United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America - Early Years

Early Years

The union was created in April 1881, by Peter J. McGuire and Gustav Luebkert. The two men organized groups for collective bargaining, and started a newspaper called The Carpenter to facilitate their idea of a national union. The Brotherhood held its first convention in Chicago in August 1881. The cornerstone of local and regional affiliations in support of common goals was laid out to show ways to maximize the unions bargaining potential. The immediate common goals were wage and hour demands, and death and sickness benefits. The union grew from its 1881 membership of 2000, to 50,000 by 1890, and 100,000 by 1900.

While Peter J. McGuire was a socialist, the union itself was non-political, refusing to endorse any political party or philosophy. It was not, on the other hand, apolitical: it supported legislation establishing the eight hour day.

The union also struck to obtain the eight hour day, calling a strike of its affiliates for May 1, 1886. The strike itself was ineffective and provoked a repressive response, particularly in Chicago, where police shot and killed two strikers two days later, leading to the Haymarket Riot the following day.

Even so, the strike gave the Brotherhood added visibility that led to increased membership. The union struck again in 1890, with similarly uneven results, but now facing the stiffened resistance of newly formed employers associations.

The Brotherhood admitted both black and white carpenters on an equal footing when it was first formed; one of the union's vice-presidents in its early years was L.E. Rames, an African-American carpenter from Charleston, South Carolina. In the South, however, the union often isolated black carpenters in segregated locals as a concession to the opposition of white carpenters and contractors. Local unions also often excluded black workers on a de facto basis. The union formally dissolved its segregated locals in 1963.

The union also faced fierce pressures from outside to exclude black carpenters: in 1919 supervisors from the Great Southern Lumber Company, the mayor of Bogalusa, Louisiana, and local businessmen affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, attacked and killed four union organizers who had attempted to organize black and white lumber mill workers. None of the attackers were convicted of any crimes.