CHANGE & CONFLICT IN THE AFL-CIO: A WASHINGTON LETTER
Herling, John
As George Meany grows heavy and sprightlier with years, it is strange to observe that in the summer of 1974 open talk about a successor seems to have abated. This may be because of the...
...Especially vehement in taking this position was Joseph Beirne, then president of the Communications Workers of America, who was at one time considered a likely successor to Meany...
...by Patricia Cayo Sexton, DISSENT, Summer 1974...
...Out of the ranks of the trade union movement has come CLUW...
...UAW would be the largest union in the AFL–CIO...
...Such reunification would add more than $1.5 million a year in per capita payments to the AFL–CIO treasury...
...Inside the AFL-CIO it seems almost sacrilegious to talk of succession— I write this on the eve of the AFL-CIO Executive Council's August meeting and of Meany's 80th birthday—but the thought persists...
...I certainly wouldn't have any objection...
...They were joined by the National Treasury Employees Union, which is, like the NEA, independent of the AFL–CIO...
...At the same time, there have developed areas of innovation and stimulus...
...ALTHOUGH MEANY ENJOYS stomping the national and international stage, his arena of first concern is that of internal arrangements in the AFL–CIO...
...Meany's predecessor, William Green, died in office shortly before he was 80, and Philip Murray at the age of 66...
...Raids and jurisdictional disputes are nothing new in the labor movement, but this sort of jungle warfare has supposedly been curbed under Article XX of the Constitution...
...Opposing him were Hall, CWA President Joseph Beirne, State, County President Jerry Wurf, head of the International Union of Electrical Workers Paul Jennings, Machinists President Floyd (Red) Smith, C. L. Dennis, of the Railway and Airline Clerks, Rubber Workers President Peter Bommarito, and Al Grospiron, president of Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers...
...But no, said Meany, "he didn't clear it with me...
...Reluctant because of his misgivings as to the motives of some union leaders in pushing for such a department, Wurf said he would give it a try, but if it doesn't prove productive his union's relationship with such a new department would be minimal...
...This would seem to be his present response to those who argue against paying per capita dues on 750,000 AFSCME members to the AFL– CIO...
...Under normal circumstances, Meany's choice of Shanker would have ridden through without open argument...
...He had never been an elected officer of the union in which he holds a membership card, the Masters, Mates and Pilots (recently merged into the International Longshoremen's Association...
...Dan Conway, president of the Bakery and Confectionery Workers...
...There are 4 million union women but "30 million unorganized sisters...
...Cole's language in the Shanker case was cutting...
...Part of the unspoken motivation in the drive to get the UAW back with the AFL–CIO has been the belief that the UAW's presence there may influence the selection of a next AFL– CIO president...
...Its spokesmen—particularly William Lucy, AFSCME's secretarytreasurer, who was elected CBTU president— warned organized labor of the "overall dissatisfaction of black workers" with their "limited role and involvement in the shaping and implementation of union policy at local and national levels...
...He admires the man who can prepare the way for his own successor: with great zest he tells the story of how the late Mike Quill, president of the Transport Workers (whom he did not always admire), "got it ready" for his successor Matthew Guinan...
...Aside from the undeniable fact that Scoop Jackson has voted in the Senate almost invariably with organized labor, he and Meany have held identical positions on the Vietnam War and entertain the same fears of the new elements activated into the Democratic party, and the same determination to resist the blandishments of detente with the Soviet Union...
...Top priority must be given, they say, to "organizing the unorganized of all American labor...
...When the slate was subsequently offered en bloc to the convention, no opposition voice was heard on the floor...
...We have areas where there is compulsory retirement and I have seen people retire at the very top of their ability...
...He holds strongly to the opinion that there ought to be a single, national trade union center in which his union would play an influential role...
...Woodcock told the delegates it would be unwise, because of strong differences of opinion and the shortness of time for In Forthcoming Issues: ON VIRTUE by Czeslaw Milosz GEORGES SOREL: JANSENIST MARXISM by Leszek Kolakowski INFLATION & THE WELFARE STATE by H. Brand 484 adequate discussion, to call for any kind of definitive action from the convention...
...These were the exultant words addressed to the convention by Myra Wolfgang of Detroit, a vice-president of the Hotel & Restaurant Workers, one of the few women to have attained that eminence in an international union...
...but that was both an oversimplification of the problem and a belittling of UAW motives...
...So far, the American trade union movement remains a pluralistic labor universe, with areas of tension and collision within and without the AFL–CIO...
...Selden refused to oblige and announced his intention to stand for reelection, despite his almost certain defeat at the AFT convention in August...
...We have a message for George Meany...
...Where did he think they were headed...
...Since the merger of the AFL and the CIO in 1955, vacancies have been filled by vote of the Coun cil and subsequently acquiesced to by a com pliant convention...
...It took all of the pressure of Meany, alive and kicking, to overcome the resistant forces...
...This may be because of the irrefutable fact that "he is the only president we have...
...Foremost among the opponents to reaffiliation on the UAW executive board were Irving Bluestone, UAW vice-president, who is head of the General Motors Department, and Emil Mazey, UAW's secretary-treasurer...
...Several Executive Council members...
...None, however, came from Meany and Fitzsimmons, who seldom act impulsively in such matters...
...When establishing this relationship more than a year ago, Wurf moved cautiously...
...Q: Do you think if a vacancy occurs on the AFL–CIO Executive Council—and one has—a woman might be chosen...
...I would conserve, not destroy it...
...Many presidents of your affiliated unions are in their 70s and beyond...
...You can't be sure how aware he is of all the maneuverings around him, but there is no doubt that he makes every effort to keep in touch...
...Perhaps the most serious confrontation took place between the Shanker-led United Federation of Teachers in New York City and AFSCME's District 37, headed by Victor Gotbaum...
...At the middle and local level of leadership there was also a considerable reluctance to merge UAW's political and legislative identity—Community Action Programs known as CAP—with the AFL–CIO state and local councils...
...After months of planning, 3,200 women—white, black, Chicano, Puerto Rican and American Indian—founded * For a fuller account of the founding convention of CLUW, see "Workers (Female) Arise...
...Such a post is usually filled by a high elected officer of an affiliated union...
...As a result, a proposal for reaffiliation was not even brought to the floor of the UAW June convention...
...I contend that I do have experience...
...insisted that Kirkland was not to be considered automatically the next president of the AFL–CIO...
...At the same time, Jackson—with 22 years of seniority in the Senate—has effectively exploited issues that have caught and deserved to receive public attention...
...Altogether, there are a dozen state CAPEs...
...The naming of a teacher to the Executive Council was long overdue...
...If I see that I can't do the job, if I feel that the people who head up all these unions that are part of the AFL–CIO feel that I can't do the job, I'll just say goodbye and go on my way...
...An important body of labor jurisprudence has been built up inside the AFL–CIO on the foundation of this article...
...Tied to that, moreover, the investigation by his Senate committee on the energy crisis and the Arab Oil embargo gave him a strong play...
...Kirkland's career in the AFL–CIO and, for a while, in the Operating Engineers, was that of a staff man...
...Now what I've been doing, I've been doing for 50 years...
...MEANY: I don't know, John, and I haven't given it any thought...
...Out of more than 80 million in the workforce, not many more than 21.5 million belong to a union or employee association that performs union functions...
...Instead of more than 110 AFL–CIO affiliates, many competing with each other or with groups outside the AFL–CIO, he urges the merger and consolidation of the unions to no more than 25 or 30...
...Sometimes the question pops up: "Is AFL–CIO affiliation necessary...
...Here was one such exchange: Q.: Is it a wise thing to stay in office so long...
...MEANY: Well, I think they have a role in the AFL–CIO...
...This avoidance of political reality would not be the prevailing situation if the AFL-CIO, like many trade unions, had a compulsory retirement age of 65 or 70...
...This, he said, was an unfortunate break with past practice...
...During the extended argument, Meany saw his own turf unexpectedly roughed up...
...Other Council members held that only presidents of affiliated unions should be chosen for the Executive Council...
...With less than 25 percent of the labor force organized, this means the exclusion of millions of blacks and other minorities as well as whites...
...Or we can make ourselves more relevant to the needs of workers in a postindustrial society, and become an even more substantial voice in the shaping of the future than in the past...
...But it became clear that the opposition to a return could not be ignored...
...Privately, Meany was assuring certain people that only financial considerations deterred the UAW from coming back...
...More significantly, proponents of such a coming together are convinced that it would increase the magnetic pull of organized labor in the political, legislative, and economic areas...
...Legally, unions with established collective-bargaining relations are protected from raids...
...For months before its convention last June, the feeling grew that a decision to reaffiliate was at hand...
...In its first constitutional convention in Detroit, the CBTU with 1,200 delegates from 42 unions, in and outside the AFL–CIO, created last May a structure, with national and regional officers, to do a job its founders believed was not being done by the labor movement...
...He falls back into this posture of feigned indifference, especially when things don't go as he wishes inside the Democratic party, or if he believes AFL–CIO influence not sufficiently recognized along the way...
...Although some of the opposition was rooted in the certainty that Meany was visiting his personal displeasure on Selden for his openly expressed opposition to Meany on Vietnam and the spurious AFL–CIO 1972 presidential campaign "neutrality," others opposed Shanker for what thy regarded as a violation of a procedural principle...
...Al Grospiron of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers...
...It was assumed that the Executive Council would bow to Meany's wishes...
...COMMENTS AND OPINIONS...
...This setback for Shanker was especially noteworthy because it diminished his prestige, as he appeared for the first time before such a tribunal since his election to the AFL–CIO Executive Council...
...By eliminating the duplication of effort, he believes there is greater likelihood of increasing the percentage of organized workers...
...Whether this could be a forerunner of Council opposition on other more sensitive decisions, such as the succession to the presidency, one can only guess...
...Above all, inside the UAW there is considerable belief that there are principled differences on policy, organization, and attitude, which led to the rupture with Meany in 1968 and still remain...
...PERHAPS THE MOST ZESTFUL DEVELOPMENT in the labor movement came upon the scene with the formation of two groups: the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), launched about two years ago, and the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), which held a founding convention last March in Chicago...
...The advantages for the AFL–CIO are clear...
...But UAW reaffiliation is still in the distance...
...While Meany had the votes to push through the Shanker nomination, this was the first time that open dissent had broken out on such an issue...
...But even before Beirne had bucked Meany in the 1972 national presidential election—when he took the initiative in organizing the Labor For McGovern Committee—the CWA president had fallen out of favor with Meany...
...IN THE MEANTIME, both the AFL–CIO's president and from time to time many international union presidents would like to see the United Auto Workers back in the AFL–CIO...
...I don't know how much knowledge I've acquired from the experience...
...ASIDE FROM SUCCESSION, the subject that absorbs a great deal of Meany's time and energy is the care and feeding of the presidential ambitions of Senator Henry (Scoop) Jackson of Washington...
...But in the last two years, the Washington Senator has been a featured speaker COMMENTS AND OPINIONS at many union conventions and was showered with attention by organizations intimately con nected with AFL–CIO headquarters staff...
...I think they have it within the constituent unions of the AFL–CIO...
...He has become a shrewd appraiser of the strengths and weaknesses of fellow members in the Executive Council...
...All of this reinforced Meany's belief in Jackson's presidential possibilities...
...It's a question of what you want to do and what you're able to do...
...This commingling of diverse personalities indicated that on certain matters affecting the internal government of the AFL–CIO, acquiescence to Meany's wishes by members of the Executive Council is no longer automatic...
...With out this orchestration, Senator Jackson would not have reached his present plateau of national attention...
...Not only have the two men differed sharply on political issues—again, Vietnam and the 1972 campaign— but the battle has been carried on in the field of organization...
...We give you the commitment," he said, "that if it should ever be proposed that there should be reaffiliation with the AFL–CIO, then that action will be finally sanctioned and approved only by action of a Convention of the international union...
...The hostility between Wurf and Shanker resulted, in good part, from Wurf's success in fashioning cooperative legislative and political ties with the National Education Association —an all-teacher organization with 1.4 million unaffiliated members—into the Coalition of American Public Employees (CAPE...
...I am opposed, not to the organization of its members, but to those who are restraining its evolution and preventing it from fulfilling its true mission...
...COMMENTS AND OPINIONS an organization that seems on its way to making an important imprint on the character and spirit of the trade union movement...
...There was a rumble of discontent among Council members, but not loud enough to overcome reluctance to tangle with Meany's choice...
...After a bitter internal struggle in the AFT, Shanker had succeeded in a strategy to win the support of the AFT executive board as the AFT's nominee for AFL–CIO Executive Council...
...This was done, not so much by a laying on of hands, but as a public assignment of duties, and letting the word get out...
...TO A CONSIDERABLE EXTENT, this is now happening inside the AFLr-CIO...
...The success of CAPE has triggered the move to organize an AFL–CIO Public Employees Department, to include federal, state, and local employees who are now members of unions such as the Service Employees Union, the Laborers, the CWA, and Operating Engineers— the latter having a mixed membership of workers in the private as well as the public sector...
...We have a message for Frank Fitzsimmons...
...After considerable uncertainty as to how to handle these new developments, the top AFL–CIO leadership decided to roll with the punch...
...Considerable pressure for such a move had been generated by AFL–CIO headquarters, where it was made clear that Meany insisted on Shanker rather than Selden...
...Gotbaum and Wurf hauled Shanker to "court," under Article XX, and David Cole, the permanent impartial umpire, not only found against Shanker but was upheld by the Appeals Committee of the Executive Council...
...When a reporter puts the question di rectly to Meany, there is quick intake of breath by the union listener...
...When he put forward a proposal for a study of the reorganization of the AFL–CIO, he was attacked by Shanker on the floor of the last convention...
...Under a new reorganization plan, the restriction by the national AFL–CIO may become more stringent...
...So might other unions—such as the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, with its new leadership...
...But Meany was not about to allow David Selden, the AFT president, to be chosen...
...Mao Tse-tung doesn't stand any higher in Meany's estimation than Brezhnev...
...Since the next regular convention will not be held until 1977, the subject of rejoining the AFL–CIO, if revived soon, may have to be brought before a special convention...
...In the minds of some, this preoccupation with Jackson was considered a blocking action against McGovern, not necessarily a permanent commitment...
...PERHAPS THE MOST fiercely fought struggle inside the AFL–CIO is the conflict between Shanker and Jerry Wurf, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME...
...Indeed, the positions taken by Shanker in opposition to Wurf have given him high stand 482 ing at AFL–CIO headquarters...
...Should the UAW return to the AFL–CIO, there is little doubt that in addition to Wurf, Floyd (Red) Smith and his associates in the Machinists Union (with which the UAW already pursues joint activities) and the International Union of Electrical Workers, 'headed by Paul Jennings, would regard the UAW as a natural ally...
...the Textile Workers Union headed by Sol Stetin...
...Having saluted the flag, Meany is not the kind of man who would put the succession up for grabs...
...For UAW President Leonard Woodcock, the idea of reaffiliation, six years after the late Walter P. Reuther led the UAW out of the AFL–CIO, has become increasingly attractive...
...You can tell them we didn't come to Chicago to swap recipes...
...I think," said Meany, "he's got to have the basic approach and the basic philosophy that whatever is good for this great country of ours must be good for the trade union movement, and not the other way around...
...But in building backing for himself, Kirkland was also providing Meany with the kind of staff support for which he is increasingly grateful as he paces himself more carefully with the onset of years...
...Wurf was thus able to block any later claim that this was a kind of "dual unionism...
...After months of preparation, the CBTU was ready to make its presence felt...
...Now we have [unions] where the vast majority of the membership are women and still the vast majority of officers are men...
...For one thing, Wurf does not limit his discussion of labor issues and his disagreements with official AFL– CIO policy to union forums...
...CLUW's intention to move for more "active participation in the political and legislative processes of our unions" surely has sounded an alert in many union headquarters...
...It was considered unlikely that Jackson would have gone off to China without checking with Meany...
...Questioned about the kind of credentials and qualities a union leader of the future should have, his reply rested largely on platitudes...
...Both died in November 1952...
...In fact, the AFL–CIO headquarters provided a staff man as speech-writer for Jackson during the primary campaign...
...When vacancies on the AFL–CIO Council occur, they are seldom filled by convention vote, as called for in the constitution...
...I've got my eyes open...
...Months before the 1972 Democratic convention, Meany had let it be known that, although a long shot, Jackson was his preference...
...In and outside union meetings, Wurf warns, We can stand pat as a movement that represents a declining percentage of the workforce, and watch our influence over national direction seep away...
...For a while the AFL–CIO Fire Fighters were in COMMENTS AND OPINIONS CAPE, but although they withdrew as a national union, their various state associations continue in state coalitions...
...Beirne's role as an opposition leader has come to an abrupt end...
...The trauma of the Yom Kippur War—Jackson's effusive identification with Jewish interests—brought him an emotional political response...
...While Wurf leads his organization into formal and informal alliances with organizations both in and outside the AFL–CIO, he finds his organization seriously harassed by AFL–CIO unions...
...Frederick O'Neal, president of the Associated Actors and Artists, abstained...
...Currently there is only one exception to this "presidential" pattern on the Executive Council—the veteran and highly respected Joseph Keenan, secretary of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers...
...The same staff man wrote the speech delivered at the convention by Steelworkers President I. W. Abel, ostensibly nominating Scoop Jackson but actually attacking not only McGovern but the coalition of forces that brought about his nomination...
...Since the action was taken suddenly, nobody was prepared for an alternative...
...If Meany should decide to retire, the man most likely to succeed him would be Lane Kirkland, 52, who has been secretary-treasurer since 1969, and before that, Meany's executive assistant...
...The failure of the AFL–CIO to adjust itself to the restructuring of the Democratic party and AFL–CIO misjudgment in measuring its influence only embittered the feeling against Senator McGovern, who won the nomination despite the opposition of COPE—the AFL– CIO's Committee on Political Education...
...Friendly pressures to win the UAW back are generated by unions inside the Federation who regard the UAW as strong reinforcement of the liberal wing inside the AFL–CIO...
...The struggle there revolved around Shanker's attempt to raid 10,000 teachers' aides already represented by AFSCME...
...Meany, then secretarytreasurer, was chosen president by the AFL Executive Council and elected by convention the following year...
...He enjoys playing the role of political boss as well as of AFL–CIO president, and the two are not mutually exclusive...
...He has first-hand knowledge of jurisdictional problems, and his close proximity to Meany affords a strategic position to secure his intercession...
...For example, he was considerably surprised, if not shaken, late last year when he encounCOMMENTS AND OPINIONS tered stormy resistance to his effort to name Shanker, then vice-president of the American Federation of Teachers, to fill a vacancy on the Executive Council...
...I feel as long as I can do the job, I'm going to try to do it...
...With his additional muscle as a member of the AFL–CIO Executive Council, Shanker called a special meeting of the AFT executive board and demanded Selden's resignation as president forthwith...
...the Graphic Arts International Union of which Kenneth Brown is president...
...Through this administrative post, Kirkland has also built up a strong following among 480 AFL–CIO headquarters staff whose advancement he has expedited...
...At the same time, however, Meany insisted on the fiction that he has no concern in the shaping of Democratic party policy or the Party's choice of candidates...
...The AFSCME and NEA were brought together by the common problems both faced during Phase I of President Nixon's wage control...
...Selden had opposed Meany's hawk position on Vietnam and, even more unpardonable, supported McGovern in 1972...
...While Wurf says he has "concerns" about the AFL–CIO, he believes that AFSCME should continue its affiliation...
...That is not due to any policy of the AFL–CIO and in a good many cases not due to any policy of the unions themselves...
...Moving to higher ground, Wurf invokes the spirit of Eugene Victor Debs who, in his day, was critical of the American Federation of Labor under the presidency of Samuel Gompers: I am the friend, not the enemy of the American Federation of Labor...
...But a strong and determined opposition to Shanker developed under the leadership of Seafarers Union President Paul Hall...
...Although he is often given to impulsive judgments—and even commitments— from which he is loath to withdraw, he would like to be around to arrange the succession...
...One would never have guessed from this weird document that the Democratic nominee had achieved over the years a 93 percent average on the legislative scoreboard of the AFL–CIO's Committee on Political Education (COPE...
...A few months ago he was stricken by cancer, which hastened his retirement from the CWA presidency, though he remained on the AFL–CIO Executive Council...
...His confidence in his own ability to shape Federation decisions, especially on the Executive Council level, remains unimpaired...
...He conferred with Meany, who saw advantages in the legislative and political field and informally approved the coalition...
...The proposal was, of course, rejected...
...Through unionization, CLUW says, it will not only seek to correct discrimination against women, but "educate and inspire our union brothers to help give affirmative action in the workplace...
...Now, as far as women are concerned, my experience has been that we have some very, very capable women in these organizations but they only go up to a certain level—to membership on an executive board or head of a district organization—they don't seem to have any desire to go further...
...This has led Wurf to advocate a drastic reorganization of the American labor movement...
...MEANY (poised, rather than testy, as if prepared for a snotty questioner): The question of retirement, I think, is something you can't do by simple arithmetic...
...They certainly have the same rights as any other member and I don't know of any union that has any machinery, any rules that bar the advancement of these people...
...At a news conference, Meany was asked what role did he see for CBTU and CLUW in the labor movement...
...Lacking such affiliation, COMMENTS AND OPINIONS a union could be open to raids, without redress...
...the same person compiled a 50-page "white paper," called by some a "dirty white paper," which so distorted McGovern's record that it was distributed by Nixon's CRP organization...
...If labor is weakened, society is more likely to close out the poor and the powerless whom labor seeks to represent...
...The realistic Meany understands this clearly, but he is willing to take his chances...
...Certainly Hall, who agreed with Meany's position on Vietnam and who had endorsed Nixon's re election, could not be accused of running in ideological harness with Selden...
...Today when the unmentionable—if not un thinkable—topic of succession comes up, it is projected, not by a bold spirit in the AFL-CIO Executive Council, but by an irreverent out sider...
...Kirkland's elevation was a break with precedent...
...He got it ready by making certain changes in the constitution and by elimCOMMENTS AND OPINIONS mating potential rivals...
...Believing that "detente" was phony, Jackson insisted that the price of any concessions we make to the Soviet Union should be conditioned upon agreement that the Soviet regime permit Jews to emigrate from the U.S.S.R...
...For months, the way had been greased for Shanker...
...In the past six years, Kirkland has played the political game astutely...
...The old AFL did not require its president to step down at a certain age, nor did the CIO...
...Still, this apparent inconsistency in the Senator's global view must have required some painful adjustment on Meany's part...
...Woodcock, actually, did send the convention a good luck telegram and a pledge of support...
...While Jackson is Meany's favored horse, at this point, he must feel a little miffed that Scoop took off on a trip to China to play the game of detente there...
...We have a message for Leonard Woodcock...
...The latter made the point that by naming Shanker over Selden, Meany was intervening in the internal affairs of an affiliated union...
...Shanker was approved by a vote of 16-8...
Vol. 21 • September 1974 • No. 4
