opposition

Question 1

What tactics did employers use to oppose unions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries?

Answer 1

• Employers used blacklisting
• yellow-dog contracts
• strike-breakers (scabs),
• They also created company unions to bypass independent organising.

Question 2

What were yellow-dog contracts and how were they used?

Answer 2

• Yellow-dog contracts forced workers to agree not to join a union as a condition of employment.
• They were commonly used until outlawed by the Norris-LaGuardia Act (1932).

Question 3

How did employers use private security forces against unions?

Answer 3

• Agencies like the Pinkertons were hired to break strikes violently.
• During the Homestead Strike (1892), 300 Pinkertons were deployed.
• By the 1890s, the agency had more operatives than the U.S. Army, with over 30,000 agents.

Question 4

How did the federal government oppose unions in the 19th century?

Answer 4

• It frequently intervened against workers
• 1877 Great Railroad Strike, federal troops crushed the strike
• 1894 Pullman Strike – President Cleveland sent in the Army.
• From 1880 to 1930, over 4,000 injunctions were issued to halt strikes.

Question 5

How did the Supreme Court hinder trade union rights before the 1930s?

Answer 5

• The Court often sided with business
• In re Debs (1895) upheld federal action against strikes
• Lochner v. New York (1905) struck down labour laws under “freedom of contract”.

Question 6

How did the First Red Scare (1919–20) damage union growth?

Answer 6

• Unions were linked to communism and anarchy.
• Public fear led to repression of strikes, mass arrests, and a sharp 30% drop in union membership between 1920 and 1929.
• Employers used the Red Scare to paint unionists as radicals.

Question 7

How did employers and the media influence public opinion against unions?

Answer 7

• The media framed unions as disruptive and violent.
• During strikes, headlines focused on damage, not demands.
• In the 1920s and again in the 1980s, newspapers and TV portrayed unions as obstacles to economic progress.

Question 8

How did public opinion shift against unions after the PATCO strike (1981)?

Answer 8

• Only 28% of Americans supported the PATCO strikers, according to Gallup.
• Public sympathy declined, especially for public-sector unions, which were seen as overpaid and privileged.

Question 9

What was Reagan’s response to the PATCO strike and why was it significant?

Answer 9

• He fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers and banned them from federal service.
• The move encouraged private employers to take harder anti-union stances
• signalled a federal shift away from labour protection.

Question 10

How did strike activity change after PATCO?

Answer 10

• In 1950, there were 470 major strikes.
• By 1990, that number dropped to just 44.
• Employers increasingly used permanent replacements, and union militancy collapsed.

Question 11

How did the Taft-Hartley Act (1947) restrict union activity?

Answer 11

• It outlawed the closed shop, enabled right-to-work laws, and allowed federal injunctions during strikes.
• Union leaders had to swear anti-Communist oaths, weakening left-wing elements.

Question 12

How did right-to-work laws weaken unions?

Answer 12

• These laws allowed workers to opt out of union membership and dues in unionised workplaces.
• By 1992, 22 states had passed such laws, especially in the South and West

Question 13

How did employers resist unions after 1981?

Answer 13

• They increasingly used legal consultants to fight unionisation, outsourced jobs, and hired non-union contractors.
• Private-sector union membership fell to 11% by 1992, down from 35% in 1954.