The True Cost of Breaking a Strike
Financial reports from the Union Pacific reveal the heavy price corporations pay to replace union labor with forced, guarded workers.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The monthly financial report of the Union Pacific for November showing a $1,000,000 loss in net earnings, and the Southern Pacific showing a net loss of $715,000, has shocked the foundations of Wall Street. Hidden away in the mass of financial news we find the statement, 'The strike of shopmen on the Harriman lines is understood to have been an important factor.' Meanwhile, the public is told there is no strike. The Southern Pacific's increase of $400,000 in expenses in November was ostensibly due to 'charity'—purchasing Thanksgiving turkeys and Christmas presents for those brought in to break the strike. The shopmen know better. 40,000 men were forced to choose between privation or the humiliation of losing their status as free men. The railroads herded workers from the slums of metropolitan cities, kept them in guarded stockades, and faced endless mechanical failures, yet continued to burn money to avoid treating their original employees as anything but serfs.
“The principle: that labor, being a party to a contract, has a right to say under what conditions they shall labor, the hours they shall labor, and the returns they shall receive for those hours of labor. The right to be men, not serfs.”
This 1912 report highlights a persistent tactic in labor disputes: the massive expense of union-busting and scabbing, often hidden behind rhetoric about 'charity' or 'independence' for replacement workers. It echoes modern debates about the true cost of corporate anti-union campaigns versus the efficiency of a stable, organized workforce.
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