Labor rediscovers its past
O'Donnell, L.A.
interests, including the health of the industry itself. That's how your role changes. You don't 'sell out' -you just have to worry about a bigger picture, instead of just one tiny part of it, and...
...They finally opened up, with a long report at each meeting on production levels, sales compared to competitors', and so on...
...Each meeting is preceded by separate caucuses of the two sides, with Rebhan presiding at the labor caucus, to prepare positions on previously circulated agenda topics...
...But the supervisory boards stay clear of negotiating employee wages, hours, and working conditions -those are reserved for bargaining between Ford and the powerful German metalworkers union...
...Paying tribute to our forebears in the struggle for social justice is an honorable concern...
...The pardon was signed by Governor Shapp in January 1979...
...The movement has already left traces of its efforts- witness the historical markers in Chicago and Lattimer...
...It was he who defeated L.A O'DONNFU is associate professor of economics at Villanova Vrtfver.rir...
...This objective has a special signifi- caricc in viciv of thc allnost total ignorance of labor heritage by the avcragc product of our high schw>ls and colleges, has repressed his American habit of calling people'by first names...
...history revival, however, did not begin in Pennsylvania but in Chicago, and fortunately it was not founded by academics but by union activists...
...Another marker, commemorating the Molly Maguires, was placed at the entrance to the Schuylkill County Prison in Pottsville only last June, and there are others...
...The Pottsville weekend is an example of the current revival of interest in labor history...
...In 1897, during another anthracite strike, a group of several hundred Slavic miners marching in a peaceful protest were brutally attacked by a body of "native American" sheriffs deputies...
...The movement also recalls for us the prejudices of native Americans against ethnic minorities freshly landed on our shores and indeed the prejudices of earlier immigrants against later ones...
...The labor...
...The story of this little known tragedy was recounted by Michael Novak in The Guns of Latrirnrr, published in 1978...
...The drama of the Molly Maguires was played out in a period when Irish miners had begun to assert economic power through organization of an early union (the Work- ingman's Benevolent Association) and political power through increasing involvement with the Democratic Party in state politics...
...It means," he says, "that the company's big decisions are not unilateral and not sur- prises to those directly affected, the employees...
...a Philadelphia lawyer born in Gitardville...
...Here...
...in short, is an attractive way to dccpcn ;ipprc~.iation of labor traditions, the basic purpose of these orgarlirtltions...
...Shortly after thc Dcrnocratic convention in Chicago in 1968 the statue hall hcen blown up by the Weathermen...
...Understandably Pennsylvania would be well represented in this revival since its anthracite coal industry, a crucial source of energy in the nineteenth century, not only re- cruited a variety of ethnic immigrants into its workforce, but was the spawning of industrial unionism...
...It was started by Bill Garvey, an international representative of the Steel Workers Union, and a few like-minded men: Les O'Rear of the United Packinghouse Workers, Ray Dickow of the Amalgamated Meatcutters & Butcher Workmen, Rochelle Hart of the Chicago Teachers Union, and William Adelman Commonweal: 490 are gradually adjusting to it...
...The group toured th.c Schuylkill County Prison, sccing the dungeons where members of the Mollies were held and the courtyard where they were hanged...
...The group in Pottsvilli...
...Still, traditional distinctions between labor and manage- ment roles have become blurred...
...Major participants in this effort were Joseph Wayne, great grandson of Kehoe and John M.Elliot...
...Accord to Rebhan, many employers in Germany still con- sider Mitbestimmung (co-determination) a dirty word, but they the miners in the long strike of 1875, hired Pinkerton James McParlan to spy on the Mollies, and finally acted as chief prosecute...
...oltl socialjsts...
...A small group from among those present at the 1972 dedication of this monu- ment established the Pennsylvania Labor History Society in 1974, to preserve the record c?f worker struggles...
...12 September 1980: 491...
...The revival derives much of its vigor froln our growing fascination with ethnic his- tory...
...The rnovcincnt to colnmemorate the heritage of working people has 'iprcad to more than fourteen states around the country uhcrc labor history societies have been estab- lished...
...You don't 'sell out' -you just have to worry about a bigger picture, instead of just one tiny part of it, and the same happens when you're sitting on a corporate board...
...Out of these bitter encounters emerged, finally, the recognition of human rights for industrial workers and greater attention to the guarantee of due process for all...
...He points out that the employers originally feared that unions would "try to achieve in the board room what they failed to get at the collective bargaining table...
...and the trial held amidst emotionalism whipped up by a yellow press and Franklin Gowen's remarkable command of public relations...
...For example, Rebhan and one other employee representative are members of a four-man board committee that periodically reviews salary increases for key management personnel...
...often with a definite ethnic flavor...
...in their trials...
...Now even management seems happy with the openness...
...A society tsaditionally hostile to organizations of workers needs the antidote of being reminded that, in the long run, democratic values have very often been defined and advanced only as a result of these violent conflicts between labor and capital...
...The labor side can, on its own, put items on the agenda (a recent labor-initiated item produced a wide-ranging review of how Ford is faring in engine modernization...
...I:;vening socials on these occasions gather local historiaris, tr;ctIc unionists, descendants of those involved in the event...
...was cntcrtained by a professional Irish singing proup frcw the area...
...Sessions are generally relaxed but formal (Rebhan of the llnivcrsity of Illinois...
...Most often, questions are settled by consensus, but in voting, management has the edge because even though each side has ten members, the chairman can cast two votes to break a tie...
...Members of the Labor Press Association have been especially visible at the meetings of these societies...
...Elliot argued the case before the State Board of Pardons...
...In the encounter, over twenty of the completely unarmed miners were killed...
...So far Rebhan has participated in eight board meetings, each a day long...
...The weekend concluded with a visit to Hibernian House, a tavern in nearby Girardville once operated by Jack Kehoe, reputed leader of the secret organization of Irish miners...
...Still, his experience at Ford has strongly reinforced the belief that he had in co-determination even before practichardly a tribute to American education...
...Shortly after his initiation into the corporate hierarchy, Rebhan skirmished with his business colleagues over whether management should prepare a written status report for each board meeting...
...At the opposite end of the state, the Pittsburgh area was the scene of numerous union-management conflicts in the steel industry, most notably the Homestead Strike of 1892, 'a disaster that set back unions in the industry for genera- tions...
...In Pennsylvania the society suc- ceeded in its campaign for a pardon for Jack Kehoe who was convicted, under dubious circumstances, of the killing of a mine foreman in Audenried, Pennsylvania...
...Although no indictment was forthcoming when the crime occurred in 1862, the charge was abruptly resurrected fourteen years later (after the 1875 strike...
...On both fronts their efforts were thwarted by mining interests led by Franklin Gowen, president of the Reading Railroad, which enjoyed a monopoly on coal transport to the Philadelphia market...
...Chicago Circle campus...
...The niovcinent has come to be supported by trade unions to a rl~uch greater extent than might have been expected considering the "radical" circumstances of its beginnings...
...in an atr~losphcre of hysteria, these foreign born radi- cals had becn rounded up immediately after the bomb blast, tried, and convicted of conspiracy to murder without any evidencc connecting them with the bombing...
...Presently the Illinois Society is gathering petitions to secure a posthum- ous pardon for Joe Hill, legendary bard of the Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World), executed by a firing squad in Utah in 1915...
...The Pennsylvania Labor History Society (which also sponsored the Pottsville weekend) conceived a program in Homestead involving a boat ride down the Monongahela River following the route taken by Pinkerton men brought in by Henry Clay Frick, Andrew Carnegie's man in charge in Homestead...
...Garvey and his friends thcn proceeded to organize the Illinois Labor History Society-first of its kind in the country...
...Avoidance of sessions with a heavy academic atmosphere and insistcncc on discovering and revisiting actual sites of events in labor struggles have given the movement a special appeal...
...but evidently the Weathermen knew their labor history a lot better than most Chicago union Icaciers...
...Three generations later Hibernian House remains a neigh- borhood tavern run by the Kehoe family...
...They were appalled when, without any particular historical awareness, labor leaders in Chicago participated in the rededicaticin of a statue originally erected as a memorial to policemen k~llcd in the Haymarket Riot of 1886...
...Assessing his two-and-a-half years' experience with Mitbestimmung, Rebhan says: "I can't say that the millennium has arrived...
...Earlier it had inspired a drive by local labor groups and the United Mine Workers to persuade the Pennsylvania I-Iistorical Commission to honor the dead with an historical marker...
...A democratic, pluralistic society must learn the lessons of its history if it hopcs to cultivate an enduring harmony among its disparate minorities and if it hopcs to cope humanely with its currcnt influx of immigrants...
...For exam- ple, the board must approve in advance any major shift in production from one plant to another, and although such a proposal was recently approved unanimously by the Ford board, "that's because management thought it through careLABOR REDISCOVERS ITS PAST P o??'SVILLE is the center of the Pennsylvania anthra- cite rcgion, and the site of the execution of twenty Molly Maguires in 1878...
...and academics in an agreeable ca~naradcric...
...They wanted to keep it oral," Rebhan re- calls, "and they posed all sorts of legalistic arguments, such as a need to 'protect business secrets.' But we said, none of that stuff...
...Such representation, Rebhan argues, is an efficient way of getting worker concerns expressed and considered as an im- portant element in policy-making...
...On a memorable weekend in the fall cT 1978, a group of two hundred listened to a lecture on the Molly Maguires by Gene Salay, a descen- dant, and attcnded an analysis of their trials presented in the original Pottsville courtroom by Philadelphia attorney John M. Elliot...
...onscious ofthe irony in this situation, Garvey and his associates plcilged to redress the balance somewhat by dedicating a plaque to the labor m4aityrs of the Hayrnarket Riot...
...The destruc- tion was la~~ientablc...
...fully in advance, knowing they had to justify their case fully to us, including those who know plant operations inside out...
Vol. 107 • September 1980 • No. 16
