LABOR MOVEMENT

LABOR MOVEMENT. The rise of the organized labor movement in Dubuque began with the rise of industrialization in the 1850s. Dubuque's first union belonged to the typographers during that decade. By the mid-1880s, however, the typical worker labored ten hours per day, six days a week for wages that were based on age, gender and race. The lowest paying jobs belonged to women and children who worked in service and retail jobs. Men earned one-third more than women. Women received more than boys who earned more than girls. AFRICAN AMERICANS were left with work as cooks, servants or porters. Close supervision in the workplace meant little rest time, but many opportunities to be injured or die. Bad ventilation, explosions, fires, and unsafe machinery were common. Faced with such working conditions, workers attempted to band together.

Attempts to organize and bargain for wages and working conditions required courage. Opposition to organized labor came from company management that resisted even recognizing union spokespersons. Union organizers were dismissed. Lockouts and strikebreakers were employed; labor organizers often found public officials tending to side with management.

One of the first major breakthroughs in labor organizing in Dubuque came in the 1880s when the Knights of Labor organized building tradesmen and women garment workers at the H. B. GLOVER COMPANY and railroad workers on the Chicago and Northwestern.

In 1887 efforts of Dubuque manufacturers to lobby the Iowa Legislature to block passage of Iowa's first factory inspection acts led the Knights to organize a political party. The Union Labor Party successfully elected Dubuque's first labor MAYOR, captured control of the city council and carried all other citywide offices. The pro-labor administration then successfully identified wealthy tax dodgers and forced them to pay their fair share of property tax. In 1888 a combined effort of the Republicans and Democrats defeated the labor ticket, but only by several hundred votes.

Union organizing efforts from 1890 to 1910 focused on the building trades. Painters, ironworkers, bricklayers, carpenters, sheet metal workers, and plumbers organized independent locals for each trade. Together these locals formed the Building Trades Council. The Teamsters became one of Iowa's strongest unions through help they received from the building trades.

By 1910 the estimated fifty unions operating in Dubuque made the city Iowa's labor movement stronghold. The local unions gained additional strength when they joined to form the Dubuque Trades and Labor Congress. The largest unions were those of the coopers, retail clerks, cigar makers, brewery workers, machinists, iron molders, and street railway employees. Despite several organizing campaigns, mill workers at the sash, door and blind factories of FARLEY AND LOETSCHER MANUFACTURING COMPANY and CARR, RYDER AND ADAMS remained unorganized until the mid-1930s.

Through World War I, the role of organized labor in the business climate of Dubuque was controversial. Powerful unions were charged with obtaining wages too high for Dubuque manufacturers to compete economically with other major Iowa employers or to attract new industry. Labor advocates charged that some local businessmen conspired to keep new industries out of Dubuque to maintain a large pool of potential labor.

Hard times for organized labor came during the 1920s. The" open shop" concept in which there was no recognition of organized labor was, it was claimed, renamed the "American Plan" to hide its anti-union nature. The machinists at KLAUER MANUFACTURING COMPANY and A. Y. MCDONALD MANUFACTURING COMPANY lost strikes.

The Great Depression of the 1930s led to a revived labor movement. In 1933 the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen organized at the DUBUQUE PACKING COMPANY. Bell Telephone workers were organized later in the decade by the Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO). A bitter strike against ROSHEK'S DEPARTMENT STORE led to renewed strength in the Teamster's Union. The Upholsters campaigned to organize FLEXSTEEL INDUSTRIES and the farm equipment workers. In 1948 the United Auto Workers were successful at the JOHN DEERE DUBUQUE WORKS.

Recent years have witnessed fewer strikes and increased labor-management cooperation as the threat to American jobs is seen from foreign competition. Cooperation between labor and management led to the development of the DUBUQUE AREA LABOR MANAGEMENT COUNCIL. Leadership of organized labor through these changing times has been provided by such leaders as Hugh CLARK, John GROGAN, Francis GUINTA, and [[MAAS, Mel|Mel MAAS].