Rank and File Blues

...The strike began on October 18, 1981...

...By June 1982, eight months into the strike, the union members were demoralized...

...The guy doesn't have the decency to come down here, and he has his own goddamn jet," says John Coen, union shop steward...

...tract...

...Rogers asks...

...They had no guarantee the company wouldn't transfer them into departments where there are layoffs...

...The local people wanted Rogers to stay," says Banach, but the international refused to renew the contract...

...In addition to raising the spirits of the strikers, Rogers also appeared to be making a dent in Brown & Sharpe's armor...

...He's responsible for us losing our jobs," Banach says...

...We don't have a helluva lot of leverage," says the fellow with the cap...

...We can't bankrupt the union over one strike...

...He recalls signing "one check for $112,000," and says the total price for Corporate Campaign exceeded that amount...

...Members of the Machinists union continue to picket at the gates of the Brown & Sharpe plant...

...After all, they represent hundreds of thousands of union members, not just the workers at Brown & Sharpe...

...Banach is a member of Machinists Local 1142, and since the strike, he's been working days for the Catholic Church's community outreach program and going to school evenings to earn a degree in labor relations...

...I know we would have broken the bank...

...The company wanted a "unilateral right to take anyone and place them anywhere in the plant," Martin explains...

...the international may have resented all the favorable publicity and the credit Rogers was getting...

...I wish he would have come down," says Gary "Red" Wolfe, vice president of Local 1142, who organized a food bank for the striking workers and their families...

...They could just say: 'You, you, you, Matthew Rothschild is an associate editor of The Progressive...

...We're losing members like mad, we're going broke, and Mr...

...We had fun with that one," said a third...

...They cut it off, just like that...

...The workers are unwitting participants in a drama that reaches far beyond North Kingston, a drama of labor's declining power against management...

...Unsatisfied with the response, says Coen, "a couple of us got together and sent a two-page telegram to the big guy himself [Machinists' President William Winpisinger...

...When he came, an awful lot changed...

...We tried the normal forms of picketing, the historical ones, but that didn't work," says Martin...

...The company's attitude was "take it or leave it," says Thayer...

...Instead of having all of your strike force picketing in front of the plant, let's begin to move those pickets in front of the banks and take the banks head on.'" So the strikers began to fan out...

...The international did send five of its people to take over for Rogers, but according to most accounts, they were unable to keep the heat on...

...Brown & Sharpe "decided to go at the basics of unionism, which is seniority," says Billy Martin, president of Local 1142, representing the production line workers at the plant...

...The irony is, William Winpisinger, the big radical, the socialist union leader, wouldn't answer his own people...

...The third man, Pete, is a second-generation employee of Brown & Sharpe...

...The old-timers, they were scared...

...He was doing a good job," said another...

...Coen and Banach don't completely buy the official explanation for the failure to renew the Corporate Campaign contract...

...In effect, there was no decision to make," counters Poulin, who says the international "never had any intention" of going beyond the original two-month conWhere Was Winpisinger...

...Machinist President William Winpisinger lost support with some of the union activists at Brown & Sharpe by not putting in a single appearance at the plant during the year-and-a-half strike...

...What more pressure can you put on a bank than to take your money away...

...We committed to a fixed program...

...It was not renewed, and the effort to pressure the bank gradually fizzled...

...In the midst of the effort, Rogers's contract with the international union expired...

...As far as they're concerned, you can stand out there until hell freezes over, and they'll starve you out.' "We said, 'Make the strike force an economic and political force across the state...

...That's when there will be a settlement...

...The issue was not wages but "seniority, vacations, and pensions," says Bob Thayer, business agent for the three Machinist locals involved in the strike...

...The third prong of the attack was to go after Republican Senator John Chafee, long-time supporter of Brown & Sharpe, who is related by marriage to the Sharpe family...

...The whole state was charged up, you wouldn't have believed it," says Stan Ban-ach...

...Specifically, Banach accuses the international's general vice president...

...I blame George Poulin...

...An older man standing nearby had been employed there for forty-three years...

...His father and uncle each had worked at the plant for more than thirty years...

...There's no need to ascribe bad motives to either group...

...When Rogers was pulled out, I was so damned pissed off, I called the international," says Coen, who got through to George Poulin, general vice president...

...Hospital Trust held 17.5 per cent of the stock in Brown & Sharpe, and the tool company's chief executive officer, Donald Roach, sat on the bank's board of directors...

...At the urging of activist union members at Brown & Sharpe, the Machinists' international headquarters hired Ray Rogers's Corporate Campaign on a two-month contract starting June 7, 1982...

...People at the pickets were getting frustrated," says Martin...

...I'll blame him forever...

...We started picketing six or eight branches of the bank in Providence from the time they opened up in the morning to the time they closed in the evening," says Rogers...

...Brown & Sharpe "wanted modifications that would destroy" the benefits the union had built up for its members...

...We were told that the situation was bleak, hopeless, there was no movement," says Rogers about the Brown & Sharpe strike...

...The international fucked us," says Stanley Banach, referring to union officials in Washington...

...Ego," says Banach, agreeing with Coen's surmise...

...For the first time, it looked as though progress was being made toward settling the strike on terms agreeable to them...

...It was better when Rogers was around," says one...

...State police responded with pepper gas...

...His anger focuses on the international's decision not to rehire Ray Rogers's Corporate Campaign, a New York-based labor consulting firm that devised an aggressive strategy last summer against Brown & Sharpe...

...For the first time in eight months, they were on the offensive and their spirits were high...

...And that would have been the beginning of the end...

...In white spray paint, the makeshift incinerator is anointed "Roach Hotel," after Donald Roach, Brown & Sharpe's chief executive...

...They are also active players in a long-standing conflict within the labor movement itself, a conflict between rank-and-file workers and union leaders...

...The local leaders had urged the international in Washington to rehire Rogers and Corporate Campaign, but they were turned down...

...I know we had them...

...Sitting on a sofa in his dimly lit living room, Banach explains why he is upset with the Machinists' leadership...

...He is standing outside Brown & Sharpe's tool factory in North Kingston, Rhode Island, where 1,600 members of the Machinists have been on strike for eighteen months...

...It's a classic case of diverging interests, with the rank and file on one side and the union hierarchy on the other...

...Stevens strike in the late 1970s, when Rogers had engineered a campaign to go after the banks and insurance companies that were lending money to Stevens...

...1982, months after the strike began, the Machinist workers and their supporters decided to block the scabs, whom Brown & Sharpe had hired, from entering the plant...

...They wouldn't respond, even to $50 more in phone calls," says Stan Banach...

...I started in '39," Pete says, "before there was a union...

...The strikers agree...

...Corporate Campaign "began drawing him into the conflict," Rogers remembers...

...It's a cool, drizzly day in early April, and three strikers huddle around a rusty barrel smoldering with the old boards and empty Budweiser cases that serve as firewood...

...Rogers did have a dramatic impact from the start," says Coen...

...By all accounts, Rogers and his Corporate Campaign achieved some successes...

...He should have stayed...

...The men crack jokes and tell stories, but their bitterness shows...

...I was the person that actually contacted Rogers," says John Coen...

...Rogers "was good, he was excellent," one said...

...It was Rogers's strategy that was instrumental in ultimately bringing the huge textile firm to the bargaining table...

...We were saying Chafee himself has to be held accountable, because he's related, and because his political influence has been used to help the company over the years...

...They made use of the economic times to try to rid themselves of collective bargaining and to get rid of the union...

...On March 22, and you get out of here.' " Now Brown & Sharpe is "trying to bust the union," says Pete...

...And we lived up to our part of the agreement...

...Rogers's departure "really demoralized a lot of people...

...Some 200 had gone back to work at Brown & Sharpe, and it seemed likely that the company would prevail...

...All the momentum was lost...

...We were getting calls where people were pulling out $ 16 all the way up to $100,000...

...We never got an answer...

...I've said enough things, published enough things, and certainly provided enough financial support...

...Labor's Uphill Struggle BY MATTHEW ROTHSCHILD Rank-and-File Blues No leverage with the company, no clout with the union o matter how big the union is, you can get screwed," says a red-bearded man wearing the blue-and-white cap of the International Association of Machinists...

...I'm going to meet Wimpy one day and find out: 'Where the fuck were you for eighteen months when we were on strike?'" "Number one," responds Winpisinger, "I have a pretty substantial union I have to look after...

...It was almost a hopeless cause...

...Our people are hurting...

...I don't know why they're critical...

...And then the international union let the air out of their balloons...

...Rogers is enormously expensive," Winpisinger says...

...I talked to Poulin, and he was talking like a bureaucrat, like a politician...

...And the price of Corporate Campaign's expertise must have appeared high, especially in these days of declining union funds...

...Coen had heard of Rogers during the J.P...

...It is enough to recognize the split that exists and the ill feeling it leaves, and to note the damage it does to all in the labor movement...

...They went after issues they knew would cause a strike...

...He identified the major financial backers of Brown & Sharpe and zeroed in on Rhode Island Hospital Trust National Bank...

...The strike is in its twentieth month now," Bob Thayer said early in June...

...This decision infuriated some of the activist workers...

...Stevens...

...Many members' spirits were rock bottom...

...And the company is hurting too...

...The local made a proposal, and based on our best information, we decided not to go" with it...

...And number three, there's not a day out of the year when some of my members aren't on strike...

...We said, 'Isn't it crazy to have hundreds of people on strike, particularly in a small state like Rhode Island, becoming increasingly frustrated doing basically no more than standing on a picket line?' " Rogers recalls telling the strikers...

...The pickets at the plant gates with whom I talked one morning all agreed with Coen...

...Had I been in the area, I certainly would have" visited the strikers, Winpisinger says...

...The strikers picketed all day, every day, but to no avail...

...From Winpisinger's and Poulin's perspective, it is easy to understand why they might have made the decision that they did...

...Millions of dollars had been withdrawn from Hospital Trust, twenty bank branches were being picketed, and the bad publicity was beginning to hurt...

...Next, Corporate Campaign organized a drive to withdraw money from Hospital Trust...

...If an older worker is transferred to another section, he becomes "in fact a scab in there, doing someone else's job," says Martin...

...It seemed obvious we needed to do something different than this picketing stuff...

...Number two, 80 per cent of my time is spent on the road visiting union locals...

...Martin, head of Local 1142, concurs: Corporate Campaign "was a big morale boost for the strikers...

...The company wants to contain you on the picket line out front of the plant...

...The picketing continued, but the strikers were unable to prevent the replacement workers from going into the plant...

...It was just a bad move, a bad, lousy move," agrees John Coen, a shop steward and union activist...

...In addition, says Winpisinger, "we put five people out there who were doing the very thing Rogers was doing...

...Jealousy" is part of the reason Rogers wasn't rehired, Coen suggests...

...It was a long one—a little longer and more expensive than we were used to...

...And our people want a settlement...

...The momentum was lost," says Coen...

...Rogers began to put the squeeze on the bank, first by mobilizing the pickets...

...I'd begun to think it was steady," he says...

...There was just so much momentum," says Rogers...

...It was a judgment call," Poulin adds...

...And the younger workers were worried, too...

...There will be a point in time when they need those skills of the people who are on the line...

...He had worked at Brown & Sharpe for seventeen years when the strike began in October 1981...

...It's simply impossible to do...

...Five years ago, it wouldn't have been possible to come up with 500 or 600 scabs," says Martin, adding that "the amount of people out of work" has eroded the sense of solidarity in Rhode Island, a state where 28 per cent of the work force is unionized...

...Winpisinger emphasizes the high cost of retaining Rogers's services...

...But from the perspective of the striking workers in Rhode Island, the decision was a disaster...

...It would have been a morale booster if he came down a while back," he adds wistfully...

...And then the unions were beginning to pull some money out...

...Their spirits picked up, and he showed them the light at the end of the tunnel...

...After Rogers left, "things petered out...

...We were just told, 'Look, workers are now beginning to cross the picket line, and it looks like a lost situation unless something can be done.' " What Rogers and Corporate Campaign tried to do was generate the same sort of pressure he had brought to bear against J.P...