Labor Then and Now
Barbash, Jack
regarded himself as simply a barometer of the conflicting drifts in the AFL, Meany saw himself as a leader whose first function was to lead. And so Meany led, as Taft amply demonstrates, not...
...The Hollywood situation illuminates another aspect of Communist penetration rarely treated by responsible scholars...
...Here then* greatest headway was achieved on the lower levels...
...For example, he sees no meaning to the fact that racketeering, by his own showing, takes place in small scale, highly competitive, high labor cost industries...
...The focus of interest has shifted from labor problems to labor's problems: Communism, corruption, and democracy have become the mainstays of discussion...
...The union must be safeguarded, perpetuated, even at the cost of sacrificing those who happen to be members at any time . . ." In probing for an explanation for this state of affairs, Leiserson finds that union insecurity is the generating cause of "the dangers to liberty and democracy in union organization," a feeling which is characteristic not only of leaders but of the membership as well, which "shares the feeling of apprehension for the safety of their organizations...
...I raise two questions about the Leiserson analysis...
...The Saposs book, Communism in American Unions, is a natural extension of this distinguished scholar's classic Left-Wing Unionism, which, thirty years later, is still an indispensable work...
...The main undercurrent of the Velie book is racketeering in unions, which Velie writes about in terms of personal wickedness...
...One, do the standards of public government democracy constitute an adequate standard for trade union democracy...
...His book is interesting, but it lacks depth and genuine insight...
...To be sure, this is a large element in racketeering because racketeering cannot take place without dishonest and immoral people...
...It was Meany who first formulated a viable basis upon which unity between the two great federations could take place...
...The changing face of the labor movement in the contemporary scene is symbolized by the subject matter which Saposs, Velie, and Leiserson have chosen to write about...
...If the unions can extricate themselves from the daily grind of survival, these questions can stand some sober thought by the responsible leadership of the labor movement at all levels...
...Two, if not, don't we need therefore a theory of union democracy that is more meaningful for the kind of function which the union performs...
...Velie is a reporter, but a reporter who does not think of himself as being anti-union...
...The fact that the five books in review fit togther so neatly in bringing us from labor's remote past to the unsettled problems of the present raises inevitably the question of the unions' future...
...The distinctive quality of the current Saposs enterprise is the examination of Communist penetration in AFL unions...
...In the last analysis, it is the will of leadership to do something about this that will have the most decisive effect...
...is an attempt at a candid shot of the American labor movement, 1959, largely through portraits of indi vidual union leaders...
...The quality of union democracy becomes a public concern because unions are not "ordinary private government...
...But the propensity which certain kinds of industries create for racketeering is largely ignored by Velie...
...It is a matter of some concern, or should be...
...Taft has written a major work and has confronted the critical issues which his research revealed in a courageous and forthright manner...
...As unions have grown in membership and in the territory and occupations they cover and as they have taken on new functions, the relations between the officialdom of the organizations and their members have become more and more like those between the government of a nation and its people, or between the management of a great corporation and its stockholders and its employees . . . The officials to whose care the institutions of unionism are entrusted tend to value and conserve interests of the organization above those of the individual members...
...I think Velie may be too personal in his approach, although this makes for easy and facile reading...
...In the AFL, they were able to penetrate only its affiliates...
...Leiserson brings to the task such unchallengeable credentials that, almost more than anybody else who has written about this subject of democracy in unions, his concern for the state of trade union democracy warrants the most sober reflection on the part of the labor movement lead ership...
...Leiserson and his associates found their raw material in personal attendance at union functions, in detailed analysis of the documents—like convention proceedings and constitutions...
...He examines the instrumentalities of trade union government: the national union convention, the headquarters, the union constitution, the union officers, the local union, and union intermediate bodies...
...In the CIO they were more successful, penetrating even to...
...And so Meany led, as Taft amply demonstrates, not only in a re-examination of the AFL's public policy objectives but also of its internal policy objectives...
...The emphasis is on the pathology of unionism, al though Velie does seek to inject a measure of balance by dealing sym pathetically with such labor move ment figures as Gompers, Meany, Reuther, Dubinsky, and Randolph...
...Saposs' Hollywood study also reveals the importance which the Communist Party attaches to the infiltration of intellectual groups, not only as so many more bodies who can be counted in the Communist appartus, but also as opinion-makers...
...Actually they turned on the AFL with avidity equal to that directed against the CIO...
...Is the labor movement paying the inevitable price of bigness...
...The enterprise had not been finished when Leiserson died, but his son, Avery, and other associates were right when they decided to publish, even in incomplete form...
...namely, the special attraction which Communist ideologies have had for the intellectual—in this case the Hollywood intellectual, frustrated by the indignities of his daily job, who turns to the brave new Communist world...
...The party functionary, the Communist cell, the party stooge, the slogans, the demonstrations—all are revealed in abundant documentary detail...
...At least one union—the Upholsterers—has challenged Velie's interpretation of certain facts...
...The new party line," according to Saposs, "in accordance with ideas of its international mentor, features the 'possibility of achieving under existing conditions a protracted period of peaceful coexistence.'" William M. Leiserson's American Trade Union Democracy is a posthumous volume dealing with the author's reflection on and researches in the government of American trade unions...
...Can the elan, initiative, and purpose of the Thirties be recaptured...
...The concern is no longer with labor's right to exist but on labor's responsibility to society...
...This shift in focus is particularly notable since, in the case of Saposs and Leiserson, we have two men who have been historic defenders of labor's right to organize and to bargain collectively through unions of their own choosing...
...It was Meany who provided the leadership in the drive to oust the corrupt unions from the AFL, as he has done in the merged AFL-CIO...
...Leiserson then undertakes to develop a systematic analysis of the government of unions at all levels, largely from the standpoint of the political science of public governments...
...its . . . headquarters...
...What Leiserson has done is to write the first full-dress political science of trade unionism...
...to trade unionists that Leiserson emerges from this analysis with a sense of disquiet, if not alarm, at the state of trade union democracy...
...The degree of loyalties which they demand from the membership and the obedience which is required go beyond the boundaries of most private governments...
...Saposs examines Communist penetration in both AFL and CIO unions...
...Conversely, has professional industrial management moved into the offensive...
...As Saposs remarks, "A widespread erroneous impression pervades, even among the reasonably well-informed, that the Communists confined their activities chiefly within the CIO...
...The current stage of Communist strategy with respect to the trade unions is characterized by Saposs as "running for cover...
...Lester Velie's Labor U.S.A...
...Velie's labor movement is populated by good guys and bad guys...
...The study of Communist strategy and tactics in the Hollywood unions—that is, the various talent guilds, the stagehands, the carpenters, the painters— is a classic case history involving all the ingredients of Communist penetration...
Vol. 24 • February 1960 • No. 2
