Cornelius Shea - Teamsters Presidency: 1903

Teamsters Presidency: 1903

Shea was confronted by a crisis within the union in late 1903, a crisis which centered on the union's membership based in Chicago.

In 1903, Chicago was one of the most unionized cities in the world. Nearly 243,000 Chicagoans belonged to unions, about a quarter of the workforce. One-third of these worked in a single industry (meatpacking). The Teamsters were vitally important to the Chicago labor movement, for a sympathy strike by the Teamsters could paralyze the movement of goods throughout the city and bring a strike into nearly every neighborhood.

But Shea was not an advocate of sympathy strikes, not even when they meant one unit of Teamsters would be supporting another unit of Teamsters. In November 1903, Teamsters employed by the Chicago City Railway went out on strike. Shea attempted to stop sympathy strikes by other Teamster locals in the city but failed. However, three Teamster locals in the city—the truck, ice wagon, and coal wagon drivers, which together represented about half the Teamster membership in Chicago—refused to violate their contracts and walk off the job. The three locals went even further, and disaffiliated from the Teamsters Joint Council of Chicago. Furious, Shea called them "cowards and traitors". His outburst only angered his opponents in the union. In mid-December, Shea was confronted in his office by Teamster leader who shot at him four times and forced him to dance a jig before fleeing.