History

From THE FIGHTING MACHINISTS, A CENTURY OF STRUGGLE
by Robert G. Rodden

Lawless disregard of the rights of workers was not confined to the top management at Remington Rand. During the late 1930's Senator Robert Lafollette, "Young Bob," son of the old Progressive from Wisconsin, headed a Senate Committee to look into labor-management relations. Its hearings produced shocking exposure of widespread corporate contempt for the legal and constitutional rights of America's working men and women.

LaFollette found evidence that 2,500 corporations, including many of America's blue chip companies, were spending millions to maintain a national network of thousands of labor spies. Stool pigeons and provocateurs wee paid to report on internal union affairs, stir up dissension among union members and generally block labor organization. When the committee questioned a vice president of Chrysler about such clearly illegal practices, he said "We must do it to obtain the information we need in dealing with our employees."

GST Davison testified before the Lafollette Committee several times. In testimony describing the IAM's thirty-five year war with the National Metal Trades Association, he told of a certain Sam Brady who had been hired by the notorious Pinkerton Agency to infiltrate the IAM. According to Davison, Brady achieved

The strikebreakers took shelter in the pant and gunfire was exchanged for most of the morning. Finally the police arranged for the sheriff to enter the plant, disarm the strikebreakers and place them under arrest. Inside, the sheriff found a sizable arsenal of guns and ammunition plus enough food to last a week. When these so-called "guards" were booked, forty-three were found to have long criminal records. The unprovoked attack on unarmed workers so shocked the community the NMTA's violence boomeranged. Within two weeks the company signed a union contract.

The LaFollette Committee found that some companies literally kept their employees in their gun sights. When Richard Mellon, the billionaire from Pittsburgh, was asked why his security guards kept machine guns trained on workers at one of his mines, he airily explained "You cannot run the mines without them." LaFollette's probe into company conduct during a steel strike in 1937 disclosed that the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company had an arsenal of eight machine guns, 369 rifles, 190 shot guns, 450 revolvers, almost 10,000 rounds of ammunition, 109 gas guns and 3,000 canisters of gas. Republic Steel was found to be the largest purchaser of tear gas in the United States--not excepting state and local police departments.

As a result of the LaFollette Committee's findings, the NMTA was forced to stop furnishing spies, "guards" and other strike-breaking services to union-busting employers. With the enactment of the Wagner Act. which gave workers a clear right to organize and bargain collectively, it finally began to accept unionized companies into membership.

Sit Down! Sit Down!

Because of the kind of employer tactics uncovered by the LaFollette Committee workers sometimes turned to less traditional and more desperate methods to get to the bargaining table.

Instead of marching on picket lines, where the police could bust heads, some 500,000 sat down at their machines in the winter of 1936-37--where use of force would threaten the employer's property.

These sit-down strikes, in everything from dime stores to rubber factories and auto plants, set off a wave of frenzy among newspaper editors and apoplexy in executive suites. But working people who had been sat upon by employers all their lives now sang a different tune:

The Memorial Day Massacre

One notable holdout was the Republic Steel Company. It was headed by Tom Girdler, the corporate cut-throat who once threatened to close his plants and retire to his apple orchards rather than deal with a union.

On Memorial Day, 1937 several thousand striking workers, many with their wives and children, gathered on an empty stretch of land near Girdler's mill in South Chicago. As they marched in ragged formation across the fields while singing "Solidarity Forever," a police captain bellowed "You dirty sons-of-bitches, that is as far as you go." The crowd slowed but a few people continued to edge toward the factory. Some of the police attacked a group of women, purposely digging clubs into their breasts. When one of the workers shouted "We've got our rights" the police yelled "You Red bastards got not rights." Suddenly and without provocation or warning (as newsreels later showed) the police exploded into a riot of mayhem and murder. Men, women, and children alike were targets of police brutality. Amid screams, vomiting and blood, the police chased retreating workers, clubbing all within reach with their night sticks and gun butts. Pistol shots rang out as frightened families fled in panic. Ten unarmed and defenseless workers were killed and ninety were wounded.

The following day the Chicago Tribune denounced the victims as a mob "lusting for blood" and Hollywood moguls suppressed ghastly newsreels filmed at the scene. Tom Girdler snarled "There can be no pity. The police were performing a hazardous duty. what were women doing there?"

The strike was broken and the defeated workers crept back to the conditions they had protested. Despite attempts to bury the evidence the films were shown at a dramatic session of the LaFollette Committee. Girdler's tactics created a backlash of public revulsion. The NLRB eventually compelled Girdler to bargain collectively with the union. He did not retire to tend his apple trees.

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