning the other union workers). Coleman denied this charge. The worker testified that he had been warned against unionism by his supervisor; the Kipp superintendent claimed that this employee’s work had not been satisfactory after the union agitation started.[xv]
In the hearings the following day, women workers—cheered on by applause from other workers—claimed their low wages were “cheapening” the men’s wages.[xvi] In the next week, 24 female machinists were discharged from Madison Kipp, and on August 31 the war board ordered an investigation on the matter.[xvii] Right next to this, an article announced that the upcoming Labor Day parade would be the biggest held in the city, and that “Madison at present is the best organized city, from a labor standpoint, in the northwest, and contains the largest single organization of skilled workers, the machinists union, in the state. Further, it noted, “the women workers are becoming more and more aligned with the unions and will have a large number of representatives in the march.”[xviii]
Ironically, in an article on the same front page, Steinle offers his workers a proposition, suggesting the workers each buy a minimum of $100 or up to $1000 for a total of $280,000 to form their own corporation—and in turn he would provide the new company the lathe patterns and patent rights. The workers found the offer laughable, saying their wages were way too low to buy stock and they couldn’t even afford $100 in stock, forget about $1000. Their union organizer said many had lost their homes and were a week away from the poorhouse.
A Sept. 16, 1918 article titled “Madison-Kipp Pleads Guilty of Over-Working Women in Hearing Today,” reported that Kipp officers admitted to the industrial commission that 26 women at their factory had worked over 10 hours a day and at night after 6pm from January to June that year—a violation of the law—but that the company officials didn’t know about this until June. A few days later, women Kipp workers testified about discrimination before the war board, saying they had been let go from the factory because of their testimonies at previous war board hearings. One said she had been asked by Kipp officials to sign an affidavit retracting her testimony—which she did, but regretted. The women tried to get work at Steinle Turret and Gisholt, but were told that the companies “would not hire any more women for some time” and they would “rather have women who have not worked at other plants.”[xix]
The next day, the Capital Times reported that J.B. Ramsay, President of the French Battery Company, told the war board that “The manner in which unionism was brought into our plant was sedition.” The board discussed a petition employers asked workers to sign saying that that they were satisfied with their hours at the plant. Union representatives charged that employers discriminated against employees who refused to sign the petition. Kipp Vice President Thomas Coleman of Kipp defended his discharge of women workers, saying that Kipp’s Superintendent had deemed the women as “incompetent,” and Coleman made no effort to investigate the matter further. On further examination, the superintendent claimed that the women were dismissed not only because their work wasn’t of high quality, but also “because of their attitude”—one of the women, he said, “sneered at him.” The article notes that “Following Coleman’s siege on the stand,” the board examiner scolded him for being “lax” in putting all the responsibility on the Superintendent. A few weeks later, one of the women who testified at the war board got her job at Kipp back, as well as three weeks’ pay for the time she was jobless; it wasn’t made public whether this was an order of the war board.[xx]
At the end of November 1918, following the armistice ending World War I, Kipp laid off 30 workers. Mr. Coleman (who was at the time secretary regional board of War Industries Board), said “the demands for production are not so great as when the hostilities were going on.”[xxi] A few days later, Kipp laid off 100 more workers, again saying that armistice had led to a drop off in production, and promising to reinstate the men when production picked up again. Kipp even placed an ad in local papers addressed “To the Industrial Public of Madison,” explaining the need for the layoffs.[xxii]
Union representatives, however, were outraged, saying the layoffs were really attempts to lower wages and break up unions. Machinist union organizer, Huybricht, asked: Why is it only union workers who were laid off? Why are long-term unionized workers being laid off and new workers who recently moved to Madison from outside the city being hired? Why are men being let out and women retained? Why are married union members laid off and single non-union workers kept? He charged that the layoffs were a union-busting attempt by Kipp. A few days later Kipp dismissed 150 more workers.[xxiii]
In 1919, Kipp layoffs and labor tensions continued. On Jan 2 that year the The Capital Times reported that Kipp laid off 200 men, and Steinle between 170 and 200. The unions again said the layoffs were “a move to smash the newly formed union.” Steinle refused to comment, except to say “I don’t care to talk to anybody connected to the Capital Times.” Union leaders said workers who had joined the recently organized machinists union were fired and were replaced with workers from Chicago and Lithuania.[xxiv] A day later, Kipp filed incorporation papers to change its name from Madison-Kipp Lubricator Company to Madison-Kipp Corporation.[xxv]
Union organizers and workers went to the capitol and appealed to Governor Phillip to help the hundreds of unemployed workers. They told him companies that had let them go were employing other men for 13 hours a day when they could have 8-hour shifts; many more men could be employed this way and make enough for a decent living. The governor responded that there is “an abundance of work” and promised to find the men work in other cities if they could not find work in Madison. Big shops in Milwaukee, such as Allis Chalmers, he claimed, were short of men. He said he would find work for each and every man who wanted it and would “take the matter up” with their former employers “at once.”[xxvi]
War Labor Board: Madison’s workers are less skilled than in larger cities
In February 1919 the War Labor Board finally announced their decisions about the labor disputes in nine factories in Madison, including Kipp. The War Board’s decisions, some of which was printed verbatim in a front page article of the Capital times, said a lot about how Madison’s industrial status, and the type and quality of its factory workers, were viewed at the time as compared other large industrial cities like Chicago and Milwaukee. The Board wrote that Madison is “not what is known as an industrial center;” it is nestled in an agricultural region and is the capital of the state and the seat of the University of Wisconsin. The workmen there, the board described, are generally less skilled than those in larger industrial cities: “Workmen are engaged in special employment, not comparable” to workers in large industrial cities. Here’s an excerpt from the Board’s conclusions:
“Many of the employees in Madison have continued with the same factory for years, having no previous experience. Many, if not most of them, were recruited from farms, railroads, or other activities in the region. Separated from the –particular employment in which they have specialized for years they would have no particular fitness for employment elsewhere. That is to say, employees called machinists, etc., are not those who have had years of apprenticeship and who could take a lot of blue prints and erect a machine. They have learned to operate a particular machine to produce a certain article, or part of an article. It is true that in some factories in Madison there are a few men who could qualify as machinists, molders, etc., in the accepted meaning of the terms, but for the most part such workers are employedas foremen or superintendents. It would no doubt be possible to classify the employees in each industry in Madison, but the result would not, under present conditions, lead to uniformity of wages as between the different industries, or conduce to greater equality of payment or circumstances respecting employment.”
Further, the Board argued, the cost of living was lower in the city: “Madison is an established community, where the workers, to an unusually large extent, own their own homes or have resided there for a long time, so that the conditions are entirely different from those which obtain where workmen are entitled to higher wages’ as compensation, in part, for the added expense and inconvenience of living accommodations… The record shows that the cost of living in Madison has not increased on the whole as rapidly, nor reached as high a level” as other large industrial cities.[xxvii] These arguments were at odds with those of the union representatives and workers; it is not clear whether they were accurate or the political factors that may have shaped the War Board’s decisions about Madison workers.
Based on the justifications above, much to their disappointment, Madison workers were awarded slightly lower minimum wages than those in larger cities. However, much of the “award” for machinists in Madison factories was considered a victory; it included 8-hour work days, time and a half for over 8 hours, 5% more for night work and double time for Sundays. Male machinists were to make a minimum of 40 cents/hour and women 35 cents—though the Madison-Kipp award stated “Equal pay for women doing equal work with men, women not to be assigned to tasks disproportionate with their strength.” The Kipp award also recognized “the right of workers to organize,” “no discrimination against members of unions,” and that “employers should meet with committees to adjust grievances.”[xxviii]
War Board agreements ignored
The labor board awards did not resolve worker-employer tensions—they apparently fueled the flames because some employers, including Madison Kipp, ignored them. On March 15, 1919, The Capital Times reported that Federal Arbitrator Bird would be in Madison the following day to attempt to settle labor disputes in the factories. It was also reported that day that Madison-Kipp Co. refused to meet a shop committee of union men, saying that discrimination had been shown in the selection of the men, because non-union men were not on the committee. Meanwhile, committees waited for the federal official to arrive, hoping he would compel employers to deal with them.
This meeting didn’t resolve the disputes, and worker-employer relations continued to deteriorate. On March 26, The Capital Times reported that 1800 members of machinists union from nine Madison factories had met at Turner Hall and tentatively decided to strike because employers were breaking agreements of the Labor Board awards,[2] but were still awaiting approval to strike from national union leaders.[xxix] Tensions between workers and employers, and among workers, grew. A letter to the editor appeared in the The Capital Times on March 29, 1919 from a Kipp worker, disputing rumors that he circulated a petition drawn up in Kipp offices, violating union rules. His petition, he asserted, asked for a committee of “two girls, two union men, and two non-union men,” and half holidays on Saturdays; the worker said idea for the petition was from union men, and was signed by them, but was typewritten in the Kipp timekeeper’s office with the Kipp Superintendent’s knowledge.
On March 31, the Capital Times front page headline blared “2,500 Men Will Quit Tomorrow in Walkout.” Madison workers threatened to walk out the next day if employers didn’t agree to War Board orders by the end of the day. Labor leaders in Madison said they were willing to meet with employers, but would not change their demands.”[3]
Thousands Walk Out and March Around Capital
The next day, over 2000 workers walked out, including 18 women; only 34 men were left in the factories, including an estimated 8 or 10 at Kipp. At 10 am, workers quietly marched out of Gisholt, Fuller and Johnson, Northwest Ordinance, Madison Plow, and Madison Kipp, to Labor Hall, and then up to the square, where they marched around the capital. The march was, according to reports, “managed in a particularly orderly manner.” Workers chanted “Hail hail the gang’s all here.” Male workers were still dressed in their work overalls, women in their work “bloomers,” and many carried their work tools. Those heading the march waved American flags. Afterwards, many workers went to Labor Hall to register. A couple of the companies had begun to express some willingness to negotiate, but a union committee at Gisholt—where 70% of the strikers had come from— tried to meet with the company’s owner, Carl Johnson, who refused to meet with them or to read a petition they gave him.
The Capital Times reported the day after the strike that workers are “filled with optimism today” because five of the industries involved in the disputes had agreed to recognize union committees and negotiate with them. Madison Kipp, along with Gisholt, Scanlan Morris, Fuller and Johnson, and Madison Plow, “refuse to recognize any committee of the union and refuse to grant any demand.” On March 3, though some remained at work, pickets outside workplaces continued. At Kipp, only 35 workers remained, and female workers were being driven to work by Kipp officials to protect them from the strikers’ taunts. Gisholt posted ads in newspapers, and a letter in The Capital Times, “To the Public in Madison;” it stated that “several hundred” remained at Gisholt and “have remained loyal to the company and the Company has been and intends to be loyal to them.” The Gisholt letter in The Capital Times said that satisfactory non-union, “open-shop” agreement had been worked out with these workers. In adjacent articles, union leaders said these reports were false, and that in fact “no more than 150” remained at the two Gisholt plants, and many of these workers were administrative.[xxx]
Relations between workers and employers, and strikers and scabs, grew to a raging boil in the following days. Workers picketing outside Kipp and Steinle turret attacked superintendents at both companies (Steinle Turret’s superintendent purportedly had teeth knocked out). Kipp’s superintendent Baker, who was hauling Kipp employees to and from the factory in his own automobile, had purportedly “incurred the displeasure of the pickets by his attitude.” Four Lakes Ordinance, right next to Kipp, provided automobile transport for workers as well, and though windshields were covered with thick wire mesh, some were smashed by bricks. “The strikers worked in such great crowds that the police were able to make but few arrests,” reported the The Capital Times.
On April 12, 1500 workers struck because factories were still not following the War Board agreements. Gisholt closed down due to concern for workers’ safety, as strikers’ taunted those remaining at work in the days before. Workers at Gisholt quietly left the plant at various times, with police protection, after a crowd of 500 strikers and sympathizers tried to take a non-union worker to the lake (before he was rescued by police). The police suggested that all the factories close down, rather than calling in the state militia, which had been considered.[xxxi] The administrator for the war labor board was in Madison investigating the strike but lacked authority to do anything because “the companies have failed to live up to their agreement to abide by the award” and it was not known whether the board could enforce compliance with the award.
The labor unrest in Madison was so serious that a representative from the U.S. Department of Labor, Charles Govan, asked the legislature to do something in an address on April 15: “I hope that you gentlemen will do all in your power to bring the stiff-necked employers of this city to a realization of the gravity of the situation,” Govan blamed “Bourbon employers” who were “attempting to revert to pre-war situations of the state without taking into consideration that the cost of living is high,” and on the other side, “Bolsehviks who were “stirring up labor matters.” The “Bourbon employers,” Govan told the legislature, “are aiding Bolshevik union organizers by not paying their workers adequate wages. Democracy means adequate wages.” The termination of large war contracts with the metal industries in Madison, he told them, resulted in “throwing a lot of men out of work.” “These men were constantly being exhorted during the war to work to the limit of their strength and beyond to give for liberty bonds and for the various war charities, whether they could afford to do so or not. They were told that this was a war for democracy…and having served their turn they are being throw into the scrap-heap.” As a result, “Now we have a pretty bad state of things in Madison today. You have something like 1800 men directly involved in this strike, and I am told that an additional number of about twice as many are affected. Now, every adult male is supposed to-represent five of the population, but it is a safe estimate to say that those who are affected by this strike in Madison constitute considerably more than one-fourth of the population that is vitally affected and. All the population suffers. There is not a home in this city today but what is more or less affected by the consequence of this strike.”
The City Steps In…
The day before this speech to the legislature, employers who had refused to recognize the Labor Board’s Feb. 18 awards, and had just submitted an appeal to the Labor Board, presented their arguments to a city “committee of five” appointed by the Madison Mayor Sayle “to act as a board of arbitration in the present strike controversy.” Employers, including Thomas Coleman of Kipp, had agreed to the “secret session” at the Association of Commerce, only under the condition that the “general public” would be excluded from the meeting.
At the meeting, labor representatives asserted that “the employers have failed to carry out a single feature of the award” including minimum wages, the length of the work day, and collective bargaining about these matters. Mr. Coleman of Kipp, they claimed, continued to say he would meet the men individually but “would never meet a committee to settle disputes arising in the shops.” The employers, who had submitted an appeal of the labor board’s decision argued in turn that they “are unable to interpret the terms of the award” and if they complied with it “the employee would owe them money.” Instead employers offered agreements to their employees that would have “repudiated every term of the war labor board’s award,” reinstating the old bonus systems and ten hour days.
The meeting was unsuccessful in resolving the disputes. Charles Govan of the U.S. Labor Board attended the meeting to talk to the employers but presumably was not able to change their attitudes; according to the The Capital Times account, “Realizing the futility of an attempt to work with the employers,” Govan asked George Hambrecht of the Industrial Commission to request employers to meet representatives of the commission to further some plan to end the strike. Only two employers even responded to the letter. One said “there was absolutely nothing to arbitrate.” The article noted that “Mr. Govan pointed out the hostile attitude of Mr. Coleman, superintendent of the Madison Kipp Company as brought out in a recent communication.”[xxxii]
La Follette Steps in, Employers appeal denied
As meetings were going on with the city committee on the strikes, on April 15, labor leaders had appealed to Senator La Follette, who was in Washington and immediately asked the War Labor Board to settle the case within 24 hours and enforce the Feb. 18 War Board agreements. By this point, an umpire had been brought in. The Judge who served as the umpire in the case denied the companies’ recent appeals of the War Board awards. The Joint Chair of the War Labor Board, after seeing the judge’s decision said “I assume there will be no further trouble about enforcing the award of February 18. I feel confident the manufacturers will comply.” “If the award is not complied with,” he had “no doubt but that court action will be invoked to enforce it.” The Special Correspondent who wrote the The Capital Times article concluded that “There now remains no valid reason for the employers to longer deny the men their rights…after all their professions as to being law abiding the Madison manufacturers will immediately take steps to comply with all the terms of the award of February 18.” The decision was called “a great victory for Senator La Follette.”[xxxiii]
Meanwhile, as reported in the The Capital Times the same day, charges were being brought by employers and non-union workmen against strikers and strike sympathizers for “disorderly conduct in violation of city ordinance.” A female Kipp worker who “swore out the warrants” accused strikers and sympathizers of following her and other workers home on April 11. The ten accused strikers, including several women, pleaded not-guilty and some of the women said they weren’t even near “the disturbance” at the time. In defending themselves, the workers claimed they had been misled by posters placed in their workplaces saying the following: “This plant is doing war work. It accepts, the policies laid down by the U. S. War Labor Board. The length of the war depends on the speed with which our country does its war work. The lives of thousands of soldiers may depend on how fast and well this plant does its war work. Employees and wage earners —This is your post of “duty. Do not desert it. You are soldiers of war industry. You are doing your duty like soldiers. Keep it up.” Based on this, the workers assumed they would be getting back pay and increase in wages after the war (among the stipulations of the War Board awards) and they decided to strike when they realized their employers were going to violate these agreements. Their trial was set for May 6.[xxxiv]
The hearings for one of the two men who had allegedly assaulted the superintendents of Kipp and Steinle Turret on April 25. The man was acquitted of charges. Kipp’s superintendent, Mr. Baker “testified that he was struck in the jaw full in the face” by the man, but was unable to produce witnesses, and “evidence shows there was considerable confusion and the possibility of the mistake in the identity of the person who assaulted Mr. Baker.” The man, an employee of the city who had worked at Steinle Turret over the winter, claimed he wasn’t on picket duty that day and didn’t hit Mr. Baker. Three witnesses testified that they “did not see any such incident occur and that from the location of the parties in question that it would be highly probably that any such incident could occur.”
Mayor’s report on strike: “New spirit of “industrial democracy” sweeping the world?
On May 5, when the Mayor’s committee report on the strike was released in full in The Capital Times, William Evjue’s editorial was confident about its moral voracity and impact: “The report should serve to alienate what small amount of public opinion was still to be found on the side of the employers. The statement points out eloquently that the employers can no longer maintain that they will have nothing to do with the men through the medium of collective bargaining and retain the moral support of the community.” The report, he said, “leaves little moral ground for Madison employers who continue their fight against men out on strike…if the employers are going to continue their “We have OURS…to hell with YOU” policy it will simply indicate that employers are still back in the day of industrial autocracy and have not caught the new spirit of industrial democracy that is sweeping the world…”[xxxv]
The Mayor’s committee report reviewed the history and purpose of the War Labor Board and described in considerable detail the negotiations and series of events that led to the huge strikes in Madison after the initial report was released in March 1918. The award finally released in Feb. 1919—six and a half months after the Madison War Board hearings—met some of the workers’ demands, but not all, and they were not satisfied. Employers were also unsatisfied, and just before the 30-day time period to appeal, six employers (including Madison Kipp) applied for a re-hearing. The committee report explains that “as time went on and no decision on the application was forthcoming, employees again became restless.” Apparently the workers were not aware that a re-hearing had been applied for until after the strikes began, which the committee deemed “most regrettable.” On April 21, the six employers’ appeals for re-hearing were denied by the War Labor Board umpire.
The Mayor’s committee highlighted the long delay of the War Board in working to resolve the disputes (as workers were having increasing difficulties subsisting on their wages) as a key reason for the strikes. Further, the committee concluded that “Much by the way of conflict of impression and opinion has contributed to the bringing about of the present unhappy situation.” These, together with the prolonged delay by the War Labor Board in handing down its award, and a lack of a closer and more cooperative relationship between employers and employees…are the principal causes responsible for the present situation.”
The committee had just received the news that the War Labor Board would not appoint an administrator but that the “provisions of the award should be carried out by the parties in dispute through conference.” The committee reported that “Evidently, no administrative power exists to compel these parties to comply” and “there is absolutely no administrative power now left to enforce the award…”
There was apparently nothing the committee could do but “recommend that the parties to the dispute enter into conference as originally directed in the award…” They suggested that “Action should be taken forthwith because of the long delay occasioned by the dilatory and disappointing procedure of the War Labor Board.” Employers and employees, they wrote, “should as Americans strive to meet each other and solve their difficulties without bitterness or smallness. In this reconstruction period with the world on fire the same generous rule should apply.”
The end of the report was a fairly long and passionate statement urging the employers and employees to work together in the “spirit of democracy,’ as summarized in a sidebar on the front page: “Today in -all the advanced, countries there is among the workers a restlessness never before known. It is clear that they will not acquiesce in a system of control of industry which gives the employees no collective voice whatever in matters which, deeply concern them. Individual bargaining, which was reasonable enough under earlier conditions but which is less and less compatible with the spirit of democracy, appears to have no future. Since this is so, has not the time come to consider what bearing the trend of our day may have upon our local industries? We believe that the parties to the Madison controversy, have the foresight, breadth of view and good temper to get together and find a basis for cooperation.”[xxxvi]
Labor Efforts Fail and Fizzle Out…
Ultimately, a War Board administrator did travel to Madison to attempt resolving disputes. However attempts by the War Labor Board mediator ultimately failed. Although most of the companies agreed to the mediator’s proposal, two of companies—Madison Kipp and Scanlan—refused to have anything to do with it. Also, workers suspected that even the companies that agreed to the proposal would only re-hire non-union employees. Hundreds of workers packed Turner Hall, where they agreed not to end the strike; they were encouraged by the union leaders to “to stick together to the bitter end.”[xxxvii]
Two days later, some men returned to work under the agreement reached by the Labor Board mediator, and were presented with “application cards” as if they were new workers, which they said violated the War Board agreements. Union headquarters advised them not to sign the cards, and the workers discussed a general strike among the Machinists and other unions. Labor leaders, however, said there was “little hope of a satisfactory end to the strike” until the War Board mediator returned to Madison. Regardless, Machinists secretary said “picket lines will be reestablished” and “the strike is not ended.”[xxxviii] A week later, however, Four Lakes Ordinance Company reopened in a move that union leaders saw as disingenuous move to break the strike and circumvent the Labor Board agreements.[xxxix]
During this unrest in May 1919, union delegates went to Washington to appeal to the Labor Board for intervention, but discovered that the board had been dissolved and the entity that succeeded it had no power to enforce the labor board agreements. Some workers went back to work, but about 700 striking machinists left Madison to find work elsewhere; presumably these machinists were replaced with non-union workers. The Madison Federation of Labor lost over 800 Madison members.[xl] Union efforts fizzled as workers had to accept that there was no longer a federal entity to mediate disputes with their employers and assist them in assuring that employers respected collective bargaining rights, 8 hour days, overtime pay, equal pay for women, and the other conditions of the War Board awards. Realizing this as well, many employers—especially those that had shunned the agreements all along, like Madison Kipp—continued to ignore them.[4]
Meanwhile, Kipp company officials and other officials had been building coalitions and political power to fight future union efforts. In September of 1920, the executive secretary of the Mississippi Valley Association came to Madison “to perfect the Madison sub-zone of the association.” The MVA was a coalition of states in the central part of the country that held over 50% of the country’s wealth. A. Merz, secretary of Madison Kipp, promised to serve as the chair of the meeting and to assist in the organization’s formation.
[1] These were only the injuries reported in the local papers; many worker injuries and accidents were likely not reported in the papers.
[2] Though the Burgess Battery Company apparently held to the agreements of the War Labor Board (The Capital Times editorial, March 29 1919)
[3] In a sudden change of heart, George Steinle agreed to meet with the worker committees, and to some of their demands, so workers at Four Lakes Ordinance (under U.S. Navy supervision) did not plan to participate in the strike (1919.4.1). (Steinle’s sudden change of heart was short-lived; There were also some suggestions in news stories that Steinle paid workers more not to strike).
[4] In June 1919 it was reported that Kipp had been fined for employing women at night, a violation of the agreements. 1919.6.28.
[i] Mollenhoff, p. 392.
[ii] 1910.4.29
[iii] 1918.3.20
[iv] 1918.4.26
[v] 1918.7.5
[vi] Cap Times 1919 5.6
[vii] Madison Labor, p. 3.
[viii] Madison Labor, p. 3
[ix] WSJ 1917.12.31.
[x] 1918.3.3
[xi] WSJ 1918.5.25
[xii] CT, 1918.5.30
[xiii] 1918.6.22 CT
[xiv] 1918.8.1. and 1918.8.2. CT?
[xv] 1918.8.21 CT?
[xvi] 1918.8.22 CT?
[xvii] 1918.8.31 CT?.
[xviii] 1918.8.31 CT?
[xix] 1918.9.23 CT?
[xx] 1918.9.24 CT?
[xxi] 1918.11.29 CT
[xxii] 1918.12.3 CT?
[xxiii] 1918.12.3. 1918.12.6 CT?
[xxiv] 1919.1.2 CT
[xxv] 1919.1.3 CT
[xxvi] 1919.1.8 CT
[xxvii] 1919.2.24 Cap Times, pg. 1, 6
[xxviii] 1919.2.21. 1919.2.24 CT
[xxix] 1919.3.26 CT
[xxx] 4.3.19 CT
[xxxi] 1919.4.12 CT
[xxxii] 1919.4.15.,1919.4.16 CT
[xxxiii] 4.17.19 CT
[xxxiv] 4.17.1919 CT
[xxxv] 1919.5.6 CT
[xxxvi] 5.6.1919 CT
[xxxvii] 1919.5.14 CT
[xxxviii] 1919.5.16 CT
[xxxix] 1919.5.24 CT
[xl] Mollenhoff, p. 393.
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