According to High Treason: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy--What Really Happened by Robert J. Groden and Harrison Edward Livingston: "This is where we begin to understand the Dallas-Hughes-CIA-Mafia-anti-Castro-Cuban connection, which resulted in the president's murder--The apparatus set up to destroy Castro ended up destroying John Kennedy."
In Empire: The Life, Legend and Madness of Howard Hughes, Donald Barlett and James Teele noted that "The Hughes payroll was studded with former intelligence operatives, government agents, and retired army, navy and air force officers." Empire: The Life, Legend and Madness of Howard Hughes also observed:
"By the late 1960s, the Hughes empire had crafted perhaps the most powerful private political machine in the country...The empire spent billions of American tax dollars without public accountability, received billions of dollars in government contracts without competitive bidding, and received millions of dollars in subsidies. it submitted to federal courts fraudulent or forged documents. It ignored federal court orders with impunity. It was exempted from the myriad laws and regulations binding on others.
"The empire thrived on shadowy alliances, intricate deals, quiet understandings, secret political contributions...
"It was hard cash that Huges used to work his political will...Spelling it out in the crudest possible terms, Hughes advised [CIA] operative] Maheu on another occasion: `You just remember that every man--I can buy--I, Howard Hughes, can buy any man in the world, or I can destroy him.'
"The Hughes equation contained a built-in multiplier. The formation of one relationship led to a second and a third until scores of government officials and congressmen and congressional staff members and influential associates and lawyers were involved."
(Downtown 3/4/92)
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Who Changed JFK's November 22, 1963 Motorcade Route?
According to On The Trail Of The Assassins by Jim Garrison:
"The last-minute change in the parade route in Dallas was highly suspicious and raised serious questions about the mayor of Dallas, Earle Cabell, and his brother, former Deputy Director of the C.I.A., Charles Cabell, who had been fired over the Bay of Pigs fiasco [of 1961]. The parade route change, along with other leads pointing to the C.I.A., had been covered up neatly by the Warren Commission and its point man for intelligence issues, former C.I.A. Director Allen Dulles."
Former New Orleans D.A. Garrison also recalled that:
"The original route scheduled for the motorcade did not go right past the Texas School Book Depository where Oswald had been working...In fact, as late as the morning of the assassination the motorcade route was still diagrammed on the front page of the Dallas Morning News as continuing on Main Street to the center of Dealy Plaza."
Coincidentally, Garrison noted in his book that when he "pulled open my middle desk drawer and took out a copy of the Dallas Morning News front page that had been introduced as a `Warren Commission exhibit,'" he discovered that "on five-sixths of the Dallas Morning News where the diagram of the motorcade route was supposed to be" there "was nothing but a large square of solid gray."
On The Trail Of The Assassins also noted that although "there are also people who say that a map of the amended route was published sometime before November 22," coincidentally, "no such document has surfaced."
After JFK fired C.I.A. Deputy Director Charles Pearre Cabell, "General Cabell's subsequent hatred of John Kennedy became an open secret in Washington," according to Garrison. As Garrison also noted in his book:
"In most countries, a powerful individual who has been in open conflict with a national leader who was later assassinated would receive at least a modicum of attention in the course of the posthumous inquiry...Certainly a powerful individual who also held a top position in a major espionage apparatus and had been at odds with the departed leader would be high on the list of suspects."
Yet, according to Garrison, "General Cabell, who fit the description perfectly, was never even called as a witness before the Warren Commission."
(Downtown 2/26/92)
"The last-minute change in the parade route in Dallas was highly suspicious and raised serious questions about the mayor of Dallas, Earle Cabell, and his brother, former Deputy Director of the C.I.A., Charles Cabell, who had been fired over the Bay of Pigs fiasco [of 1961]. The parade route change, along with other leads pointing to the C.I.A., had been covered up neatly by the Warren Commission and its point man for intelligence issues, former C.I.A. Director Allen Dulles."
Former New Orleans D.A. Garrison also recalled that:
"The original route scheduled for the motorcade did not go right past the Texas School Book Depository where Oswald had been working...In fact, as late as the morning of the assassination the motorcade route was still diagrammed on the front page of the Dallas Morning News as continuing on Main Street to the center of Dealy Plaza."
Coincidentally, Garrison noted in his book that when he "pulled open my middle desk drawer and took out a copy of the Dallas Morning News front page that had been introduced as a `Warren Commission exhibit,'" he discovered that "on five-sixths of the Dallas Morning News where the diagram of the motorcade route was supposed to be" there "was nothing but a large square of solid gray."
On The Trail Of The Assassins also noted that although "there are also people who say that a map of the amended route was published sometime before November 22," coincidentally, "no such document has surfaced."
After JFK fired C.I.A. Deputy Director Charles Pearre Cabell, "General Cabell's subsequent hatred of John Kennedy became an open secret in Washington," according to Garrison. As Garrison also noted in his book:
"In most countries, a powerful individual who has been in open conflict with a national leader who was later assassinated would receive at least a modicum of attention in the course of the posthumous inquiry...Certainly a powerful individual who also held a top position in a major espionage apparatus and had been at odds with the departed leader would be high on the list of suspects."
Yet, according to Garrison, "General Cabell, who fit the description perfectly, was never even called as a witness before the Warren Commission."
(Downtown 2/26/92)
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Hidden History of Texas: 1930-1940--Part 9
(This article was originally posted on The Rag Blog on January 14, 2013)
The oil industry of Texas continued to produce a lot of wealth for out-of-state Eastern investors, some local Texas businessmen, politicians, and investors, and the “non-profit” University of Texas during the Great Depression of the 1930s. But for most people who lived in Texas as farmers or workers between 1930 and 1940, economic survival continued to be difficult.
In an essay, “Women and Work During the Great Depression in Texas,” that appeared in the 2002 book that Donald Willett and Stephen Curley edited, titled Invisible Texans: Women and Minorities in Texas History, Baylor University Oral History Program Director Rebecca Sharpless described what life was like for most people who lived in Texas between 1930 and 1940:
"Cotton families made up most of the rural population in Texas... In 1932, cotton prices hit a low of 5 cents a pound... Farmers spent more money raising their crops than they received for the sale. West Texans, furthermore, endured the miserable conditions known as the Dust Bowl. Between 1933 and 1936, drought scorched the land... Only the fortunate minority had running water in the house. Most rural families used outdoor toilets, known as privies... Most rural and town women still cooked on wood stoves... .
"The majority of Texas farmers worked land owned by someone else... Many landowners... turned their tenants off the land... Between 1930 and 1940 the number of tenants in some parts of the state dropped by half... Many unemployed farmers were forced to go on government relief... By mid-1932, an estimated 400,000 Texans were out of work...
"During the 1930s, more than half a million Texas women worked for wages. In urban areas, this group encompassed about 25 percent of Anglo women, about 25 percent of Mexican women, and 55 percent of African-American women... In 1932, researchers for the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. government found that women in Texas industries worked for the lowest wages in the nation... More than three-quarters of employed African-American women in Texas worked as domestic servants throughout the 1930s."
According to Randolph Campbell’s Gone To Texas:
"The value of farms in Texas would fall from $3.6 billion in 1930 to $2.6 billion in 1940... The state had fewer manufacturing establishments in 1939 than in 1929, and workers... received less in wages. As late as 1940 more than 300,000 Texans had no employment in private enterprises... Black tenants... decreased in number from 65,000 to 32,000... Unemployment among black farm laborers probably ran as high as 90 percent by 1935... An estimated 250,000 Mexicans... left the state between 1929 and 1939."
Most of the Latino people of Mexican descent in Texas who left the state during the 1930s moved to Mexico, and “many left because they were denied access to government relief programs or fell victim to an intense federal repatriation program,” according to the same book.
Around 20,000 African-Americans who lived in Texas also left the state between 1930 and 1940; and “as late as 1937 Negroes formed 25 percent of all unemployed persons” in Texas, though they only “composed 14 percent” of the state’s population, according to Alwyn Barr’s Black Texans.
In San Antonio, most of the white Anglo women who had jobs between 1930 and 1940 either worked in shops as sales clerks or in offices as clerical workers, while most of the Latina women of Mexican descent who had jobs worked in light industries, the food canning industry, garment factories, cigar rolling firms, pecan shelling firms or as seamstresses.
Although Houston’s unemployment rate in January 1931 was around 23 percent, “Austin, cushioned by the presence of state government employees and the University of Texas probably suffered the least among major cities” in Texas, according to Gone To Texas. So, not surprisingly, during the 1930s the number of people who lived in Austin increased by 66 percent; and by 1940, 88,000 people now resided in Austin. As the “Women and Work During the Great Depression in Texas ” essay recalled:
"In Austin... young white women could find employment in the state capital, in various places: state institutions and agencies, the telephone exchange, local mercantile establishments, chain variety stores, laundries, hotels and cafes, beauty parlors, canning factories, or binderies...”
But “black women could find jobs only in laundries, domestic service, and sometimes hotels as `scrub women’ or chamber maids,” “Mexican women could gain employment in canning factories, domestic services, laundries, and occasionally as seamstresses in dry goods stores,” and “the supply of rural women wanting work became so great that the local telephone service began to requiring applicants to have a high school diploma and a year of residence in Austin,” according to the same essay.
Monday, January 28, 2013
50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: JFK's Last White House Affair
Coincidentally, less than 11 months after JFK's assassination--on October 13, 1964--the ex-wife of C.I.A. Covert Action Head Cord Meyer--Mary Piinchot-Meyer--"was shot twice, once in the head and once in the chest, with no apparent motive," according to The Encyclopedia of American Scandal by George Kohn. Pinchot-Meyer had divorced C.I.A. Covert Action Head Meyer in 1956 and she and Kennedy "were still involved at the time of the president's assassination," according to the same book.
Pinchot-Meyer was also the sister-in-law of Newsweek's Washington D.C. Bureau Chief in the 1960s--Benjamin Bradlee of the Washington Post--and she lived in "a studio behind the Bradlees' house in Georgetown after her divorce," according to The Encyclopedia of American Scandal. A Washington Post vice-president named James Truitt was also a close friend of the C.I.A. Covert Action Head's ex-wife.
According to The Encyclopedia of American Scandal, JFK and Pinchot-Meyer "first went to bed together in December, 1961, a year after he was elected president" and "by the spring of 1962, their affair had become a steady relationship." The same book also noted that "Whenever Jackie Kennedy was out of town, which was fairly often," Pinchot-Meyer "visited the White House" and "recorded their visits in her personal diary, writing that she had once brought six `joints' of marijuana with her, of which she and the president smoked three before he stopped..."
After JFK's White House mistress was murdered, her sister found her diary "which allegedly contained so many references to Jack Kennedy that there could be no doubt that the two had a passionate romance;" and her sister and Newsweek D.C. Bureau Chief Bradlee "gave the incriminating diary to a friend, James Angleton, who was then Chief of C.I.A. Counterintelligence," according to The Encyclopedia of American Scandal. The same book also noted that Chief of C.I.A. Counterintelligence Angleton "either disposed of it discreetly, or as [Washington Post Vice-President] James Truitt claimed, it was destroyed at C.I.A. headquarters." Angleton later told a Times reporter that "I'm not privy to who struck John," according to The New York Times issue of December 25, 1974.
According to Citizen Hughes by Michael Drosnin, after Howard Hughes' death in 1976:
"None of the politicians he had funded said a word. Not Richard Nixon, not Hubert Humphrey, not Larry O'Brien, not even Paul Laxalt.
"Only one powerfull man stepped forward to praise him, a man who almost never spoke publicly, a man himself so secretive that his name had never appeared in print until just a year earlier, when he was ousted amid scandal from the lofty position he had held for three decades--Chief of Counterintelligence at the CIA, James Jesus Angleton.
"It was entirely fitting that Angleton, the CIA's purest product, the spook's sppk, should alone deliver his epitaph:
"`Howard Hughes! Where his country's interests were concerned, no man knew his target better. We were fortunate to have him.
"`He was a great patriot.'"
The same book also noted that "Angleton's eulogy was reported in Time magazine, April 19, 1976,""but Angleton "refused an interview to explain his remarks."
Coincidentally, according to Coincidence or Conspiracy by the Committee To Investigate Assassinations:
"James J. Angleton, the CIA's mysterious...Chief of Counterintelligence handled matters related to the Kennedy assassination for over 10 years...Angleton was forced into retirement in late 1974 as a result of his involvement in the CIA's illegal `Operation Chaos,' a secret domestic spying program that ahd been greatly enlarged under the Nixon Administration...
"In June, 1976, new information became available regarding Angleton's key role in dealing with the Warren Commission investigation. The Senate Intelligence Committee reported that at a meeting in late December 1963, Angleton had requrested that he be allowed to take over CIA responsibility for dealing with the Warren Commission probe."
Pinchot-Meyer was also the sister-in-law of Newsweek's Washington D.C. Bureau Chief in the 1960s--Benjamin Bradlee of the Washington Post--and she lived in "a studio behind the Bradlees' house in Georgetown after her divorce," according to The Encyclopedia of American Scandal. A Washington Post vice-president named James Truitt was also a close friend of the C.I.A. Covert Action Head's ex-wife.
According to The Encyclopedia of American Scandal, JFK and Pinchot-Meyer "first went to bed together in December, 1961, a year after he was elected president" and "by the spring of 1962, their affair had become a steady relationship." The same book also noted that "Whenever Jackie Kennedy was out of town, which was fairly often," Pinchot-Meyer "visited the White House" and "recorded their visits in her personal diary, writing that she had once brought six `joints' of marijuana with her, of which she and the president smoked three before he stopped..."
After JFK's White House mistress was murdered, her sister found her diary "which allegedly contained so many references to Jack Kennedy that there could be no doubt that the two had a passionate romance;" and her sister and Newsweek D.C. Bureau Chief Bradlee "gave the incriminating diary to a friend, James Angleton, who was then Chief of C.I.A. Counterintelligence," according to The Encyclopedia of American Scandal. The same book also noted that Chief of C.I.A. Counterintelligence Angleton "either disposed of it discreetly, or as [Washington Post Vice-President] James Truitt claimed, it was destroyed at C.I.A. headquarters." Angleton later told a Times reporter that "I'm not privy to who struck John," according to The New York Times issue of December 25, 1974.
According to Citizen Hughes by Michael Drosnin, after Howard Hughes' death in 1976:
"None of the politicians he had funded said a word. Not Richard Nixon, not Hubert Humphrey, not Larry O'Brien, not even Paul Laxalt.
"Only one powerfull man stepped forward to praise him, a man who almost never spoke publicly, a man himself so secretive that his name had never appeared in print until just a year earlier, when he was ousted amid scandal from the lofty position he had held for three decades--Chief of Counterintelligence at the CIA, James Jesus Angleton.
"It was entirely fitting that Angleton, the CIA's purest product, the spook's sppk, should alone deliver his epitaph:
"`Howard Hughes! Where his country's interests were concerned, no man knew his target better. We were fortunate to have him.
"`He was a great patriot.'"
The same book also noted that "Angleton's eulogy was reported in Time magazine, April 19, 1976,""but Angleton "refused an interview to explain his remarks."
Coincidentally, according to Coincidence or Conspiracy by the Committee To Investigate Assassinations:
"James J. Angleton, the CIA's mysterious...Chief of Counterintelligence handled matters related to the Kennedy assassination for over 10 years...Angleton was forced into retirement in late 1974 as a result of his involvement in the CIA's illegal `Operation Chaos,' a secret domestic spying program that ahd been greatly enlarged under the Nixon Administration...
"In June, 1976, new information became available regarding Angleton's key role in dealing with the Warren Commission investigation. The Senate Intelligence Committee reported that at a meeting in late December 1963, Angleton had requrested that he be allowed to take over CIA responsibility for dealing with the Warren Commission probe."
Sunday, January 27, 2013
50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Nixon and the JFK Assassination
In her book, Pat Nixon: The Untold Story, former US president Richard Nixon's daughter, Julie Nixon-Eisenhower, recalled:
"On Friday, November 22, 1963, Tricia and I were just home from the Chapin School...and eating lunch in front of the television when we heard a bulletin that President Kennedy had been shot as his motorcade moved through the streets of Dallas, Texas. Within a half hour of that first sketchy report, my father burst into our apartment, just back from a business trip to the very city where the President had been attacked."
Yet, according to Coincidence Or Conspiracy? by the Committee To Investigate Assassinations:
"During his FBI interview on February 28, 1964, Nixon inaccurately stated that he'd left Dallas on November 20th--rather than on November 22nd. An FBI Report contained in Warren Commission Exhibit 1973 states the following:
`On Feburay 28, 1964, the Honorable Richard M. Nixon, former Vice President of the U.S. was contacted by the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Office, John F. Malone, and furnished the following information:
`Mr. Nixon advised that the only time he was in Dallas, Texas during 1963 was two days prior to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.'
"...While Nixon admitted in 1967 he had in fact been in Dallas a couple of hours before the shooting, he incorrectly told [Saturday Evening Post reporter] Witcover that he had come to Dallas the day before the assassination, November 21st, rather than November 20th, the date he actually arrived in the city...It does seem somewhatt peculiar that Nixon managed to forget where he was on November 22, 1963 during his February 1964 FBI interview..."
The same book also noted that "Efforts to review the Nixon episode were further hindered when the National Archives disclosed in 1976 that a `Letter of FBI of June 29, 1964 concerning Richard Nixon,' was one of the items missing from the Warren Commission records stored in the Archives building in Washington, D.C."
(Downtown 2/12/92)
"On Friday, November 22, 1963, Tricia and I were just home from the Chapin School...and eating lunch in front of the television when we heard a bulletin that President Kennedy had been shot as his motorcade moved through the streets of Dallas, Texas. Within a half hour of that first sketchy report, my father burst into our apartment, just back from a business trip to the very city where the President had been attacked."
Yet, according to Coincidence Or Conspiracy? by the Committee To Investigate Assassinations:
"During his FBI interview on February 28, 1964, Nixon inaccurately stated that he'd left Dallas on November 20th--rather than on November 22nd. An FBI Report contained in Warren Commission Exhibit 1973 states the following:
`On Feburay 28, 1964, the Honorable Richard M. Nixon, former Vice President of the U.S. was contacted by the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Office, John F. Malone, and furnished the following information:
`Mr. Nixon advised that the only time he was in Dallas, Texas during 1963 was two days prior to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.'
"...While Nixon admitted in 1967 he had in fact been in Dallas a couple of hours before the shooting, he incorrectly told [Saturday Evening Post reporter] Witcover that he had come to Dallas the day before the assassination, November 21st, rather than November 20th, the date he actually arrived in the city...It does seem somewhatt peculiar that Nixon managed to forget where he was on November 22, 1963 during his February 1964 FBI interview..."
The same book also noted that "Efforts to review the Nixon episode were further hindered when the National Archives disclosed in 1976 that a `Letter of FBI of June 29, 1964 concerning Richard Nixon,' was one of the items missing from the Warren Commission records stored in the Archives building in Washington, D.C."
(Downtown 2/12/92)
Saturday, January 26, 2013
50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Richard Nixon's Howard Hughes Connection
According to Citizen Hughes by Michael Drosnin, on June 6, 1968--a few days after Robert F. Kennedy was killed--Billionaire Howard Hughes wrote a letter to the former C.I.A. agent who managed Hughes' Las Vegas gambling interests, Robert Maheu, which contained the following passage:
"The Kennedy family and their money and influence have been a thorn that has been relentlessly shoved into my guts since the very beginning of my business activities. So you can see how cruel it was, after my all-out support of Nixon, to have Jack Kennedy achieve that very, very marginal so-called victory over my man.
"So, as I point out, thru this long-standing feeling of jealousy and personal enmity, I have become fairly well-informed about the organization of people that sprung up, first around Jack, and then around Bob."
The Citizen Hughes book characterized former U.S. president Richard Nixon's historical connection to Billionaire Howard Hughes in the following way:
"Hughes had supported Nixon in every bid for office since his first congressional race in 1946 and would continue to back him to the end. In addition to campaign funds, he provided large sums for the personal use of the president and his family. The known bequests--the few made openly and the hidden payoffs later discovered--eventually totalled more than half-a-million dollars.
"More than a financial angel, Hughes was a virtual fairy godfather in Nixon's faltering rise to power. In 1956, when Eisenhower was ready to find a new running mate, Hughes ordered a covert operation to crush the `Dump Nixon' movement, sending Maheu to infiltrate the enemy camp and concoct a spurious pro-Nixon poll...
"The `Hughes Loan Scandal' hit the headlines in the final weeks of the closely contested 1960 election. Maheu took time off from plotting to kill Castro and tried instead to kill the story...
"The `all-out' support Hughes gave Nixon in 1960--a still unknown number of hundred-dollar bills secretly passed through the same bagman who handled the loan transaction--never became public."
Prior to being hired by Howard Hughes in 1955, Robert Maheau "who was alleged to be in charge of the CIA's part of the effort to assassinate Castro, had worked under Guy Bannister in the FBI's Chicago Field Office during World War II," according to Coup d'etat In America: The CIA and The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by Michael Canfield and Alan J. Weberman.
(Downtown 2/5/92)
"The Kennedy family and their money and influence have been a thorn that has been relentlessly shoved into my guts since the very beginning of my business activities. So you can see how cruel it was, after my all-out support of Nixon, to have Jack Kennedy achieve that very, very marginal so-called victory over my man.
"So, as I point out, thru this long-standing feeling of jealousy and personal enmity, I have become fairly well-informed about the organization of people that sprung up, first around Jack, and then around Bob."
The Citizen Hughes book characterized former U.S. president Richard Nixon's historical connection to Billionaire Howard Hughes in the following way:
"Hughes had supported Nixon in every bid for office since his first congressional race in 1946 and would continue to back him to the end. In addition to campaign funds, he provided large sums for the personal use of the president and his family. The known bequests--the few made openly and the hidden payoffs later discovered--eventually totalled more than half-a-million dollars.
"More than a financial angel, Hughes was a virtual fairy godfather in Nixon's faltering rise to power. In 1956, when Eisenhower was ready to find a new running mate, Hughes ordered a covert operation to crush the `Dump Nixon' movement, sending Maheu to infiltrate the enemy camp and concoct a spurious pro-Nixon poll...
"The `Hughes Loan Scandal' hit the headlines in the final weeks of the closely contested 1960 election. Maheu took time off from plotting to kill Castro and tried instead to kill the story...
"The `all-out' support Hughes gave Nixon in 1960--a still unknown number of hundred-dollar bills secretly passed through the same bagman who handled the loan transaction--never became public."
Prior to being hired by Howard Hughes in 1955, Robert Maheau "who was alleged to be in charge of the CIA's part of the effort to assassinate Castro, had worked under Guy Bannister in the FBI's Chicago Field Office during World War II," according to Coup d'etat In America: The CIA and The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by Michael Canfield and Alan J. Weberman.
(Downtown 2/5/92)
Friday, January 25, 2013
50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Media Coverage Of JFK Assassination And Warren Commission Report
If you've read the 26 volumes of testimony before the Warren Commission and books like Mark Lane's Rush To Judgement, and you've seen movies like Executive Action and the Zapruder film, you were probably skeptical about the Warren Commission's conclusions years before Time-Warner decided to market its JFK film.
According to one book I've read, Oswald was seen in the second floor cafeteria of the Texas School Book Depository, with a coke bottle in his hand, a few minutes after shots were allegedly fired from the 6th floor of the same building on Nov. 22, 1963. For Oswald to have gotten from the sixth floor to the second floor cafeteria coke machine, and to have been able to deposit coins in the coke machine quickly enough to be holding the coke bottle so soon after JFK was shot, he probably would have had to be as speedy as Clark Kent in his physical movments.
One of the earliest New York City columnists to begin questioning the accuracy of the Establishment media's version of the JFK assassination was Dorothy Kilgallen of the now-defunct New York Journal-American, who also appeared as a TV panelist on the 1950s and 1960s show What's My Line?, in addition to writing her "Voice of Broadway" gossip column for many years.
According to Lee Israel's 1979 book, Kilgallen: A Biography of Dorothy Kilgallen:
"Through the late summer and early fall of 1964, Dorothy began producing a series of explosive exclusives related to the assassination...She ascertained from the exclusive material a surprising datum that would not be incorporated into the massive Warren Commission Report. Chief Curry of the Dallas police department, who was in the first car of the motorcade, had reacted to the shots he heard with an initial command: `Get a man on top of the overpass and see what happened up there.'...
"She began to produce headline stories based upon statements and affidavits that Mark Lane supplied to her...He had talked about some of the dissident data on local radio stations. The networks had systematically prohibited him from appearing. Dorothy had a wider audience, access to print--a more suitable medium for the complex stories that wanted telling--and new insights...
"Through August and September [1964], Dorothy hung out all the dirty linen of the official case. She printed story after story of witnesses who had been threatened by the Dallas police or the FBI..."
Coincidentally, on November 8, 1965, the 52-year-old Kilgallen was mysteriously found dead in her Upper East Side bedroom. According to Kilgallen: A Biography of Dorothy Kilgallen:
"It must be considered possible that, if she was murdered, the crime was done to silence her, by a kiss-and-kill representative of whatever faction it is that does not want the facts about the assassination of JFK to emerge. Eighteen witnesses died within a little over three years of the assassination. 13 as victims of suicide, accident or murder."
The same book also observed that in 1979 "a group of film documentarians based in Florida" was "preparing a feature about the knowledgeable who died in the wake of the Kennedy assassination" and that the group had information that Kilgallen "was communicating with Jim Garrison prior to her death and that he was her New Orleans contact," according to "associates of Garrison."
Speaking of the JFK assassination in Dallas, did you ever wonder where former U.S. President Richard Nixon just happened to be on November 22, 1963? Or where former U.S. President George H.W. Bush just happened to be on November 22, 1963?
(Downtown, 1/15/92)
According to one book I've read, Oswald was seen in the second floor cafeteria of the Texas School Book Depository, with a coke bottle in his hand, a few minutes after shots were allegedly fired from the 6th floor of the same building on Nov. 22, 1963. For Oswald to have gotten from the sixth floor to the second floor cafeteria coke machine, and to have been able to deposit coins in the coke machine quickly enough to be holding the coke bottle so soon after JFK was shot, he probably would have had to be as speedy as Clark Kent in his physical movments.
One of the earliest New York City columnists to begin questioning the accuracy of the Establishment media's version of the JFK assassination was Dorothy Kilgallen of the now-defunct New York Journal-American, who also appeared as a TV panelist on the 1950s and 1960s show What's My Line?, in addition to writing her "Voice of Broadway" gossip column for many years.
According to Lee Israel's 1979 book, Kilgallen: A Biography of Dorothy Kilgallen:
"Through the late summer and early fall of 1964, Dorothy began producing a series of explosive exclusives related to the assassination...She ascertained from the exclusive material a surprising datum that would not be incorporated into the massive Warren Commission Report. Chief Curry of the Dallas police department, who was in the first car of the motorcade, had reacted to the shots he heard with an initial command: `Get a man on top of the overpass and see what happened up there.'...
"She began to produce headline stories based upon statements and affidavits that Mark Lane supplied to her...He had talked about some of the dissident data on local radio stations. The networks had systematically prohibited him from appearing. Dorothy had a wider audience, access to print--a more suitable medium for the complex stories that wanted telling--and new insights...
"Through August and September [1964], Dorothy hung out all the dirty linen of the official case. She printed story after story of witnesses who had been threatened by the Dallas police or the FBI..."
Coincidentally, on November 8, 1965, the 52-year-old Kilgallen was mysteriously found dead in her Upper East Side bedroom. According to Kilgallen: A Biography of Dorothy Kilgallen:
"It must be considered possible that, if she was murdered, the crime was done to silence her, by a kiss-and-kill representative of whatever faction it is that does not want the facts about the assassination of JFK to emerge. Eighteen witnesses died within a little over three years of the assassination. 13 as victims of suicide, accident or murder."
The same book also observed that in 1979 "a group of film documentarians based in Florida" was "preparing a feature about the knowledgeable who died in the wake of the Kennedy assassination" and that the group had information that Kilgallen "was communicating with Jim Garrison prior to her death and that he was her New Orleans contact," according to "associates of Garrison."
Speaking of the JFK assassination in Dallas, did you ever wonder where former U.S. President Richard Nixon just happened to be on November 22, 1963? Or where former U.S. President George H.W. Bush just happened to be on November 22, 1963?
(Downtown, 1/15/92)
Thursday, January 24, 2013
50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: JFK's October 1962 Missile Crisis
October 22, 2012 marked the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's decision to blockade Cuba militarily until the then-Soviet Union government in Moscow agreed to remove the surface-to-surface missiles it had secretly placed in Cuba from Cuba.
Although Cuba was not a part of U.S. territory in 1962, the macho corporate male U.S. Establishment apparently felt it had a moral right to go to nuclear war, if necessary, to make sure these missiles weren't on Cuban soil. To avert a purposless nuclear war, however, the less macho Soviet Russian leader Khruschev agreed to remove his missles from Cuba before the 1962 U.S. congressional elections, in exchange for a pledge from President Kennedy that Cuba would never be invaded again.
As a result of JFK's 1962 "October Surprise" military move, President Kennedy's popularity and the popularity of Democratic Party congressional candidates increased among U.S. voters in the November 1962 elections. But among the right-wing types within the U.S. government who wished to invade Cuba, President Kennedy's popularity continued to drop as a result of his 1962 October Surprise. As President Kennedy's speechwriter, Theodore Sorenson, said in the 1980s:
"There's...a...group of critics on the right--and this includes some members of the government at that time--who were very critical of the resolution of the crisis in October, 1962, because they did not want a peaceful resolution. They regarded the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba as an opportunity and as justification for an American invasion that would go in and eliminate the Castro regime and its control of the island of Cuba. And they were disappointed, frustrated--indeed, angry that Kennedy had agreed not to launch an invasion of Cuba as a part of the resolution."
Coincidentally, less than 14 months after JFK announced his 1962 October Surprise Missile Crisis resolution agreement, he was mysteriously eliminated in Dallas, Texas.
(Downtown 10/21/92)
Although Cuba was not a part of U.S. territory in 1962, the macho corporate male U.S. Establishment apparently felt it had a moral right to go to nuclear war, if necessary, to make sure these missiles weren't on Cuban soil. To avert a purposless nuclear war, however, the less macho Soviet Russian leader Khruschev agreed to remove his missles from Cuba before the 1962 U.S. congressional elections, in exchange for a pledge from President Kennedy that Cuba would never be invaded again.
As a result of JFK's 1962 "October Surprise" military move, President Kennedy's popularity and the popularity of Democratic Party congressional candidates increased among U.S. voters in the November 1962 elections. But among the right-wing types within the U.S. government who wished to invade Cuba, President Kennedy's popularity continued to drop as a result of his 1962 October Surprise. As President Kennedy's speechwriter, Theodore Sorenson, said in the 1980s:
"There's...a...group of critics on the right--and this includes some members of the government at that time--who were very critical of the resolution of the crisis in October, 1962, because they did not want a peaceful resolution. They regarded the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba as an opportunity and as justification for an American invasion that would go in and eliminate the Castro regime and its control of the island of Cuba. And they were disappointed, frustrated--indeed, angry that Kennedy had agreed not to launch an invasion of Cuba as a part of the resolution."
Coincidentally, less than 14 months after JFK announced his 1962 October Surprise Missile Crisis resolution agreement, he was mysteriously eliminated in Dallas, Texas.
(Downtown 10/21/92)
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: U.S. Sec. of State In 1961--`Stage Attack On Guantanamo'
When it comes to obeying international law, neither CIA officials nor State Department officials have historically been the most law-abiding of world citizens. As the former CIA Director of Plans and former Ford Foundation executive (who some writers have asserted was involved in a conspiracy that eliminated JFK in 1963), Richard Bissell, recalled in his Reflections Of A Cold Warrior book:
"On Jan. 3, 1961, [Allen] Dulles, Tracy Barnes and I went to the White House to meet with the president. Eisenhower had called the meeting which included [then U.S. Secretary of State] Christian Herter...The president...noted that he was prepared to `move against Castro' before Kennedy's inauguration on the 20th if a `really good excuse' was provided by Castro. `Failing that,' he said, `PERHAPS WE COULD THINK OF MANUFACTURING SOMETHING that would be generally acceptable...This was but another example of his willingness to use covert action--specifically TO FABRICATE EVENTS to achieve his objectives in foreign policy. He wasn't the only participant...willing to `create' history. Secretary [of State] Herter suggested WE STAGE AN ATTACK ON GUANTANAMO."
(Aquarian Weekly/Downtown 2/26/97)
"On Jan. 3, 1961, [Allen] Dulles, Tracy Barnes and I went to the White House to meet with the president. Eisenhower had called the meeting which included [then U.S. Secretary of State] Christian Herter...The president...noted that he was prepared to `move against Castro' before Kennedy's inauguration on the 20th if a `really good excuse' was provided by Castro. `Failing that,' he said, `PERHAPS WE COULD THINK OF MANUFACTURING SOMETHING that would be generally acceptable...This was but another example of his willingness to use covert action--specifically TO FABRICATE EVENTS to achieve his objectives in foreign policy. He wasn't the only participant...willing to `create' history. Secretary [of State] Herter suggested WE STAGE AN ATTACK ON GUANTANAMO."
(Aquarian Weekly/Downtown 2/26/97)
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: JFK's NYC Real Estate Industry Connection
Like the Astors, the Rockefellers and the MacArthur Foundation, the Kennedys gained much of their wealth by playing the NYC real estate market: As Skyscraper Dreams: The Great Real Estate Dynasties of New York by Tom Shactman observed in 1991:
"Few realized that Joseph Kennedy Sr. had made the bulk of his fortune through owning pieces of Manhattan, or that the Rockefellers' incomes derived as much from Manhattan real estate as from their oil interests...In the space of a single decade, by speculating in New York real estate, Kennedy tripled his fortune. After his spree, he devoted his money...to furthering his sons' careers in politics."
In his 1964 book The Founding Father, Richard Whalen described how JFK's father operated in NYC during the 1940s:
"Kennedy moved into promising situations, exploited them, and quickly moved out...He bought a property at 51st Street and Lexington Avenue for $600,000 and later sold it for $3,970,000; another at 46th Street and Lexington Avenue cost $1,700,000 and sold for $4,975,000; still another at 59th and Lexington cost $1,900,000...and sold for $6,000,000...In September, 1944, the general welfare committee of New York's City Council heard complaints against Kennedy from tenants in the Siegel-Cooper Building, a West Side loft building he had bought the previous year..."
(Aquarian/Downtown 2/26/97)
"Few realized that Joseph Kennedy Sr. had made the bulk of his fortune through owning pieces of Manhattan, or that the Rockefellers' incomes derived as much from Manhattan real estate as from their oil interests...In the space of a single decade, by speculating in New York real estate, Kennedy tripled his fortune. After his spree, he devoted his money...to furthering his sons' careers in politics."
In his 1964 book The Founding Father, Richard Whalen described how JFK's father operated in NYC during the 1940s:
"Kennedy moved into promising situations, exploited them, and quickly moved out...He bought a property at 51st Street and Lexington Avenue for $600,000 and later sold it for $3,970,000; another at 46th Street and Lexington Avenue cost $1,700,000 and sold for $4,975,000; still another at 59th and Lexington cost $1,900,000...and sold for $6,000,000...In September, 1944, the general welfare committee of New York's City Council heard complaints against Kennedy from tenants in the Siegel-Cooper Building, a West Side loft building he had bought the previous year..."
(Aquarian/Downtown 2/26/97)
Monday, January 21, 2013
Protest Song From 1968 To Mark Martin Luther King Birthday Holiday
The public domain protest folk song about Martin Luther King, "He Walked Up The Hill" was written a few months after his 1968 assassination. But it's the kind of public doman protest folk song about Martin Luther King that you're not likely to hear played much over the corporate mass media or foundation-sponsored alternative media radio stations in the USA on Martin Luther King's birthday.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Hidden History of Texas: 1920-1930--Part 8
(This article was originally posted on The Rag Blog on Dec. 27, 2012)
In 1920 over 741,000 African-Americans lived in Texas. But given the level of KKK influence in Texas and the limited political and economic opportunities that white supremacist and institutionally racist Texas society generally provided most African-Americans between 1920 and 1930, “a good many African-Americans,” not surprisingly, “left the state in the 1920s,” according to Randolph Campbell’s Gone To Texas.
But between 1920 and 1930 the number of Latinos in Texas of Mexican descent increased from over 251,000 to nearly 684,000, and by 1930, 10 percent of Austin’s population was now of Mexican descent.
Although the number of African-Americans who worked for wages as farm laborers in Texas decreased from 75,000 to 41,000 between 1910 and 1930 (due, in part, to the increasing mechanization of agricultural work), 20,000 African-Americans in Texas still owned their own farms (on which most grew cotton) in 1930.
Yet between 1900 and 1930, the number of African-Americans in Texas who were now just tenant farmers increased from 45,000 to 65,000; and 70 percent of all African-American farmers in Texas were just tenant farmers by 1930. In addition, about 64 percent of African-Americans who worked for wages were at this time employed in non-agricultural work in Texas, mostly as servants or unskilled laborers.
Most workers in Texas -- whether white, African-American, or of Mexican descent -- who attempted to organize themselves into unions were apparently exploited or repressed between 1920 and 1930 by the white corporate power structure in Texas. As F. Ray Marshall’s Labor in the South recalled:
"The anti-union campaign was particularly vigorous in Texas. In San Antonio, for example, the chamber of commerce ran a free employment agency which placed over 2,000 non-union workers in 1920, by which time it had become almost impossible for union carpenters to get jobs. Mexican workers were brought in by the thousands, and special schools were set up to train non-union workers.
"In San Antonio, the program defeated union electricians, carpenters, planning mill operators, butchers, printers and others. Beaumont, which had been a strong union town, became almost "open shop" after the anti-union attacks led by a member of the National Metal Trades Association. The anti-union forces in Dallas imported 1,500 strikebreakers, and even the printers were forced to accept non-union conditions. The Southwest Open Shop Association opened a trade school at Dallas to supply workers and persuaded the governor to send militia to Galveston to break the 1920 longshoremen’s strike."
But although “the ILA locals at Galveston surrendered their chapter in 1922, and company union was chartered in 1924” (and miners in Texas also “lost a 1926 strike against a 25 percent wage cut, and the United Mine Workers [then] disappeared” from Texas), “the open-shop movement” during the Roaring Twenties “was not completely successful, however, because the unions at Fort Worth and Houston were able to survive,” according to the same book.
Although most Texas farmers and workers in Texas did not enjoy much economic prosperity between 1920 and 1930, by 1928, “Texas for the first time led all other states in oil production with... nearly 20 percent of the total for the entire world,” according to Gone To Texas.
Besides producing super-profits for out-of-state, eastern corporate interests like the Mellon family and for some local Texas businessmen, politicians, and investors, Texas’s booming oil industry in the 1920s also began to produce super-profits for the “non-profit” University of Texas in Austin (a university that still discriminated against African-American people in the 1920s). As the same book observed:
"Development of the Permian Basin... made the University of Texas... rich. The two million acres of land donated to the Permanent University Fund [PUF] in the 19th century had generated little income... But then in 1923 drillers brought in the Santa Rita wells on university lands in Reagan County..."
According to David Humphrey’s Austin: An Illustrated History, “the income from the Permanent University Fund... in 1925... amounted to $225,000, gained largely from grazing leases on University of Texas’s 2 million acres in West Texas;” but “by 1927 revenues from oil leases on University of Texas’s West Texas lands poured into the Permanent University Fund at a rate of almost a quarter of a million dollars a month.”
Yet, although Austin’s “non-profit” University of Texas began to accumulate a lot of surplus wealth from its Texas oil industry property by 1927, in 1930 about 25 percent of Austin homes still had no indoor toilets, tubs, or showers, according to the same book.
Although the number of African-Americans who worked for wages as farm laborers in Texas decreased from 75,000 to 41,000 between 1910 and 1930 (due, in part, to the increasing mechanization of agricultural work), 20,000 African-Americans in Texas still owned their own farms (on which most grew cotton) in 1930.
Yet between 1900 and 1930, the number of African-Americans in Texas who were now just tenant farmers increased from 45,000 to 65,000; and 70 percent of all African-American farmers in Texas were just tenant farmers by 1930. In addition, about 64 percent of African-Americans who worked for wages were at this time employed in non-agricultural work in Texas, mostly as servants or unskilled laborers.
Most workers in Texas -- whether white, African-American, or of Mexican descent -- who attempted to organize themselves into unions were apparently exploited or repressed between 1920 and 1930 by the white corporate power structure in Texas. As F. Ray Marshall’s Labor in the South recalled:
"The anti-union campaign was particularly vigorous in Texas. In San Antonio, for example, the chamber of commerce ran a free employment agency which placed over 2,000 non-union workers in 1920, by which time it had become almost impossible for union carpenters to get jobs. Mexican workers were brought in by the thousands, and special schools were set up to train non-union workers.
"In San Antonio, the program defeated union electricians, carpenters, planning mill operators, butchers, printers and others. Beaumont, which had been a strong union town, became almost "open shop" after the anti-union attacks led by a member of the National Metal Trades Association. The anti-union forces in Dallas imported 1,500 strikebreakers, and even the printers were forced to accept non-union conditions. The Southwest Open Shop Association opened a trade school at Dallas to supply workers and persuaded the governor to send militia to Galveston to break the 1920 longshoremen’s strike."
But although “the ILA locals at Galveston surrendered their chapter in 1922, and company union was chartered in 1924” (and miners in Texas also “lost a 1926 strike against a 25 percent wage cut, and the United Mine Workers [then] disappeared” from Texas), “the open-shop movement” during the Roaring Twenties “was not completely successful, however, because the unions at Fort Worth and Houston were able to survive,” according to the same book.
Although most Texas farmers and workers in Texas did not enjoy much economic prosperity between 1920 and 1930, by 1928, “Texas for the first time led all other states in oil production with... nearly 20 percent of the total for the entire world,” according to Gone To Texas.
Besides producing super-profits for out-of-state, eastern corporate interests like the Mellon family and for some local Texas businessmen, politicians, and investors, Texas’s booming oil industry in the 1920s also began to produce super-profits for the “non-profit” University of Texas in Austin (a university that still discriminated against African-American people in the 1920s). As the same book observed:
"Development of the Permian Basin... made the University of Texas... rich. The two million acres of land donated to the Permanent University Fund [PUF] in the 19th century had generated little income... But then in 1923 drillers brought in the Santa Rita wells on university lands in Reagan County..."
According to David Humphrey’s Austin: An Illustrated History, “the income from the Permanent University Fund... in 1925... amounted to $225,000, gained largely from grazing leases on University of Texas’s 2 million acres in West Texas;” but “by 1927 revenues from oil leases on University of Texas’s West Texas lands poured into the Permanent University Fund at a rate of almost a quarter of a million dollars a month.”
Yet, although Austin’s “non-profit” University of Texas began to accumulate a lot of surplus wealth from its Texas oil industry property by 1927, in 1930 about 25 percent of Austin homes still had no indoor toilets, tubs, or showers, according to the same book.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
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)
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)
Thursday, January 10, 2013
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)
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)
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
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)
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)
Friday, January 4, 2013
Black Worker Unemployment Rate Increases To 14 Percent In December 2012
The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all Black workers in the United States jumped from 13.2 to 14 percent between November and December 2012; while the total number of unemployed Black workers increased by 155,000 (from 2,422,000 to 2,577,000) during the same period, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black male workers over 20 years-of-age jumped from 12.9 to 14 percent between November and December 2012; while the unemployment rate for Black female workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 11.5 to 12.2 percent during the same period. The number of unemployed Black male workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 104,000 (from 1,060,000 to 1,164,000) between November and December 2012; while the number of jobless Black female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 64,000 (from 1,085,000 to 1,149,000) during the same period.. Although the number of unemployed Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age decreased by 13,000 (from 277,000 to 264,000) between November and December 2012, the official jobless rate for Black youths increased from 39.3 to 40.5 during the same period.
The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age also increased from 20.3 to 21.6 percent between November and December 2012; while the number of unemployed white youths increased by 65,000 (from 946,000 to 1,011,000) during the same period. In addition, the “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white male workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 6 to 6.4 percent between November and December 2012; while the “not seasonally adjusted” number of jobless white male workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 254,000 (from 3,894,000 to 4,148,000) during the same period.
For white female workers over 20 years-of age, the official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate increased from 6.2 to 6.3 percent between November and December 2012; while the number of unemployed white female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 79,000 (from 3,358,000 to 3,437,000) during the same period. In addition, the officiall “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all white workers in the United States (male, female and youth) increased from 6.8 to 6.9 percent between November and December 2012; while the total number of jobless white workers in the United States increased by 69,000 (from 8,416,000 to 8.485,000) during the same period.
According to the “not seasonally adjusted” data, the unemployment rate for Latino male workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 7.8 to 8.4 percent between November and December 2012; while the number of jobless Latino male workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 84,000 (from 1,050,000 to 1,134,000) during the same period. The “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Latina female workers over 20 years-of-age was still 9.4 percent in December 2012; while the “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino youth between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 26.6 percent in that same month.
According to the “seasonally adjusted” data, the official jobless rate for all Latino workers in the United States (male, female and youth) was still 9.6 percent in November 2012; while the total number of unemployed Latino workers in the United States (male, female and youth) increased by 65,000 (from 946,000 to 1,011,000) between November and December 2012. In addition, between November and December 2012, the unemployment rate for all Asian-American workers increased from 6.4 to 6.6 percent, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data; while the number of unemployed Asian-American workers increased by 31,000 (from 530,000 to 561,000) during the same period.
The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all female workers in the United States over 16 years-of-age increased from 7.6 to 7.8 percent between November and December 2012; while the total number of unemployed female workers over 16 years-of-age increased by 209,000 (from 5,512,000 to 5,721,000) during the same period. In addition, the unemployment rate for female workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 7 to 7.3 percent between November and December 2012; while the number of jobless female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 187,000 (from 4,918,000 to 5,105,000) during the same period.
The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age in the United States was still 23.5 percent in December 2012; while the “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all male workers in the United States over 16 years-of-age increased from 7.5 to 7.9 percent between November and December 2012.
Between November and December 2012, the total number of unemployed U.S. workers increased by 164,000 (from 12,042,000 to 12,206,000) according to the “seasonally adjusted” data, while the official jobless rate for all U.S. workers was still 7.8 percent in December 2012.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ January 4, 2013 press release:
“…Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult women (7.3 percent) and blacks (14.0 percent) edged up in December…
“In December, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was essentially unchanged at 4.8 million and accounted for 39.1 percent of the unemployed…The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers), at 7.9 million, changed little in December. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.
“In December, 2.6 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force…These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.
“Among the marginally attached, there were 1.1 million discouraged workers in December…Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them…
"Employment in clothing and accessories stores fell by 19,000…Employment in…mining and logging, transportation and warehousing, financial activities, professional and business services, and government, showed little change over the month…”
The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black male workers over 20 years-of-age jumped from 12.9 to 14 percent between November and December 2012; while the unemployment rate for Black female workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 11.5 to 12.2 percent during the same period. The number of unemployed Black male workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 104,000 (from 1,060,000 to 1,164,000) between November and December 2012; while the number of jobless Black female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 64,000 (from 1,085,000 to 1,149,000) during the same period.. Although the number of unemployed Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age decreased by 13,000 (from 277,000 to 264,000) between November and December 2012, the official jobless rate for Black youths increased from 39.3 to 40.5 during the same period.
The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age also increased from 20.3 to 21.6 percent between November and December 2012; while the number of unemployed white youths increased by 65,000 (from 946,000 to 1,011,000) during the same period. In addition, the “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white male workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 6 to 6.4 percent between November and December 2012; while the “not seasonally adjusted” number of jobless white male workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 254,000 (from 3,894,000 to 4,148,000) during the same period.
For white female workers over 20 years-of age, the official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate increased from 6.2 to 6.3 percent between November and December 2012; while the number of unemployed white female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 79,000 (from 3,358,000 to 3,437,000) during the same period. In addition, the officiall “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all white workers in the United States (male, female and youth) increased from 6.8 to 6.9 percent between November and December 2012; while the total number of jobless white workers in the United States increased by 69,000 (from 8,416,000 to 8.485,000) during the same period.
According to the “not seasonally adjusted” data, the unemployment rate for Latino male workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 7.8 to 8.4 percent between November and December 2012; while the number of jobless Latino male workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 84,000 (from 1,050,000 to 1,134,000) during the same period. The “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Latina female workers over 20 years-of-age was still 9.4 percent in December 2012; while the “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino youth between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 26.6 percent in that same month.
According to the “seasonally adjusted” data, the official jobless rate for all Latino workers in the United States (male, female and youth) was still 9.6 percent in November 2012; while the total number of unemployed Latino workers in the United States (male, female and youth) increased by 65,000 (from 946,000 to 1,011,000) between November and December 2012. In addition, between November and December 2012, the unemployment rate for all Asian-American workers increased from 6.4 to 6.6 percent, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data; while the number of unemployed Asian-American workers increased by 31,000 (from 530,000 to 561,000) during the same period.
The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all female workers in the United States over 16 years-of-age increased from 7.6 to 7.8 percent between November and December 2012; while the total number of unemployed female workers over 16 years-of-age increased by 209,000 (from 5,512,000 to 5,721,000) during the same period. In addition, the unemployment rate for female workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 7 to 7.3 percent between November and December 2012; while the number of jobless female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 187,000 (from 4,918,000 to 5,105,000) during the same period.
The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age in the United States was still 23.5 percent in December 2012; while the “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all male workers in the United States over 16 years-of-age increased from 7.5 to 7.9 percent between November and December 2012.
Between November and December 2012, the total number of unemployed U.S. workers increased by 164,000 (from 12,042,000 to 12,206,000) according to the “seasonally adjusted” data, while the official jobless rate for all U.S. workers was still 7.8 percent in December 2012.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ January 4, 2013 press release:
“…Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult women (7.3 percent) and blacks (14.0 percent) edged up in December…
“In December, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was essentially unchanged at 4.8 million and accounted for 39.1 percent of the unemployed…The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers), at 7.9 million, changed little in December. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.
“In December, 2.6 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force…These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.
“Among the marginally attached, there were 1.1 million discouraged workers in December…Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them…
"Employment in clothing and accessories stores fell by 19,000…Employment in…mining and logging, transportation and warehousing, financial activities, professional and business services, and government, showed little change over the month…”
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Justice vs. Foundations and Philanthropy
"There is another cause of industrial discontent. This is the skillful attempt that is being made to substitute Philanthropy for Justice. There is not one of these foundations, now spreading their millions over the world in showy generosity, that does not draw these millions from some form of industrial injustice. It is not their money that these lords of commercialized virtue are spending, but the withheld wages of the American working-class."
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