Athens, Ohio--Robert Smith uncovered the sordid practices and the
extent of a uniquely American industry by reading the subpoenaed
documents of strikebound companies and their mercenary
strikebreakers, by digging through newspaper archives for articles
on long-forgotten strikes, and by studying the testimony of
executives and strikebreakers who appeared before private, state,
and federal governmental inquiries. Smith describes incidents,
often bloody, involving strikebreakers in industrial,
transportation, and mining disputes across the nation--including
infamous or revealing strikes in California, Colorado, Ohio,
Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island, Virginia, and West Virginia. While the activities of
such hired guns are occasionally touched upon in broader studies,
or in accounts of specific strikes, the lack of primary evidence
has made a thorough examination of this industry difficult. Many of
the earliest anti-union entrepreneurs carried their offices in
their hats, and their secretive nature and the business community's
efforts to disassociate itself from these often-unsavory characters
left little for historians to record. As the United States became
an industrial power after the Civil War, much of the business
community steadfastly resisted labor's efforts to bargain
collectively. The judicial system, police and other militia forces,
as well as government authorities, historically have helped
anti-union employers cow workers and maintain their dominance. The
role played by anti-union entrepreneurs, however, was obscured
until the 1950s. Workers first challenged this heirarchy in the
Great Railroad Strike of 1877--an uprising thatspurred creation of
the National Guard--and industrial violence did not significantly
abate until the federal government sanctioned collective bargaining
with the passage of the Wagner Act in 1935. In response,
unionbusters became increasingly more sophisticated and more
subtle. Pinkerton hired-guns gave way to professional
strikebreakers who many regarded as defenders of American economic
liberty. Wary of antagonizing the public, these armies of hired
muscle were superseded in turn by undercover men--who were
eventually replaced by experts in the nuances of national labor
law. Emboldened by President Reagan's busting in 1981 of the air
traffic controllers and the pro-business milieu of the post-Reagan
years, professional union-busting came full circle. Smith says the
newest breed of anti-union entrepreneurs rely upon thugs who differ
little from the brutal men who filled the armies marshaled by the
Pinkertons, the notorious Baldwin Felts Agency, or even the "King
of the Strikebreakers," Pearl Bergoff, nearly a century ago. Since
the mid-1980s, hundreds of firms--including the Detroit News,
Caterpillar and Pittston Coal--when facing angry workers have
contracted with agencies that promise to solve their labor
troubles. While some supply their clients with replacement workers,
others (like the Asset Protection Team or Special Response
Corporation, which promise to provide frightened employers "A
Private Army When you Need it Most") specialize in security
services. Reproductions of such advertisements, and photographs,
some shocking, of strikebreakers and their tactics are an important
dimension of Smith's book. "In no other country has the struggle
between management and its employeesengendered a contingent of
mercenaries who specialized in breaking strikes," observes Smith.
Surprisingly, students of the American labor story have paid little
attention to strikebreaking and unionbusting agencies. FROM
BLACKJACKS TO BRIEFCASES breaks important new ground in fully
documenting companies' long reliance upon anti-labor
specialists--an important factor in the puzzle of the failure of
the American labor movement. This revealing study challenges
journalists, scholars, and labor historians to look further into
how the business community in the United States has relied upon
mercenaries for a century and a half.
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