125 Years of ‘Organized Labor’
Looking Back on a Legendary Legacy in Labor History
This February marks 125 years of publication of the newspaper you hold in your hands. For the remainder of this year, we’ll be featuring historical content from the archives and articles digging into the comprehensive history of Organized Labor, the longest continuously published labor paper west of the Mississippi.
This month, we present you with a reprint of an Org Labor article celebrating the 100th anniversary of the paper and detailing its inception. The article was originally published on February 28, 2000.
Seen here is the San Francisco Building Trades Temple, courtesy of a 1950 publication commemorating the 50th anniversary of "Organized Labor." The newspaper was operated and published out of this building, located at 200 Guerrero Street, for many decades. The building has since been demolished.
An Early History of the Organized Labor Newspaper
The first issue of Organized Labor was published on February 3, 1900. William McKinley, a Republican, was president, and Theodore Roosevelt was vice-president. The city of San Francisco was thriving as a result of both the fallout from the gold rush and the beginning of trade with the Pacific Rim. The San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council had been around since February 6, 1896, and was being run by an Irishman named Patrick Henry McCarthy.
According to Michael Kazin in his book “Barons of Labor,” the City’s building trades unions were already well-organized. Kazin wrote: “Beginning in the late 1890s, San Francisco workers built the strongest labor movement that existed in any American metropolis.”
Initially, Org Labor was published weekly by the Organized Labor Publishing Company. The lead article in Vol. 1, No. 1, centered on a labor dispute between the council and the Bentley Construction Company, which was using non-union hod carriers on the new post office building. Business Agent Harry M. Saunders of the council acted, pulling 40 cement workers and four carpenters off the job. A conciliation committee consisting of President P. H. McCarthy, as well as E.J. Tveitmoe and E.J. Brandon, was appointed by the council to take the matter in hand.
The article notes: “The committee worked hard, early and late, for three successive weeks, when it finally obtained an agreement in writing from the Bentley Construction Company, wherein the said firm pledged itself to employ members of the San Francisco Bricklayers Association at the union rate of wages […]”
Another story talks about a visit by James Byrne, special agent for the United Hatters of North America, who sounded a warning about local jobbers handling the non-union-made hats of F. Berg and Company. In his addresses before local labor organizations, Byrne commented that his mission was to advance the union label. He talked about the observance of the 55-hour week, the state law in New Jersey.
The paper also reported on the meeting of the American Federation of Labor on December 11, 1899, in Detroit, and the reading of the annual report by Samuel Gompers. The executive council of the American Federation “decided to re-introduce the national eight-hour bill in congress.”
Historical Organized Labor Nameplates
Many of the early union leaders in San Francisco were social reformers and political activists and supported the Democratic Party of the 1850s, the Workingmen’s Party of the late 1870s, the Populists of the early 1890s, and the Union Labor Party of 1901 to ’11. In an editorial in the January 9, 1901, issue of Org Labor, the editor argues for municipal ownership of public utilities, such as the water works, light plant, telephone system, and street railway system, and complains that “the powerful corporations which own and control these public franchises” did not agree. Org Labor maintained that public ownership “will mean cheaper rates, better service, higher wages for the employees, and far less political corruption.”
It’s interesting that in the breakup of PG&E in the late 1990s, consumer activists testifying before the CPUC used the same arguments to privatize that corporation.
In August 1901, Org Labor reported on the progress of the SF Building Trades Council, noting that there were 36 affiliate unions “representing a total of 15,000 organized building craftsmen, whose 150 delegates respond to roll-call on the floor of the council every Thursday night.”
When the California State Federation of Labor was established in San Francisco on January 7, 1901, at Pioneer Hall, one of the first resolutions was that Org Labor be made the “Official Organ of the State Federation.” Org Labor was also “the Official Organ of the State Building Trades Council,” from 1909 to 1936.
The first editor of Org Labor was Olaf Andrew Tveitmoe, who served in that capacity until 1921. Tveitmoe was a fearless crusader for workers’ rights. He once stated that the goal of organized labor — the movement — was “to rescue industrial slaves and mold them into independent and upright workingmen.”
Tveitmoe was active in early organizing in Los Angeles and was quite vociferous in his comments about Otis Chandler of the L.A. Times.
Tveitmoe also served as general secretary of the State Building Trades for many years, and as a National V.P. for the Cement Masons Union. In 1906, he was appointed to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. According to Michael Kazin, Tveitmoe’s actions were guided by “radical ideology and a taste for militancy. He believed that unionists should never forget the basic injustice of capitalism, but that on a daily basis, contractors still had to be managed and cajoled.”
Illustration by David James Smith