LABOR LEADERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND FREEDOM IN THE UNIONS
Benson, H. W.
Once the insurgent Miners for Democracy had triumphed and Arnold Miller had defeated Tony Boyle by 70,373 to 56,334 for United Mine Workers president, the grueling job began of restoring a...
...to protest cheaply strung power lines and short circuits...
...But there was a difference...
...The new board cut top officers' salaries by 25 percent NOTEBOOK 209 to 30 percent and abolished automatic expense accounts...
...would speak up at a convention for the right to elect district officers and executive board members...
...While miners mined coal, the officials mined the miners...
...They needed help to reduce the black dust that was choking them to early disability...
...hundreds of men came from the mines for mass lobbying in Washington...
...A major scandal was the practice, instituted by Lewis, of keeping insurance money in noninterest bank accounts...
...In recent years, the UMW ceased even to protect its members from death in the mines...
...It is not just a matter of "exposing" union corruption, but of recognizing the nature of reform movements: the risks they run, what motivates them, what they signify...
...He had to take his chances with the rank-and-file miners...
...There is no analogous progressive wing in the labor movement today...
...The Mine Workers came to symbolize the triumph of "eating-money" unionism and proved that internal democracy was only an ideological fancy of fuzzy-minded intellectuals...
...Labor leaders remained hostile, indifferent, or passive...
...They began with few resources, no power in the union, no support from established organi zations...
...It's hard to believe that a com pany making nearly 10 million dollars a day could be so troubled," Miller said later...
...The sum of about $2 million in assorted savings was returned to the union treasury, part of which will go to raise the wages of the union's custodial staff, some of whom were getting as little as $100 a week...
...He warned Corcoran: "I'm going to try a reason able approach first...
...If the Department agrees, district autonomy will be fully restored by fall...
...Their demands would be considered commonplace in any decent union, but miners had to wage an extraordinary fight to achieve them because they had lost their internal union democracy...
...It was not money that aroused the miners but a suspicion that their union officials hardly cared whether they died or whether they could live when they got sick and old...
...It brought officers' pensions down from the stratosphere—Boyle's pension, for example, being cut from $50,000 to $16,000 a year...
...New organizations were improvised: the Black Lung Association, the AssoNOTEBOOK ciation of Disabled Miners and Widows, the Miners Project (a public-interest law project providing an independent legal staff...
...WHAT, then, of reformers in other unions...
...I think they were concerned mainly with avoiding anything that might be considered stupid...
...In this industry turned topsy-turvy by heavy machinery that rips away mountainsides and bores tunnels of huge diameter in the earth, throwing up storms of coal and rockdust, the companies count cave-ins, fires, broken bodies, death, silicosis, and black lung as normal conditions of doing business...
...Back in Washington, Miller followed up with a let ter to Corcoran inviting him to an early-January safety discussion at UMWA headquarters...
...The stolen elections, the corruption, the mishandling of pension money, the blacklisting, the initial failure of the Labor Department to enforce the law—that part of the miners' experience is still the plight of other unionists...
...Now, that school of side-of-the-mouth-talking, tough-thinking, rough-dealing has collapsed with the victory of the UMW insurgency...
...The miners' experience shows how debased a union officialdom can become in the absence of membership control...
...Later, the company president, John Corcoran, came too...
...They manipulated these resources to stay in power, spreading cash around during elections and handling ballots like the cash...
...they delay anything that might curb productivity...
...That's over now...
...West Virginia mines were closed by rank-andfile "wildcat" strikes for safety legislation...
...The union's acting safety director, appointed by Boyle at a salary of $31,000, refused to go underground for the inspection...
...mass demonstrations took over the streets of Charleston, the West Virginia capital...
...Those forces spoke out for democratization and demanded action against racketeers...
...As secretary-treasurer of the United Steelworkers of America, I. W. Abel watched from the heights as a rank-and-file rebellion spread throughout his union and then was de feated...
...Those leaders who are dismayed by the labor movement's adaptation to corruptionists are on the defensive...
...Telegrams of condol ence, letters from people saying they're sorry —I'm sick of it...
...These insurgents set out to reform their union, not to desert or replace it...
...For while rough-and-tumble labor leaders might trample over malcontents, they got results for workers, and that's what the labor movement is all about, isn't it...
...The miners had help...
...It would be easy to ascribe that failure to cowardice, or some other character weakness of this or that labor leader...
...It is possible...
...I want you to know that we are willing to cooperate with you," he said...
...Now that has changed, and I want you to know there will be no peace in the coal industry until this bloodshed ends...
...From Yablonski's challenge in 1969 to Miller's victory in 1972, the insurgents said little about wage rates...
...9 in Farmington, West Va., exploded...
...They are not really cowardly men...
...It wasn't always so, nor meant to be...
...In the absence of democracy, a horrible degeneration is possible, yes, even in our labor movement...
...Not that there aren't many union leaders who sympathized with the miner-reformers and rejoiced in their success...
...In the '30s, a new workers' movement was stimulated and backed by a strong section of the established labor movement...
...in coal mining, there was a revolution...
...By contrast Yablonski, who was a member of the UMW executive board, began his fight without the backing of even one other internation official...
...Sure of a majority on the executive board, Abel knew that at the worst he would at least be credited with the number of votes actually cast on his behalf...
...Inside the UMW, the officials in power handled big money as their collective private property: union treasury, insurance funds, union-owned bank, their own salaries and ex penses...
...Corcoran listened, offered optimistic comments about his company's faith in long-term re search...
...the others were Boyle appointees...
...Not the murderers or those who hired them, not the Boyle officials with their contempt for miners, but the insurgents— they represented what is admirable in the labor movement...
...This implicit nonaggression pact comes to protect an assortment of malefactors in high places within the labor movement, even murderers...
...That explosion and that speech resounded in every mine pit in the country...
...We will be nudged again when James Morrissey runs this year for president of the National Maritime Union...
...When the Painters union held its convention in 1969, under tight control of its president, S. Frank Raftery, a motion to memorialize the two dead men was rejected, and the convention passed on to other business...
...Then the mine blew up...
...What else is new...
...UMW members were expected to go down that hole...
...Nothing about Vietnam, no call to rally to McGovern, no radical slogans for social change...
...We saw in action the often-sought "alliance between intellectuals and labor...
...New York City building contractors do fear "a bullet in the back " (New York Times) if they talk about racketeering union officials...
...Then there must be district conventions and finally a national convention before the end of the year at which the UMW constitution is to be rewritten...
...In depth of feeling and readiness to act without awaiting official blessing, the rebel miners' movement resembled the early CIO...
...Miller shook his hand, but there was no smile with it...
...This collaboration made possible effective action within the union, access to the courts, and pressure on government agencies...
...the labor movement, in all its wings, remained aloof...
...One painting contractor was almost killed...
...We are reminded of these facts as Frank Schonfeld continues his fight in the New York Painters union for democracy and integrity...
...In retrospect, we can see what combination of factors made possible the miners victory: • There were courageous local leaders and rank-and-file activists without whom nothing would have been possible...
...Boyle was still in office, and the union election campaign was on...
...Abel's majority, feigning indignation at the suggestion that only outside intervention could assure a fair count, turned McDonald down...
...With some reluctance, he and his backers ap pealed to the membership against the then president, David McDonald...
...Otherwise, why no labor resolutions expressing horror at the Yablonski killing...
...When Yablonski was shot, AFL—CIO President Meany was concerned only that the murder might be used to "smear labor...
...With a minority on the board, McDonald knew he needed help and proposed that the Ameri can Arbitration Association supervise the union's contested election...
...Was it safe enough...
...but nine were asphyxiated...
...Of 18 executive board members representing the districts, only 5 had ever been elected...
...The new leadership had not even moved into the United Mine Workers offices when, on December 16, a gas explosion killed five men and hospitalized three others at a Consolidation subsidiary's No...
...Labor Department to supervise elections in all the remaining districts under trusteeship...
...Who could decide if not the miners' own safety man...
...Democracy, they discovered, was not necessary for effective unionism...
...In steel, there was a change in the guard...
...At first, one might- have dismissed the UMW battle as just another power contest between ins and outs...
...their minds simply ruled out such a possibility...
...When the union was stolen from miners, they led the drive to take it back...
...There was an overwhelming consensus that it would be quixotic to act differently...
...Even they display small public interest in promoting union democracy or in taking the offensive against corruption in the labor movement...
...To sustain that view for long, you would have had to seal your mind tightly against the facts and busy yourself, like George Meany, with other urgent causes...
...The insurgent miners' leaders, their local officers, their rank-and-file activists, those around the Miners for Democracy are the living heart of our labor movement, reared in it, infused with its ideals, men who were ready to face vilification, blacklisting, even possible death for those ideals...
...3 mine in Itmann, West Va...
...Modest though it was, they would have been doomed without it: a few outside liberals, a few talented attorneys (Joseph Rauh, Chip Yablonski, Clarice Feldman), a few dedicated students, a solitary congressman, and one experienced labor staff man, Meyer Bernstein, who quit a secure job with the Steelworkers to take his chances with the miner rebels...
...And at least part of that officialdom, according to confessions of participants, was ready for murder when its power was challenged...
...Miller discharged him...
...In the late 1920s, the CIO, as a progressive wing, was half the labor movement...
...In Coal Patrol (January 1, 1973), Tom Bethell described their meeting: Corcoran smiled, stuck out his hand...
...Miller flew down to the mine...
...To be fair, there was one thin crack in this wall of conformity: Victor Reuther endorsed the Miners for Democracy, but he spoke for himself alone...
...But not one spoke out, not even in the bleak days after the Yablonski murder when the opposition needed at least the consolation of moral support...
...The oppositionists had to continue to earn their living digging coal—except toward the end when some took time off to campaign...
...At least this once, the law was enforced and a fair election assured...
...Jim Morrissey was beaten almost to death outside the National Maritime Union hall...
...In those years, a cynical realism gripped many labor analysts...
...The union has requested the U.S...
...Lewis wielded his powers of sarcasm to instill so deep a contempt for internal democracy that delegates would automatically snicker whenever some stiff-spined dissident (what honors you deserve...
...These people deserve all the praise we can give them...
...If, however, you can recognize a crusade against corruption, or a gut battle for democracy, or a lastditch effort to save a union, or a "class struggle" operating within a union, or a desperate drive for protection against killing accidents, then the failure of even a single top labor leader to intervene points up a stark fact about the contemporary labor movement: it is incapable of supporting a progressive reform struggle within its own ranks...
...Their victory reminds us of the democratic potential of the unionized working class...
...To switch from sweetheart dealings to militant unionism means they may be forced to close down unsafe mines, to demand safety legislation and its enforcement, to be propelled 'deep into political action, to negotiate new deals...
...The Miller team now has begun to fulfill a good part of its campaign platform...
...I assume (without personal knowledge) that some may have privately donated modest sums to the insurgents...
...In the 1920s, when the AFL was dominated by know 208 nothings who opposed unemployment insurance and ignored mass-production manufacturing, progressive unions and militant groups fought inside and outside the AFL for other policies...
...So there is corruption in unions, so whereever you find people you'll find corruption of some kind...
...By the time the mine could be reopened to recover the bodies, it was January 1973 and Arnold Miller had taken over...
...Boyle's downfall began, to set an exact date, on November 20, 1968, when Consol Mine No...
...Seven districts are scheduled to have elections by federal court order by the end of June...
...Like a private citizen who watches impotently while thugs torment a victim, the decent labor leader feels helpless to assist the union reformer who is beaten to the ground...
...If that doesn't work, I'm going to try a less reasonable approach...
...That kind of reaction misses the point...
...Of 40 miners, 650 feet deep in the earth, nine were "inby" the machine in violation of state law...
...A rigid, if unwritten, code governs relations among labor leaders, one that allows no legitimate place for rank-and-file reform movements and that outlaws support by the leader of one union for critics in any other...
...In 1972, 31 men were killed in Consolidation mines...
...that is, they were trapped behind the machine, which blocked their passage while the ventilating fans blew murderous smoke and carbon monoxide directly at them...
...One kind of support the miners did not have at all...
...They wanted to protect their pension money...
...NOTEBOOK Seventy-eight men died...
...to watch out for gas accumulations, explosions, and rockfalls...
...While the smoke clouds still billowed, Boyle told a nationwide TV audience that the company had an excellent safety record...
...Think again...
...The Auto Workers union, John L. Lewis delighted in saying, pumps its members full of "democracy," but "we" give miners "eating-moey...
...And those unions which have adopted resolutions against the Vietnam war or endorsed McGovern despite Meany's "neutrality...
...Why no outcry, except locally, when Wilson and Green were shot in California...
...Lloyd Green and Dow Wilson were murdered for leading a Painters reform movement in California against grafters...
...Later he called it "one of the better companies to work with...
...One of their murderers, then an official in the Painters union, is now serving a life sentence for the crime...
...There were prolabor professionals (liberals, intellectuals, civil libertarians, attorneys) who came forward to help...
...From 1969 to 1972 the miners fought alone...
...Once the insurgent Miners for Democracy had triumphed and Arnold Miller had defeated Tony Boyle by 70,373 to 56,334 for United Mine Workers president, the grueling job began of restoring a union that, under an authoritarian regime, had sadly disintegrated...
...There's just too much plain, ordinary irresponsibility in this industry, and the former leadership of this union has been too close to the industry to see it or fight it...
...In the late '40s, when he became UAW president, there was Walter Reuther...
...They needed a union to stand up for modern safety measures...
...No grandiose aims were emblazoned on insurgent banners...
...When Yablonski first announced his candidacy against Boyle, George Meany shrugged it off as an attempt by a kitchen boy to move into the dining room...
...The new union leaders know they may soon have to confront the employers on these issues...
...The insur gents had accused Boyle of loading the staff with political pay-rollers while miners died without union protection...
...When Joseph Yablonski was killed, hardly anyone in the labor movement would believe that it could be an inner-union assassination...
...A revitalized UMW will need help from allies among Oil and Chemical Workers, from Steelworkers, from Transportation Workers...
...Only the three top offices changed hands when Arnold Miller, Mike Trbovich, and Harry Patrick took over...
...I'm sick of these things," he said quietly...
...The 31 miners who were "outby" (on the other side of the machine) escaped...
...Li 210...
...II COMPARE the Miners' union with the Steel workers...
...Sometimes that's a figure of speech, sometimes it's a physical description...
...its absence, in my opinion, largely explains the widespread "disenchantment" of liberal intellectuals with the labor movement...
...It worked...
...Then what was it...
...I have seen more than my share of needless suffering in my lifetime," Miller wrote, "but I have never before been in a position to do very much to stop it...
...But all of them...
...When discontent continued to rumble, Abel estimated the chances, looked for support in the officialdom and, once he could count on half the executive board, made the plunge...
...Even murderers...
...For 50 years, democracy in the UMW had been suppressed and derided...
...They resist spending the sums necessary to make mines safer...
...III A MASSIVE CONTINUOUS mining machine was being moved on Saturday evening, July 22, 1972, from one section to another of Consol Mine No...
...According to the National Observer (December 30, 1972), I. W. Abel, himself the successful product of a kind of opposition, apologized to Tony Boyle when Meyer Bernstein left the Steelworkers to help Arnold Miller...
...Meanwhile, the reorganization and democratization of the union has to be completed...
...Yet Yablonski was leading a fight of workers for social justice...
...to avoid careless welding flashes...
...1 at Blacksville, West Va., when it touched an overhead power line and caught fire...
Vol. 20 • April 1973 • No. 2
