Here's a bit of history demonstrating what happens when Working Class
Labor allows itself to be turned against itself.
***
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New Era, New Manager
On September 5, 1945, William Allen, a longtime attorney at the Boeing
Company, assumed the presidency of the aircraft company. Almost
immediately, massive
postwar layoffs began. Allen brought a different labor relations
philosophy to the company -- as Boeing employees would find out before
the new decade
began.
1947 Contract Negotiations
When contract negotiations began in January 1947, it became clear that
the Boeing Company wanted to turn back the clock on seniority
provisions that had
been negotiated as far back as 1937. For example, the company wanted
10 percent of the bargaining unit to be exempt from seniority; it
wanted blanket disqualification
of women from open jobs if, in the Boeing Company's opinion, the job
required a man; and it wanted the elimination of plant-wide seniority.
The Machinists'
union wanted to protect seniority and to attain a 10 cents per hour
raise for all labor grades.
Formal negotiations opened on March 16, 1947, with the 1946 contract
"in full force and effect." By April, the Machinists' Union accused
the Boeing Company
of not negotiating in good faith and filed strike notice (a 30 day
cooling off period was required.)
On May 10, 1947, the union held a General Membership Meeting to
discuss the situation. On May 24, 1947, the union rejected the Boeing
Company's final offer
and authorized a strike. From June to December 1947, the company and
the union negotiated only sporadically.
Boeing Revises Its Proposal
The Boeing Company submitted a revised proposal on January 6, 1948 and
negotiations were intensive for about 90 days. At mid-March 15, the
Machinists'
Union offered to submit unresolved articles to arbitration. The Boeing
Company demanded the right of veto in the choice of arbiters and
demanded to submit
the entire contract to arbitration. The Machinists' Union refused
those conditions. On March 26, 1948, under provisions of the new
Taft-Hartley law, the
NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) held an election to determine if
the union was authorized to negotiate a union shop. The vote was a
resounding 12,000
YES to 800 NO.
April Deadlines Set
On April 13, 1948, the Machinists' Union established April 16 as the
deadline for choice of arbiters. The Boeing Company refused to budge.
So, on April
20, the Machinists' Union District Council and 320 shop stewards voted
to strike at 12.30 a.m., April 22, 1948. The Machinists' Union
District Council
met again on April 21 to review the circumstances. One report tells of
some of the reaction:
block quote
"Grand Lodge Representative Cotton addressed this meeting and
cautioned the members as to possible consequences of such strike
action, reminding them of
their weak strategic position, and informing them that the advice of
the Grand Lodge (the national union) was to stay on the job. However,
emotions were
running high and he was booed from the platform."
block quote end
At the prescribed time on April 22, 1948, the Machinists' Union
members laid down their tools and struck the Boeing Company. By April
28, the national
union, International Association of Machinists, granted strike sanction.
Dave Beck's Not-So-Friendly Intervention - Local 451 Formed
On May 28, 1948, Dave Beck, president of Joint Council 28 of the
International Brotherhood of Teamsters, announced that Teamsters would
seek jurisdiction
at the Boeing Company. At this time, the IAM was not affiliated with
the American Federation of Labor (AFL), having disaffiliated in 1945
over the failure
of the AFL to settle a jurisdictional dispute between the IAM and the
United Brotherhood of Carpenters.
Beck's raid was intended to capture all of Machinists' Union 751
membership. He organized Aeronautical Workers and Warehousemen Helpers
Union Local 451.
He opened a hiring hall to recruit strike breakers for Boeing. In the
words of Sam Bassett, an attorney on the Teamsters' staff during 1948
(and a founder
of the oldest labor law firm in Seattle), "I am sure that Mr. Allen
will not deny that he came to Dave Beck's office and requested him to
assist in breaking
the strike of the Aero Mechanics' Union."
Beck and Boeing recruited strikebreakers and scabs through most of the
1948 strike period. (Note: The term strikebreaker is used to mean a
person newly
hired during a strike; a scab is an employee who crosses a picket line
set up by co-workers.)
NLRB Acts
In June 1948, the National Labor Relations Board requested District
Court to grant an injunction requiring the Boeing Company to bargain.
The court refused.
By late July, it was becoming difficult for the Machinists' Union to
remain on strike. The Boeing Company refused to bargain. The Boeing
Company, with
Beck and the Teamsters, was recruiting strikebreakers and some members
are becoming scabs. On July 20, the NLRB ordered the Boeing Company
"to cease and
desist from refusing to bargain with Lodge 751" and to reinstate "all
employees who went on strike on April 22, 1948, without prejudice."
In August, William Allen and the Boeing Company announced their
intention both to ignore the NLRB and to carry the case to the U.S.
Supreme Court. The
Boeing Company defied the NLRB until September.
Machinists End Strike
On September 13, 1948, Machinists' Union members went back to work for
the following reasons:
list of 6 items
• They were concerned about the Teamsters Local 451.
• The cost of the strike had gone over $2 million.
• About a third of the original 14,000 members had defected.
• The Boeing Company continued to refuse to bargain.
• The Boeing Company and Beck and the Teamsters continued to recruit strikers.
• The provisions of the new Taft-Hartley Act made the strike more
difficult to win.
list end
The Boeing Company took the workers back because it was accruing a
large financial burden with a fine of $172,000 per day from the NLRB
reinstatement order,
and, probably, most importantly, high military authorities wanted no
further delay in production of the B50 because of Cold War pressures.
This set the stage for the NLRB election between Machinists' Union
District Lodge 751, International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 451,
and the Taft-Hartley
required "No Union." The International Association of Machinists,
District Lodge 751's national union, was outside the AFL and had been
since 1945. In
the minds of other AFL affiliates that made IAM local unions the same
as renegade unions and so-called fair game for raiding. Though some
AFL and CIO unions
supported District Lodge 751, the powerful Seattle Central Labor
Council threw its support behind William Allan's "labor statesman"
Dave Beck and Local
451.
The NLRB set the election for November 1, 1949. Despite the help of
AFL president William Green, Beck's Teamsters lost that election.
District Lodge 751
received 8,107 votes; the Teamsters Local 451 received 4,127 votes,
and the Taft-Hartley "No union" received a mere 401 votes.
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