" THE LAND OF PROMISE" 1960 AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AFL-CIO HISTO...

“ AMERICANS AT WORK / LETTER CARRIERS” 1959 AFL-CIO UNION PROMO FILM U....

" AMERICANS AT WORK STEEL WORKERS " 1950s AFL-CIO UNION KAISER STEEL...

Excerpt From Engels' 1892 Preface To His 1844 `Condition of Working Class' Book Revisited

"...The cause of the miserable condition of the working-class is to be sought...in the capitalistic system itself. The wage-worker sells to the capitalist his labor-force for a certain daily sum. After a few hours' work he has reproduced the value of that sum; but...he has to work another series of hours to complete his working-day; and the value he produces during these additional hours of surplus labor is surplus value; which costs the capitalist nothing, but yet goes into his pocket. That is the basis of the system which tends more and more to split up civilized society into a few Rothschilds and Vanderbilts, the owners of all the means of production and subsistence, on the one hand, and an immense number of wage-workers, the owners of nothing but their labor-force, on the other...

"...So long as the wealthy classes not only do not feel the want of any emancipation, but strenuously oppose the self-emancipation of the working-class, so long the social revolution will have to be prepared and fought out by the working-class alone...And today, the very people who..preach to the workers a Socialism...tending to reconcile...the interests of both the contending classes--these people are either neophytes, who have still to learn a great deal, or they are the worst enemies of the workers--wolves in sheep's clothing...

"...Today there is indeed...Socialism of all shades: Socialism conscious and unconscious and of the middle-class, for, verily, that abomination of abominations, Socialism, has not only become respectable, but has actually donned evening dress and lounges lazily on drawing-room love-seats...What I consider far more important than this momentary fashion among bourgeois circles of affecting a mild dilution of Socialism...is the revival of the East End of London...It has...become the home of...the organization of the great mass of `unskilled' workers..."

Engels' 1844 Description of Results of Industrialization In English-Speaking Capitalist Countries

As long ago as 1844, Fred Engels indicated what the results of industrialization were under the capitalist economic system in predominantly English-speaking countries, in the following way:

"...Murder has...been committed if society places hundreds of workers in such a position that they inevitably come to premature and unnatural ends. Their death is as violent as if they had been stabbed or shot. Murder has been committed if thousands of workers have been deprived of the necessities of life or if they have been forced into a situation in which it is impossible for them to survive. Murder has been committed if the workers have been forced by the strong arm of the law to go on living under such conditions until death inevitably releases them. Murder has been committed if society knows perfectly well that thousands of workers cannot avoid being sacrificed so long as these conditions are allowed to continue. Murder of this sort is just as culpable as the murder committed by an individual...If a worker dies no one places the responsibility for his death on society, though some would realize that society has failed to take steps to prevent the victim from dying. But it is murder all the same...

"...The workers are...condemned to a lifetime of unremitting toil...Man knows no more degrading or unbearable misery than forced labor. No worse fate can befall a man than to have to work every day from morning to night against his will at a job that he abhors...He works because he must...Because his hours of labor are so long and so dismally monotonous, the worker must surely detest his job after the first few weeks...In most branches of industry the task of the worker is limited to insignificant and purely repetitive tasks which continue minute by minute for every day of the year...There are only two courses open to the worker. He may submit to his fate and become a `good worker'...or he can resist and fight for his rights as far as humanly possible..."

Engels' 1844 Take on English-Speaking Workers Competing With Each Other Under Capitalism Revisited

As long ago as 1844, Fred Engels indicated how the majority of English-speaking workers, living under a capitalist economic system in predominantly English-speaking countries, don't benefit from competing with each other, in the following way:

"Competition is the most extreme expression of that war of all which dominates...society. This struggle for existence--which in extreme cases is a life and death struggle--is waged not only between different classes of society but also between individuals within these social groups. Everybody competes in some way against everyone else and consequently each individual tries to push aside anyone whose existence is a barrier to his own advancement. The workers compete among themselves...Those who are unemployed or poorly paid try to undercut and so destroy the livelihood of those who have work and are earning better wages. This competition of workers among themselves is the worst aspect of the present situation as far as the proletariat is concerned. This is the sharpest weapon...against the working classes. This explains the rise of trade unions, which represent an attempt to eliminate such fratricidal conflict between the workers themselves...

"The worker is helpless; left to himself he cannot survive a single day...In law and in fact the worker is the slave...The worker has no choice but to accept the terms offered...or go hungry and naked like the wild beasts...The bourgeoisie alone...decide the terms of the bargain...

"...The...difference between the old-fashioned slavery and the new is that while the former was openly acknowledged the latter is disguised. The worker appears to be free, because he is not bought and sold outright. He is sold piecemeal by the day, the week, or the year. Moreover he is not sold by one owner to another, but he is forced to sell himself in this fashion. He is not the slave of a single individual, but of the whole capitalist class. As far as the worker is concerned...there can be no doubt as to his servile status...His real masters, the...capitalists, can discard him at any moment and leave him to starve, if they have no further use for his services and no further interest in his survival...They can now get rid of their workers whenever it pleases them without losing any of their capital...

"...Wages fall owing to competition between the unemployed...The workers suffer great distress. The small savings of the individual workers are soon spent and charitable organizations are overwhelmed with appeals for help...The number of those who are starving increases...The `superfluous' workers may or may not survive...

"...English industry must always have a reserve of unemployed workers, except during the short period when the boom is at its height. The existence of such a reserve is essential in order that labor may be available to produce the great quantities of goods which are needed during the few months when the business boom reaches its climax...The size of this reserve varies with the state of trade....During a slump the reserve of unemployed swells to formidable dimensions. Even when trade is moderately active--in between the extremes of boom and depression--there are still many workers who are unemployed. This pool of unemployed is the `surplus population.'...When they are out of work, these people eke out a miserable existence...If these people can find no work and are not prepared to rebel against society, what else can they do but beg? No wonder that there exists a great army of beggars, mostly able-bodied men..."

Is Poland's Capitalist Economic System Failing To Benefit Polish Workers In 21st Century?

Polish working-class people in the 21st-century have apparently not gained much prosperity within Poland from the post-late1980s re-establishment of a capitalist economic system in Poland. As a Bloomberg Business Week article of May , 2014, for example, observed:

"...Pay and benefits in Poland average 10.4 EU (euros) compared with 42.6 EU (euros) in Germany. Poland is home to 5 of the continent's 20-poorest regions. Unemployment nationwide is 13.5 percent...More than 1 million earn less than 5 Zloty ($1.66) an hour.

"At least 25 million young Poles have left during the decade...About a half-million Poles left the country last year [in 2013], the most since the exodus after Poles became EU citizens and were free to move and work in member states..."

History of British Working-Class's Daily Newspaper--Part 2

History of British Working-Class's Daily Newspaper--Part 1

Remembering Labor Economist Jack Stieber (1919-2011)--Conclusion

(The following interview with former Michigan State University Professor and Labor Economist Jack Stieber--who died at the age of 91 in March 2011—about historic labor issues was previously published in the February 5, 1997 issue of the Aquarian/Downtown alternative weekly newspaper.)

Aquarian/Downtown: What about the effect on labor and on the labor movement of the new workfare programs, forcing welfare recipients to work for their benefits, NAFTA, globalization? What do you think the effect of that will be in the 21st Century? Is that really insignificant historically?

Stieber: It's not that insignificant. And I think it will make it more difficult, as it is today, for unions to maintain the kind of power that they have had in certain industries. That's inevitable.

Of course, when you talk about workfare: One the one hand you may be supportive of unions and feel that it's very important that unions should grow and remain as a counter-balance to large industry. On the other hand, we also want people who are unemployed, on welfare, to be able to improve their lives as well.

There is an apparent conflict, for example, as you probably read, in New York City, right now. Some of the unions are starting to raise questions about the new welfare bill which requires that people go off welfare and get jobs.

Well, one way of getting them off welfare and on to jobs is to have them do some of the kind of work that, ordinarily, would be done by union members. And some of the unions have raised questions about this. On the one hand, they don't want people who have been unemployed or on welfare to take their jobs. On the other hand, they are sympathetic to the people to be able to get jobs and to get off welfare.

So it presents a conflict where they have to sort of walk a tightrope. On the one hand, protecting their membership. And, on the other hand, not seeming to stand in the way of people who are trying to improve their situation.

As far as NAFTA is concerned: on the one hand, it does mean that you might lose jobs--and you do lose jobs to a place like Mexico. On the other hand, if you are interested in workers generally, you should also be interested not only in workers in the United States. There are workers in Mexico too. And they're much worse off than workers here.

Yet the A.F. of L.-C.I.O. opposed NAFTA, strictly on the grounds: "Well, this may hurt our members. Because some industries are going to leave and do the work in Mexico." But Mexico isn't the only place. They can do the work in Thailand. They can do it in Burma. You know, any one of these countries. Indonesia and so on. But the flip side of that is that, to the extent that some of the jobs that are in the United States go to these other countries, people in these other countries improve their situation. And, as a result, our ability to export to them is also improved. So that it's not all one-sided.

Aquarian/Downtown: What about the impact on wages? Some people argue that part of the reason that real wages are actually declining--you know, the downsizing of the high-wage jobs being replaced by people working in supermarkets--is related to this globalization?

Stieber: Well, I think it is. I think that the jobs that are being created today--many of them--are much lower-paying jobs than the ones that have been lost as a result of the downsizing. And also, as a result of being able to have work done outside the United States at wages much lower than we pay in the United States.

They are developing countries who are in a situation where we might have been a hundred years ago. And they have to get their start in the same way as we did ours. So that the best position is to not only do work that comes from countries like the United States and Western Europe, but also to have sufficient resources and be able, actually, to buy from these countries.

So that it does hurt the labor movement. And because labor movements are national movements--they're not international, even though you have organizations which are international like the International Metalworkers and other unions that meet maybe once, or two or three times a year--bargaining does not go on, on an international basis. It goes on within your own industry and within your own company and within your own country. So that it's inevitable that unions will have to take a position: "We have to protect our members." And one of the positions which labor took is "We think that NAFTA is going to hurt American workers."

I think, in the short-run, this is probably true. But in the longer run, I think it will rebound to the benefit of American workers. And, at the same time, also help workers in Mexico. Of course, Canada is a part of NAFTA, also. And while Canadian wages are somewhat lower than the United States, labor is much stronger in Canada than it is in the United States.

Aquarian/Downtown: When you say "the long-run." I mean, you got a situation now. Like in New York, the official unemployment rate--I just called up the Bureau of Labor Statistics--is 9.1 percent [in 1997]. Much higher than the national average. The African-American unemployment rate is 10.5 percent [in 1997]. When you say "long-run improvement," what happens in the short-run? Is "long-run" five years, 10 years?

Stieber:  It's probably much longer than that. And the unemployment rate--I would be surprised if it was as high as nine percent [in 1997].

In Massachusetts you probably have an unemployment rate of about 4 percent [in 1997]. In Michigan it's about 4 percent [in 1997]. Unemployment has never been the same all over the country. It's always varied. In California, it sometimes has been among the lowest. Now it's among the highest.

In Michigan, for example, we often have been among the higher unemployment levels, when the automobile industry is down.

Aquarian/Downtown: The argument that has been made by those who say the Labor Department is spinning the figures for the media in a politically partisan way is that there are regional variations. And in the places like New York which had high wages, it's much higher. The Northeast has not benefited from whatever recovery of the '90s, and in California, for instance, it's a high rate for Hispanics. It's an uneven kind of thing.

Stieber: It's always been uneven. But I think it's not surprising that it would be uneven because you have different industries in different parts of the country. Some industries are doing well. Others are not doing well. I don't know enough about California, particularly. But I suppose this is one of the reasons why in California you find that they are passing laws which are most undesirable, in terms of effects upon immigrants, "illegal" or legal for that matter. Because whenever you have a problem, you look for somebody to blame. And they say "Well, the people who are responsible for our unemployment rate are these `illegals' that are coming in from Mexico. And taking jobs or wages that American workers are not prepared to accept."

Aquarian/Downtown: In a sense, the scapegoating appears to be a kind of anxiety. One way it was expressed was in the Buchanan vote [in 1996 presidential election]. In terms of the short-term economic suffering that the victims of downsizing are experiencing, how long a period of time will this suffering last? And can the labor movement respond?

Stieber: The labor movement responds by doing the best job they can to protect the workers and trying to organize the workers. But, you know, it's not inevitable that the United States should be the highest wage country in the world. It's not so long ago that workers in the United States were making the most money of any other country. And the second one was Great Britain.

The United States is no longer at the top of the heap. We're maybe number four or five. [in 1997]. How has this taken place? It's taken place because over a period of 40, 50 years these other countries have developed. In a sense, some of them havae actually benefited from the fact that they lost the war. In other words, Germany lost the war so their industry was destroyed. And we helped them rebuilt it. is anybody prepared to say now that that was a mistake? I don't think so.

But I think these countries have become major competitors to the United States. In some countries the reason they are doing well is their labaor movement is more effective than in the United States. In Germany that's true. And in Sweden that is true. Less true in Japan because the labor movement there is organized in a different fashion. The United States was once the highest-paying country. It's now maybe fourth or fifth. But American workers earn more than most other workers.

So globalization does have the effect of reducing the clout of unions in the welathiest countries. On the other hand, it does have the effect of improving the situation in those countries where workers have always been among the poorest.

Now, hwo long it will take? I don't know. Certainly not in our lifetime. But I think the job of unions is to do their best to protect their workers, and yet, to recognize that we're part of one world. American workers may be harmed by improving the lot of Mexican workers or Indonesians or whatever. But one shouldn't turn a blind eye to it. And I think the American labor movement recognizes that.

On the other hand, I don't see that we're going to come back to a point where unions will represent 20, 25, 30 percent of the labor force. (end of article)

Remembering Labor Economist Jack Stieber (1919-2011)--Part 2

(The following interview with former Michigan State University Professor and Labor Economist Jack Stieber--who died at the age of 91 in March 2011—about historic labor issues was previously published in the February 5, 1997 issue of the Aquarian/Downtown alternative weekly newspaper.)

Aquarian/Downtown: So you’re talking about a situation [in the late 1940s] when labor’s influence in the United States seemed to be at its peak?

Stieber: Well, it was certainly very high. Because during the war prices and wages had been controlled, so that when the war was over, unions said `we have lost a lot during this period, due to inflation, and we’ve got to make it up.’ And strikes were being threatened and actually carried out all over the country.

Take Walter Reuther for example, and the UAW, who had just become president of the UAW, having defeated the communist forces. There was a lot of internal fighting within the union which had been very close to the Communist Party. But Reuther and his faction eventually became the foremost activists in the union and the issues that were then being posed—for example, pensions. At that time there were no negotiated pensions among unions and companies. And, in fact, when the steelworkers made one of their major issues in 1949 to negotiate pensions, the government set up a three-member impartial panel to hear the case in New York City. And it was even argued that pensions were not negotiable. In other words, that pensions were exclusive to employers. But the board held that they were negotiable.

Eventually, through strikes and other labor actions they become fairly universal. Pensions began to become part of collective bargaining. And by 1950 the automobile workers, the steelworkers, electrical workers, etc.—a lot of the unions—had succeeded in negotiating on pensions.

I worked in the Steelworkers for two years, but then the Korean War started in 1950 while Truman was president. And he called on unions to forego the strike weapon during the war and cooperate with government. Which they had done during World War II. But one of the things that Philip Murray had learned during that period was that while in World War II the government gave some very top-level positions to union people—like Sidney Hillman, for example, or the textile workers union, Amalgamated Clothing Workers, and so on, UAW, and others.

But Murray had learned that the people who really do the work and deal with day-to-day problems are at sort of a middle level. So that his position at that time was that `we want a bunch of our young people to go to work for the government’ on matters that had relationships to unions at middle-level type positions. And he identified me as one of the people to go down to Washington and to do that. So after working a a few agencies, I then became the executive assistant to the C.I.O. members of the Wage Stabilization Board. There was still a bifurcated labor movement. The A.F. of L. was one federation, and the Congress of Industrial Organizations was another. And there was a tripartite Wage Stabilization Board established.

I think it had six industry members, six labor members and six public members. The labor members were generally presidents of unions and I sort of worked for them—Emile Reavy, president of the Textile Workers, Joe Chiles, president of the Rubber Workers, Joe Byrne, president of the Communications Workers were three of my principals. But as union presidents they were not in a position to sit around in an office and do things. So I had a small staff and would work directly with the other staff members in the agency.

Aquarian/Downtown: It sounds like at that time the government seemed to be more inclusive in terms of labor. And labor had influence. What has happened between now and then?

Stieber: It wouldn’t be any different, even now. whenever there is a national emergency—and a war is the utmost national emergency there can be—the government has to try to co-opt the unions to cooperate. And union members and officers are really reflective of the United States, generally. They’re patriotic. So when there’s a war they say `We’re not going to interfere with war production. On the other hand, we’re not going to allow our members to suffer while others are making money out of the war. And therefore we want to be a part of whatever is being done.’

So unions were important. By the mid-1950s, unions represented about 33 percent of the labor industry, which did not include any public unions.

Since then, unions have declined from about 33 percent to about 15 percent [in 1997]. And whereas in the 1950s it was all private sector, a significant part of the labor movement today is public sector. In fact some of the largest unions, like AFSCME—American Federation of State, County, Municipal Employees, teachers’ unions, the government unions, constitute a very significant part.

Aquarian/Downtown: You mentioned that decline in numbers. In your viewpoint, having studied the whole situation for years, what has caused that decline?

Stieber: Well, I think a lot of things. One of them is the structure of industry has changed. Whereas the unions were most effective in organizing large-scale industries like steel and textile and electronics and automobiles, the structure of industry has changed so that these industries have become less important. For example, the automobile probably employed over a million workers. But as a result of increases in technology and automation and so on, they were able to reduce their labor force. And as a result, reducing membership in unions to what is now on the order of, probably, 400,000 to 500,000 among the Big Three: Chrysler, Ford and General Motors. General Motors would be still the largest.

Another is that employers have always preferred to work without unions. Some of the companies that were eventually organized as a result of very bitter strikes, where people were killed and things like that, once the unions were recognized in companies like Ford and General Motors, they were able to work together. They would be able to negotiate contracts. Occasionally there would be strikes. But these major companies were generally accepting of the fact that they had to work with the unions. Because the unions had organized their workers. But, if there is an opportunity, employers would still prefer to work without unions.

And the National Labor Relations Act—which was a great boost for labor organization in the 1930s and after the war—allows employers to resist unions quite effectively. And they can string you out a long period of time before you can have an election. And if you’re in an organizing campaign, you can’t get an election at the height of your membership’s support. They can put it off for months or even a year or so. Union support will decline. And, eventually, the elections will not be successful.

The structure of American industry, where these major mass production industries became less important, also had the effect of reducing the clout of labor unions. That, along with the continuing opposition of employers in the United States, had a lot to do with it. And also the international competition which you now have since the ‘80s or thereabouts. If companies became internationalized, and you can get products made more cheaply in Asian countries or in Mexico or in some other place, that effectively makes it more difficult for unions to organize and also to get the kind of contracts that they would be negotiating with managements.

So, as a result, gradually from 33 percent, unions have gone down to about 15.8 percent. Of which only about 11 percent are private sector [in 1997].

But I think one of the things that one shouldn’t lose sight of is, despite the fact that unions only represent about half the proportion of the workforce, they still account for about 18 million members [in 1997]. You don’t have any other sector of the economy where you have that many individuals who are a part of a movement.

I think one might fault the labor movement since the late 1970s for not pursuing organization efforts strongly enough. Once a union becomes entrenched it’s a lot easier for a staff member to do his day-to-day job and service the local union, handle grievances, represent them in arbitration and do things like that, than to go out and do the organizing of new workers. And the A.F. of L.-C.I.O. under Meany and, subsequently, when Lane Kirkland was president, did not really put a very high priority on organization.

Now whether or not things are likely to change with a new administration? They seem to be putting greater efforts into organization. And one of the things that they also are doing especially during this election period, is spending a lot of money on political action. Something like $30 million [in 1996] devoted to supporting candidates and advertising and so on.

Do we expect that this will make a big change in organization? The odds are that it won’t. Instead of 15.8 percent, you might creep up to another percentage point or two. But I think the labor movement is not likely to grow very much more than it is today. But it still is an effective force in many industries. (end of part 2)

Remembering Labor Economist Jack Stieber (1919-2011)--Part 1

(The following interview with former Michigan State University Professor and Labor Economist Jack Stieber--who died at the age of 91 in March 2011—about historic labor issues was previously published in the February 5, 1997 issue of the Aquarian/Downtown alternative weekly newspaper.)

Aquarian/Downtown: How did you come to get involved in the study of U.S. labor issues?

Stieber: When I went to college as an undergraduate at CCNY in New York City—it was the Depression in the 1930s and 25 percent or so unemployment—the only way in which young people could see to improve life was to work through labor unions. To help them in any way that we could in organizing. And the New Deal came in about that time when Roosevelt was elected. And he, by getting the National Labor Relations Act passed, encouraged the organization of unions.

Most young people at that time were greatly interested in labor and it was a big issue. If you read the newspapers going back to those days my guess is that you’d almost every day read about organization. Steelworkers being organized. Automobile workers being organized. The internal battle between the A.F. of L. and the newly-organized C.I.O. under John L. Lewis. These were the kind of things that were very interesting. And young people were well aware of them and you were reading about them all the time. We didn’t have television or anything like that, where you would see these things. But those were major issues.

I majored in economics as an undergraduate, with an interest in unions, and took whatever courses there were. And after I graduated in 1940, I started to work in Washington, in what was then called the War Manpower Commission, because the war had already started in Europe. And my job was to make surveys of areas in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. And to estimate what would be the supply of labor needed in various kinds of industries and the available labor force. So that I sort of became a person who was identified as being specialized as an expert in that area.

In 1941 I was drafted and was in the Service for three-and-a-half years. And when I came out, I went to work in the Veterans Emergency Housing Program. It was then headed by Wilson Wyatt, the former mayor of Louisville. And he was already recognized as being presidential timber. The kind of guy that was always in the news and doing things. And I worked in the labor branch of that agency. And the job of the labor branch was to go out in the field when there were disputes between unions and companies and try to resolve them. I was sort of a research assistant in the office.

But there was a lot of competition to get supplies after the war. Our job in the housing agency was to get those supplies to be put into relatively low-cost housing. So that veterans would be able to buy a house for $10,000.

Aquarian/Downtown: Some kind of economic conversion?

Stieber: That’s right. Conversion at that time. But there was a big dispute between Wilson Wyatt and the administration. That instead of the raw materials for housing going into construction, it was going into race tracks and things like that. Where entrepreneurs were seeing a way to make a buck.

Aquarian/Downtown: Has the situation changed much in the ‘90s, in your view?

Stieber: Well, obviously, it still goes on. And politics is important in making these determinations. But the unions, by the end of the War in 1945, had grown very substantially. Because the War Labor Board was between unions and managements, so that there wouldn’t be strikes which would interfere with the war effort. And by that time, of course, there were two federations. John L. Lewis took the major industrial unions—like the steelworkers, the automobile workers, the textile workers, the chemical workers, the electrical workers, etc.—out of the A.F. of L.. It was then the American Federation of Labor on the one hand, and the Congress of Industrial Organizations on the other, which had the federation for the major unions organized in that field.

When the agency folded, I was looking for something to do. And at that time a number of universities established programs in labor and industrial relations. Cornell was the first program that was set up. Other programs were set up almost immediately thereafter. The University of Illinois started a program in industrial relations. The University of Minnesota started a program. And I applied to several of those and became a graduate student at the University of Minnesota.

A friend of mine was Otis Rubaker, who became the research director of the Steelworkers Union. And after I had been in Minnesota, he called me and said `How would you like to work for the Steelworkers Union?’

Well, I sort of felt that I had enough of academic life at that point and went down to Pittsburgh. And, after sitting around for a few hours, was ushered into the office of Philip Murray, who with his old Scottish accent, said `Young mon, I understand from Otis that you are a dedicated young mon who is interested in the union. And if you would like to work for us, why, we’d be glad to have you.’

So I then left Minnesota and moved down to Pittsburgh. And went to work for the Steelworkers Union. This was December, 1948. (end of part 1)

`Mother Bloor (We Are Many)'

(chorus)
"We are many, they are few"
She told the working poor
And what she learned, she wrote all down
In "The Life of Mother Bloor."

(verses)
Ella Reeve was born
In 1862
And as a child met Walt Whitman
On the ferry.
Her mother died
When she was seventeen
And at nineteen, she married.
Her husband told her of
The Molly Maguires' Trial
And nineteen innocent miners hanged.
Then she had three kids
And when two of them died
Her own life filled with pain.

She fought for the right
Of women to vote
And joined the Knights of Labor.
Then she divorced
And moved to New York
And heard Debs speak for workers in America.
She organized for
De Leon's group
But felt it ignored the daily fight.
So when she was forty
In 1901
She joined Debs' Socialists one night. (chorus)

When miners struck
In 1902
She raised money for their families.
And she organized the sale
Of "Appeal to Reason"
And spoke against child labor and lynching.
When brickmakers struck
She was there
And organized in Connecticut.
And when Upton Sinclair
Published "The Jungle"
Her research proved true his book.

She worked with Katharine
Hepburn's mother
A leader of suffragettes.
Then organized in Ohio
Where thirteen socialist mayors
Folks did elect.
She talked to miners
In West Virginia
And there met Mother Jones.
And when men attacked
The D.C. women's march
Ma Bloor marched and
Heard her sisters' moan. (chorus)

She was in Calumet,
Michigan
And saw goons kill seventy-three kids.
And when she helped
Ludlow miners
Saw Rockefeller's troops kill kids again.
She opposed World War I
And worked to free
All Wobblies who were jailed.
Then helped form
The Workers Party
After seeing why Socialists had failed.

She worked to free
Tom Mooney
And save Sacco and Vanzetti.
And on the night
Of their execution
Was arrested by Boston police.
With thousands she marched
At their funeral
And stood next to Sacco's widow
At the New York rally.
And in the Great Depression
Of the 1930s
She helped unionize industry. (chorus)

She fought against
Fascism's rise
And tried to stop a new world war.
All her life she fought
For all workers
And to free those who history books ignored.
So remember Mother Bloor
And learn from Mother Bloor
If still you are ruled by the few.
And organize like Ma Bloor
And fight like Ma Bloor
Until workers create a world that is new. (chorus)

Hidden History of Texas--1890-1920--Part 5

(This article was originally posted on The Rag Blog on Apr. 9, 2012)

During the 1890-1920 period of Texas history a post-1900 revival of Texas labor and farmer activism developed into a worker-farmer political alliance which produced some pro-labor laws between 1900 and 1915 in Texas.

As F. Ray Marshall recalled in his 1967 book Labor in the South:

“In 1900, the railway brotherhoods and the Texas State Federation of Labor [TSFL] established the Joint Labor Legislative Board of Texas. The board formed an alliance with the Farmers’ Union, organized in 1902.

“The Texas Joint Board was instrumental in securing the passage of favorable labor legislation during the 1900-1915 period, particularly: a 1901 measure outlawing the issuance of company checks, tickets or symbols of any sort redeemable only in merchandise at company stores; a child labor law -- first adopted in 1903 and improved in 1911; a 1907 law giving railroad telegraphers an eight-hour day; an eight-hour shift for state employees and persons working on government contracts in 1911; a 1913 law establishing a 9-hour day and a 54-hour work week for women in manufacturing; anti-blacklisting and mine safety codes in 1907; apprenticeship requirements for locomotive engineers and conductors, a full crew law for passenger trains and a requirement that railroads repair their equipment in Texas shops; and workmen’s compensation for railroad workers in 1909; workmen’s compensation was extended to industrial workers in 1911; a bureau of labor statistics in 1909 to enforce protective labor legislation; and the abolition of the convict lease system in 1910.”

  But by 1915 the political clout of Texas’s labor movement had begun to decline after cooperation with insurgent Texas farmers “began to weaken in 1911 when the Farmers’ Union secured the passage of the bill -- over labor’s objections -- to establish a textile mill in the Rusk penitentiary, and in 1913 when the farmers lobbied against the railway brotherhoods' 'full crew.'" Texas’s “Farmers’ Union had [by then] been infiltrated by the anti-union Commercial Secretaries Association,” according to Labor in the South.

Formed in Rains County, Texas, in 1902, the all-white Farmers’ Educational and Cooperative Union of America (aka The Farmers’ Union) excluded Texas’ African-American farmers as members. Yet “country teachers, mechanics, physicians, ministers of the gospels and publishers” who were not farmers, but who were white, were apparently allowed to be members, according to Labor in the South.


Despite having been able to recruit about 120,000 members in Texas during its early years, by 1919 the Farmers Union had ceased to exist as a significant and influential mass-based progressive political force within the state (although it still claimed 10,000 members in Texas in 1990).

The Texas labor movement’s political clout also decreased again by 1915 after Texas State Federation of Labor leaders complained that five of the six seats on the Joint Labor Legislative Board of Texas should not still be held by railroad brotherhood representatives -- because the number of railway brotherhood members in Texas was only 16 percent of the 9,000 Texas workers who were members of the Texas State Federation of Labor-affiliated unions in 1906.

So in 1914, the leaders of Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, the Order of Railway Conductors, and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen decided to end their organizational involvement in the Joint Labor Legislative Board of Texas.

But despite the legislative gains made by Texas workers between 1900 and 1915, this was also a period when dissatisfied Texas workers in the lumber industry of East Texas -- 7,958 of whom were African-Americans who worked mostly as laborers in Texas lumber industry mills -- joined lumber industry workers of adjacent Southern states in a region-wide strike. As Philip Foner recalled in his History of the Labor Movement in United States , Vol. IV: The Industrial Workers of the World 1905-1917:

“The magnificent forests of... East Texas... were literally stolen by the lumber companies from the public domain... They were handed over to the lumber kings for prices ranging from 12.5 cents to 75 cents an acre...

“Having grabbed these forests -- one company owned 87,000 acres in a single tract in Western Louisiana and Eastern Texas -- the companies proceeded to operate them as feudal domains, filling the towns with gunmen whom the authorities had commissioned as deputy sheriffs, and jailing anyone who questioned their rule...

“Following a... study in Texas, the Commission on Industrial Relations found "that in such communities, political liberty does not exist and its forms are hollow mockery... Free speech, free assembly, and a free press may be denied as they have been denied time and again, and the employer’s agent may be placed in public office to do his bidding..."

 
So, not surprisingly, according to Foner’s 1965 book:

“The first widespread revolt of the lumber workers occurred in the autumn of 1907…The lumber companies, taking advantage of the panic of 1907, issued orders to cut wages 20 percent or more, and lengthened the hours of work. Against these orders, all the lumber workers in Western Louisiana and Eastern Texas rose en masse, and in a spontaneous general strike closed hundreds of mills…”

 
Although most of the striking Texas lumber workers soon returned to work after “promises of wage increases when economic conditions improved were made” to them by lumber company managers, according to the same book, “not only were the promises not kept, but the oppression grew even worse” over the next few years.

So after dissatisfied activist workers in the U.S. lumber industry joined together to create a national industrial union of lumber industry workers, the Brotherhood of Timber Workers [B. of T.W.] in June 1911, “the B. of T.W. spread rapidly over Texas,…recruiting Negroes and white lumberjacks, mill workers, tenant and small farmers who worked in the lumber industry for parts of the year, and town craftsmen,” according to Foner’s History of the Labor Movement in the United States. The same book also described how the corporations that still controlled the lumber industry in Texas between 1890 and 1920 then chose to respond to the success that the Brotherhood of Timber Workers industrial union organizing drive in Texas was achieving in 1911:

“The union’s rapid growth had alarmed the employers. In the summer of 1911, individual mill owners began to take action against the organization, requiring all workers to sign a card declaring that they would not join the union. This caused several strikes and a number of mills shut down, discharged every Brotherhood member, and kept closed down for weeks...

“The Southern Lumber Operators’ Association was... reactivated and a secret meeting was called for July 19 [1911] at New Orleans. The meeting was attended by some 150 lumbermen from Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana... The meeting was controlled by John H. Kirby, the largest lumber operator in Texas, who... directed the activities of the organization. A one-time president of the National Association of Manufacturers, Kirby was determined to smash the Brotherhood of Timber Workers.

“The leading speech at the session was delivered by Kirby. He began by announcing that `whenever any efforts are discovered to organize unions, the mills will be closed down and will remain so until the union is killed.’ ...Arrangements were worked out between Kirby and [then-American Federation of Labor Leader Samuel] Gompers for the Southern Lumber Operators’ Association to drive its workers out of the B. of T.W., and, after that union was destroyed, to extend recognition to the A.F. of L. which would send its representatives into the lumber camps and mills to recruit the skilled, white craftsmen...

“During the next few months over 300... mills in Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana were closed down, and union men were locked out of, or blacklisted from, every mill within the Association’s sphere of influence... `Good Citizens’ Protective Leagues... were organized in Eastern Texas... to break up local meetings of the Brotherhood and to intimidate its speakers and organizers... During the summer and fall of 1911 between 5,000 and 7.000 of the most active members of the Brotherhood, white and Negro, were blacklisted...”

  Yet when the mills reopened in the winter of 1912, according to Foner’s History of the Labor Movement in the United States, the not-recognized B. of T.W. union “still existed as a force after the infamous war to exterminate it [and] by May 1912, the Brotherhood had a membership of between 20,000 to 25,000 workers, about half of whom were Negroes.”
But following another general lockout throughout the lumber industry by the Southern Lumber Operators’ Association in 1912, the B. of T.W. industrial union was driven out of the lumber industry in Texas by 1920.

As Bryan Burrough’s The Big Rich observed, “before oil the greatest Texas fortunes were made in ranching and East Texas lumber, where success depended on exploiting the labor of blacks, Latinos, and poor whites [and] in the years before World War I, John Henry Kirby all but owned East Texas.”

And according to the same book:

"Kirby put together a group of Boston and New York investors and spent... 20 years buying timberlands... In 1901 he merged these interests and took control, creating the giant Kirby Lumber Company -- at one point Kirby controlled more pine acreage than any other man in the world -- and the Houston Oil Company... By the 1920s Kirby had emerged as [the] Texan’s leading businessman... He maintained suites at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York [and]... a mansion called Dixie Pines at Saranac Lake, New York.”

Are Both GOP and Democratic Party-Appointed Judges Anti-Labor?

Some U.S. labor union officials are apparently still going to spend a lot of their labor union members' money on helping to fund the campaigns of certain Democratic Party politicians. Yet there's apparently some historical evidence that, when the lawyers for U.S. labor unions oppose the anti-labor policies of U.S. corporate managers in the U.S. courtroom, judges appointed by Democratic Party elected officials are often as likely as judges appointed by GOP-elected officials to make anti-labor judicial decisions. As Joe Burns' 2011 book Reviving The Strike: How Working People Can Regain Power and Transform America observed:

"...While today's trade unionists have had no trouble recognizing the clear anti-worker bias present in the judicial appointees of convervative presidnts such as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, many fail to see that Democratic-appointed judges are no friends of working people either. While Democratic appointees may differ from their Republican counterparts on issues that reside on the periphery of labor law, such as whether graduate students are eligible to join unions, on the questions paramount to the labor movement--whether unions should be allowed to engage in effective strike tactics, the mobility of capital, and the outlawing of solidarity--one finds little disagreements among judges, no matter their party affiliation.

"Because of this, the system of labor control cannot be altered simply by electing new politicians, or appointing different judges...Merely electing Democrats instead of Republicans will not change the basic rules of bargaining...There is no evidence that Democratic judicial appointees are even interested in altering the fundamentals of labor policy. Federal judges, and in particular, those who make it to the Federal Courts of Appeals and Supreme Court, are not drawn from the ranks of progressive lawyers. Whether appointed by Democrats or Republicans, they tend, at best, to be corporate liberals sympathetic to the arguments of business. They are not the sort to wrench the steering wheel soldily in labor's direction by reversing Supreme Court decisions reaching back a half century....

"...Even in the unlikely event that the Supreme Court were to reconsider many of its past labor decisions, it is highly unlikely that Democratic appointees to the Court could be counted on to make the sharp turn in labor policy necessary to restore the right to engage in effective strike tactics.

"Nor can changing membership of the National Labor Relations Board help the labor movement, as...Democratic appointees have shown no inclination to radically change direction. And, even if they were, their rulings are subject to review by the federal courts..."

UK Anti-War Candidate George Galloway Wins A Seat In British Parliament

Why GE Workers Prepare to Go On Strike At GE

Following video from the United Electrical [UE] Workers labor union youtube channel indicates why the workers at GE (which apparently still owns a large chunk of NBC media stock and pays little in taxes to U.S. government) may soon go on strike again in 2011: