Final answer:
Companies used tactics such as bribery and hiring Pinkertons to stop unionization, as well as creating company unions to undermine authentic unions. They did not use tactics such as encouraging strikes or collective bargaining, which are methods employed by unions themselves. The anti-union strategies aimed to maintain corporate control and manipulate worker perception of the effectiveness of unions.
Step-by-step explanation:
The tactics used by companies to stop unions included using bribery, hiring Pinkertons and other spies, and other methods such as the establishment of company unions to undercut genuine union efforts. Tactics like encouraging strikes and using collective bargaining were strategies typically employed by unions themselves to negotiate better conditions and are not methods used by companies to stop unions. Instead, companies often aimed at discrediting unions and maintaining control over workers by offering superficial incentives or by using more coercive and underhand strategies, like the use of Pinkerton spies or yellow-dog contracts to intimidate or prevent union activity.
These strategies were part of broader anti-union sentiments and efforts to maintain the status quo within industries. Laws like the Taft-Hartley Act also played roles in these dynamics, allowing for government intervention in labor disputes, sometimes tempering negotiations, other times escalating tensions. Over time, union tactics and corporate responses have evolved, but the core conflict between labor organizing and corporate control has remained a significant part of American labor history.