Employers Throughout Notion Intensify Fight Against Unions
SAPOSS, DAVID J.
Employers Throughout Notion Intensify Fight Against Unions Speed Up Anti-Labor Campaign After Wagner Act Passage •MNDEJ^NDINT^ PETS, SPRING UP THROUGHOUT NATION AS NEW TECHNIQUE IN ATTEMPT TO...
...In this article, Information was given as to how employee representation plans could be transformed into "Independent unions," membership appeals were reprinted, and typical constitutions and by-laws were set forth...
...Lilienthal wanted to.knock the privets operators dead...
...This practice presents a sharp contrast to that followed by the bona fide unions...
...But there are plenty of ejneera public-ownership advocates who do agree with him...
...Arthur Morgan...
...I was human," she said, "when three years ago I let someone talk me into tasting opium...
...VARIOUS new and more subtle techniques of this employer anti-union campaign have, as yet, received little...
...The anti-union bias ot these "Independents" Is even more apparent in times of a labor controversy...
...LHleothal's animosity tb sortie of Arthur Morgan's ideals made Lilienthal a useful tool for the •Tennessee crowd...
...Surely, Arthur Morgan wouldn't de liberately crush them now...
...The/T.V.A...
...The dope racket hits the young people hard...
...And when the story of the investigation is checked (If it's, an honest investigation) it will be seen that It wee Harcourt Morgan's idea—and the Tennessee political ring's idea—to pay off Berry...
...These lineal descendants ot the company unions are so constituted that it is often difficult to establish their connection with employers but , many of the "independents" thus far investigated by the Board have been found to be .company inspired and dominated...
...Violence, racketeering, and communistic tendencies are played up as characteristics of the bona fide anasjps in the literature of the "inde-MP-dents"' eifffn the utterances of their leaders Ara-nmei}tr|,s?w then made for the need for a 'daKti-m*Mi*Mjt)fthat will compete with and com-¦-bat the Mrfffitjlied unions...
...This much is certain —'.it the T. V. A., largest experiment in Government ownership, is besmirched, the eause of public ownership receives a set-back from which it won't recover for years...
...I must have five dollars a day for opium and In order to get the money I had to tie myself up with a "mob" who send to department stores to draw the attention of salesladies while they steal...
...These agencies are defended and championed by employers...
...and is familiar with the Project la*1 the men who run ft...
...Even Senator Norris, the "'father" of the Tennessee Valley Administration, doesn't know which ope of the Directors of "the nation's.largest project is right, j « A new angle op the T.VJL fight is exposed beti, by Bryce Otiv?a...
...A MONGST the "dope-eaters" and "smokers'* the reporter discovered bankers, business-men, and respectable heads ot families who are sinking low in the scale and will soon find themselves in the hidden dens...
...represent union organizers as "outside agitators" who draw fat salaries at the workers' expense...
...Inc., "independents," found by the Board to be puppets of the employer, submitted a report on the Board's charges to James H. Rand...
...It is sold openly In Cabarets, hotel lobbies, restaurants, saloons and even on the elevated stations...
...They knew—and know now—that he believes in •public ownership...
...a honest investigation is prosecuted, it will reveal that the only puTtl between Lilienthal and Dr...
...Insinuations are made that the strikers were Communists or Communist-led because they adopted the sit-down technique...
...Morgan did the building...
...Her hair was dishevelled, her face drawn and haggard, her hands trembled, her eyes stared blankly...
...The facts are—that in a period of unemployment and depression, while a city like Chicago is in the throes of a serious relief problem—there are two thousand dope peddlers taking in S20.O00 daily...
...Charges and countercharges fill the air and Congress and the President have been brought in...
...Harcourt Morgan, apparently took the position that Berry was so powerful with the administratis «sd particularly in Tennessee that it would be best to be ftdkNc sad temporize with him...
...he made it, and Antio-smfsay he fought and bled and (almost) died to do it...
...From, there on he was forced to stand by the guns or admits terrible "error.;'«, .»/'<•• r- '- . ".''- '¦-[ Thyronine was that, with' Harco&rr' aiding, cofcunufliywith Lilienthal, Arthur was Just naturally forced into I he position « of fighting them both...
...DECENTLY, the "independents have made many abortive attempts to federate, and several functioning federations are now in existence...
...The father found the girl stretched out on a hard mattress In a cheap hotel...
...His two asrcites, Dave Lilienthal and Dr...
...A. (and the public power program) would ^ inquiry which would smear Dr...
...He came into the Tennessee Valley set-up as part of the same clique that gave us a city with six mayors in one day (Memphis) and a group of bankers who got a newspaper publisher into the cooler f6r -daring to expose the sharp deals of bank ring ruled by the family sf our Ambassador at Large in Europe...
...They can't work, since they are sick, wasted, and nerve-racked...
...If any analysis...
...It thus becomes so confusing that Senator N'orris scarcely knows whether he's shooting at friend or foe in his efforts to obtain a friendly investigation...
...No sooner had the Act been passed than var-ioua organisations circulated memoranda and other literature, advising the public, and especially employers, that the law was unconstitutional...
...Criminals of every kind—murderers, black-mailers, petty thieves, white slavers—come out of the dens...
...Junior Economist of-, the National Labor Relations Board...
...TT IS significant In determining the nature of these "independents" that the National Association of Manufacturers, long out-spoken In Its opposition to bargaining with bona fide unions, carried a sympathetic article in its Labor Relations Bulletin, entitled "Independent Unions...
...His attitude on the public private power question was summed up in a statement he made last January: "Private ownership has had grave faults, but effective, public ownership methods on a large scale have yet to be developed...
...Structurally the "independents" are not organized for effective collective bargaining...
...iSjffg ¦ » * • jnf^MIUse he was the great engineer who had broken and ¦messed the rarin' tearin' river, Franklin D. Roosevelt pi"ked htm out to build the dams of the Tennessee, and made him chairman of the Authority...
...CINCS the enactment ot the National Labor Relations Act, many employers have intensified their anti-union activities and hare developed new and more subtle techniques to negate the workers' right to organise and bargain col- * lectlvely...
...MEMBERSHIP appeals made by the "Indepen^^!fjBs...
...Harcourt A. Morgan, where it genuinely belongs...
...The League of Nations' Committee To Combat The Drug Trade will be asked to lend a hand...
...The Liberty League brief is the best known of such documents, but similar material was distributed by the National Metal Trades' Association, the National Association ot Manufacturers and other belligerent employers' associations...
...Responsibility tor the violence committed daring the strike was attributed to the union and the presence of strikebreakers and other professional trouble makers was denied, although the testimony of Bergoff, Chowderhead Cohen, and the Burns operativea leaves no doubt upon this point...
...But all great men have their weaknesses...
...In one of the dens he found a girl of twenty-two who was once pretty and talented, the daughter of a once proud parent— a prominent Illinois clergyman...
...KB Herald-Examiner of Chicago sent a reporter through the •krkeat corners of the city to undertake the dangerous task of r^^sation...
...Arthur Morgan held—and rightly so—that Berry should be fought to the finish...
...The documentary evidence, which was presented to groups of clergymen, social workers and liberals, convinced them that this had to be publicized...
...What Arthur Morgan did...
...He did it...
...i&proar has been called a "scandal" and another Teapot Dome...
...But no sooner did he break through into the secrets of what he believed to be a hidden, underground business when he learned that one merely had to know the "right people" to get the "stuff" openly...
...Senator George E. Berry i Teunessee to shake down T. V. A. for 15,000,000 or more, on a t$rj that the T. V. A. had flooded some marble quarries which be jgjjgjt associates possessed themselves of when they got a good tattb that the land would be flooded by T. V. A. i;., • • • • ¦¦hslsesspted shake-down by Berry brought the row among the A triumvirate to a head...
...I'm with you on that...
...By BRYCE OLIVER gadio lieum Commentator at w. B. V. D., New Tor* j Tenture a little prediction about the Tennessee Valley % iBtherity muddle...
...What is really happening...
...Once the cigarette is smoked, the user becomes chained to it and kindred drugs...
...rpHE Herald-Examiner reporter found in the months he lived among the "dope-fiends" that the drug peddlers made almost ten thousand percent profit from the goods which they smuggled from Mexico and the Orient...
...Chicago Spends $100,000,000 For Dope By S. MINESON ¦pusRE are sixty thousand men, women and children in Chicago tana, with distorted bodies and minds, going about half-crazed, aaftng, scraping together pennies to get a hundred million dollars to spend on opium, cocaine, heroin, marajuana, and other asg Huadreds of cities and towns haven't got populations as large as '¦ia mass of 60,000...
...to essentials...
...Arthur Morgan's weakness was the friends he made while building Antioch...
...High school boys and girls are its easiest prey...
...Together with Arthur Morgan, and without a third he would have been T. V. A. dynamite—Lilienthal to supply the explosions and Morgan to muffle the reports...
...Arthur Morgan Is...
...It isn't simple to gain access to the dens where ¦ssa tad marijuana is smoked, or where drugs are "shot...
...Little Is said and still less ia done about utilising the advantages of cooperation to cope with the competitive market situation and to strengthen the position of the "independents" in bargaining with tao employer...
...Among them were the great of General Motors, of the big utilities, of the electric companies...
...WflLY Harcourt Morgan, who knows his Tennessee as well as his .fertilizer, took, advantage of the Intellectual rift between-Arthur Morgan and Lilienthal in order to insinuate htmseif on LUienthaft side...
...fourteen were formed during a strike In the plant or company involved...
...This report was made with the idea that It should be distributed to the public to counteract the impression created by the Board's findings...
...The sixty thousand victims must pay "bootleg" prices to the opulent opium "princes" in order to live under their fearful desires...
...It, likewise, outlines a procedure by which employees can set up an "inde pendent" union, provides a sample constitution, and discreetly gives the employers' stamp of approval on this type of organization...
...But it is' no real reflection upon Arthur Morgan that the enemies of T.V.A., such as Utah's Senator King and New Hampshire's Senator Bridges, are using this as the handle of a weapon to batter the whole business...
...This* propaganda was calculated to encourage employers all over the country to defy the Act on the basis of Its "unconstitutionality" and to resist all attempts of workers to organize their own unions...
...The tendency still persists, in sn>te of these federations, for the "independents' to bargain on a plant or,, at most, on a company basis...
...It it said of marijuana that it Is "rooted In hell...
...Getting down to cases, you find that the detonation cap for the tide explosion was the attempt of Col...
...In only a few instances does membership extend beyond plant or firm demarcations...
...Arthur Morgan is...
...its agreement of 1934 and that the primary issue of the strike was the company's refusal to bargain collectively...
...Armor A. Morgan is not ready to become the tool of the t v. A wreckers, and David E. Lilienthal is no more the great iitite champion of public ownership than Dr...
...These unions have found affiliation with other organized groups, having similar interests, essentisl to effective bargaining, in a highly Industrialized society...
...Intimidation by the strikers of public officials and members of the community is elaborated upon but no hint is given of the economic pressures brought to bear by Rand op the strike-bound communities...
...RAGING throughout the Capitol ia a controversy - over the T.V,aT which threatens to beconie*/tb* "Teapot Dome Scandal" of the decade...
...Bats sides approach the problem from opposite standpoints ot j^akes sentimentality...
...In many cases, the "independents" studied were readapted forms of company unions which were known to be employer dominated, or they were organised by former employee representatives to succeed outlawed company unions...
...The most popular and most dangerous "smoke" which is smuggled from Mexico is the "marijuana cigarette...
...Furthermore, many of * tleS*araeterf«ie% Of theP'lndfependeifts* Indicate that ' they are merely" camouflaged company unions...
...Which brings us to the kind of a fellow Dr...
...the management was urged by the committee "to reprint and distribute it wherever the false charges and threats of boycott have appeared...
...The very background of the "independents" and the circumstances under which they were formed, place them under suspicion as tools of the employer...
...It took weeks before he made the ac-*^*sce of, and got into the good graces of the "personalities" **>w«re able to open the doors to him of these hell-holes where i nctbns of dangerous drugs waste their days away...
...It Is made from a "tobacco" which, hypnotizes the smoker, drawing out his most sadistic impulses, making the person a veritable animal...
...tk The real objective ot these federations is repealed by their emphasis on the need tor a •¦united front' against both the A. F. of L. and the C4.0...
...The study of eighty-five "Independents," made by the Division of Economic Research, disclosed that the membership, of seventy-seven of these unions was confined to one plant or company and that In only three cases did membership cover more than one company...
...In short, this pamphlet is a reiteration of the skillful propaganda utilized by Rand to break the strike...
...The disguised In ragged clothing, filthy shirt, torn shoes, be-* Sb nerve-racking job...
...If any, literature emanating from workers, can be found which defends "independents" or urges them as instruments of collective bargaining...
...A**sdred million dollars can go very far to rebuild thousands of sad homes...
...who has spent mueh time in Washington...
...Dave- Lilienthal isftne' dyflanllc yoifng>nfan of ffie* frfWoJrfFat* " He believes in hitting the utilities once below the belt—anS 'then fighting fair...
...very little...
...They aren't all able to earn the money which they must spend eaeh day...
...Charging that the A. F. of L union claimed low wages, long hours and bad working conditions justified a strike, the report cited wages "equal to or higher than average in similar Industries," a forty-hour week, time and a half for overtime, and healthful working conditions...
...Arthur Morgan got so sore at Oil apparent willingness to temporize with an outright steal that k csold have chewed nails...
...This propaganda implies that the policies of union locals are dictated from above by unscrupulous leaders and are not determined by the needs ot the workers in a particular plant...
...The new relief budget passed by Congress is •ij three times the amount being spent by these victims on drugs...
...They break into homes, maraud in alleyways and hillways, pick pockets or embezzle—and then peddle their dangerous gotten loot to raise money for dope —especially the newest craze, marijuana...
...Soon after the National Labor Relations Board's decision on the Remington Rand case on March 13, 1937, the llion Association of Remington Rand Employees, the Association of Remington Rand Employees of Syracuse, and the Mlddletown Association of Remington Rand Em ployees...
...Morgan wanted the slow, sure why to public ownership...
...Lilienthal ran the power project...
...Suddenly to add a vast business to our national government, which might be the unexpected outcome of war to the death on certain large utility systems might discredit public ownership and set It back for a generation, or it might create another government bureaeracy without adequate controls.'' * * * TF your disagree with him on that, you probably can hear the plaintive voices of his power friends speaking through thosa words...
...V it »i this: If a truly honest Investigation ia prosecuted by any agency whatever, it will be discovered that not Dr...
...They were glad to help him while he was building a college, but when he became chairman of T. V. A., they ran to him with their troubles...
...whos To Blame In The T.V.A.'Scandal...
...Lilienthal, backed up by Hhrcourt in all differences with A**hur Morgan, found himself committed to sthc Berry compromise'before he knew it...
...The exposure made by tho Chicago reporter is expected to stir the federal government to intensified action in the hope ot destroying this national menace...
...Hat the old boy from Tennessee has managed so long to stay die jsskgronnd while the fur has been flying from the hides ot * irtfcar Morgan and Dave Lilienthal is a mystery which only jLesne politics can clear up...
...Of eighty-five "Independent" unions analyzed by the Division of Economic Research in July, 1937, fifty-five were formed to compete with a bona fide union engaged in an organizing campaign...
...One of the most Important of these devices is the development of the so-called "Independent'' unions which sprang up like mushrooms, after the Supreme Court's decision, to replace the company unions, outlawed by the Act...
...But, in addition, the most horrible side of the picture is that the drug demon reaches into every walk of life—doctors, lawyers, school teachers, students, skilled workers, and many such groupings...
...And In addition to that, there is nobody who knows him who believes for one second that Arthur Morgan ever attempted to sabotage public ownership of power...
...W—these facts apparently fantastic and unbelievable—have *WeatablishPd by an investigation which should stir up not merely CSieago but the entire nation...
...Proportionately, that city is the '•**d to the world In the expenditure of money for destructive "¦as trwn which mankind seeks to free itself...
...He saw the possibilities of little asttsch College at Yellow Springs, Ohio, tossed aside the Iyldea facilities of his engineering eminence, wheedled the motif'mo' his rich friends which was necessary to make of iMtmr&reat cultural institution where boys and girls who "Sstbdv,- what it's all about" are trained to land on tbejr feet d»]l»pped from a height...
...Imagine, if you can, the sort of a man who had made himself preeminent in flood control (by breaking and harnessing Ohio's Miami Blver) who would toss aside the vast wealth which usually tsroet to engineers ofjh-ls ability—and contacts—in order to build ip a ssaB college and make an educational dream come true...
...This he does by charging that the "green-eyed monster" has possessed Arthur Morgan...
...This pamphlet labeled the strike as a minority strlke although the Board found that the majority of the production and maintenance employees were members of the union, and that a majority of those voting on the strike issue had voted affirmatively...
...They follow the pattern established by the company unions in that their membership Is usually restricted to a particular plant or firm, and in that they scorn affiliation with national labor organizations of the same trade or industry...
...A separatist position is taken by placing special emphasis upon the fact that mem-uers of "independent" unions will not be called out on sympathetic strikes and thus be forced to lose work when a controversy has no immediate bearing upon them...
...Accompanying the barrage of hostile propaganda, came innumerable injunctions against the Board proceedings before the Supreme Court's decision on April 12, 1937, open defiance of the Board's orders, encouragement of company unions and so-called Independent unions, employment of labor spies and strike breakers, attacks on bona fide unions as Communistic, and the organization of citizens committee and back-to-work movements to combat labor organizations...
...Between them was Harcourt Morgan-—slick pet- "i-cian who managed to get along with the corrupt banker-political gang of Tennessee so well that he was a quiet success as president of the University of Tennessee...
...rpHAT there should be clashes of temperament between Arthui Morgan and Lilienthal was natural...
...Look what they had done for the things he was Interested in...
...Arthur or David H. Llllenthnl—either one—are responsible for « fitfct wnirh now is approaching scandal proportions, ¦jjfcsjame will eventually be pinned firmly to the slmontzed itsPsf -Dr...
...The rrfw/over theiBerry cikims, of course, has, broken the whole thing open...
...Employers Throughout Notion Intensify Fight Against Unions Speed Up Anti-Labor Campaign After Wagner Act Passage •MNDEJ^NDINT^ PETS, SPRING UP THROUGHOUT NATION AS NEW TECHNIQUE IN ATTEMPT TO COMBAT LEGITIMATE ORGANIZATIONS OF WORKERS By DAVID J. SAPOSS, Chief Economist and 1 ELIZABETH T. BLISS...
...Since then I haven't been able to work...
...The bank ring happened to be close to the Controller of the Currency, and if (he late Huey P.'Long hadn't turned up his toes at Baton Rouge, you'd have heard a lot abodt that...
...and twelve were formed in "loyalty" or back-to-work movements, whose origins, in most cases, were traceable to employer sources...
...A similar article defending the employees' right to form "Independent" onions, appeared in Factory Management and Maintenance, a magazine depending upon management for circulation and advertisements...
...lLafa try to boil down the battle...
...Arthur Morgan Is In regard to gtlwd, set results...
...I - - . - rrHOSE who hate T. V. A. (and public ownership of power) want 1 investigation that will smear Lilienthal, the member of the mundrate directorship in charge of the public power phase of I.V.A, 1 *¦/' Those who love T..V...
...His disclosures bring to the public an amazing story...
...The simpliest way to fight is to attack Arthtur Morgan, the unwilling impersonation of the T. V. A. haters...
...And sartae grads of Antioch are among the bitterest enemies of frtsstxploitation of power...
...The prices range between two and six dollars for each small quantity of dope...
...but they appealed to him as a reasonable man, who didn't hate anybody or anything...
...This position disregards the lesson implicit in the history of isolated bargaining units in a highly developed and dynamic industrial order (t ignores the necessity for collaboration with other organized groups to protect mutual Inter ests and to Insure survival...
Vol. 21 • March 1938 • No. 11
