People : Author : Rose Pesotta Tags

FOOTNOTES
1. Details of that formula will be found In the appendix.
2. Two Rogues' Gallery portraits of members of Pearl Bergoff's strike-breaking army, shown in theLevinson book. bear the name of Cohen. But any resemblance of Hophead Cohen to either, Mac Colemaninsists, was pure coincidence.
• Chapter 22 : Auto Workers Line Up For Battle

CHAPTER 22
Auto Workers Line Up For Battle
HOMER MARTIN REMINDED ME of my promise in March. Hewired from Detroit asking if I would speak at a series ofmass-meetings. My co-operation, and that of Leo Krzycki,was especially needed now to round up delegates for the secondconvention of the United Automobile Workers, to be held in SouthBend, Indiana, beginning April 27. A sizable number of such delegateshad to be found who were both intelligent and willing to risk losing theirjobs.
So I went to Detroit, where Martin, Ed Hall, secretary-treasurer, and others of the younger, progressive group in the UAW welcomed meat their offices in the Hoffman Building.
They introduced me to their provisional president, Francis J.
Dillon, who had been appointed by President William Green of the A Fof L, and whose term would expire with the coming convention. Dillonwas a colorless person, the cartoon prototype of a union official, pot-bellied, always with a large cigar. He spoke derisivelyof the activities of his younger fellow-officers and about workersgenerally. He knew nothing about the International Ladies' GarmentWorkers' Union, (and seemed proud of that), said I was wasting mytime in Michigan. It was sheer insanity for the UAW to hold thescheduled meetings, he added; none of the auto workers wouldshow up. I learned afterwards that Dillon urged the Detroit Boardof Education to refuse us the use of high school auditoriums!
Leo Krzycki arrived the same day, and we both spoke at several meetings in Detroit and Hamtramck. My job particularly was topersuade the women, who almost invariably came with their men,to encourage them to serve as convention delegates.
At those gatherings I was greeted by Russians and Ukrainians whom I had met on previous visits. They were fearful of futurerepercussions in the international situation.
Next day, more meetings. In the evening Martin, Leo, and I spoke inPengelly Hall, the union's headquarters in Flint. Though the place couldhave held hundreds, only a few dozen persons showed up. But this didnot dampen my ardor. I knew that those present were good unionmaterial or they wouldn't have come. They had courage I recalled timeswhen I visited Detroit in behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti, and spoke tosmall groups of auto workers, mostly foreign-born, who appearedwith their whole families. They were largely from Southern and EasternEurope.
Prior to World War I, the automotive industry maintained agenciesabroad to recruit unskilled labor among the peasantry. The war shut offthis traffic, and during the industrial boom the manufacturers turned tothe native labor supply. After the passage of the 1924 immigration quotalaw they depended almost wholly on native sources. Meanwhiletechnological improvements in production processes displaced men bythe tens of thousands, so that Detroit and other auto centers harboredlarge numbers of unemployed.
Now most of the workers I met in the automobile field wereAmerican-born sons and daughters of the Europeans whom I hadknown earlier, and as in Akron men and women who had lost theirmeans of livelihood during the depression. The men in the industrywere automatons in the merciless conveyor-belt productionsystem, and faced the prospect of being burned out before they were 40by the speed-up's terrible grind.
We kept our speeches short, touching chiefly on the recent victoriesof the Akron rubber workers, the coal miners, garment workers, andother aggressive sections of the labor movement. We emphasized theopportunity before the automobile workers, contending that they mustorganize solidly÷in an industrial union÷to get a living wage anddecent working conditions. So long as any worker stood alone, the bosscould intimidate him, and the boss would always win. The comingconvention would give the auto workers a chance to serve notice ontheir employers that they intended to stand together.
The union leaders were well satisfied with the outcome of thosemeetings. Enough open-eyed convention delegates were elected togive the progressive group confidence that they could put throughobviously needed reforms in the UAW.
Close to 500,000 workers were then employed in the automobileindustry. The UAW had a membership of about 28,000, spread amongsome 40 companies. A closed shop agreement with Nash in Kenosha,Wisconsin, covered 8,000 workers. In South Bend the Studebaker andBendix plants had been completely unionized, with more than 7,000members. There was a contract, too, with the White Company inCleveland, won through a short sit-down strike in 1934.
Next in line for organization was the giant General MotorsCorporation, which produced Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Oldsmobile, LaSalle, and Cadillac cars, Fisher bodies, and Chevrolet and GMC trucks.
Nineteen Thirty-Four also had seen a bitterly fought strikeagainst General Motors in its Toledo Autolite plant, a strike notoriousfor brutalities to strikers. After the Toledo settlement, the companystated publicly: "It won't happen again," and since then it hadendeavored to decentralize its operations by setting up branches inscattered smaller communities.
Many efforts to organize the automobile industry, in its 40 years ofexistence, had been frustrated by the powerful employing groups. Theopen shop had generally prevailed, and the big companies notably Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors÷had widely usedindustrial spies and fostered company unions, thinly disguised as"voluntary" employes' associations.
A semi-industrial union called the United Automobile, Aircraft,and Vehicle workers, affiliated with the A F of L, built up considerablestrength during World War I, and by 1920 claimed a membership of45,000. But demobilization of industry following the war and loss of astrike for which it was not adequately prepared, plus attempts of the A Fof L to split it into crafts, caused it to disintegrate.
At the A F of L convention in Detroit in 1926, plans were outlined fora drive to unionize the auto workers. The craft internationals were askedto waive questions of jurisdiction while the campaign was on, but theydemurred, though automobile manufacturing was a mass productionindustry and the bulk of workers in it unskilled.
Heads of some of the 17 internationals concerned did makesympathetic gestures when the drive was started by six organizers in thesummer of 1927, but that was all, and the campaign soon fizzled out. Even if the craft unions had been co-operative, othercircumstances were strongly against it÷the huge labor turnover, theshutting down of the great Ford works while preparations were made toproduce the new Model A, and the presence of 125,000 jobless workersin Detroit.
So the auto workers remained unorganized, and nearly six years wereto pass before anything tangible was done about the problem.
When the National Industrial Recovery Act became law in 1933, theautomobile manufacturers balked at signing an NRA Code of faircompetition, delaying behind a barrage of patriotic sounding utterances.When a code finally was agreed upon, it contained a "merit clause"enabling the companies to evade observance of Section 7-a, whichforbade discrimination against union members. This clause gave themfreedom to hire workers "according to merit÷that is, competence onthe job as judged by the employer."
Wage cuts below the cost of living and vicious working conditionsbrought a succession of revolts among the auto workers in 1933. Strikesin seven plants took place in January, and through the year walkoutsclosed or crippled 33 plants in eight cities÷Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids,Cleveland, Oakland, California, Edgewater, New Jersey, Philadelphia,and Chester, Pennsylvania.
Three independent unions were formed that year÷the Mechanics'Educational Society of America, the Associated Automobile Workers,and the Automobile Industrial Workers' Association. The first took inonly skilled tool and die makers at the start, but later widened its scope.Others in action in this field were the battle-scarred IndustrialWorkers of the World and the Communist-led Auto Workers'Union, developed from a remnant of the old United Automobile,Aircraft, and Vehicle Workers.
The activities of the independent unions aroused the A F of L to neworganizing effort. It set up federal locals in the auto industry, and newmembers flocked in by the thousands. By 1934 the A F of L had linedup more than 210,000 auto workers in these loosely organized locals. Ageneral strike, to compel union recognition, was "postponed" atPresident Roosevelt's request. The "settlement" arranged proved a Greekgift to the workers, for it added to the NRA Code a section providing for "proportional representation': for A Fof L unions, independent unions, and company unions, on allcommittees for collective bargaining and adjustment of grievances. Thuscompany unions were given the same recognition as legitimate unionsby the national government.
At the same time an Automobile Labor Board, headed by LeoWolman, was set up, supposedly to uphold labor's right to collectivebargaining and prevent discrimination. Its decisions, however, usuallyfavored the employers, and the A F of L denounced it as unfair to labor.
Although the general strike plan had been ditched by the President's'intervention,' automobile strikes occurred that year in at least nine cities.
One strike, at the Hudson plant in Detroit, pointedly proved thefallacy of craft organization. An A F of L organizer led a handful of A Fof L mechanics, who had won a union contract, through an A F of Lpicket-line I
By thousands the disillusioned members now dropped out of theFederation. Transferred from federal unions into craft locals, they hadsoon discovered that this kind of unionism had no value for them.
But the conflict over the NRA Code and the rise of companyunionism under the sanction of the "proportional representation"amendment brought into sharp focus the need forself-organization by the auto workers. Like all in mass production,they needed an industrial union. Outspoken men who remained in the AF of L pressed for an international of their own, and won it in 1934.Those who demanded an industrial union were largely former coalminers, who knew the power of that form of organization.
For decades the heads of the motor industry had been so sure of theirposition that they had defied law and disregarded common decency inhuman relations. On one hand they derived profitable free publicityfrom employee welfare programs more showy than real; on the other,they ruthlessly exploited their working forces. Men laid off in onedepartment, where they had worked up to a fairly substantial wage,would be re-hired in another department at reduced pay. Workers who became vocal about plant conditions were fired as"trouble makers."
In 1932 Dearborn police had fired into a crowd of 4,000 seekingentrance to the Ford plant to protest against mass lay-offs, and hadkilled four men and wounded many others.
Ever since Henry Ford announced a $5-a-day minimumwage for unskilled labor in 1913, the automobile industry had had thereputation of paying "fat" wages. But the auto workers received lessthan an average of $1,300 a year in 1925, when times were good, andless than $1,000 in 1935. A report to the NRA (by the Hendersoncommittee) showed that 45 per cent of these workers were paid lessthan $1,000 in 1934. In one plant three-fifths of the employesreceived less than $800, while a third got less than $400.
UAW aggressiveness in 1936 evidently was felt by the carmanufacturers. With the exception of Henry Ford, always anindependent, they acted in concert in most matters affecting theindustry. Now they were spending $100,000 jointly for "educationalpurposes," which meant propaganda adverse to unionism. This sum wasto be spent within six months on radio broadcasts, press, schools,recreation and social clubs in the plants, and general welfare practices,as well as financing company unions, which were being organizedfeverishly to offset the growing movement among the auto workers fora legitimate trade union of their own.
Germer, Leo Krzycki, Powers Hapgood, and I arrived in South Bendon the eve of the UAW convention. We worked with variouscommittees, giving them the benefit of our experience in preparingreports on resolutions.
Most of those delegates, from 60 separate locals, were young men,and a few were young women. In-the main, they were attendingsuch a conclave for the first time. Spokesmen for two independentunions came as "impartial observers." One of these, who addressed thedelegates, was a large, heavily built young man who wore a goldfootball on his watch-chain. This was Richard Frankensteen,former University of Michigan football player, worker in the Dodgeplant in Detroit, and president of the Automotive Industrial Workers'Association. The other was A. E. Greer, head of the AssociatedAutomobile Workers of America. Later Frankensteen's organization joined the UAWand he became a member of its general executive board. Andsubsequently Greer was exposed as a Pinkerton spy.
President William Green of the A F of L spoke on the opening dayand turned the International over to the convention, lifting theprobationary period and automatically freeing the UAW from itsappointed officers. His voice vibrated with emotion as he viewed thefuture of the American labor movement with apprehension, obviouslyreferring to the activities of the six-months-old Committeefor Industrial Organization, which acted independently, though withinthe A F of L.
Provisional President Dillon, in his swan song, voiced great concernover the well-being of the nation's workers, and particularly thosein the automobile industry. What he had said to me in the privacy of hisoffice completely belied the sentiments he now expressed from theplatform.
Officers were elected on the third day. Homer Martin was named aspresident; Wyndham Mortimer of Cleveland, Ed Hall of Milwaukee,and Walter N. Wells of Detroit as first, second, and thirdvise-president; and George Addes of Toledo as generalsecretary-treasurer. Adde, one of the younger leaders of the 1934Autolite strike, still holds that position.
Martin, then 84, had been a Baptist minister in Kansas City, Missouri,his congregation including many employes of the General Motorsplant there. Because of sermons dealing with the social struggle, he wasremoved by the board of deacons, and went to work in a Chevroletfactory, where he was elected president of the federal local union. Laterhe was appointed vise-president of the UAW by William Green.
Mortimer, a former coal miner, worked for the White MotorCompany in Cleveland. Ed Hall was a World War veteran, employed bythe Seaman Body Company.
Every delegate had received a mimeographed letter, signed "TheCommunist Party," endorsing Martin and Mortimer for the two topoffices. Earl Browder, head of that party, wired a quick repudiation ofthis testimonial. Clearly it was the work of an agent provocateur, designed to defeat the chances of the two candidates. The trick failed.
I was invited to address the convention on May Day Eve. Aresolution to expel all Communists had been hotly debated, and I tookissue with its purpose. I reminded the delegates of the great price thelabor movement had paid to establish the right to hold conventions ofthis kind.
Other groups had championed unpopular social causes, sacrificingliberty and life. I spoke of the Anarchists hanged in Chicago in 1887because they had fought for the eight-hour day; and of the IWW,brutally manhandled and lynched because they dared speak out againstexploitation.
Regardless of the faults of Communism, I argued, our nation wasconfronted by an even greater danger÷Fascism, whatever it might becalled on American soil. I pleaded with the delegates to end politicalconflict among themselves. A trade union was primarily an economicorganization; members must work together for the good of all despitetheir political differences.
Through succeeding months we kept in close touch with the UnitedAutomobile Workers. Quickly and effectively they strengthened theirlines at every possible point, and their organization campaign in the bigproduction centers steadily gained momentum. Carrying out a mandateof the convention, they established an efficient educational departmentakin to ours in the ILGWU, and a competently staffed research division,began to publish a newspaper, and issued various pamphlets andleaflets.
Several independent locals had joined the UAW soon after theconvention, adding perhaps 8,000 to its numbers. With memberscoming in by hundreds each week, the young international moved ontoward the inevitable show-down with General Motors. All alongit had the constant support of the Committee for IndustrialOrganization.
Then the union's international officers, in an effort to deal with thenumerous grievances, asked for a conference with William S. Knudsen,executive vise-president of General Motors. He curtly advisedthem to submit complaints to plant managers.
This was simply a runaround, for the managers had no authority tomake decisions on questions of major import. But the union leadersdecided to go through the motions of following Knudsen's advice, tosee how far they would get. They drew up a tentative contract, handed itto the manager of the Fisher Body Works in Flint, owned by the GMC,and requested an answer within seven days.
Overnight three inspectors in the small Fisher No. 2 plant, whereseat-covering material was made, were ordered transferred toundesirable locations because they refused to quit the union.Immediately 125 men in No. 2, a full shift, staged a sit-down. Thiswas on December 30.
A few hours later company foremen in the huge block-longFisher Plant No. 1, also in Flint, took drastic action, presumably as anobject lesson to the workers there. Conspicuously they loaded dies ontoflat cars for shipment to Pontiac and Lansing, where the UAW had notyet attained strength.
But that "lesson" defeated its own purpose for at once severalhundred men in Plant No. I also sat down. the Belt÷the productionline÷which depended on their continual activity, stopped as theystayed at their usual places idle. All ruses by company chiefs to get thestrikers to leave the buildings failed. So long as they remained inside,the GMC could neither produce bodies nor remove any moreequipment.
On the fourth day of this strike the company obtained from JudgeEdward S. Black an injunction prohibiting the union from occupyingthe two factory buildings, from picketing, and from interfering in anyway with non-striking employes. The sit-downers jeered thesheriff as he read the injunction to them, and remained where they were.They knew their one chance to win was to retain possession of thebuildings.
That injunction was never enforced, because the union exposed thefact that Judge Black owned 1,000 shares of General Motors' stock. Bysitting in a case in which he had a personal interest, he had violated astate law. The union began impeachment proceedings against him.
A week after the Fisher Body strike started, Homer Martin wired me: "Please come now." Adolph Germer, Leo Krzycki, and PowersHapgood already were on the scene.
I was then in Montreal, where we had been carrying on an aggressiveorganization campaign, and was leaving for the ILGWU generalexecutive board meeting in Washington. After that meeting, with theconsent of President Dubinsky, I took a midnight plane on January 8 forDetroit.
Arriving there shortly after 4 a.m., I took the only cab at the airport,and went to the Fort Wayne Hotel, for a few hours' sleep By 10 I was atUAW headquarters, where I met the strike leaders; including JohnBrophy, who had come from Washington to help. At the time of myprevious visit this headquarters had been as dead as a doornail. Now itwas teeming with activity.
After the morning press conference Martin Brophy, WyndhamMortimer, and George Addes were leaving in a car for Flint, and tookme with them. As we drove toward the embattled area, they told mewhat had been happening in Flint since the sit-down began÷about the exposure of the judge who had granted the injunction; theorganization of the "Flint Alliance," a back-to-work vigilanteset-up, by George Boysen, ex-mayor of the city and formerBuick paymaster; and an attack two days earlier on an outdoor unionmeeting of Chevrolet workers by hoodlums who wrecked the UAWsound equipment.
In Flint we went to the Pengelly building, where I had spoken theprevious spring. Now used as strike headquarters, the place wascrowded.
In the union office new members were steadily being enrolled. Apledge signed by all impressed me deeply. Each man promised to buyonly union-made goods whenever possible; never to discriminateagainst a fellow worker, or wrong him or see him wronged, "if it is inmy power to prevent it"; to "subordinate every selfish impulse to thetask of elevating the material, intellectual, and moral condition of theautomobile worker"; and to "be respectful in word and action to everywoman."
On the second floor, the strike publicity department, directed by CarlHostler, was turning out frequent news releases. Its office was a centerfor writers and artists attracted to Flint to record an epochal chapter of labor history. Among the writers were Mary Heaton Vorseand Josephine Herbst. In another room material was being prepared forthe Flint Auto Worker, weekly organ of the strikers, by its editor, HenryKraus, and his assistants. And volunteer students from the University ofMichigan÷both boys and girls÷were busy putting out amimeographed bulletin, The Punch Press, and miscellaneous leaflets.
Mrs. Bud Simon, wife of the union chairman in Fisher Body No. 1,was in charge of the commissary in Cook's restaurant, across the street.Normally Cook had enjoyed a healthy patronage from the men in No. 1.When the strike came, rather than close his doors, he offered therestaurant to the union, to use as long as need be. All he asked was thatthe UAW pay for rent, gas, and light. Thus the union had a wellequipped center for feeding the strikers, and Cook made many newfriends.
I was taken into Plant No. 1, in which 8,000 workers had beenemployed. Escorted by two strikers, I climbed onto some woodenboxes, and got into the building through an open window. Bud Simonshowed me around inside. Slim, earnest looking, and apparently in hisearly forties, he took his responsibilities as chairman of Fisher No. Iseriously. He was anxious to avoid all unnecessary disturbance andconflict, and to prevent any possible property damage.
Brilliantly lighted, this vast plant was heavily guarded inside andoutside÷to keep strike-breakers and other interlopers fromentering, and to protect the building and its contents. Especially didthese strikers guard the company's dies. No liquor was permitted on thepremises, and smoking was prohibited on all production floors.Forty-five men were assigned to police patrol duty inside. Theirword was law.
Production being at a standstill, a long line of Fisher bodies hungfrom the motionless conveyor-belt,1 as if frozen in space. But throughout the building there was ceaseless movement andwatchfulness. One section had been fitted up like a hotel lobby, withsoft cushions from car bodies to sit on. Newspapers and periodicals of varied political shades, labor papers, and mystery magazines wereamong the reading matter in evidence.
Having organized an orchestra and a chorus, they staged nightlyconcerts, broadcast through a loud speaker from the window toaudiences outside in automobiles and on foot. One of the most popularof the songs had been composed especially for the Flint strikers:

When they tie a can to a union man Sit down! Sit down! When they give him the sack, they'll take him back, Sit down! Sit down!

Sit down, just take a seat Sit down, and rest your feet Sit down, you've got 'em beat Sit down! Sit down!

Most of these men had worked for Fisher Body from four to 12years. They told me it was tough to sit around and do nothing after thespeed-up had got into their blood.
"But I'll sit here till Hell freezes under me," said one. "I won't give upthe fight, for I know where I'll land if we don't win this time."
There was a mass-meeting in the Pengelly building auditoriumon Sunday afternoon, the place being packed to the doors. Brophy,Martin, Hapgood, Victor Reuther, and I spoke to a keenly receptiveaudience, in which many dared for the first time to listen to suchspeeches with hearts and minds open to conviction.
On this, the twelfth day of the strike, the scene was wholly peaceful.With the single exception of the breaking up of the meeting near theChevrolet factory, when the union sound equipment was smashed, noviolence had been used against the Flint strikers.
I had to leave that evening to fill a speaking engagement in Pittsburghand return to Montreal, where pressing affairs demanded my attention.
"You don't really need me," I told John Brophy. "You have thesituation well in hand, and you're moving in the right direction And you've gotAdolphGermer,Leo, andPowers÷they're allfree to stayon as longasnecessary."
"Youmay besure we'llneed youbefore wegetthroughhere,"Brophyanswered."Thiswon't bean easyfight. Hellis likely tobreakloose anyday."
Early inFebruary alongdistancecall fromEd Hall,UAWvise-president,to theILGWU inNew York,wasrelayed tome inMontreal. Imust go toFlint atonce; thesituationwascritical. Atany hourthe leadersexpectedto bearrested.Theywanted meto be onhand,ready totakecharge ofstrikeheadquarters if thatshouldhappen.
Flint, Ialreadyknew fromnewspaperdispatches,hadbecome abattleground the dayafter I leftthere, withstrikers asthecasualties.More than4,000 statetroops,sent in bythe newGovernor,FrankMurphy,were onguard inthe strikearea.
Taking amidnighttrain, Iarrived inDetroitnextafternoon,andhastenedto theHotelStatler,where theUAWgeneralstrategycommitteewasquartered.Here thenegotiations with theGeneralMotorsspokesmenwere beingconductedby John L.Lewis,though hewas sick inbed, withassistancefrom JohnBrophy,AdolphGermer,and theUAWofficials.
By thistime theworkingsof thefar-flung GMCsystem hadbeencrippled sobadly thatit wasproducingonly 1,500cars aweek incontrast to53,000 inmid-December.Nearly allits200,000employeseither wereon strikeor werepreventedfromworkingbecauseessentialparts wereunavailable. Eighteenplantswerestrike5;bound inten cities,the othernine beingDetroit, St.Louis,Toledo,Cleveland,Atlanta,KansasCity, Mo.,Janesville,Wis.,Anderson,Ind., andNorwood,Ohio.
Thesit-downers inFlint stillheldFisherBodyPlants No.I and 2,and theunion alsohad scoredamaster5;stroke intaking overChevroletPlant No.4. Thecompanyhad beencompelledtonegotiate,and thenegotiations werefriendlyenough onthesurface.But thestrikeleaderswereapprehensive that theGMC wasplanningsomesmashingcounter45;blow. Anew andwide-;reachinginjunctionhad beenissued by adifferentjudge, andarrests ofstrikershad begun.