A syndicalist moment? Democracy, insurgent unionism, and the ‘Outlaw Strike’ of 1920

Abstract

This article considers World War I era labor insurgency through an examination of the 1920 ‘outlaw’ switchmen’s strike, one of the largest rank-and-file revolts of the postwar strike wave. Drawing upon Bureau of Investigation surveillance reports, the article argues the strike represented not so much an expression of a ‘syndicalist impulse’ as a struggle over the definition of the new unionism and the ideological legacy of the war. Inspired by the wartime rhetoric of Americanism and industrial democracy, pressed by the rising cost of living, and frustrated with the failure of the state and their parent unions to deliver living wages, the insurgents briefly succeeded in building democratic, cross-craft unions. The rebel unionists failed, but the ‘Outlaw Strike’ arguably was as important as the later and larger 1922 national shopmen’s strike in the way it highlighted issues of wages, union democracy, and employee representation.