La Follette Committee Exposes Pinkerton and Burns Detective Agencies' Massive Labor Espionage Network

The La Follette Civil Liberties Committee subpoenas records from major private detective agencies in early 1936, exposing the vast scale of corporate labor espionage in American industry. The investigation reveals that the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, Burns International Detective Agency, and smaller firms maintain networks of thousands of labor spies infiltrated into unions at every level—from rank-and-file members to local presidents and even national officers. The committee’s findings represent the most comprehensive exposure of private surveillance operations in American history.

The committee discovers that Pinkerton alone has provided labor espionage services to over 300 corporations in the previous decade, with agents reporting on union meetings, identifying organizers for employer blacklists, and acting as agents provocateurs to discredit labor organizations. General Motors pays nearly $1 million between 1934 and 1936 to detective agencies for labor surveillance, with 304 GM workers serving as paid informants. Pinkerton agents rise to leadership positions in unions—in some locals, every officer except the president is a company spy. The Railway Audit and Inspection Company specializes in providing undercover operatives who take factory jobs specifically to report on worker organizing.

The exposed companies initially refuse to cooperate with the committee, asserting that their personnel records are confidential business matters. When forced to testify, detective agency executives minimize their activities while the documentary record proves systematic deception. The publicity surrounding the La Follette revelations leads Pinkerton and Burns to formally exit the labor espionage business by 1937, but the infrastructure of corporate surveillance persists through in-house security departments and smaller agencies. The committee’s exposure temporarily damages the reputation of labor espionage, but the practice evolves into modern union avoidance consulting that accomplishes similar goals through legal means—monitoring employee communications, identifying union sympathizers, and coordinating employer anti-union campaigns.