The One Percent, Liberal Reformers, and the Open-Shop Question

Breaking with the cutthroat social Darwinist ideas popular in the Gilded Age, organized employers in the Progressive Era played a critical role in shaping labor relations and the language of Progressive Era reform.  They did not see themselves as belligerent anti-union activists; rather, they presented themselves as defenders of the non-union, “free worker,” the vulnerable underdogs during labor-management conflicts.  Additionally, leaders of employers’ associations claimed to respect labor unionists, but objected strongly to those who threatened the rights of “free workers.”  Indeed, such employers showed a capacity for both reform and repression.  As one employers’ association put it, “Do right--then fight.”  Such employers, many of whom were active welfare capitalists, believed that open-shops, workplaces ostensibly open to workers irrespective to union status, constituted the solution to the so-called labor problem. 

In making a case for the open-shop, organized employers, holding membership in a variety of manufacturers and citizens’ associations, sought to show that their ideas were in the mainstream.  In the face of challenges from organized labor, they invoked the founding fathers, Lincoln, and the Constitution.  And they routinely pointed out the open-shop advocacy of prominent Progressive Era reformers, including Ray Stannard Baker, Louis D. Brandeis, Washington Gladden, and above all, Theodore Roosevelt.  During their struggles, organized employers actively sought to build a business-liberal coalition, an alliance of employers and politicians with a shared a commitment to protecting the rights of non-union workers.