People : Author : Rose Pesotta Tags

Rose Pesotta
Bread upon the Waters
CHAPTER 19
Vulnerable Akron: The First Great Sit-Down
AKRON÷rubber manufacturing capital of the world.A drab Mid-Western industrial city of 255,000. A city with a hum, a throb,anodor all its own. It made the front pages in February, 1936. A strikehad closed the largest tire factory on the globe, which had 14,000 employes.
On the 25th Frederick Umhey, our International's executive secretary,wired me from New York: "Goodyear rubber workers in Akron on strike.A woman organizer requested. Urgently needed. Please proceed to Akron atonce and report to Adolph Germer Portage Hotel."
Leaving Marianne Alfons, our Polish organizer, in charge of the Buffalooffice, I took the first train, reaching my destination late that night.There I was hailed by Louis Stark, labor reporter for the New York Times,who got off the same train.
We checked in at the Portage, phoned Germer's room, and he came downto greet us. Then an organizer for the United Mine Workers, Germer hadbeen in Akron several weeks, and now was devoting all his energies to helpingthe rubber strikers. Sitting in the cafe, he told us what had been happeningThis strike had started as a small sit-down of 137 tire-builders on the14th, in protest against a lay-off of 70 workers. That lay-off was thefirst step in a company plan to abolish the six-hour day, which had beenin force in the Akron rubber industry for five years, and to return tothe old eight-hour day. The sit-downers were promptly fired.
Quickly the sit-down spread through all departments and all shifts.Goodyear production was paralyzed. On the fourth day the strikers decidedto change the form of their protest from an inside to an outside strike;they had run low on food, and realized that they could control the situationmuch better from outside.
They left the huge Goodyear works at midnight on the 13th, installingpicket lines which sealed all the 45 gates to the company, properties,and completely shut down the plant.
Inside, in Building No. 1, however, about 1,000 "loyal" employeswere stranded when the others walked out. Next morning President Paul Litchfieldof the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, ap. peared at the main gate, demandingthat the pickets let him in. They did so. He was still inside on the 25th,seven days later, eating and sleeping in his office.
Despite great tension, the situation had been free from violence. Thestrikers had closed all saloons and liquor stores in the Goodyear area,policed the streets, and maintained excellent order.
But there had been an hour on the day of my arrival when battle andbloodshed and perhaps sudden death for many appeared imminent. The companyhad obtained an injunction against mass picketing, enforcement being SheriffJim Flower's job. He sent 30 deputies and 150 city policemen into the strikezone, with orders to disband the pickets and reopen the Goodyear gates÷at10 a.m.
Long before ten, Firestone and Goodrich workers and additional Goodyearmen flocked in to swell the picket lines. By conservative estimates, 10,000pickets gathered. Practically every one was armed with a billy÷a baseballbat, a bowling pin, or a piece of broomstick.
Realizing the grave danger of a riot, Mayor Schroy and POlice ChiefBoss telephoned Flower, arguing against the planned attack, and sayingit would mean slaughter. Flower answered that he had to "enforce lawand order." Two minutes before the zero hour, Boss sped to the strikescene in his official car, arriving with only thirty seconds to spare,and withdrew his men. There was no attack. Thousands of strikers cheeredthe chief for his display of good judgment.
At breakfast next morning, Germer told me the strike was in the handsof young leaders, honest, sincere, courageous. But this was their firstbig strike, and they lacked experience. They needed all the support theycould get, and sound advice to guard them against pitfalls, especiallyin negotiating for a settlement. Hence the Committee for Industrial Organizationhad taken over the leadership, and Germer, as the first CIO man on theground, had asked for more help. Company agents had been working in deviousways to wreck the unity of the strikers, especially exerting pressure uponmothers, wives, daughters, and sisters. Germer wanted me. to concentrateon morale-building.
Anxious to get to the scene of action, I hurried through breakfast.A taxi stood outside the hotel. "To strike headquarters," I said.
"Wait till I tell my office I'm going into the strike zone,"the driver answered. He talked into a telephone on a post, and then wewere off. With the strikers ignoring the injunction, and the company andits partizans loudly demanding that the Governor send in state troops,the Goodyear area was regarded as "hot."
Speed-up was Akron's other name to the 50,000 or more workers in thefive big rubber factories there÷the other four being Firestone, Goodrich,General, Mohawk.
The Goodyear properties were wide=sprawled on the Eastern edge of Akron,making a small city. in themselves. Huge production buildings, an assemblyhall and cafeteria, a gigantic hangar where the dirigibles Akron and Maconhad been housed, and a far-flung airport.
In front of the 45 gates to the Goodyear works and at many points betweengates, the strikers had erected chanties or tents, more than 300 in all,as shelters for the pickets against the subzero air, biting wind, rain,snow, and sleet That picket-line stretched 11 miles.
Chanties and tents were designated either by a number÷"Strike PostNo. 1," "Camp No. 13; Average Service 13 years" or by suchnames as "Mae West Post," "Camp Roosevelt," "JohnL. Lewis Post," "Senator Wagner Post," and "MachineGun Post." At the "House of David Post" the pickets hadvowed not to shave until the strike ended; some already had sprouted beards.
Goodyear Local No. 2 of the United Rubber Workers of America had itshall-and-office directly across the street from the company's BuildingNo. 1. This now served as strike headquarters.
Two or three hundred men and women were in the place when I arrived,many people were coming and going, and there was a buzz of voices. I introducedmyself to John D. House, president of theGoodyear local, who was in immediatecharge of the strike. Tall, with pale blue eyes and black wavy hair, andevidently in his early twenties, House hailed from Georgia, and spoke witha soft Southern drawl. He took time to show me around, plainly proud ofthe layout ÷the meeting hall, commissary, first-aid station, storage, office,information department, cash relief department, mimeograph depart.
The commissary, known simply as the kitchen, was doing a rushing business,operating 24 hours a day. It was equipped like a commercial cafeteria,with a battery of coffee urns, a 13-burner gas stove,: a hotel size refrigerator,and an electric potato masher. The chef was paid by the strike committee,but his helpers were volunteers Members of the Cooks and Waitresses' Unionand wives and daugh ters of strikers worked several hours daily.
Two attendants were on duty in the first-aid provided with all essentialmedical supplies for emergency treatment of acci dent victims. One wasspraying a picket's sore throat, the other treating, sterilizing, and bandaginga blistered heel.
When copies of the first edition of the Times-Press were brought intoheadquarters, I discovered that Powers Hapgood also was town, on a missionsimilar to mine. Two pictures of him were the front page with two of myself,which a youthful photographer had insisted on taking as I left my roomthat morning. I had not seen Powers since the Sacco-Vanzetti memorial meetingin Union Square, New York, in 1927. It was good to learn that I was towork with some one I knew well.
Presently Sherman H. Dalrymple, international president of URWA, appeared,accompanied by Thomas F. Burns, vise-presid Frank Grillo, secretary-treasurer,N. H. Eagle, head of the Mohawk local in Akron and member of the UnitedRubber Workers' general executive board, John Owens, Ohio district presidentof the United Mine Workers, Germer, Stark, and Hapgood.
Together we began a tour of the picket-line, in cars driven strikers.This tour was "personally conducted" by "Skip" Oharra,Oh' who gloried in the title of "Field Marshal." He was a smallfellow with a chunk of chewing tobacco always in his right cheek. Onlysix months before, I was told, he had been an aggressive leader of theKu Klux Klan in Akron. Many other strikers had been Klansmen. Oharra hada strong sense of responsibility toward the strike. Some one ventured thatthe title he carried sounded a bit too pretentious, and suggested thathe change it to chairman of the pickets. He protested vehemently. "Ohno, you can't do that! I've been nationally advertised as 'field marshal.'It would hurt our cause."
A bitter wind was blowing, but inside the chanties and tents the menwere comfortable. In each a stove had been improvised from two metal oildrums, with a pipe leading up through the roof. The pickets sat on boxesor old automobile seats. Some were playing cards, others found diversionin checkers. Occasionally there was music, from an accordion, banjo, orguitar. Food and coffee were brought to the posts at regular intervalsby a truck from the commissary.
The pickets put in eight-hour shifts. At least one was always on dutyoutside to see that no one attempted to break the seal of the nearby gateto the Goodyear works. The others rested or amused themselves in the shelters.Ten pickets to a post was the legal limit established by a court ruling.
We stopped long enough at each post to exchange greetings and impressupon the pickets that organized labor throughout the country was backingthem up.
Around noon we returned to strike headquarters, where we held an informalmeeting, with several hundred strikers present. John House introduced Stark,John Owens, Hapgood, and myself, explaining the significance of our beingthere; it meant reinforcements from two powerful international unions,and special interest in the situation on the part of the nation's leadingnewspaper.
When my turn came, I emphasized the great concern of the ILGWU thatthe rubber workers' strike should be successful. Commending their courageand steadfastness, I warned them that all sorts of unfair tricks wouldbe used by the company to defeat them, and urged them to keep their poiseand trust their leaders. To the women I made a special appeal that theystand by their men.
Then I led the audience in some of our union songs--Solidarity . Forever,Hold the Fort, and others, one of the younger men playingan accompanimenton the banjo. They made the walls ring with words familiar to many as aparaphrase of an old hymn:
Hold the fort, for we are coming Union men, be strong; Side by sidewe battle onward÷ Victory will come!
"Rosie," said Germer afterwards, "we'll make you chairmanof the entertainment committee."
We got our lunch at the kitchen service counter.
"What will you have?" a trim waitress inquired. "A plate,or something else?" "Why, I'll have a plate, please," Ianswered quickly.
It was novel to have a choice of food in a strike hall.
The "plate" that day comprised baked beans, kidney beans,spaghetti with meat sauce, potato salad, white bread or fresh baked cornbread, home-made jam, coffee, and cottage pudding covered with warm custardsauce. There was meat of varying kinds daily and plenty of good fresh milk.We ate at long rough wooden tables, at which many strikers were havingtheir meals.
Akron acquired its first rubber factory in the Eighteen Seventies whensome of its business men prevailed upon Dr. B. F. Goodrich to come therefrom Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., where he had been doing well as a rubberproducer. As new uses were found for this material, other rubber manufacturerswere attracted to the Akron area, because of its transportation facilitiesand its moist climate.
When automobile owners multiplied into millions, rubber produc tionskyrocketed. Goodyear's net profit in the years 1921-32 totaled $108,576,000.All the big companies in the industry prospered. protect profits they ruthlesslyslashed wages in the depression years In 1929 the average pay of rubberworkerswas $1,377; in 1933 had been cut to $932. Thousands became jobless. Thosewho remained in the factories were driven mercilessly under the belt system of production.
Where did the Goodyear company get its name ? I wondered about that,and took pains to find out. Son of a poor inventor in Woburn, Massachusetts,Charles Goodyear followed in his father's footsteps. He was especiallyinterested in the effects of varying temperatures upon rubber, and in waysto toughen it without lessening its resiliency. Poverty-stricken, oftenhungry, and with few friends, he continued trying until in 1839 he discovereda process which he called vulcanization. After five years more of experimentationhe obtained a patent on his discovery.
Vulcanization wrought a revolution in the rubber industry. But the profitswent to others, not to Goodyear. Grasping men boldly made use of this processwithout legal right. Goodyear sued repeatedly, winning in the courts, butwent on the rocks financially because of litigation costs.
He died in 1860, penniless, and owing large debts. Everything materialhad been stripped from him. Frank A. Seiberling, establishing a rubbercompany in Akron in 1898, decided to call it Goodyear. I wonder if anyportion of that company's tremendous earnings ever went to the Goodyearfamily for the use of the luckless inventor's name, "the greatestname in rubber." If so, how much?
From 1902 to 1913 occasional sporadic attempts to organize Akron's rubberworkers were crushed. One big strike was staged in 1913 by the IndustrialWorkers of the World and led by Bill Haywood, its colorful chief. The rubbercompanies broke that strike through highhanded tactics, including theorganization of a Citizens' Police Association, comprising 1,000 vigilantes,and institution of martial law.
Then the A F of L sent a young and little known organizer, John L. Lewis,into Akron. He surveyed the situation, presumably filed a report with hishome office, and came away.
Across the next 20 years conditions in the industry grew worse in manyways. Other unionization efforts were thwarted, through the use of spies,widespread firing of men for union activities, and other forms of intimidation,and by factional warfare within labor's own ranks.
The National Industrial Recovery Act (the NIRA) guaranteed in Section7-a the right of workers to join unions of their own choosing, and therubber workers flocked into the A F of L federal unions by the thousands.Unfortunately, the Federation, instead of keeping these industrial workerstogether, distributed them among 13 separate internationals. Immediatelythe rubber corporations organized company unions along industrial lines,giving them the appearance of independent organizations to meet the legalrequirements of the NIRA. Under the cumbersome system of craft organizationthe members of the A F of L couldn't make headway.
They pressed for an international of their own, and at their con_ ventionin 1935 William Green, president of the A F of L, presented them with acharter. The delegates insisted on electing their own officers.
Thus a new international was born, with a starting membership of 3,080.The delegates wrote a constitution and elected Sherman 11. Dalrymple, formerlyof West Virginia and head of the Goodrich local in Akron, as president.That city had four other locals including, Goodyear, Firestone, Mohawk,and General.
In 1930 the Goodyear company had reduced its work day from eight hoursto six. At the end of two years Paul W. Litchfield, it president, in theperiodical industrial Relations, made these signifi cant statements: "Atthe Goodyear, where we have had the six=hour-day in effect . . . for twoyears we have not been able to make much of a case on the grounds of higherefficiency. It is our judgment that efficiency has been increased upwardof eight per cent, but low production schedules preclude accurate comparisons.Of one thing we are con vinced. It is that the short working day has notnoticeably increase' our overhead cost÷that is, the cost of personnel andproduct super vision. . .
"We should work toward shortening the average working hours tothepoint where there will be work for all." :
When the company announced in 1935 that the eight-hour da: would berestored on January 1, 1936 (presaging mass lay-offs) and that piece-workrates would be cut, the Goodyear local asked Secre tary of Labor FrancesPerkins to investigate. She appointed a fact finding committee comprisingFerd C. Croxton of Columbus, Ohio; John A. Lapp of New York, member ofthe Petroleum Board; and Hugh S. Hanna, U.S. Department of Labor statistician.
This committee's 50-page report held that the company, in cutting hoursof work, had introduced the speed-up system, and that in fewer hours itsemployes actually produced as much or nearly as much as before. It found,too, that there was no justification for the proposed lengthening of hours. . . that the change would reduce the company payroll 12 per cent, andthat the company had discriminated against the URWA in favor of its companyunion.
But presently there were wage-cuts and lay-offs in various departments.Resentment smoldered among the Goodyear working forces, tension grew.
John L. Lewis, by that time chairman of the new Committee for IndustrialOrganization, spoke at a mass meeting in the Armory on January 19. Despitea blizzard, thousands of rubber workers attended. Lewis cited the millionsin profits made by Goodyear and the other rubber companies, even duringthe depression.
"The only way out," he declared, "is to organize theworkers into unions that can raise articulate voices...."
His parting words were: "I hope you will do something for yourselves."
Those who listened took heed÷and in less than a month the Goodyear workersacted.
In contrast to short-lived sit-downs of Akron rubber workers in thepast, limited to a single department, the tire-builders' sit-down on February14 was a spark that fired the long dormant indignation of Goodyear employesgenerally. Here was mass revolt, which might at any moment spread throughthe Goodrich, Firestone, Mohawk, and General Rubber Company plants andshut them down also.
Realizing that they were novices in a conflict of this size, the UnitedRubber Workers' leaders appealed to the Committee for Industrial Organizationfor aid. It sent a $3,000 check to the strike committee, and dispatchedfive organizers to the scene. The other two organizers÷Leo Krzycki, vise-presidentof the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and Ben Schafer, from theOil Workers' Union÷arrived on February 26.
Strain and anxiety showed in the eyes of the young leaders of the rubberworkers, and in their tired voices. They trembled as they spoke of "whatmight have happened" the day before if Police Chief Boss had not spikedSheriff Flower's plan to smash the picket lines.
But while the Akron rubber workers were babes in the woods in legitimateunionism, they could have given pointed lessons to labor- movement veteransin other forms of organization and action. I had taken special notice ofthe fine sense of order among the strikers.
"When did you learn all this?" I asked one of the key menin headquarters.
"They trained us," he said, pointing to the huge plant acrossthe way.
Most of the men in the forefront of the strike had been schooled intwo institutions peculiar to the Goodyear corporation÷the Flying Squadronand the Goodyear Industrial Assembly. Young and physi cally powerful workers,chosen for the Flying Squadron, were given three years of intensive trainingso that they could fit into any of the 4,000 different production jobs.Thus they would be available for any emergency÷to take the places of menwho might be laid offbecause they had passed the age of 40 and who perhapshad slowed down, or to serve as strike-breakers. With the Flying Squadronl available to the company, seniority for the mass of Goodyear employeswas non-existent.
The strikers had a profound hatred for the Squadron. Ex-members of thatcat's-paw outfit poured forth their feelings in the chanties.
"I am one of those who graduated," said a broad-shoulderedpick in the Mae West Post, as he showed me the wingfoot pin concealed underhis vest. "They thought they bought me body and soul, damn it, whenI was told to do dirty to my fellow-workers I quit .
Many Flying Squadron members also were members of the Indus trial Assembly,comprising a Senate and House of Representatives, and part of the Goodyear"Industrial Republic." Set up in 1919, this was supposed to providedemocratic representation for the workers. Actually, it was a company union,the Senators and Representatives being hand-picked.
For years the Goodyear management had used the Industrial A sembly forits own purposes. But in October, 1935, there was rebellion in the Assembly.It voted against the corporation's plan restore the eight-hour scheduleThe emptiness of the "guarantees of democracy" in the Assemblywas demonstrated when Factory Manager Cliff Slusser vetoed its action.
Yes, there was exemplary organization among the strikers, and remarkablediscipline. Yet it was apparent that we were standing on the brink of asmoking volcano, which at any time might erupt.
I thought of this while talking with Field Marshal Oharra in strikeheadquarters. In a corner of the office I had observed a stack of rifles.
"What are those guns for?" I asked.
"Just let them try to open the plant gates, or break up the picketlines, and there'll be a revolution," Oharra answered. The guns hadbeen brought in after Police Chief Boss averted the Sheriff's planned attackon the pickets on the 25th. Many of the strikers, having come from mountaincountry, were hunters, and naturally owned rifles. They had brought themhere "just in case÷"
That night Powers Hapgood, Ben Schafer, and I made another tour of thechanties and tents. Henceforth this would be part of our daily routine.We talked with the pickets, asked questions, drew out their thoughts aboutthe strike. In some posts hill-billy songs were being sung,andweinquiredwhere the singers hailed from. They had come from various states Kentucky,Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas.
Frequently I heard them boasting about their respective states. Otherstook issue with them. A man from Kentucky bragged that that Commonwealthwas famous for "fast horses and beautiful women." A Tennesseanwould answer: "It's just the reverse."
Largely of American stock, their names testified to English and Scotchancestry in the main, with a sprinkling of Irish and Welsh. They includedmany ex-coal miners, a considerable percentage of former tenant farmers,and others who had come to Ohio because they found themselves jobless ordispossessed as a result of the depression.
Watching and listening to the men in the chanties and in union headquarters,I was glad they were on our side of the fight. Some of the names recalledlong-fought feuds in the Southern mountains. Here, it was obvious, werenumerous hot-heads. Hence the vitalnecessity of wise leadership, for inits absence, an unforeseen contingency might impel them to desperate action.
A sit-down in Akron was precisely what we called a stoppage in the garmentindustry. It was an old method among independent rubber workers; when theyfound they could no longer put up with unfair working conditions, theylaid down their tools. Usually they won their immediate point.
"But what happened after that?" I asked, in the House of Davidpost.
"We'd go back to work," said a man with a rusty beard, "andeverything would be pretty for a little time. Then the company would findan excuse to fire the leaders.... Now things are different. With you fromthe Lady Garment Workers, and the men from the miners, we'll build a realunion here."
Back at strike headquarters by 11 p.m., we found an entertainment inprogress, with an audience of 300 or more. Two boys around ten years oldwere on the platform, one crooning and the other playing a guitar biggerthan himself. They looked sleepy, but sang and played into a microphonelike professionals.
Frequently the entertainment would be interrupted, as a man in a checkeredred-and-black windbreaker called through the "mike" for volunteersto relieve pickets: "Three men to Mae West Post . . . two men to CampArgonne . . . four men to Post No. 14."
From all parts of the hall strikers would leave for duty at those posts,to keep any one from entering or leaving the plant. Wives of some of thevolunteers would go along to keep them company in the chanties and tents.
In such a strike there is no limit to the number of an organizer's workinghours. Often we conferred late at night, and some tours of the chantiesdid not end until 3 a.m. Days and evenings we spoke before many audiencesin Akron, explaining the situation to church groups, consumer groups, fraternalorganizations, women's auxiliaries, students, sewing circles, languagegroups. Almost always, without our asking, a collection would be takenup for the strikers. We asked only for moral support. Often we returnedloaded with home-made pies and cakes and other edibles rounded up by thoughtfulwomen in advance of our arrival.
The union had a sound truck, and we all took turns in speaking fromit. It was useful in addressing groups of strikers and their families andthe public in the strike area generally. Audiences would gather quicklywhenever the truck stopped; the loud speaker never lost its novelty forthem. Our speeches were varied by music from a victrola.
I had wired Fannia M. Cohn, executive secretary of our Educational Department,for a large supply of song books, and when they came we took them withus on a fast round of the posts.
"Captain! " our escort called out as we arrived at the firstchanty.
A tall burly figure emerged from the dark.
"Here is a song book the Lady Garment Workers' Union is givingus. We want your shift to learn the songs and leave it with the next captain."
"O.K. We'll do that."
Evidently the little red booklets were immediately put to good use,for by the time we returned the pickets were singing songs with familiartunes.
"Soo-oop, soo-oop, they gave me a bowl of soup," came fromone post.
"It's a good thing to join a union," the voices in anotheravowed.
"We joined our union and now we have fun," we heard from athird. (The tune was The Man on The Flying Trapeze.) ; "C-C-C-Company,company-union . . ."
Each group picked out the lyrics which appealed to it most.
• Chapter 20 : 'Outside Agitators' Strive for Peace