Good News! In 1835 Federal Employees Went On Strike For First Time Ever! Bad News! Also They Did A Race Riot.

[erronis]

https://www.wonkette.com/p/good-news-in-1835-federal-employees
Erik Loomis

A bit of history I didn't learn (or don't remember). And I'm from D.C.

On July 31, 1835, workers at the Washington Naval Yard went on strike to get a 10-hour day and recent moves to limit their lunch privileges. This was the first serious strike of federal employees in American history. It did not succeed, but is both an excellent window into work at this time and also worth discussing because of the historic nature of the event. That window also provides a great view of the racism at the core of early American labor organizing.

Now, we are going to want to cheer on this important event, but the background of the conflict returns us to the depressing reality of the American labor movement’s history of racism. Washington had large numbers of free Black workers, and that number grew over time. White workers did not like this, not at all. They wanted protection from Black competition. But this gets worse. The Navy would also hire slaves that owners sent to them. This was common. Many slaves, especially away from cotton country, would work urban jobs as their owners hired them out to an employer, allowed them to keep some pittance of the money to support themselves in the city, and then pocketed the rest. So white labor didn’t just have to compete against free Black labor. It had to compete against slaves. In fact, the Navy Yard was perhaps the largest “employer” of slaves in the country during the early 19th century, though I imagine the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond might have a claim to that as well.

White workers did the more skilled work, while free Black people and slaves did the menial and grunt work. What all of them had in common though was being day laborers and also being subject to the whims of congressional appropriations. Congress did not like to spend money in these years. So work was inconsistent and often seasonal. Moreover, pay declined over time; for example, n 1808, carpenters made $2.50 a day, but by 1820, that had declined to $1.64 a day. On occasion before this, small groups of workers had made collective demands in a sort of proto-unionism, but these were unorganized spontaneous actions that the bosses could easily dismiss as a few angry men. The closest things had come to broader action is when a small group of workers in 1830 stayed away from the job for a week over pay issues.

. . .

Another interesting point about this strike is how long historians totally misunderstood it because the available sources were so sketchy. In fact, Philip Foner, one of the great pioneering historians of labor and the left, said back in History of the Labor Movement in the United States from Colonial Times to the Founding of the American Federation of Labor that the strike was an early example of interracial solidarity! Yeah, no. But this is what new primary sources do — expand our vision, knowledge, and ability to tell accurate stories.

[Justice Brandeis]

1. A good many liberals are reluctant to admit that unions have a pretty bad history of racism and sexism

and it still manifests itself today from time to time.