Employers Group was founded as the Merchants and Manufacturers Association (M&M) in 1896 in California. It has become a worldwide organization advocating for employers and giving guidance about employment laws and regulations, professional development, consulting projects, and compensation and workplace trends surveys. When founded, the organization's goal was to secure the

open shop An open shop is a place of employment at which one is not required to join or financially support a union ( closed shop) as a condition of hiring or continued employment. Open shop vs closed shop The major difference between an open and closed ...

in all workplaces in the city.Cross, ''History of the Labor Movement in California,'' 1974.Foner, ''History of the Labor Movement in the United States: The AFL in the Progressive Era, 1910-1915,'' 1980. In the latter half of the 20th century, the organization became a

human resources Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include ' ...

consulting firm. In 1993, the Merchants and Manufacturers Association merged with the Federated Group of San Francisco to create the Employers Group. The organization's current president and chief executive officer is Mark Wilbur.

Formation and early history

Employer's Group was founded in 1893 in Los Angeles as the Merchants Association. Its goal was to promote local products, and manufacturing companies, railroads, shipping companies, department stores, breweries and food markets were some of its charter members. One of its most prominent members was the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

.''''The Merchants and Manufacturers Association – Celebrating 90 Years of Service,'' 1986.Deverell, ''Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past,'' 2004. The association launched a number of civic projects early in its history. In 1897, it created the annual Fiesta de las Flores to promote locally produced goods and services. The festival eventually merged with the

Tournament of Roses The Rose Parade, also known as the Tournament of Roses Parade (or simply the Tournament of Roses), is an annual parade held mostly along Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, California, United States, on New Year's Day (or on Monday, January 2 if New ...

Parade in

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commerci ...

The open shop battle

M&M's focus over its first three decades was primarily on industrial relations. The Merchant's Association had acted primarily as a promoter of local industry. But when Harrison Gray Otis, publisher of the ''

,'' joined the body in 1896, the association underwent a transformation. It adopted a new name (the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, or M&M), and began vehemently promoting the

. The nascent

labor movement The labour movement is the collective organisation of working people to further their shared political and economic interests. It consists of the trade union or labour union movement, as well as political parties of labour. It can be considere ...

in Los Angeles collapsed, and Los Angeles remained largely union-free until the 1930s. On October 1, 1910, a bomb exploded at a printing plant owned by the ''Times.'' Twenty-one workers were killed in the fire which followed. Otis declared the bombing the "Crime of the Century" and used his newspaper's large circulation to whip up public sentiment against unions. A second bombing at an iron works in the city on Christmas Day worsened the hysteria in the city. The M&M contributed $50,000 ($1.1 million in 2007 dollars) to a city effort to hire

private detective A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI; also known as a private detective, an inquiry agent or informally a private eye) is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private investigat ...

s to track down the perpetrators. In April 1911, Ortie McManigal, a staff representative with the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers, was apprehended by private detectives in

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

. McManigal confessed to bombing the iron works and implicated the union's national secretary-treasurer John J. McNamara and his brother James B. McNamara in the ''Times'' bombing. The

American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual ...

(AFL), Eugene Debs and others rallied to the defense of The McNamara Brothers. The brothers were defended in court by famed attorney

Clarence Darrow Clarence Seward Darrow (; April 18, 1857 – March 13, 1938) was an American lawyer who became famous in the 19th century for high-profile representations of trade union causes, and in the 20th century for several criminal matters, including the ...

. Darrow was increasingly skeptical of the chance for an acquittal. Darrow attempted to arrange a plea bargain. The state of California was on the verge of accepting the plea bargain when Darrow was arrested for attempting to bribe a member of the jury. The state rejected the plea. James McNamara was sentenced to life, and died in

San Quentin State Prison San Quentin Rehabilitation Center (SQ), formerly known as San Quentin State Prison, is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated area, unincorporated place ...

of cancer in 1941. His brother John McNamara served seven years, and died a few months after his brother of a heart attack in

Butte, Montana Butte ( ) is a consolidated city-county and the county seat of Silver Bow County, Montana, United States. In 1977, the city and county governments consolidated to form the sole entity of Butte-Silver Bow. The city covers , and, according to the 2 ...

. Darrow was tried for attempted bribery. The first trial ended in a mistrial, the second in a jury deadlock. The state dropped the charges against Darrow. In 1921, the Industrial Relations Committee of San Francisco formed to promote the open shop in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. In time, that organization changed its name to the Federated Employers of the Bay Area and merged with M&M in 1993.

1930s

In 1937, M&M was joined in the labor relations field by a new organization, Southern Californians, Inc. Sponsored by the ''Los Angeles Times,'' the group was led by

Paul Shoup Paul Shoup (January 8, 1874 – July 30, 1946) was an American businessman, president and later vice-chairman of the Southern Pacific Railroad in the 1920s and 1930s, a founding board member of the Stanford University School of Business, and fou ...

, a retired vice chairman of the

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...

. Southern Californians was founded ostensibly to promote the welfare of Los Angeles, but in testimony before the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...

later that year its leaders admitted that its sole goal was the preservation of the open shop.Pichardo, "The Power Elite and Elite-Driven Countermovements: The Associated Farmers of California During the 1930s," ''Sociological Forum,'' March 1995. In less than three years, it had collected more than $523,000 from 12 major Los Angeles companies to fight the city's unions. Southern Californians spent $48,000 to create two other front-groups: The Neutral Thousands (which claimed 109,000 members but had had only 250; it had copied names out of the telephone book and put them on its "official" membership list) and Women of the Pacific (led by a

strikebreaker A strikebreaker (sometimes pejoratively called a scab, blackleg, bootlicker, blackguard or knobstick) is a person who works despite an ongoing strike. Strikebreakers may be current employees ( union members or not), or new hires to keep the orga ...

from

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

).Pesotta, ''Bread Upon the Waters,'' 1987. M&M and Southern Californians decided the best way to stamp out unions was to remove the unions' most powerful weapons: the strike and picket line. M&M quickly established its own front group, the Employers' Advisory Service, to help employers set

company union A company or "yellow" union is a worker organization which is dominated or unduly influenced by an employer and is therefore not an independent trade union. Company unions are contrary to international labour law (see ILO Convention 98, Article ...

s. Both Southern Californians and M&M spent more than $123,000 in 1937 to promote a voter referendum which would outlaw the strike and picket line. Their opportunity came when a Republican Party group began digging up dirt on Republican

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilitie ...

Frank L. Shaw Frank Lawrence Shaw (February 1, 1877 – January 24, 1958) was the first mayor of a major American city to be recalled from office, in 1938. He was also a member of the Los Angeles City Council and then the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisor ...

. Voters were outraged when a private detective employed by the reform group was nearly killed by a car bomb planted by Shaw's organization. Another Republican, Superior Court Judge Fletcher Bowron, began a recall effort against Shaw. M&M and Southern Californians used the recall election to push through their ordinance. The new law explicitly outlawed picketing entirely unless a majority of a firm's employees were on strike, made it illegal for anyone except a striking employee to picket a firm, limited pickets to one person per entrance or pickets at least 25 feet apart, prohibited coercion and intimidation by unions, forbade unions to talk to workers at home, and even outlawed unions' use of abusive or foul language. A compromise referendum pushed by the AFL prohibited public disorder and intimidation, but not picketing. The voters approved the M&M referendum, turned out Mayor Shaw, and elected Judge Bowron (who had flatly condemned the M&M referendum as blatantly unconstitutional)."Sun and Shade," ''Time,'' September 26, 1938. M&M's activities were later exposed before the

La Follette Committee In the United States Senate, the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee, or more formally, Committee on Education and Labor, Subcommittee Investigating Violations of Free Speech and the Rights of Labor (1936–1941), began as an inquiry into a Nati ...

in 1937 and 1938.

Notes

References

*''America's New Year Celebration: The Rose Parade & Rose Bowl Game.'' Santa Barbara, Calif.: Albion Publishing Group, 1999. *Cross, Ira B. ''History of the Labor Movement in California.'' Reprint ed. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1974. *Deverell, William. ''Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past.'' Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2004. *Foner, Philip S. ''History of the Labor Movement in the United States. Vol. 5: The AFL in the Progressive Era, 1910-1915.'' New York: International Publishers, 1980. Cloth ; Paperback *Kazin, Michael. ''Barons of Labor: The San Francisco Building Trades and Union Power in the Progressive Era.'' Champaign, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1987. *''The Merchants and Manufacturers Association – Celebrating 90 Years of Service.'' Los Angeles, Calif.: Merchants and Manufacturers Association, 1986. *Milkman, Ruth ''L.A Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement.'' New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006. *Pesotta, Rose. ''Bread Upon the Waters.'' Paperback ed. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987. {{ISBN, 0-87546-127-1 *Robinson, W.W. ''Bombs and Bribery: The Story of the McNamara and Darrow Trials Following the Dynamiting in 1910 of the Los Angeles Times Building.'' Los Angeles: Dawson's Book Shop, 1969. *"Sun and Shade." ''Time.'' September 26, 1938.

External links