The New York Paper Mill Strike of 1910
The adolescent years of the labor movement could be quite violent
When we think of strikes, work stoppage and job actions today, we can forget that movement is relatively young. Even in the 1900’s the labor movement was still in its adolescence. The Knights of Labor formed in 1866 and American Federation of Labor in 1886 so in 1910 the movement is really only twenty-five to forty-five years old.
In the early days of the labor movement especially in the early decades of this last century, violence was more common than in today’s labor strikes. The movement also had a great divide between craftsworkers and industrial workers unions. The American Federation of Labor which began as a federation of craftsworkers unions such as cigarmakers was only twenty-four years old in 1910. The Congress of Industrial Workers did not exist until 1935.
The movement came out of the exploitation of labor by the industrialists. Workers demanded rights and protections that companies owners did not care to give to them. Even financial protections for families of workers who died on the job were not existent.
Workers fought not only for their livelihood but the health and success of their families. Such things as the eight hour day and five day work week were hoped for possibilities in 1860’s that would not be realized for decades into the next century.
Labor unions in response to worker exploitation became a force to be reckoned with in time. They also brought changes in laws that set the foundation for today’s forty day work week.
For example, a company in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1910 received a fine for violating by five minutes the new legally limited work week — 56 hours.
There were many strikes especially in this early time of the labor movement and some were violent. Some strikers employed sabotage which itself is a word that comes from job actions and even explosives.
All of that became part of the International Paper Mills in upstate New York in 1910.
The Spring 1910 International Paper Mill strike followed a previous one in 1908. The company never followed through on some of their bargaining promises to end the previous strike, so tensions grew again.
Employees complained they could be dismissed without cause at any time. The company reduced wages in a cost cutting move due to decreasing demand and employees also worked on a seven day shift where workers had to labor every night including Sunday.
Finally on March 8, yet another employee was fired from the Corinth, New York plant along the Hudson River in Saratoga County which was International Papers’ main facility. That was the spark that set off the strike.
Immediately, the company brought in replacement workers. Known as strike breakers, they are colloquially called scabs.
The point of a strike is to cripple the company enough that it will return to the bargaining table and address workers’ grievances and demands. Replacement workers or scabs undermine the workers’ positions and even led in some cases to the strike failing and all striking employees fired. Companies used them to break unions and strikes.
The replacement workers came in by train. Stopping them became part of the workers’ mission for their economic survival and that of their families was on the line. Strikers used dynamite to stop the trains, however, they failed because the workers did not know how to use dynamite.
Replacement workers often ended up being beaten and violent fights would break out. To quell violence the local authorities called out the National Guard troops to striking plants and surrounding areas.
Meanwhile, in sympathy for the workers in Corinth other New York State International Paper mills went out on strike as well — including the mills at Niagra Falls, Glenn Falls and Fort Edwards by March 10 and 11th. The company brought replacement workers into those plants but as in the case of Glenn Falls the machine operators went out on strike in support of the Corinth cause. It was then impossible to operate the plant.
Any replacement workers who engaged in any kind of trouble making activity were run out of town by civil authorities. Others going to work had to be escorted by the National Guard to safely run the plant.
News of the strike spread publicizing the event with the company’s name spread all over it. Newspapers from Lowell, Massachusetts to Portland, Oregon reported on the daily events of the strike.
The company meanwhile hired some of the replacement workers as company security. The Berkshire Evening Eagle out of Pittsfield Massachusetts carried the account of the arrest of one badge toting scab whom city constables brought to jail as five hundred workers cheered. Authorities charged him with carrying a concealed weapon and resisting arrest.
In Fort Edwards, a large company storehouse burned to the ground. Several horses died in the fire as well. It was believed to be an act of sabotage.
Even the local clergy actively supported the workers. Strikers met among other places at the local Catholic Church to Corinth. This may reflect the writing of Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum, the encyclical on the economy issued less than twenty years earlier. He called for the Catholic Church’s support of labor unions. Unions, he wrote, needed to fight not only for the physical and economic health of the workers and their families but for their spiritual health as well.
One of the first concessions of the company was to stop Sunday work. Employees complained prior to the strike that the plant had to be opened on Sunday night at six and later work began even earlier at three in the afternoon. As part of the settlement the company relented and ordered the plant to be shut from seven o’clock Sunday Morning until the same time on Monday.
Clearly, many would call the strike a success and after ten weeks the plants were up and running. However, only eleven years later International Paper suffered another job action. Workers went out on a strike that lasted five years.
Strike Spreading Labor Trouble Extending from One Mill to Another, Lowell Sun, March 10
Clothier, Rachel, The 1910 Corinth Paper Strike, New York Alamanack April 27, 2020
