Up from Autocracy
BROOKS, THOMAS R.
Up from Autocracy Right to Challenge: People and Power in the Steelworkers Union By John Herling Harper & Row. 415 pp. $12.50. Reviewed by Thomas R. Brooks Author, "Toil and Trouble: A History...
...But absent were the old familiar threats of muscle or the applications of financial and political retaliations, open or secret...
...For one thing, he was deeply influenced by Clinton Golden, a Socialist, labor educator and, in Herling's words, "the administrative architect" of the union...
...Toward the end of his life, Murray had become disenchanted with his heir apparent, David J. McDonald, and assumed much of his authority and power...
...Both the industry and the government were worried that insurgency within the steel union might upset various economic applecarts...
...At one convention I saw him gavel through a motion that I would have sworn was defeated in a hand vote of the delegates, and his stalwarts gave a tiny Socialist caucus a very bad time during the late '40s...
...Thus, John Herling's Right to Challenge, a comprehensive report on the United Steelworkers (USW...
...In the USW's 1957 election the Dues Protesters' candidate, Donald C. Rarick, rolled up a surprising 223,516 votes to McDonald's 404,-172...
...It was an extraordinary affair, a revolt of the Praetorians spreading through the legions and drawing in the soldiery...
...Nonetheless, with the notable exception of Herman Benson's sporadic yet vital newsletter, Union Democracy in Action, there have been remarkably few studies of how democracy fares within organized labor...
...The next year, believing he had consolidated his position within the union, McDonald moved to raise dues, touching off a membership revolt...
...Whatever the outcome of this and similar disputes, Right to Challenge leaves us assured that such questions are likely to be settled by the membership and not by fiat...
...Herling found democracy to be alive and well within Abel's union: "At conventions there was greater participation by the delegates-made up mainly of local leadership-who asserted their right to speak, even to challenge the leaders...
...Hence, when McDonald finally took over, he occupied a considerably enhanced position, but he acquitted himself poorly, relying heavily on sycophants...
...McDonald had instituted the much admired Human Relations Committee, a "mutual trusteeship" that opened up "a whole new area of effective teamwork between union and management" and helped the Administration maintain its anti-inflation wage guideposts...
...Obviously, the union's chosen leaders have to deal with the heads of U.S...
...But since their members are also employed in aluminum and can manufacturing, dig iron ore and copper, and work in a multitude of fabricating plants, union representatives must concern themselves with negotiations for more than two thousand contracts in almost as many communities...
...That is, of course, a somewhat romantic notion, for a union is not an army despite its need for unity against employers and other opponents who try to exploit and foment divisiveness within its ranks...
...They shape the relationships with the managers of the mighty aggregations of corporate power as well as of lesser enterprises...
...Abel, a former foundry worker from Canton, Ohio, has provided far more progressive leadership than his predecessors...
...Yet given the extent of internal discontent and the unpopularity of the McDonald regime, a break was inevitable...
...For another, the contest within the USW opened a new and richer internal life for its members...
...Though Malony lost the 1955 challenge, he opened the way for what followed...
...Abel demanded that collective bargaining be taken "out of the plush hotel suites" and put "back in the hands of the elected representatives of the membership...
...It shook us up, all the way down the line," Abel once remarked...
...Joe Malony, the popular director of District 4 (New York), opposed Hague in the first contest for a top office in the history of the union...
...All 38 top district directors, a powerful palace guard, rallied behind McDonald...
...He defeated McDonald, narrowly, 308,910 votes to 298,768...
...What [the Dues Protesters] had going was a rank-and-file movement," Herling notes, "a concept that for many of the top leadership bordered on obscenity and treason...
...Though it contains many revealing glimpses of collective bargaining in the steel industry and of the way unions function in our society, the book focuses on how USW leaders are chosen and how they carry out the responsibilities entrusted to them by some 1.2 million members...
...His writing is exciting, dramatic, and suspenseful...
...This did not make those seated on the platform particularly happy...
...Indeed, an opposition constituency continues to prod the leadership: In 1969, Emil P. Narick, a virtually unknown union lawyer, ran against Abel and polled over 180,000 votes to the incumbent's 257,000...
...Its policies and the behavior of its leaders affect the daily lives of the families of its huge membership...
...Governing such a vast institution is a complex business, and Herling's many virtues include a sure grasp of the union's political machinery and the ability to explain its machinations with admirable clarity...
...The result is a fascinating portrait of a great union...
...Because of the crucial role unions play as broad-based interest groups in our industrialized society, the law tells workers in effect, "We will guarantee your right to bargain collectively through representatives of your own choosing, but you must do so democratically...
...he was backed by six directors who, Herling points out, "represented a relatively new look: their total work experience was in steel, not coal...
...The USW consists of over 2,900 locals spread from Puerto Rico to the Arctic Circle...
...Steel and Bethlehem and a dozen other great steel companies...
...early on, the reader finds himself caring intensely about what is happening to both the union and the people it affects...
...Born of the labor turmoil of the late 1930s, the USW was for many years firmly controlled by the men John L. Lewis had sent in to organize the steel industry...
...While competition for the top positions certainly helps to make labor organizations more responsive to their memberships, the USW has not resolved every conflict of interest between the locals and the international union...
...Armed with a tape recorder, "a certain durability," and an eye trained by 25 years as one of our best labor journalists, Herling talked with rank-and-file members, local officers, district and international leaders, and professional observers of the labor scene...
...Reviewed by Thomas R. Brooks Author, "Toil and Trouble: A History of American Labor" A union, someone once said, is a cross between a New England town meeting and an army: Its hallmarks are open discussion, freedom to vote one's convictions and, after a decision has been made, iron discipline in the face of the enemy...
...makes a welcome contribution to our knowledge of union politics...
...Nor is it an idyllic democracy, for labor leaders are sometimes tempted to blur the line between dissent and dissension by representing criticism of themselves as criticism of the union, which is often not tolerated...
...For instance, the locals have pressed for authority to strike over in-plant grievances, a right the international leadership has been reluctant to concede...
...in fact, it secured few concrete gains for the workers...
...Following his death on November 9, 1952, the union began a painful transition from autocracy to democracy, from the tutelage of its mineworker founders to an organization of and by steelworkers...
...Its first president, Philip Murray, was a much beloved autocrat...
...For many unionists, however, the committee smacked of class collaboration...
...Through sheer size and function," Herling writes, "the strategic placement of the union makes its political condition a matter of considerable concern for two nations...
...Reluctantly, I. W. Abel, then secretary-treasurer, decided to take on McDonald in the 1965 election...
...His decision to name his office manager, Howard Hague, to a vice presidency triggered a series of rebellions...
...Top officers and district directors underwent a period of adjustment...
Vol. 55 • June 1972 • No. 12
