On American Labor "Scholarship"
Benson, Herman
DEMOCRACY IN THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MA CHINIsTs, by Mark Perlman. Wiley. 113 pp. 1962. This little piece of work was commissioned by the Trade Union Study of the Fund for the...
...Was this report among the records to which Mr...
...To retail purchasers, caveat emptor...
...Our author puts it this way, "Once again, Hayes refused to set aside a local lodge verdict," implying, of course, that it was the local that expelled the two men...
...For the most part, democracy, as such, is not one of them...
...Naturally, they appealed to International President Hayes who confirmed the verdict and penalty...
...This is the kind of prompt efficiency for which Hayes has become noted...
...Perlman is a kind of IAM expert...
...In 1955-56 Irwin Rappaport and Marion Ciepley Ied a reform move ment in IAM Tool and Diemakers Lodge 113, Chicago, that ousted local officials guilty of shady financial practices...
...Hayes refused to give the defendants a copy of the Committee's report and to this day it remains secret...
...Hayes' own selected Special Trial Committees...
...We wonder...
...Perlman can view the state of IAM democracy with equanimity, confident that Mr...
...obviously, however, it...
...Within a few quick weeks they reviewed the mountain of documents that had occupied the auditor for more than two years...
...But with such selected research, Mr...
...They were quickly brought up on charges prepared by one of Hayes attorneys...
...As delegates to a convention of the Illinois AFL-CIO, the two men introduced a resolution for the principle of Public Review, modelled on the UAW Public Review Board...
...To win that fight, they organized a caucus, distributed handbills, and rallied members to meetings...
...Hayes is a man who can "deal gently with critics...
...But Mr...
...and he was District President, not Business Agent...
...Hayes...
...His crime...
...Perlman had "full access...
...After Hayes imposed the Trusteeship, Ciepley and Rappaport led a strong movement for the restoration of autonomy...
...Joseph Addison was a member of IAM District Lodge 727 in California...
...If so, did Mr...
...But how differently our scholar tells it...
...for the two accused District officers were firm Hayes' supporters in the territory of Vice President Roy Brown, who is not quite so firm a supporter of Hayes...
...after a trial they were found guilty of publicly airing IAM business and were expelled from the IAM...
...Hayes expelled Addison and later put Snider on the International payroll...
...If he did not get to see it, I will be happy to make the full text available to the Fund for the Republic at the cost of reproduction...
...B.) Meanwhile, Joe Addison, who had run unsuccessfully for District President in November 1959, got wind of the "whitewash" report, read it, put two and two together, and preferred charges against the two District officials: John Snider, President...
...The auditor did not prefer formal charges but presented the documented facts in a long report which was confidential and which the IAM kept secret...
...1. The two men were not tried by a local board but by one of Mr...
...It made depressing charges, revealing that nearly $90,000 had been misappropriated from District funds...
...Mr...
...They" were not expelled...
...Snider and Shean merely preferred countercharges of "slander" against Addison...
...This reviewer asked Professor John T. Dunlop, in charge of the series, for information on the precise amount turned over by IAM officials...
...If so it is odd that he makes no reference whatsoever to it...
...The Fry report remained secret, suppressed...
...He had protested against the mishandling of funds by the officers of his District Lodge 727...
...The process of suppression inside the IAM has been recorded in detail in the publication Union Democracy in Action over the years...
...Formal charges were filed by one man, Joseph Addison, and he based himself not on the official auditor's report which remained secret and suppressed but on what had leaked out...
...The grand lodge then sent in its own investigators who agreed that Snyder's handling of accounts was poor, but who also concluded that there was more evidence of carelessness than of a desire to embezzle or defraud...
...Did the IAM make all its records available...
...It exonerated Snider and Shean of Addison's charges...
...The IAM," he concludes, "faces several crucial problems in this its eighth decade...
...Thus, the grand lodge 'cleared' Snyder...
...Ultimately, Snyder was charged with mishandling his lodge's funds, charges most probably brought with Roy Brown's agreement...
...Hayes summoned a Special Trial Committee to perform the predictable service...
...If so he might render a public service by revealing it for the first time...
...they were tried by a Special Trial Committee appointed by Hayes...
...He assigned three colleagues, top International officials, to reinvestigate the investigation...
...After trial by a Special Trial Committee appointed by IAM President Al Hayes, Addison was expelled in May, 1961...
...The other mote or type of criticism [of the IAM] during the Hayes administration involved a rebellion in his own staff which grew out of a case concerning one John Snyder, an important business agent in General Vice President Roy Brown's area (the Southwest...
...There is reason to believe that Snyder enjoyed a more cordial relationship with Hayes than Brown would have preferred...
...Hayes set out to "correct" the embarrassing record...
...2. There was no "they" to bring charges against Snider...
...The situation was awkward...
...The "whitewash" remained available only for reading at the union office, not for circulation...
...and, with a sense of symmetry, found Addison guilty of their charges...
...Perlman's view is quite different...
...Did Mr...
...Nevertheless, they suggested that the District President be compelled to restore $1,800 to the treasury, a sum that had been taken, euphemistically speaking, irregularly...
...Perlman sees no need ever to mention this unique institution of Hayes' "democracy...
...I see no appropriate reason for a reply to your more specific inquiry...
...It is your auditor's opinion," Fry wrote confidentially, "that in such instances these two individuals (the District President and a Business Representative) have used their positions as District officials and/or Grand Lodge Deputy to profit personally and/or to knowingly defraud the District and/or suspended Lodge 758...
...Take, for example, the case of Joseph Addison...
...Perlman have "full access" to this suppressed document...
...A copy is in my files—H...
...On March 2, 1959, John L. Fry, official union auditor, performing his normal functions for the IAM national office, concluded a two-year investigation of finances in District Lodge 727 and submitted "personal and confidential" findings to General Secretary Treasurer, Eric Peterson...
...The man's name is Snider, not Snyder...
...Perlman rewrites the record to say simply that Hayes refused to reinstate the two men...
...3. Addison was tried by a Special Trial Committee, personally chosen by Mr...
...Auditor Fry recommended that two District officials be compelled to make personal restitution...
...Now, note the following: 1. The original accusations against Snider were made by an official IAM auditor who was simply doing his routine job...
...Hayes expelled them on his own personal order...
...But it was time enough to announce that the whole thing, in their view, was exaggerated and that the two District officials, their own caucus henchmen, were not guilty of anything worth fussing over...
...It is your Auditor's further opinion that such acts violate the standards of ethics required of IAM officials as set forth in our laws and policies...
...Perlman simply will not notice this protrusive institution...
...This is America and he is entitled to his opin ion...
...Addison was...
...In another connection, Professor Dunlop wrote...
...3. As a matter of fact, Hayes explicitly set aside the finding of his own Special Trial Committee and personally ordered the two men expelled...
...It was simple for Hayes to brush aside this annoyance to two close supporters...
...and Hal Shean, Business Representative...
...But that's our scholar handling a delicate point.] "The next step found Snyder bringing charges against those who had criticized him...
...and it is depressing to think that with the Fund imprint, it may become an "authoritative" work on the IAM...
...2. There is evidence that even this Special Trial Committee did not recommend expulsion...
...Having replaced the missing $1,800, he remained in office undisturbed by the International Executive Council until defeated for reelection by the membership...
...Only it remains perplexing how he reached it...
...This little piece of work was commissioned by the Trade Union Study of the Fund for the Republic...
...Six years before, the Executive Council of the IAM donated a lot of money to Harvard's labor-management history project...
...full access to all records and files and magnanimous cooperation in answering questions was granted by every organization making a contribution...
...They had to be protected...
...Among "Brown rebels," the three-man report won instantaneous fame as the great "whitewash...
...Hayes expressed distaste for these methods of active democracy...
...In December, 1961, when the District President was defeated for reelection, he was promptly awarded a spot on the International payroll...
...got its money's worth...
...but our scholar strains at it...
...DEMOCRACY IN THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINIsTs, by Mark Perlman...
...It is impossible, therefore, to say how much the IAM paid...
...The Addison case is an arrant example of how trial procedure degenerates into simple persecution...
...In 1961, Harvard University published his The Machinists, a New Study in American Trade Unionism, part of a series steeped in scholarship and research...
...The reply, "The size of the financial contribution of any one of the dozen or more donors . . . is not a matter of public record nor would it be conventional in scholarly undertakings to list the amount of each contribution...
...Perlman use them in his latest effort...
...Not true...
...Not one flaw in the monolithic process...
...Before the reformers could elect the new local administration, he forestalled them by putting the local under a Trusteeship that remained for three years and was removed in 1959 only under pressure of the new labor law that went into effect that year...
...It is not an easy task, on the basis of these facts, to portray Hayes as a genial leader...
...The IAM regime today is not the most anti-democratic in the labor movement but it can rightfully claim status as the most hypocritical, with the greatest gap between the professions of its President and the realities of its internal life...
Vol. 12 • January 1965 • No. 1
