Three Men on a Horse
RIESEL, VICTOR
THREE MEN ON A HORSE A power play in one act: By Victor Riesel Post-Hall Syndicate labor columnist Three men lunched together behind closed doors at the Hotel Carlton in Washington some Fridays...
...Lewis was to be host...
...But not tomorrow...
...on Thursday, April 29, publicists for the AFL International Brotherhood of Teamsters sat at their Chicago hotel telephones and alerted New York and Washington newsmen to a special luncheon conference to be held next day at the Sheraton-Carlton...
...A few hours later, the phones were ringing again...
...Meany...
...Lewis, too, has been putting his men into any jobs he can find for them...
...There have been a series of small but bloody Harlans throughout the coal fields...
...He believes himself closer to the liberal conservatism, or conservative liberalism, of the Federation than to the militancy of the CIO...
...This announcement was variously interpreted as a declaration of war by Beck on George Meany, by McDonald on Walter Reuther, and by Lewis on everybody...
...Non-union coal is being dug by the thousands of tons in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Virginia...
...He is, in other words, telling the world that he isn't taking Reuther's leadership...
...He has refrained from blasting big business, despite Reuther's assault...
...John Lewis tried...
...The impression given was that these men could very easily leave their federations and float one of their own...
...Lewis had maneuvered it so that the whole nation held its breath, wondering, wondering what The Man was going to do next...
...Meany has the support of Dubinsky, Petrillo, Harrison and all the rest not because they fear him, but because they respect him and what he has done to revitalize the Federation...
...Beck has underestimated Mr...
...Estimates put the supply of coal above ground at four months—20 days...
...They lunched...
...Lewis was disturbed...
...Meany is reportedly devoted to trying to bring AFL-CIO unity, and a split inside the CIO now would provoke bitter feelings...
...The country wondered...
...Lewis, having given of his strength, now was back on his own...
...He feels the AFL would provide a powerful base and good friends...
...Then they opened the door and brushed past us, with John L. more non-committal than ever...
...Unprecedented...
...His industry is in trouble...
...The luncheon over, Dave Beck killed some time before leaving for points south...
...Whatever happens eventually, Dave McDonald is going his own way, even now, inside the CIO...
...No one pushes Meany around...
...He has gone to the White House for special conferences —and he is liked by the ship's crew there and Veep Nixon, too...
...Actually, it is believed that McDonald feels his place is in the AFL...
...But there seems to have been more to this meeting...
...His wage tussle with the steel industry will see him come through with editorial praise everywhere as a responsible labor leader and labor statesman...
...The "padrone" system has set in...
...Lewis and O'Grady were "closeted," I believe the word is, for several hours...
...This view is encouraged by the fact that the initials CIO loom large by their absence in his union newspaper, Steel Labor...
...They demonstrated...
...But most of all, according to those who were close to him in the late Thirties, John L. believes that the miners' salvation, their basic power, can come only by tying in with the powerful Steelworkers Union led today by David McDonald...
...That's it...
...What had happened behind those "closed doors...
...He opined in that wonderful growl of his that the other two had gained strength by meeting with him—and that they met because the rest of labor was "stupidly" Jed...
...Beck has tried, but has found that it's a long way from being elected President of the Teamsters to having real power over them...
...He respects George Meany, as so many CIO leaders do...
...Reports are that Harlan may get "bloody" again...
...True enough—but Lewis did not overlook the fact that 65,000 dues-paying longshoremen make considerable contribution to a union with almost 200,000 men jobless or partly employed...
...John L. didn't really sound off until he appeared on Meet the Press...
...Two of them, were bogeymen in any industrialist's nursery...
...Beck insisted...
...The others are on one-to-three-d'ay schedules...
...Lewis has a dynamic public-relations division of his own...
...They came...
...This parable could end the saga of the great breaking of bread at the Carlton...
...He has unionized baseball umpires and, more recently, has been offering his members to road-construction companies in competition with the AFL...
...And a good time was had by all...
...But neither he nor Meany is reported to feel that this is the time for the Steelworkers to break away from the CIO...
...There are those on the CIO Executive Committee who believe Dave plans to withhold his per capita tax and eventually leave the CIO...
...An old Freudian friend always warned not to ask what ill-matched people see in each other, but to discover what they really need in each other...
...In some areas, the most famous contract of them all is being ignored—and even torn up...
...Now for some educated guesses...
...So he got himself back to Pittsburgh...
...Those are the facts...
...And Mr...
...So they lunched...
...There has been much conjecture about McDonald and just what he plans to do...
...He moved in on the nation's waterfronts—and will come up with most of the old International Longshoremen's Association...
...They ate privately and made a public announcement which, of course, negated the meeting's importance...
...As for Dave Beck—has he got problems...
...A steel-and-coal-workers combine in Pennsylvania could pick up political prestige to match that of the Auto Workers in Michigan...
...And in Western Pennsylvania the non-union strip miners' are building a force of ex-GIs to fight off, with shooting irons, the big roving miners' caravans of pickets...
...There were those who said he did this to needle George Meany...
...If John can't get any concerted power-play against the big steel companies and thus pressure them into pressuring the coal industry into meeting his demands, he can at least give the industrial world the impression that there is coal and steel unity...
...And the third was still a force to be analyzed, labeled and pigeon-holed by that gay band of categorizers known as the labor reporters...
...So Dave Beck could lose nothing by sitting with John Lewis, who hates Meany, and Dave McDonald, with whom Walter Reuther will win no popularity contest...
...There is no evidence to substantiate this, but the ill will is there nevertheless...
...He took over not an international union, but a coalition of bailiwicks which seldom paid much attention to the old international union headquarters in Indianapolis —and vice versa...
...So he has been talking to David McDonald, who has one obsession—the strengthening of the United Steelworkers of America...
...Furthermore, McDonald has not been unfriendly in public or in private to those who have predicted his departure from the CIO...
...That's gang work, with the leader simply taking what he can get for his men for the coal they've dug—and sharing it equally without regard for wage rates...
...But that doesn't put bread on the table...
...He has turned his back on Walter Reuther's most glowing moments...
...Whatever it is, it appears that Mr...
...The AFL President opposed Beck's election to the AFL Council because a teamster already sat on it—Dan Tobin by name...
...McDonald feels a kinship for his early union, the Mine-workers...
...He has pulled in his organizers and moved them from CIO work to his own drives...
...True, his treasury is at an all-time high—over 150 million...
...There are other sources of irritation, including, of course, Beck's refusal to sign the no-raiding agreement...
...And Lewis has not moved on his contract, though he has been able to serve the "no-contract—no work" notice for close to a year now...
...THREE MEN ON A HORSE A power play in one act: By Victor Riesel Post-Hall Syndicate labor columnist Three men lunched together behind closed doors at the Hotel Carlton in Washington some Fridays back...
...I learned not to conjecture about John Lewis several eons back, when, during a strike, he walked into a room in the same Carlton Hotel and closed the door behind himself and Ed O'Grady, leaving a bewildered crew of reporters clogging the halls...
...Apparently, Mr...
...The announcement now was that Dave Beck expected to find himself at lunch with the other two powerful leaders "within 24 hours...
...There are those who believe that Beck wants to be President of the AFL...
...If Lewis couldn't, no one can...
...Lewis was spokesman for the group...
...But he has been defied when he has tried to clean house of some mobsters, defied when he tried to help clean up the New York waterfront, defied when he tried to end some costly strikes...
...Maybe...
...it didn't work...
...So Lewis has been pondering a gimmick...
...Years later, we learned that Lewis had stretched out on one bed, O'Grady on the other, and they slept...
...Not for decades have Lewis and his great union been so hard hit...
...From about 4 to 6 p.m...
...Estimates are that only some 200,000 coaldiggers are working full weeks...
...He has fraternized with Reuther's enemies...
...As insiders see it, John Lewis needs something more urgently than the others...
...Furthermore, somewhere back there Beck appears to have declared war on George Meany...
...Beck had to holler and growl and talk of his big treasury and 3 million members-to-come and nationwide drives...
...He believes he has been unfairly attacked by newsmen close to Reuther, and some say he thinks that Reuther inspired these attacks...
...He wanted no intimation of what was to occur...
...Hence, he had nothing to lose by publicly demonstrating with Beck and Lewis...
...He hopes some day to see the steel-company-owned "captive" mines covered by a Steelworkers Union contract...
...His union is in trouble...
...We wondered...
...McDonald had several details to attend to—like launching a national television broadcast of a film produced by his union, and putting the finishing touches on negotiations with the steel industry...
...The men who came to lunch were John L. Lewis, Dave Beck and David McDonald...
Vol. 37 • May 1954 • No. 21
