Labor spying in the United States
Labor spying in the United States had involved people recruited or employed for the purpose of gathering intelligence, committing sabotage, sowing dissent, or engaging in other similar activities, in the context of an employer/labor organization relationship.
"[6] Historically, one of the most incriminating indictments of the labor spy business may have been the testimony of Albert Balanow (some sources list the name as Ballin or Blanow) during an investigation of the detective agencies' roles during the Red Scare.
[22]As one example of the impact of spying, a union local at the Underwood Elliot Fisher Company plant was so damaged by undercover operatives that membership dropped from more than twenty-five hundred, to fewer than seventy-five.
It was a very effective technique ...Missionary work means deploying undercover operatives to create dissent on the picket lines and in union halls, for example, by utilizing whispering campaigns or unfounded rumors.
"[33] One spy report included a cover letter from Ralph M. Easley of the National Civic Federation to the offices of United States Steel Corporation requesting that a list of clergymen "be kicked out of their positions" because of the investigation.
Sam Brady, a veteran Pinkerton operative, held a high enough position in the International Association of Machinists that he was able to damage the union by precipitating a premature strike.
[35] At an 1888 convention of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers that was held in Richmond, Virginia, delegates organized a special committee to search out hiding places that might be used by labor spies.
E. H. Murphy once told a midwestern industrialist, We have the reputation of being several jumps ahead of the old way of settling capital and labor difficulties ... Our service aims to keep our clients informed through the medium of intelligence reports.
[39]"In December [of 1920] ten important officials of the Labor unions of Akron, Ohio, were exposed as confessed and convicted spies of the Corporations Auxiliary Company, a concern whose business is the administration of industrial espionage.
[50] Between 1936 and 1941, the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee of the U.S. Congress held hearings and published reports on the phenomenon of labor spying, and other aspects of industrial relations.
"[53] The La Follette Committee concluded that labor spying (espionage) was "... the most efficient method known to management to prevent unions from forming, to weaken them if they secure a foothold, and to wreck them when they try their strength.
Debate continues over the extent of guilt on the part of the Mollies, and over the question of whether they were in some sense a labor organization, or merely a ring of assassins lashing out over unjust working conditions, inadequate pay, and the pressures of persecution against their Irish Catholic status.
[56] During his career with Pinkerton, Charles Siringo discovered that clients were being cheated, supervisors were stealing agency funds, and operatives were inflating normal conversations with targeted radicals into conspiracies.
His views are captured in a passage from his 1907 book The Pinkerton Labor Spy, The readiness of the Western Federation [of Miners] to resent the smallest encroachments on the rights of its humblest members, the generalship displayed by the organization in its struggles with different mine owners, and the fearless and vigorous campaigns of organization carried on by the Federation, have naturally aroused the fear and apprehension of mine owners; and these fears have been studiously fanned into flames of blind and furious hatred by Pinkerton's National Detective Agency, in the endeavor of the latter institution to obtain business.
At the present time in many parts of the West we find Capital openly or secretly engaged in a bitter struggle with the Western Federation of Miners, to the satisfaction and immense profit of the Pinkerton Agency.
But it is perhaps a mistake to say the Agency, for it was, more properly speaking, James McParland, of Mollie Maguire notoriety, whose sharp glance first took jealous note of the rapid growth of this labor union.
The operative was next instructed to agitate the question of strike benefits among the men, so that they would demand financial aid from the Western Federation of Miners, and he was also told to intrigue against some of the leaders, so that the union would expel them.
McParland believed that the Theil Agency must have been hired by the defense for, "Repeatedly in late 1906 and early 1907, he complained that Thiel Detectives were watching his every move ..."[68] The Amalgamated Association of Street Car Employees (AASCE) sought a contract with Boston's public transit system in 1912.
Lively then traveled to Matewan, and participated in UMWA efforts to organize the War Eagle, Glen Alum, and Mohawk mines of Stone Mountain Coal Company.
As they walked up the courthouse steps, accompanied by their wives, they were shot dead by Baldwin-Felts agents Charles Lively, Bill Salter, and Buster Pence on August 1, 1921.
The spies were assigned "to glean intelligence on the Wobblies' strategies and tactics, to sow disinformation, to disrupt meetings and pickets, and to expose weaknesses in the IWW organization, finances, and leadership.
In speaking about the alleged carload of arms and ammunition I did not deny this "hokum" but intimitated [sic] that if there was any violence it was against the principles of Svanum and myself and the more select class of "wobblies" but that there was an awfully rough element of "reds" coming into the field and that we might not be able to hold them in hand.
[76]Hogg explains that agents advocating, provoking, or using violence is a common scenario: A detective will join the ranks of the strikers and at once become an ardent champion of their cause.
He is next found committing an aggravated assault upon some man or woman who has remained at work, thereby bringing down upon the heads of the officers and members of the assembly or union directly interested, the condemnation of all honest people, and aiding very materially to demoralize the organization and break their ranks.
He is always on hand in the strikers' meeting to introduce some extremely radical measure to burn the mill or wreck a train, and when the meeting has adjourned he is ever ready to furnish the Associated Press with a full account of the proposed action, and the country is told that a "prominent and highly respected member" of the strikers' organization has just revealed a most daring plot to destroy life and property, but dare not become known in connection with the exposure for fear of his life!
Whenever UMWA President Mitchell sent an organizer to Wyoming, Operative Williams introduced himself as "an old, good-standing member of the United Mine Workers," and offered to help the new fellow with his tasks.
After approximately fifty secret meetings in a row were broken up by mine superintendents or foremen attending unannounced, causing prospective union members to scatter, the UMWA acknowledged defeat in Wyoming.
Morris Friedman, the former stenographer of the Pinkerton Agency in Colorado, reported: As a result of Operative Smith's "clever and intelligent" work, a number of union organizers received severe beatings at the hands of unknown masked men, presumably in the employ of the company.
Wardjon, a national organizer of the United Mine Workers, while on board a train en route to Pueblo, was assaulted by three men at Sargents, about thirty miles west of Salida.
[93] Gabbard has alleged that "Wal-Mart had widespread surveillance operations against targets including shareholders, critics, suppliers, the board of directors and employees,"[94] and that "most of his spying activities were sanctioned by superiors.
