San Francisco Joins National Typographical Union
Among its first
actions, the newly organized Eureka instructed its secretary to correspond
with the National Typographical Union (which had been formed only the year
before) to obtain a charter. The instruction was repeated in the summer of
1854. Finally, on September 15, 1855, the charter arrived, along with one
for "Sacramento City." They were dated May 7, 1855. So Eureka Typographical
Union became Local. No. 21 of the National Typographical Union--by no coincidence
the number of the San Francisco union today.
The Eureka at the start adopted the prevailing scale of wages: $1.50 a thousand
ems or $67.50 for a sixty-hour week on morning newspapers, $55 on evening
newspapers and in job shops. Over the next half-dozen years until it, too,
collapsed, the Eureka was compelled to accept one reduction after another.
The rate dropped to $1.25 per 1000 ems in July, 1854; to $1.00 in March,
1855; and in November, 1857, to 75 cents. The economic reverses suffered
by the printers reflected the general depression that afflicted the city
as the Gold Rush and its extraordinary inflation waned.
Local 21 paid no dues to the National in 1855-56, nor was it represented
at the national convention of those years. In 1856, James Risk, first president
of the Eureka, was appointed to the National Executive Committee. In 1860,
the President of the National. Typographical Union commented, "if it were
not that (San Francisco) cards come this way once in a while we would not
know a union existed in California."
The union struggled desperately but vainly to stem the tide of deflation.
At one point, a union committee, opposing a, reduction, proposed the formation
of a "'General Trades Union,' for the purpose of carrying out measures for
the welfare of the working class." A minority report objected, however, that
at least fifty printers in the city were not members of the union. The Alta
was "fitted"' with rats, it said, and the Evening Journal was a "fishy concern."
The Evening News, it added, was printed by the "cheap labor system"--apparently
a reference to those instances where printers became owners or partners to
evade the union scale of pay. In any case, the reduc-tion was granted.
The union was plagued by growing unemployment. A meeting in April, 1857,
accepted the "duty of more fortunate members" to look out for members who
are in "want." "To see that no fair or honorable member . . . shall be allowed
to suffer from want," the union resolved to secure "fair employment for
the more necessitous members." Typically it sent out word advising printers
throughout the country of the depressed conditions of trade.
Finally, in November, 1857, the Union voted a general amnesty: all offices
paying the prices were deemed fair. Members were free to take jobs in any
office paying the scale and complying with existing regulations. Again, a
year later, the union extended an invitation to all printers "to meet the
union. .. to decide on the practicability of an advance in the present scale
of prices." The meeting was probably not held; certainly the scale was not
advanced.
On August 28, 1859, the members of Eureka disbanded the old union "so that
none of its rules or regulations would interfere with the operation of a
new Typographical Society." The union had held no meeting for nearly two
years; its rules were "a dead letter." It made "the new Society" its successor
and transferred its charter to it. It sent its funds to the National Typographical
Union.
Its successor, organized that day, retained the name and number but fared
little better. It apparently succeeded in bringing more printers into its
ranks, but was still unable to improve its wage scales. It finally succumbed
in the face of an overwhelming push by the newspaper owners to cut wages
once more.
The discovery of the great silver lodes on the east face of the Sierras set
off a new flush of prosperity. Work was plentiful and workers took advantage
of the better times to restore some of the wage cuts they had suffered during
the pre-Comstock, post-Gold Rush depression. "Striking for higher wages,"
observed the Bulletin in 1863, "is now the rage among the working people
of San Francisco . . . But great care should be taken not to overdo it."
Out of the turmoil emerged the state's (and the west's) first central body,
the San Francisco Trades Union. Its presidents were all members of Local
21, Alexander M. Kenaday, the most important of them. Under Kenaday, the
Trades Union launched a movement for the eight-hour day; under the leadership
of a carpenter, A. M. Winn, achieved brief success. Kenaday started a short-lived
journal of the Trades and Working Man to advocate the shorter workday. No.
21 lost interest, partly because of internal and external political con-siderations,
partly because piece-workers in the union were reluctant to support the shorter
workday. Kenaday was eventually forced out of the labor movement. Many crafts
won the eight-hour day in the prosperity of the later Sixties. It was soon
washed out in the wage cuts and depressed conditions of the seventies.
In February, 1870, the Alta, the Bulletin and Call forced a reduction in
the rate of composition from 75 cents to 60 cents a thousand ems. In August,
the union asked them to re-store the old rate. Most publishers and some job
shops agreed. Among them, the Call offered to accept the proposal but the
Bulletin refused, though both of them were owned by the partnership of George
K. Fitch and Loring Pickering. The union called a strike. The employers gathered
a strikebreaking force, including some former union men, "country printers,"
and several women. A number of women printers had worked at the trade in
San Francisco. They worked at union rates, the Bulletin claimed, but were
denied admission into the union.
The California Women's Suffrage League passed
a resolution praising the action of the two struck papers. The Chronicle,
though, a vigorous supporter of the union in the dispute, reported that at
least two of the women escaped the owners' locked doors and were admitted
to the union at a special meeting. It noted that a special committee of
printers--"young, handsome, marriageable"--had been appointed to wait for
the other lady printers and see them safely home.'
*It was not a new issue. As early as 1854, the national Union had tussled
with the question of women printers. It had at first objected to their admission
to the trade. It then authorized separate charters to "seven or more female
printers." The delegate of the first such women's local was later elected
corresponding secretary at the ITU's 1870 convention. In 1878, local unions
were authorized to deal with the question of ad-mitting women. And in 1885,
the general laws prohibited any distinction on account of sex. In 1888, the
general laws were expanded to affirm equal wages for the same work, to insist
on organizing women printers, and to underscore their equal place in the
shop. Local 21 formally admitted its first women members in 1886.
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