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The real causes of this dispute can only be surmised. On the
surface the issue was rooted in a strike called by a business
representative without a proper strike vote or Grand Lodge sanction.
The appeals and Grievance Committee found that after twice failing
to get the constitutionality required three-fourths majority,
members of Lodge 284 simply voted, by voice vote, to disregard the
first two votes.
At that time many union members in the Bay area were still
seething with the leftover hatreds of a general strike two years
earlier. In 1934 employers demanded and received an all-out show of
police force to break a longshoremen's strike. The result was a
spasm of police brutality still remembered in San Francisco as
Bloody Thursday. Two workers were killed and hundreds injured. The
labor movement struck back with a general strike that paralyzed the
city for four days--forcing employers to agree to arbitration in
which most of the workers demands were met.
Bloody Thursday and the general strike left a residue of
radicalism and militancy throughout the Bay area. The members of
Machinist Lodge 284 were among the most militant. Most IAM lodges on
the West Coast sympathized with and supported the lodge's position
in this clash with the Executive Council.
The case for Local Lodge 284 was ably presented and eloquently
argued by Edward Dillon, then recording secretary of Local Lodge 68
in San Francisco. Dillon described how Lodge 284 members were
exploited and frustrated by a stubborn and willful association of
open shop, anti-union employers in Oakland. He accused Wharton of
withdrawing a conditional strike sanction after being visited in
Washington by a representative of the employers.
Supported by statements of other delegates from lodges in the
Bay area, Dillon also attacked the GLR, Walter Nash, who was
assigned to the negotiations and who acted for Wharton in taking
possession of Local Lodge 284's assets. Inferring that Nash was in
bed with the employers, Dillon asked Nash, directly, if he had been
in telephone communication with a representative of the employer's
association of Oakland during the convention. When Nash responded by
asking, "On what matter?", a chorus of boos swept the
hall. Another delegate, A. L. Wilson, financial secretary
of Local Lodge 252 in Vallejo, California, asserted that because of
Nash's actions in the Lodge 284 case "the members all wish not
to have him in the jurisdiction anymore and that is my instructions
in my lodge, 252." The matter was discussed and debated for two
days. Delegates heard explanations from various GVP's and statements
from individual members of the Appeals and Grievance Committee. In
spite of protests and points of order, Wharton permitted GLR Nash to
take the convention floor to defend himself. When the debate
was over it appeared that Dillon had carried the day for Lodge 284.
In an emotional summation Dillon asked the delegates, "What are
you going to do for the machinists who have homes and
families?" Adding that the choice was between the manufacturers
and the machinists in Oakland, he ended with an impassioned plea,
"I implore you that you vote for the machinists of Oakland and
not for the bosses.? Realizing that the mood of the
convention had swung toward Local Lodge 284 Wharton played his last
trump before calling for a vote. He asked, "Brother Dillon,
will you personally support the decision of this convention?"
Dillon, in a flush of overconfidence carelessly answered, "It
is according the what the decision is." Wharton
quickly adjourned the convention for lunch, giving delegates time to
ponder and discuss Dillon's answer. In later years delegated to the
1936 Convention agreed that to that point Dillon had beaten Wharton
and the Executive Council. He threw away his triumph when he
suggested he might refuse to abide by a decision of a majority of
IAM convention delegates. When the convention assembled for the
afternoon session Wharton calmly reviewed the facts and assured the
delegates that individual members of Lodge 284 would not be
punished, that no more than seven members would be suspended. All
others would retain membership and be invited to affiliate with
another local chartered to take the place of 284. When the question
was finally called the committee's recommendation upholding
revocation of 284's charter was sustained by voice vote. The present
Local Lodge 284 in Oakland was duly chartered in April 1937. Despite
losing his fight at the Convention Dillon remained popular with a
militant core of rank-and-file members, especially on the West
Coast. In the next election for Grand Lodge officers he received 104
nominations and 13,787 votes for GVP--the highest total of any
unsuccessful candidate that year. Raids and Reds Shortly
after the NLRB set up shop, it ruled that craft unions such as the
IAM could carve separate units of skilled workers out of larger
bargaining units. But with the CIO in the picture, this was easier
said than done. The IAM was not only forced to fight CIO unions in
new organizing campaigns, but often had to battle to keep
long-established craft units from being absorbed into CIO industrial
bargaining units. The IAM's attitude toward the CIO was
anything but fraternal. CIO organizers were called traitors,
Communists or dual unionists and were usually described as
power-hungry, misguided or recalcitrant. This rivalry, along with a
generally improving economy, spurred intense organizing on all
sides. Although the IAM Old Guard muttered sourly about Communists
and dual unions, IAM organizers scrambled to get their share of the
new organizing. At one point the pace of organization threatened to
swamp Grand Lodge. GST Davison had to apologize because his staff
could not get charters out quickly enough. In the first six months
of 1937, 152 new lodges were chartered and membership increased by
42,000. The gains in large part reflected the IAM's progress in the
aircraft industry in Southern California. In April, 1937, GVP Grow
reported that he and GLR George Castleman had organized a majority
of the employees at the Consolidated plant in San Diego and were
waiting for the NLRB to order a representation election. That spring
IAM Lodge 727, with 400 members, negotiated its first agreement with
Lockheed. While these were heady times there were also
setbacks. In March, 1936, for example, James J. Matles led
twenty-eight locals representing some 8,000 electrical and radio
manufacturing workers into the IAM. The agreement provided full
membership rights for these members even though production workers
and helpers would pay only two-thirds of regular dues and per
capita; women and apprentices one-half. Matles later claimed that
Wharton agreed to accept blacks into the IAM lodges and also gave
him the go-ahead for industrial organization. Although
Wharton appointed Matles as a GLR and assigned him to work directly
with the lodges he brought into the IAM, the two were about as
compatible as oil and water.* While Matles obviously came into the
IAM intending to convert it to industrial unionism, Wharton plainly
loathed anything that smacked of the CIO. In a letter to Matles he
once expressed his revulsion for "Lewis, Hillman . . . and
their gang of sluggers, Communists, radicals and soap box artists,
professional bums, expelled members of labor unions, outright scabs
. . ." Their alliance lasted a little over a year. Matles and
his locals went to the 1936 Grand Lodge Convention determined to
take the "White Only" clause out of the initiation.
Following a riotous session that had to be adjourned when fists and
chairs started flying, the initiation remained intact and Matles'
days in the IAM were numbered. The final break came when Wharton
issued an official circular forbidding IAM representatives to engage
in "sitdowns, sporadic disturbances, slowdowns and other
Communist tactics of disruption and disorganization." Realizing
that the IAM was not about to transform itself into an industrial
union of all workers in the metal and machine industry. Matles
resigned and organized UE. He was named Director or Organization and
later became General Secretary, holding that post long after the UE
was expelled from the CIO as Communist-dominated.
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