United Telegraph Workers

The United Telegraph Workers, known until 1968 as the Commercial Telegraphers' Union of America, emerged from a series of struggles between smaller unions of private and postal telegraph workers. During the 1930s and 1940s, its chief rivals were the American Communications Association (known until 1937 as the American Radio Telegraphists Association), and a company union, the Association Western Union Employees. Pitted against a single dominant employer, Western Union, and beset by technological change in the industry, the union declined in numbers after World War II. In 1986 it merged with the Communications Workers of America.

Western Union telegrams form a part of every archival collection in the country. What remains little known is the history of the workers who were employed in this industry, their working conditions, and their struggles for collective bargaining. The New York City Child Labor Committee inspected only thirteen telegraph offices in the entire metropolitan area (Manhattan alone contained 390 such offices). Managers freely admitted that the minimum working day for all boys was ten hours. In 1910, the New York State legislature passed the Murray Night Messenger Law, which barred minors under twenty one from engaging in night messenger work between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. Not until 1934 did the law extend to all cities in the state. Meanwhile, the adults in the industry were left to their own devices to contest the monopoly power of their employers.

The telegraph and the railroad were in the vanguard of the transformation of America in the nineteenth century, and grew up together. The economy of speed offered by telegraphy was indispensable. Wire and rail often shared the same right of way. The Western Union Telegraph Company, founded in 1830, was the most important of all the many companies in the field. By 1878 Western Union had 7,672 offices, with 12,224 employees, and 199,022 miles of wire. The Baltimore & Ohio, its largest competitor, had 136 offices, 341 employees, and 1,409 miles of wire. The B&O was absorbed by Western Union in 1887. The Postal Telegraph Company was organized in the early 1880's, but it was and remained the junior partner.

Western Union's Board of Directors included Jay Gould, his son George, Collis Huntington, Russell Sage, Cyrus W. Field, C. Vanderbilt and J. P. Morgan. The company was organized along military lines, with a chain of command and territorial blocks (called divisions). Company headquarters was in New York City at 195 Broadway and it maintained a chain of "principal main offices" nationwide.

While telegraphy was eventually automated with the introduction of the teletypewriter, in the late nineteenth century it remained a skilled craft. As Western Union came to dominate the industry, operators' standing diminished, duties narrowed, and pay checks grew smaller. Western Union Rule Books dictated personal and work rules for its employees, but the Books never included seniority, salary, grievances, or any calculations for indications of skill or advancement.

In response, telegraphers made various efforts to organize collectively. The first national effort came in 1863, when operators met in New York City to form the National Telegraphic Union. Motions to include the clerks and cashiers, as well as the female operators, were defeated. In 1883, a national strike was organized by the Brotherhood of Telegraphers, part of the Knights of Labor. The Brotherhood was no match for its employers. The company subjected returning strikers to harassment and humiliation.

In 1885, the Telegraphers' Union of America was organized. And in 1886, railroad men formed the Order of Railway Telegraphers (O. R. T.), modelled along the lines of the conservative railroad brotherhoods. In June 1902, a new organization was formed, spurred on by many grievances. Each of the competing organizations appealed to the American Federation of Labor for a charter. A meeting was called in Pittsburgh, for all commercial telegraphers. Out of this two organizations emerged, both with charters from the AFL. Finally, on July 19, 1903, the two groups met in Washington, DC and merged to form one organization. The first convention was then held in New York City on July 20, 1903; on the twentieth anniversary of the Great Strike of 1883, the Commercial Telegraphers' Union (CTU) was born. One hundred delegates represented seventy-five locals from across the country. Separate departments were established for the press and brokerage houses, as well as for commercial telegraphy. When the union presented a "bill of grievances" to the President of Western Union, the company's intransigence eventually led to a national strike. Operators across the country were discharged for union activity. The strike was lost. Postal Telegraph employees participated in the strike. Now Postal Telegraph formed an association of its employees to forestall further unionization.

Buffalo, New York was the location for the CTU's 6th annual convention. The union officials' rooms were entered, and union records, including a list of 1,700 members' names, were stolen. Firings across the country followed; special agents were hired by Western Union to track down members and to disrupt union activity. Meanwhile, a national Committee on Industrial Relations was investigating conditions in the industry, uncovering many abuses. The War Labor Board, established by President Wilson to handle labor disputes during World War I, eventually led to the formation of a company union or "association." The Association Western Union Employees (sic, AWUE) came into being almost overnight. Bargaining rights were immediately granted to an organization without members. The AWUE stipulated that its members could not also be members an AFL union, and promotions and pay raises were preferentially granted to those who belonged to the company union. By the end of its first year, the AWUE had enlisted 20,000 members out of a possible 40,000. At its peak in 1930, 38,603 Western Union employees were members of the AWUE.

The 1930's were a period of intense conflict and rivalry within the communications industry and the unions which sought to represent the workers in the developing technologies. One of the most significant for the future history of the CTU was the organization of the American Radio Telegraphists Association (which changed its name to the American Communications Association in 1937). The ACA won an NLRB election among the Postal Telegraph workers in 1937. Postal Telegraph and Western Union merged in 1943. Now the competition between ACA and CTU for the right to represent Western Union workers accelerated. In 1938, the ACA filed unfair labor practices against Western Union for coercing its employees against joining the union and for fostering a company union. In 1939, Western Union was found guilty and ordered to "cease and desist." The campaign to organize the Western Union workers now took off, with assistance from the CIO for the ACA, and the AFL for the CTU.

In November 1944, the NLRB ordered seven elections for Western Union to take place in January 1945. A major issue was made of Communist influence, and charges against Joseph Selly, president of the ACA, were widely circulated by his rivals. The CTU won six out of seven divisions. The ACA won the right to represent the Metropolitan Division in New York City. Thus was born a long and bitter enmity. A National Bargaining Agency was brokered and set up to bargain for all. A national agreement was signed in 1945, with president W. L Allen signing for the CTU and president William Green for the AFL.

Between 1946 and 1949, Western Union's message business declined by sixteen percent. President Truman appointed a Policy Board to study the problem. Their 1951 report found that the lessening of demand for telegram service and technological changes threatened the existence of the Western Union system as a private enterprise. Advances in automation also took a toll on the membership of the union. A few large central exchanges and computer centers took over services formerly handled by small offices across the country.

Teletype and data exchange systems for government and private enterprise were maintained by CTU/UTW members. The country's first transcontinental microwave system, with communications over Western Union's satellite, WESTAR, the first commercial communications satellite in the world, was also maintained by UTW members. Ultimately, changes in technology dictated changes in the structure of the union. The merger of the UTW with the Communications Workers of America in 1986 led to the formation of the CWA/UTW Bargaining Council.

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