My Sisters Telegraphic: Women in the Telegraph Office ... - Monoskop

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WOMEN TELEGRAPHERS AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
The Commercial Telegraphers’ Union and
the Strike of 1907
Around the turn of the century, the commercial operators again began to
form labor organizations. The Commercial Telegraphers’ Union of America
was formed in 1902 as an offshoot of the ORT for the specific purpose of
organizing commercial operators. The following year, it merged with a similar
group that had sprung up independently, the International Union of
Commercial Telegraphers, and became a constituent union of the American
Federation of Labor. Its stated goal was to gain membership among Western
Union employees and eventually to represent Western Union telegraphers
in negotiations with the telegraph company. By this time, there were
only two large commercial telegraph companies, the Western Union and
the Postal Telegraph Company, who together monopolized the telegraph
business in the United States. The CTUA, under the leadership of President
Samuel J. Small, had ten thousand members by 1904. 34
Unlike earlier telegraphers’ labor organizations, the CTUA’s constitution
contained language specifically excluding nonwhites, reflecting the
tendency of unions of the age to focus on protecting jobs from inroads by
foreigners and minorities. Although progressive elements in the union periodically
tried to have the whites-only clause removed (finally succeeding
around 1950), they were repeatedly voted down after being accused of fomenting
“socialism.”
While many railroad telegraphers may have shared in the CTUA’s
overt racism, the ORT had more tolerant admission policies, particularly
regarding operators with Hispanic surnames. This was in part owing to the
strength of the ORT in Mexico, where it had many large and active districts;
photographs of Mexican ORT officials were featured prominently in
the ORT’s journal, the Railroad Telegrapher.
Background of the 1907 Strike
By the beginning of 1907, discontent was spreading among telegraphers
and it was clear that a strike was possible. The issues were similar to those
that precipitated previous strikes—low pay, long working hours, bad working
conditions. In Chicago in 1907, pay rates for telegraphers ranged from