Definition
Labor spies are usually agents employed byhe labor spycapitalizes the employer's ignorance and prejudice and enters the orkplacespecifically to identify the leaders of the Labor organization, to propagandize against them and blacklist them and to disrupt and corrupt their union. He is under cover, disguised as a worker, hired to betray the workers' cause.Richard C. Cabot, Introduction, The Labor Spy—A Survey of Industrial Espionage, by Sidney Howard and Robert Dunn, Under the Auspices of the Cabot Fund for Industrial Research, published in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen's Magazine, Volume 71, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, 1921, p. 27Labor spies may be referred to as spies, operatives, agents, agents provocateurs,
Labor spy techniques
A letter from the Burns Detective Agency declared to the employer, " thin the heart of your business is where we operate, down in the dark corners, in out-of-the-way places that cannot be seen from your office ..." Labor spies may employ techniques of surreptitious monitoring, "missionary" work (see below), sabotage, provoking chaos or violence, frameups, intimidation, or insinuating themselves into positions of authority from which they may alter the basic goals of an organization. A National Labor Relations Board chairman testified about the results of these techniques:The mystery and deadly certainty with which this schemeA labor spy observed,abor spying Abor or ABOR may refer to: * Abor, Enugu, a town in Ojebogene L.G.A., Enugu, Nigeria * Abor, Ghana, a town in the Volta Region of Ghana * Abor Hills, Arunāchal Pradesh * Abor people (disambiguation), multiple uses * Abor Formation, located in ...operated was so baffling to the men that they each suspected the others, were afraid to meet or to talk and the union was completely broken.
Those labor unions were so hot, crying about spies, that everything was at fever pitch and they look at each other with blood in their eyes.From Blackjacks To Briefcases — A History of Commercialized Strikebreaking and Unionbusting in the United States, Robert Michael Smith, 2003, p. 87.As one example of the impact of spying, a union local at the Underwood Elliot Fisher Company plant was so damaged by undercover operatives that membership dropped from more than twenty-five hundred, to fewer than seventy-five.From Blackjacks To Briefcases — A History of Commercialized Strikebreaking and Unionbusting in the United States, Robert Michael Smith, 2003, p. 88.
Intelligence
In 1906, officers of the Corporations Auxiliary Company announced that they had labor spies at the annual convention of the American Federation of Labor. For fifteen dollars, prospective clients could have a "full and complete report of the entire proceedings." By 1919, spying on workers had become so common that steel company executives had accumulated six hundred spy reports. Some of them were accurate transcriptions of the secret meetings of union locals.From Blackjacks To Briefcases — A History of Commercialized Strikebreaking and Unionbusting in the United States, Robert Michael Smith, 2003, p. 82. In order to elicit business, some agencies would send secret operatives into a prospective client's factory without permission. A report would be prepared and submitted to the startled manager, revealing conspiracies of sabotage and union activities. Workers who were bribed to provide information to operatives often believed that the destination was an insurance agency, or interested stockholders. They never imagined that their reports on co-workers were destined for the corporation. Such workers were said to be "hooked," and in spy agency parlance those who reeled them in were called "hookers."Missionary work
Missionary work means deploying undercover operatives to create dissent on the picket lines and in union halls, for example, by utilizing whispering campaigns or unfounded rumors. Missionaries frequently directed their whispering campaigns toward strikers' families and communities. For example, female operatives would visit the wives of strikers in their homes, incorporating their cover story into their spiel. They would tell the wife sad stories about how their own spouse lost a job years ago because of a strike, and hasn't found work since, and "that's why I must sell these products door to door." Another target was merchants who catered to strikers, who could be turned against the union by asserted claims of financial risks. Missionary campaigns have been known to destroy not only strikes, but unions themselves.Provocations
Undercover management agents have acted to create provocations within labor ranks. Examples include:... historians Philip Taft and Philip Ross have pointed out that "IWW activity was virtually free of violence ... It is of some interest to note that a speaker who advocated violence at a meeting at the IWW hall in Everett ashington,_where_the_Everett_massacre_occurred.html" ;"title="Everett_massacre.html" ;"title="ashington, where the Everett massacre">ashington, where the Everett massacre occurred">Everett_massacre.html" ;"title="ashington, where the Everett massacre">ashington, where the Everett massacre occurredwas later exposed as a private detective.And in the aftermath of the Colorado Labor Wars,
William B. Easterly, president of WFM District Union No. 1 [in the Cripple Creek, Colorado, Cripple Creek District], testified that the only person who discussed violence at Altman WFM meetings during the strike turned out to be a detective.Provocations also took the form of fomenting racial strife. The Sherman Service Company, Inc., of Chicago sent instructions to an operative to "stir up as much bad feeling as you possibly can between the Serbians and the Italians ... The Italians are going back to work. Call up every question you can in reference to racial hatred between these two nationalities." In 1919-1920, a religious commission investigating labor spies was itself the target of labor spying. A labor spy followed the investigators, and sent a report to United States Steel Corporation alleging that the investigators were "members of the I.W.W. and Reds."The New York Times, October 3, 1921, referring to investigation reprised in Public opinion and the steel strike: supplementary reports of the investigators to the Commission of Inquiry, the Interchurch World Movement, with technical assistance from the
Operatives in high places
In the 1930s nearly one-third of the twelve-hundred labor spies working for the Pinkerton Agency held high-level positions in the targeted unions, including one national vice-presidency, fourteen local presidencies, eight local vice-presidencies, and numerous secretary positions. Sam Brady, a veteran Pinkerton operative, held a high enough position in the International Association of Machinists that he was able to damage the union by precipitating a premature strike. Pinkerton operatives drove out all but five officers in a United Auto Workers local in Lansing, Michigan. The remaining five were Pinkertons.A historical overview
As early as 1855, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency provided "spotters" to expose dishonest and lazy railroad conductors. However, the program unraveled when, after a train accident in November 1872, papers found on the body of a Pinkerton operative revealed that the agency had been using deceitful practices. In 1869, garment workers formed the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor as a secret labor organization, largely in response to spying by an employer. The resulting blacklist had been used to destroy their union. At an 1888 convention of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers that was held in Richmond, Virginia, delegates organized a special committee to search out hiding places that might be used by labor spies. They discovered a newspaper reporter, and determined to hold meetings behind closed doors. Note-taking was forbidden. Their concerns were justified, but the effort failed; two Pinkerton operatives had infiltrated the convention as delegates from Reading, Pennsylvania. They composed elaborate reports on all the issues and discussions and recorded all the minutes of the meetings at the convention. Beginning in the latter decades of the 19th century, agencies that supplied security and intelligence services to business clients were essentially private police forces, and were accountable only to their clients. The private police agencies declined with the development of professional public police departments, but they continued to be employed by mine owners in "frontier environments" well into the 20th century. By the dawn of the muckraking era, employers increasingly turned to espionage services. E. H. Murphy once told a midwestern industrialist,We have the reputation of being several jumps ahead of the old way of settling capital and labor difficulties ... Our service aims to keep our clients informed through the medium of intelligence reports.From Blackjacks To Briefcases — A History of Commercialized Strikebreaking and Unionbusting in the United States, Robert Michael Smith, 2003, p. 79."In December f 1920ten important officials of the Labor unions of Akron, Ohio, were exposed as confessed and convicted spies of the Corporations Auxiliary Company, a concern whose business is the administration of industrial espionage." By the 1930s, industrial espionage had become not just an accepted part of labor relations, it was the most important form of labor discipline services that was provided by the anti-union agencies.From Blackjacks To Briefcases — A History of Commercialized Strikebreaking and Unionbusting in the United States, Robert Michael Smith, 2003, p. xvi. More than two hundred agencies offered undercover operatives to their clients. During the 1930s, thirty-two mining companies, twenty-eight automotive firms, and a similar number of food companies relied upon labor spies. A member of the National Labor Relations Board estimated that American industrialists spent eighty million dollars spying on their workers. General Motors alone spent nearly a million dollars for undercover operatives fighting the CIO during a two-year period. In addition to the Pinkertons, General Motors hired thirteen other spy agencies to monitor workers in its factories, and then used the Pinkertons to spy on operatives from these other agencies. Between 1933 and 1935, the Pinkerton Agency employed twelve hundred undercover operatives and operated out of twenty-seven offices. The agency assigned agents to three hundred companies during the 1930s. In 1936
Investigations
At the prompting of CongressmanCase histories and analysis
Pinkerton agent in the anthracite mines
One of the best known undercover agents was James McParland who, under the alias of James McKenna, infiltrated a secret society of Pennsylvania coalminers called theSiringo at Coeur d'Alene
In 1892, Pinkerton Agent Charles A. Siringo, working out of theTwo extremes were being joined: unbridled violence by radicals was matched by unbridled violence by business interests ... Such attacks were more damaging because they came from a man who had been Pinkertonoperative for over two decades.But the Pinkerton Agency suppressed Siringo's book, and only a few copies survive. Charlie Siringo was not the only agent to have infiltrated the Coeur d'Alene miners' unions. In his book ''Big Trouble'', author J. Anthony Lukas mentions that Thiel Operative 53 had also infiltrated, and had been the union secretary at
Colorado's Goldmine and Mill Strike of 1903–04
Agents sometimes situate themselves into key positions from which to wreak damage on the targeted union:One of the most efficient activities of the spy in the union during a strike is to wreck the strike relief benefit fund, upon which, of course, the success of the strike so largely depends. If the spy cannot himself have access to the fund, his next policy is to spread discontent and cause the strikers to demand higher benefits than the union is able to pay. He will frequently create the impression that the fund is dishonestly handled by the union officials.One Pinkerton spy was assigned to sabotage the union's relief program during a 1903–04 strike which wreaked so significant an impact on the future of organized labor that it came to be called the Colorado Labor Wars. Bill Haywood, Secretary Treasurer of the Western Federation of Miners, wrote in his autobiography:
I had been having some difficulty with the relief committee of the Denver smelter men. At first we had been giving out relief at such a rate that I had to tell the chairman that he was providing the smelter men with more than they had had while at work. Then he cut down the rations until the wives of the smelter men began to complain that they were not getting enough to eat. Years later, when his letters were published in ''The Pinkerton Labor Spy'', I discovered that the chairman of the relief was a Pinkerton detective, who was carrying out the instructions of the agency ...The individual responsible for revealing this sabotage was Morris Friedman, the former stenographer of Pinkerton agent James McParland, who had moved to Denver and managed the regional Pinkerton office. Friedman found the practices of the detective agency in general, and of McParland in particular, revolting. His views are captured in a passage from his 1907 book ''The Pinkerton Labor Spy'', In his exposé of the Pinkerton Agency, Friedman provides background on the sabotage efforts of A. W. Gratias, known to Pinkerton supervisors as "No. 42."
No. 42 was invited to join the union, and a short time after was an influential member ... Mr. McParland himself drew up the instructions for No. 42. To begin with, the operative was instructed to create trouble between the leaders of the union. This he accomplished, and soon the union was divided into a number of hostile camps ... The operative was next instructed to agitate the question of strike benefits among the men, so that they would demand financial aid from the Western Federation of Miners, and he was also told to intrigue against some of the leaders, so that the union would expel them. The chiefs being out of the way, Mr. McParland hoped that the rank and file would call the strike off.The operative became so popular with the men for demanding relief that he was appointed chairman of the Relief Committee. McParland instructed him to provide relief in such large amounts that it would drain the treasury of the Federation.
He not only supplied the men with necessities, but even with luxuries and cash to spend. The operative's extreme liberality endeared him to the men, who rewarded him by electing him president of the union. We now see the unique spectacle of a Pinkerton spy, under the direct orders of Manager McParland, as president of a Western Federation of Miners' local union, and directing a bitter strike against the smelter trust. On his elevation to the presidency the operative did not relinquish his position on the relief committee, nor would the men have permitted him to do so, as they were perfectly satisfied with the way the operative squandered the money of the Federation ...No. 42 then became a delegate and reported to the Pinkerton Agency everything that happened at the annual WFM convention. The operative also reported that WFM Secretary-Treasurer Haywood objected to the enormous weekly relief bills. McParland instructed the operative to "cut the relief down to an extent that would almost starve the strikers, and while doing this, to throw the blame on Secretary Haywood." The operative, now holding the key positions of delegate to the convention, head of the relief committee, and president of the local, responded that he would cut the relief "as much as possible, so as to cause dissatisfaction, and get the men against the union ..."
Intrigue and uncertainty during the Colorado Labor Wars
During the Western Federation of Miners' strike in 1903, there were several examples of labor spy activities. There is the special case of Harry Orchard. While this WFM member confessed to numerous of the crimes committed during the Colorado Labor Wars, and to additional crimes, including assassinating an ex-governor. He also admitted to being a Pinkerton agent, and to being in the pay of the Mine Owners' Association. Harry Orchard was convicted of murder in the assassination of Frank Steunenberg, an ex-governor ofSpy vs. spy in Boston's public transit system
TheMatewan
After the Battle of Matewan, testimony in the case revealed that Charles Lively had infiltrated the union for the company. Lively later testified before the United States Senate that he had been a Baldwin-Felts detective since 1912 or 1913. During that time he had worked undercover, with his duties taking him to Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado. During the Ludlow strike in Colorado, Lively became vice-president of the United Mine Workers' local at La Veta. He returned toThe Colorado Coal Strike of 1927
WhenMuch of the hard feeling toward the Pinkertons was engendered by the fact that not infrequently detectives worked their way into high positions in the union and then revealed the intentions of the organization to the employer.Agents in the 1927 Columbine strike (we don't know if they were Pinkertons, or from a different agency) were able to approach and freely converse with top level strike leaders. Kristen Svanum was the "head of the IWW" in Colorado. An agent identified only as "XX" informed his employer,
Svanum stated that he had put in over $600.00 of his private funds to finance the IWW here in Colorado, stating that he was supplied with this money from a higher power; that he was working for a peaceful revolution of conditions in the U.S?A. icI tried to cause him to say what this power was but could not do so.Sometimes the efforts of agents failed. When a strike vote was pending, labor spy "XX" reported,
Smith and myself circulated through the crowd trying to get them to postpone the strike but without any success and when the vote was called it was unanimous for the strike, even the Northern Colorado delegates voting for it."X," "XX," and "X-3", Spy Reports from the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company Archives, Colorado Heritage/Winter 2004, Jonathan Rees, p. 34.Agents sought to influence the portrayal of the strikers in the media, hoping thereby to control subsequent events. Since 1900, the
The ''A-P'' and ''Denver Post'' reporters think I am a dyed-in-the-wool wobbly and have tried to interview me. In speaking about the alleged carload of arms and ammunition I did not deny this "hokum" but intimitated icthat if there was any violence it was against the principles of Svanum and myself and the more select class of "wobblies" but that there was an awfully rough element of "reds" coming into the field and that we might not be able to hold them in hand. Do not know if they are gullible enough to absorb this kind of stuff but can tell better when this afternoon papers come out. If they play up strong that there is likely to be violence it might hasten action on part of state authorities.A different view of the "alleged carload of arms and ammunition" is offered by historian Joanna Sampson:
It was curious that an organization like the IWW with its revolutionary philosophy and its reputation for violence conducted a major strike with so little violence. Miners afterward testified that members of the automobile caravans were searched by their own leaders to be sure they did not have liquor or firearms with them. In all the arrests of strikers for picketing, there is no case where a striker was accused of carrying firearms.In fact the undercover agent got his wish for state intervention:
On November 21 f 1927 state policemen killed six pickets and injured dozens more ... Despite the fact that the violence was the fault of the state police, Governor Adams used the so-called Columbine Massacre as an excuse to call out the National Guard to restore order throughout the state. With soldiers on guard at mine gates, mass picketing ceased and more and more miners returned to their jobs. The strike continued, but it lost considerable momentum.Hogg explains that agents advocating, provoking, or using violence is a common scenario:
A detective will join the ranks of the strikers and at once become an ardent champion of their cause. He is next found committing an aggravated assault upon some man or woman who has remained at work, thereby bringing down upon the heads of the officers and members of the assembly or union directly interested, the condemnation of all honest people, and aiding very materially to demoralize the organization and break their ranks. He is always on hand in the strikers' meeting to introduce some extremely radical measure to burn the mill or wreck a train, and when the meeting has adjourned he is ever ready to furnish the Associated Press with a full account of the proposed action, and the country is told that a "prominent and highly respected member" of the strikers' organization has just revealed a most daring plot to destroy life and property, but dare not become known in connection with the exposure for fear of his life!
=Celebrated union organizers are not immune
= Even ardent union organizers may yield to the temptation to spy on other unions during strikes, based perhaps upon misplaced sectarian loyalties or ideological differences. Mike Livoda of the United Mine Workers (UMWA) was one of the celebrated organizers from the Ludlow strike of 1913–14. Livoda was so revered by the mineworkers that he is the only individual buried at the Ludlow Monument. When Professor Eric Margolis was researching the 1927 Wobbly strike, he encountered evidence that Mike Livoda "actually hired out to spy on the Wobblies and provided the Governor of Colorado with advice on strike breaking tactics."The United Mine Workers in Wyoming
The Union Pacific Coal Company in Wyoming hired the services of Thomas J. Williams, Pinkerton Operative "No. 15". Whenever UMWA President Mitchell sent an organizer to Wyoming, Operative Williams introduced himself as "an old, good-standing member of the United Mine Workers," and offered to help the new fellow with his tasks. Operative Williams gladly arranged all the secret meetings with Wyoming miners. After approximately fifty secret meetings in a row were broken up by mine superintendents or foremen attending unannounced, causing prospective union members to scatter, the UMWA acknowledged defeat in Wyoming.The United Mine Workers in Colorado
In 1903-04, the Pinkerton Agency had J. Frank Strong, operative "No. 28" in Fremont County, and Robert M. Smith, operative "No. 38" inAs a result of Operative Smith's "clever and intelligent" work, a number of union organizers received severe beatings at the hands of unknown masked men, presumably in the employ of the company.The Pinkerton Labor Spy, Morris Friedman, Wilshire Book Company, 1907, pp. 163–164.Friedman offers examples of these incidents:
About February 13, 1904, William Farley, of Alabama, a member of the MWANational Executive Board ... and the personal representative of MWA President Mitchell ... addressed coal miners' meetings ... n their return tripeight masked men held them up with revolvers, dragged them from their wagon, threw them to the ground, beat them, kicked them, and almost knocked them into insensibility.And,
On Saturday, April 30, 1904, W.M. Wardjon, a national organizer of the United Mine Workers, while on board a train en route to Pueblo, was assaulted by three men at Sargents, about thirty miles west of Salida. Mr. Wardjon was beaten into unconsciousness.The Pinkerton Labor Spy, Morris Friedman, Wilshire Book Company, 1907, p. 164.Under repeated attack, the 1903–04 UMWA strike effort failed, with both leadership and membership despondent over the turn of events. However, UMWA President Mitchell was determined to reverse the failure. He decided that one special position, that of ''national organizer'', should be created to oversee all organizing efforts for the union. After considering a range of candidates, Mitchell selected for this vital position, ''Pinkerton Operative "No. 38," Robert M. Smith''.
Union organizers turn tables on the company
In 1912, the United Mine Workers had discovered the extent to which CF&I relied upon spies, and union officials had learned their lesson well. The organization ended its efforts to form local unions. All membership cards were issued in secret, as members not of a local, but of the international union. Members did not know who had joined, and who had not. The company spy system was finally frustrated. Unaware that organizing was continuing, the two main coal operators in the Colorado Southern Coal Field, CF&I and the Victor-American Fuel company, believed they had won. Abusive practices which had been softened during the open organizing drives were revived. Revolt was in the air. Then the United Mine Workers announced a new organizing drive in letters sent to the newspapers. But this organizing drive would be different:Twenty-one pairs of organizers were put through a special course in the Denver MWAoffice and then sent into the Southern Field. Their operation was simple, but effective. One member of each team was known as the active organizer; the other was the passive organizer. The so-called active organizer moved into the open and was known to everyone ... as an organizer. His passive team-mate posed as a miner looking for work. He cussed the unions and their leadership, and obtained a job in the heavily guarded mines. He made friends with officers of the company and, where possible, hired out as a coal company spotter ... Once the passive organizer was installed in the mine, his active team mate sought new members in that mine. If a miner joined, the active organizer kept the man's membership secret and sent his card directly to the Denver office ... If a working miner refused to join, his name was sent to the passive organizer who immediately reported to the company that John Cotino had joined the union. The result was always the same. The company sent John Cotino packing ... In this manner a constant stream of anti-union and non-union men, the confirmed strike breakers and scabs, were kept streaming ut The companies unwittingly sent the faithful out, while the active organizer sent carefully coached men of union affiliation to apply for the jobs that had to be filled.In one month, this system caused the coal operators to fire more than 3,000 non-union men. Their places were taken by 3,000 union men. In September 1913 a strike was called, and twelve thousand miners laid down their tools. Only with significant brutality would this new strike be defeated.
United States Chamber of Commerce plan thwarted
During the first week of February 2011, the Internet hacker cooperative Anonymous released e-mails which appear to show that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, through their law firm, Hunton & Williams, contracted with three technology firms, includingCases of labor spying
Wal-Mart surveillance of employees
In the book ''The Case Against Wal-Mart'', author Al Norman cites many of the usual criticisms of the big box retail chain. He has written,Wal-Mart is so terrified of union organizing, the company allegedly monitors some of its stores' phone calls and emails. Jon Lehman, a former Wal-Mart store manager, told Bloomberg news in February 2004 that Wal-Mart has a 60×60-foot room in Bentonville in which two dozen people with headsets conduct surveillance on calls and emails from stores, to see whether anyone is talking about union organizing.The Case Against Wal-Mart, Al Norman, 2004, p. 7.Wal-Mart has responded that they monitor stores only if there is a risk of a bomb threat. But Norman believes "... there is no more explosive issue at Wal-Mart than the feared depth-charge of union sympathizers among its own workforce." Wal-Mart's surveillance department has generated significant media attention. In a story headlined, "Wal-Mart gets gag order against ex-security worker," the
... a string of revelations about the retailer's large surveillance operations and its business plans ... The suit and restraining order were filed two days after Wal-Mart apologized toGabbard has alleged that "Wal-Mart had widespread surveillance operations against targets including shareholders, critics, suppliers, the board of directors and employees," and that "most of his spying activities were sanctioned by superiors." It has also been alleged that the corporation assigned a "long-haired employee" wearing a microphone to infiltrate a group that is critical of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart used a surveillance van to monitor the organization from "the perimeter." Wal-Mart has characterized its security operations as normal.activist shareholders An activist shareholder is a shareholder who uses an equity stake in a corporation to put pressure on its management. A fairly small stake (less than 10% of outstanding shares) may be enough to launch a successful campaign. In comparison, a ful ...for Gabbard's revelation that they were considered potential threats and ahead of a story in Monday's editions of the '' Wall Street Journal'' on Gabbard's claim that Wal-Mart had a super-secret "Project Red" aimed at bolstering its stagnant share price.
Agencies
Labor spy agencies included theExamples
These are agencies which have been known to supply operatives to corporations for the purpose of establishing or maintaining control over unionization efforts, beyond simply providing security services — former agencies, current agencies, and agencies that appear to have quit the business of union-busting:See also
* Anti-union violence * Charles Lively (labor spy) *References
Further reading
*''The Pinkerton Labor Spy'', Morris Friedman, 1907. *''The Pinkertons: A Detective Dynasty'', Richard Wilmer Rowan, Boston: Little, Brown, 1931. *''Spy Overhead'', Clinch Calkins, Ayer Publishing, 1937, relates the findings of the La Follette Committee. *"The Labor Spy—A Survey of Industrial Espionage" by Sidney Howard, from ''The New Republic'', 1921