What's Wrong in the House of Labor?
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Feuding and Complacency Within, Hoffa at the Gates What's Wrong in the House of Labor? ROBERT BENDINER /~\F THE more imposing piles of the AFL was challenged in 1935 by John L. Lewis called the turn six ^-J marble, tile, and cool green glass the drive and vision of industrial years ago, when the AFL and the cio erected in the city of Washington unions in the making, the dispirited merged their fortunes. They were since the Second World War, at least federation today is challenged only united, he said, by "a rope of sand." a dozen are the luxurious headquar- by Jimmy Hoffa's Teamsters, an or- Even if the alliance were not torn ters of trade unions, each the capitol ganization that has plenty of drive by jurisdictional feuding—and it is of a labor satrapy that is proud to but no more vision than it takes to torn almost to the point of paralysis spend millions of dollars • in mem- provide a home away from jail for —it would be creaking under the bership dues on such visible proofs such laboring men as Johnny Dio strain of holding together those la- of wealth and status. Sharing a Six- and Tony "Ducks" Corallo. bor leaders who believe in more teenth Street block with the elegant Is there a connection between sur- bread and butter plus a few social Carlton Hotel and its ground floor plus fat in high places and the platitudes and those who want labor with a large firm of stockbrokers, for lethargy that has come over the fed- to be the vanguard of enlightenment example, is the Hod Carriers Union. erated house of labor? Walter and reform from here to Tibet. Out of consideration for the Carl- Reuther, whose moral fervor has not On the surface the latter group, ton's management it tactfully agrees faded since he ran up a seven-year mostly from the old cio, has about to call the structure the Moreschi record of perfect Sunday-school at- given up. The merged federation's Building, after its president, but the tendance in his youth, suggests out- political, social, and economic poli- fact remains that the Hod Carriers right cause and effect. "The AFL-CIO cies are geared to the lowest com- have arrived. From the most impor- code of ethics was adopted in the mon denominator, and there is no tant of these seats of government, roulette room of the Monte Carlo question that the body as a whole George Meany, erstwhile plumber Hotel in Miami Beach," he says with is much more conservative than the and now president of the AFL-CIO, evangelical scorn, "and in February, hosts that followed Lewis in the daily walks just the distance required at the height of the season, at that. 1930's, Philip Murray in the 1940's, to enter his large limousine, which, That's what's wrong with labor." and Reuther in the 1950's. Resolu- complete with uniformed chauffeur, Much more is wrong, of course, tions still pour forth at conventions, is provided by the merged federa- as Reuther, for one, can explain but they are perfunctory compro- tion. To a colleague who once pro- colorfully and at length—just as mises, watered down in advance to posed walking to a hotel three min- Hoffa's future status in the labor avoid debate and to arouse no alarm utes away, President Meany replied movement is far more complicated a in the most Republican member of with the simplicity that is his hall- question than whether sin will win the Building Trades. Pro-labor con- mark, "What the hell do you think over outraged virtue. gressmen complain that except when I have a Cadillac for?" To understand Hoffa's growing strictly trade-union matters are at Yet at this moment, when at least power, to appreciate the excellent issue, they have to call up union the business agents of the meek seem chance he has of forcing his way headquarters and urge them to send to have inherited the earth, the back into the federation that ex- their lobbyists around to support American trade-union movement is pelled his union for corruption in bills in the general interest. on the downgrade, its spirits low, its 1957, requires only a glimpse inside operations static, its horizons nar- the fortress he expects to storm. The UT this surrender of spirit has left row, its public image dismal, and its scene suggests nothing so much as B a backwash of resentment that forces engaged in precisely the kind an assembly of old-time Chinese war is surprisingly bitter and articulate. of family feuding that preceded the lords sucked into an alliance that Making the rounds of union head- splitting of the old AFL in the was painfully inevitable at the time quarters, I repeatedly heard com- days of William Green. The differ- and has been inevitably painful ever ments like this one from the political ence is that where the stodginess of since. That confirmed old maverick representative of a large union: October 12, 1961 41 PRODUCED 2004 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED "Something's missing in the labor ings account fill out the picture. gravation. What would happen if movement now. Everyone seems What the survey does not say but there were no union yardstick in tired out except Hoffa. There's me- what union leaders freely admit is the field is a question that both diocrity or weariness everywhere you that strikes are an unwelcome inter- parties are too satisfied to raise. turn." An old-time organizer, at least ruption for these credit-burdened f Congressional action has hurt twenty-five years in the business, middle-class workers. Moreover, the unions and slowed down their shook his head sadly. "This is the taxes and socially oriented politics drive. The Landrum-Griffin Act, in- most frustrating period of my life are no more popular among them spired by the McClellan Committee's in trade unions—there's no lift." A than in the local Chamber of Com- revelations of knavery in the Team- veteran educational director of a big merce. And neither union nor gov- sters, did no visible harm to Mr. union observed that "the spirit of ernment gets credit from them for Hoffa's union, which has in fact crusading" had gone out, leaving the various forms of social security supplanted the Auto Workers as the him with "a feeling of discontent largest in the country. It has hurt and disenchantment." Almost as an smaller unions that relied on the afterthought he remarked, "I think Teamsters to win their strikes by the merger is coming apart at the imposing secondary boycotts, now seams." forbidden, and refusing to handle "hot cargo." An Inventory of Gloom f The race issue has hamstrung It is easy for the outsider, especially union organizers in one of the great- if his memories go back to the tur- est areas of opportunity still open, bulence of the 1930's, to make in- the South. Sharing enthusiastically vidious comparisons between Lewis in the mores of their region, South- and Meany, but the fact is that most ern unionists often turn out to be of organized labor's problems are by members of the White Citizens' no means self-made. They are forced Councils or at the very least advo-. by external events, and they go far to cates of Jim Crow locals. Spending explain the low spirits that now an international's funds on this sort prevail, especially in former cio of organizing inevitably stirs up re- circles. The chief of these devel- sentment among anti-segregationists, opments, with a few facts about North and South, while any show of them, follow: integrationist tendencies is cheer- f Automation and other techno- fully used by Southern employers to logical advances have had a stunning turn racial passions against the effect on the industrial unions that they enjoy and take for granted. union. Failure of the various Opera- were the heart of the old cio—autos, Members under forty tend to be- tions Dixie can be attributed to sev- steel, electric, and textiles. All told, lieve that people have always had eral factors, but not least to this the industrial unions are reliably vacations with pay and that collec- one. It accounts, too, for the hollow- estimated to have lost 800,000 mem- tive bargaining and social security ness of labor-convention resolutions bers in the past five years. At the came in with Jefferson and are part on segregation and the eloquent same time, most of the nonmanufac- of the Constitution. scorn with which they are regularly turing unions—especially the Team- fl As the number of production denounced by President A. Philip sters, Hotel and Restaurant Work- and maintenance workers decreases, Randolph of the Brotherhood of ers, Railway Clerks, Meat Cutters, the number of clerical, technical, Sleeping Car Porters. Retail Clerks, and Carpenters—are and service workers has gone up, ^f So much have certain industries doing well and going up in the table until there are now as many white- been affected by the current flood of relative union strength. collar workers as there are blue. But of foreign goods, made at low wages, f Figures put out by the AFL-CIO the white-collar worker is, for psy- that at least a dozen unions in the to show the "changes that unions chological and social reasons, by far federation have been driven to urge have helped bring about in Ameri- the hardest for the unions to recruit.