Low wages and irregular employment were not the only disadvantages of working as a grain scooper in Buffalo. What made grain scooping different from other forms of manual labor was the saloon-boss system. In 1890, Buffalo had 7.81 saloons per thousand population. With saloons lining the canal and the harbor populated by a large pool of unskilled laborers, came the emergence of the saloon-boss.

A saloon-boss came to fill three functions. He was, of course, a purveyor of liquor (and prepared food). He also organized men to unload grain, becoming a "scooper boss," and with this title becoming an employer of labor. Finally, being on top of the social and economic pulse of a large section of the populace, he became a political operative in his neighborhood or district, and part of the machinery which he directed voting and dispensed favors. With these three functions, he was able to exercise political, economic and social control of those men- scoopers- who came within his sphere of influence.

Scoopers, 90% of whom were Irish, worked all day at heavy labor and naturally enjoyed a beer of two after work. The only logical place to stop and unwind would be at their boss's saloon.

As long as a scooper was associated with a particular saloon, the boss or bartender was happy to extend credit. When the man asked for a five-cent beer, the owner would persuade him to accept, on credit, "beer-checks," totaling fifty cents and redeemable only at his bar. The more the scooper owed the boss, the better his chance was of continuing to work. Credit was extended to six days a week and all debts had to be repaid on the seventh. Each Saturday the scooper received in the boss's saloon his week's wages minus whatever the boss said was owed for the week's beer and fare.

Faced with such a system of social and economic control, grain scoopers were driven to union organization. Labor organization on the Buffalo waterfront can be traced back as far as 1863, with scoopers, lumber shovers and longshoremen all trying to gain some control over their lives. Their efforts met without much success against the stevedore and saloon-boss system until 1882. In that year, the grain scoopers were chartered as Local Assembly #2052 of the Knights of Labor. In 1888, the Union started to show its strength against the saloon-boss system. In August of that year, some 1200 scoopers reported to their union hall to join in a mass protest against the elevator operators. Yet real progress was slow and sporadic.