Federal Triangle - Labor Issues During 1930s Construction

Labor Issues During 1930s Construction

Labor-management troubles occurred throughout construction of the initial seven buildings in the Federal Triangle complex in the 1920s and 1930s. Much of Washington, D.C.'s, construction workforce was unionized many years before the project began. All the building contractors employed by the federal government signed three-year contracts with the major labor unions representing their workers in September 1929, in the hope that this would eliminate any disruptions during the building program. But this hope proved false.

The first problem occurred in July 1930, when the lathers union struck to win a $2 per day (16.7 percent) pay increase, halting work for a short period of time on the Archives, Interstate Commerce, Justice, Labor, and Post Office sites. A second strike occurred in late summer 1931 over a new federal wage law. The Davis-Bacon Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Hoover on March 3, 1931. On August 4, 1931, painters working on the Internal Revenue building struck, arguing that out-of-town workers were being imported into the city to work on the building and being paid $5-to-$7 a day rather than the prevailing local wage rate of $11 a day. Both the Treasury and Labor Departments stepped in to arbitrate the strike. The dispute was settled a few days later when the Labor Department found that the contractor had paid the correct wages, and that no workers were being paid overtime.

The construction project's labor troubles worsened in 1933. With the Depression deepening, contractors were pressing for a 27.3 percent wage cut with their unions, particularly the carpenters' union. On January 6, 1933, a fire swept through the upper floors of the unfinished ICC building. The fire was ruled arson and a "disgruntled carpenter" was suspected. Two weeks later, the operating engineers and steamfitters unions engaged in a jurisdictional strike against one another, stopping work at the Post Office construction site, but the AFL intervened and arbitrated a solution to the dispute. The earlier wage dispute, however, had not been resolved, and by February a general strike among all unionized workers at the Federal Triangle complex seemed likely. Employers said they would fire all unionized workers if a strike occurred and replace them with strikebreakers. The two sides agreed to let the Treasury Department arbitrate their dispute, and on February 13 the government ruled in favor of the unions—averting a job action. The employers went to court, and in April 1933 the carpenters agreed to the 27.3 pecent wage cut.

The second major wage dispute of 1933 broke out in May. On May 26, more than 500 members of the plasterers' union struck to prevent a $2 (14.3 percent) pay cut, halting all work on the seven active Federal Triangle constructions sites. The employers and the American Institute of Architects both argued that the higher wage would inhibit economic recovery in the construction industry. To prove their point, the employers locked out the workers; the strike collapsed, and plasterers went back to work on July 22.

August 1933 saw the eruption of a series of labor-management disputes and inter-union squabbles that put construction of the Federal Triangle complex on hold for several months. The first event was when the Journeyman Stonecutters Association of North America walked out on a jurisdictional strike against the iron workers' union on August 21, idling 225 men working on the Post Office building. The dispute was over which union would ride with crane operators to coordinate the movement of loads with workers on the ground. The strike lasted at least until September 7, with both sides seeking a decision from the American Federation of Labor. Then on September 1, 75 carpenters walked off the job in a jurisdictional dispute with the iron worker's union. This dispute, which occurred at the Labor/ICC building, was over which workers would be permitted to install decorative enclosures around radiators. With work on the Labor/ICC buildings already two months behind schedule due to the earlier labor disputes, the employers threatened to stop all work if the carpenters' union struck and throw another 1,000 men out of work. The employers shut down on September 15. Twenty security guards were stationed at the Labor/ICC building to prevent vandalism. On September 18, a third jurisdictional strike occurred when the boilermakers' union walked off the job at the Federal Triangle central heating plant to protest the use of iron workers in the erection of smokestacks for the facility. Construction of the smokestacks continued, but construction of the boilers was halted. A fourth jurisdictional strike erupted on September 20, when 80 members of the bricklayers' union walked off the job at the heating plant to protest the use of laborers to caulk windows, stone, and roof tiles. Although the bricklayers remained on the job for the moment, government officials feared that sympathy strikes would occur, stopping work at all seven construction sites. The carpenters rejected a call for the government to arbitrate the strike, and the employers asked for Senator Robert F. Wagner (a proponent of organized labor) to help settle the disputes. On September 26, the AFL ruled that the smokestack work properly belonged to the iron workers, and ordered the boilermakers back to work. But the carpenters' union initiated a new protest, arguing that the installation of pulley linings in elevators belonged to them and not to the elevator constructors' union. And the Washington Building and Construction Trades Council threatened to call a general strike of all construction workers if the bricklayers were not pulled off the job installing boiler insulation and the asbestos workers' union allowed to do the job instead. Senator Wagner also said on Sept. 28 that he believed a resolution to the carpenters/iron workers dispute (which had led to the layoff of 1,000 workers at the Labor/ICC building) could be reached. But the boilermakers did not return to work, leaving 450 workers laid off. Meanwhile, government officials said that the caulking, insulation, and pulley work disputes would be resolved soon, and would not in any case cause further distruptions at construction sites. Another major work disruption threatened the Federal Triangle complex when the iron workers' union demanded that contractors initiate two four-hour shifts per day rather than one eight-hour shift per day in order to spread work among more men. When contractors balked, the union struck at the Post Office and Justice building sites. That strike lasted two days before about half of the employers capitulated. But it continued for the remaining employers at the Justice and Post Office buildings. Finally, on October 11, 1933, frustrated and angry Labor Department officials said that unless the jurisdictional disputes were ended quickly, the government would seek authorization from Congress in January to force the unions back to work and resolve the disputes itself. The threat worked: On October 13, all parties to all jurisdictional disputes agreed to return to work while continuing to seek resolution to their problems via other channels. Federal officials excoriated the carpenters' union for holding up a $40,000-a-week payroll for four weeks over an $800 job. Eleven days later, the iron workers' union agreed to return to the eight-hour shift.

The labor peace was short-lived. Four unions refused to do work on the Post Office conveyor belt system in mid-November, and the dispute over elevators spread to the Labor/ICC building in February 1934 (delaying the building's opening indefinitely). On February 14, 1934, 225 carpenters engaged in a jurisdictional strike against the cement finishers' union at the Labor/ICC building over the installation of tile flooring. The dispute was elevated to AFL President William Green, Green awarded the job to the cement finishers on March 17. But just three weeks later, the plasterers' union led a jurisdictional strike against the stonecutters' union at the Labor/ICC building because the stonecutters were installing acoustical marble columns. Contractors, angry at the repeated inter-union squabbles, announced they would no longer employ reduced-hour shifts or give pay raises. The carpenters' union called for a general strike of all unions at the Labor/ICC building on May 25, a strike which spread to the city's ice cream plants. That secondary strike ended June 4. But the general construction strike began to spread to other federal projects throughout the city, leading to an increasing number of calls for the strike to be settled by arbitration. As the work stoppage spread, the carpenters' union's contract with the construction companies expired on May 30. The employers declared on June 12 that they would no longer adhere to any closed shop agreements with the carpenters, and instead would impose the open shop and employ any carpenter (union or non-union) in order to finish the work on existing construction projects. The construction unions declared they would pull every worker off every job if non-union construction laborers were hired, and the D.C Metropolitan Police Department made preparations to patrol streets and job sites to prevent any violence from erupting. Non-union workers were hired, and the carpenters' union struck all job sites throughout the city amidst fears that the carpenters might strike all federal construction projects nationwide. Three union members were injured on June 13 as picketers clashed with security guards hired by the employers. But the strike did not spread to the other unions, and the Washington Building and Construction Trades Council and D.C. Commissioner George E. Allen attempted to mediate an end to the strike. The carpenters rejected the arbitration attempt, and bands of roving picketers moving among construction sites led to traffic tie-ups, frightened citizens, and rumors of violence. The "open shop strike" ended on June 20, 1934, when the carpenters agreed to a new contract providing for a five-day, 40-hour work week and $1.25 an hour in pay. But no agreement was made regarding the open shop. The plasterers' union ended their strike in June 1934, and went to local district court to resolve the jurisdictional dispute.

The final labor dispute to affect the Federal Triangle complex construction was a jurisdictional strike over the installation of library shelving at the National Archives building in November 1935.