|
Splitting at the Seams
It is difficult to imagine the sweep of the changes that
transformed the country, as well as the IAM, in that first year of
the Second World War. Literally overnight, factories sprung up where
corn fields had been. Sprawling
new Army camps turned sleepy villages into bustling boom towns. In
Washington the IAM saw a multiplication
of agencies dealing with labor relations, war production, prices,
wages and other matters of critical interest to unions.
IAM membership soared. For almost tow years a dozen or more
new lodges were chartered every month. Relatively small aircraft
companies became corporate giants almost overnight. Officers and
business representatives of IAM lodges servicing aircraft workers
scrambled to keep up with sudden surges and leaps in membership. At
Lockheed, for example, Lodge 727 went from 491 in April, 1941 to 741
in May, 3,873 in June,
and 5,493 in September. That was only the beginning. Hal Shean, now
a retired GLR, says that when he was a shop steward at Lockheed
early in the war, he received a $1.00 defense stamp for each new
member signed up. Shean recalls, "In one three-month period I
made $700." The lodge also assembled a bevy of beautiful and
shapely female shop stewards, calling them "The
Unionettes." Clad in short shorts and tight sweaters the
"Unionettes" added a decorative touch to union rallies and
organizing drives.
The Executive Council authorized many more business
representatives and Harvey Brown added new Grand Lodge
Representatives in the field and at Grand Lodge to provide essential
services and deal with war time agencies. In the fall of 1942 the
membership approved a referendum adding two more GVP's to share
the
overload of organizing and contract negotiations weighing down
members of the Executive Council. Harvey
Brown filled the new vacancies by naming Roy Brown, one of the new
breed of dynamic young GLR's on the
west coast and Sam Newman, a veteran GLR in the east.
The massive influx of new members put a severe strain on the
ability of many local and district lodges as well as the Grand Lodge
to provide an adequate level of service. There was little time to
train the new representatives suddenly assigned throughout the
United States and Canada. In most cases, they learned by being
thrown
directly into action. In later years some told of being given their
credentials, a yellow pad and a pencil and told
to go to work. Similarly, at scores of huge defense installations
and aircraft factories, teams of stewards had to
be created almost overnight out of a membership whose experience
with unionism often ranged from slight to none.
As the work force expanded, so did the ranks of first-line
supervision. In many plants few of the foremen had
ever managed people. With raw foremen on one side and green stewards
on the other, the potential for production-delaying conflicts was
enormous. Nonetheless, actual man-days lost because of strikes fell
from 23 million in 1941 to 4.1 million in 1942. And despite a couple
of headlined coal mine walkouts led by John L. Lewis, total time
lost because of strikes in defense production during the war
averaged about one-tenth of one percent
of all the time worked. This was the equivalent of each workers
striking one day during the entire four years of
the war.
FDR: "Labor's Cooperation--Splendid"
Considering the strain of long hours, the
"stabilization" of wages and the general rationing and
scarcity that aggravated daily life the record was amazing. When
strikes did occur, they usually were unauthorized quickies that let
workers blow off steam while letting management know that
frustrations were reaching the danger level.
Much of the credit for uninterrupted war production is clearly
attributable to thousands upon thousands of
unknown IAM and other union stewards who served quietly and
effectively throughout the war. Like the
members they served, many of these stewards were new to industry and
learned by doing. In IAM lodges from Long Island, New York, to Long
Beach, California, officers designed and taught crash courses on the
ABC's of the steward's job. Every steward at Lockheed, for example,
was provided with a loose-leaf reference manual prepared by now
retired GLR Dale Reed who served as President of Local Lodge 727
(not yet a district) during the war. The manual explained the
contract in clear and simple language, discussed the grievance
procedure and told how to prepare for the various steps leading to
settlement. Citied by the U.S. Department of Labor as a superb tool
for training union stewards Reed's manual became the standard text
used in training the more than 1,375 stewards needed to handle the
grievances of some 37,500 IAM members at Lockheed at the peak of
production. Recognizing labor's role in the crusade against
Hitlerism Franklin Roosevelt told the 1942 AFL Convention,
"Labor's cooperation speaks for itself--it is splendid."
The War Labor Board and the Union Shop
When America was attacked employer groups eagerly accepted
organized labor's "no-strike" pledge. The employers also
agreed to a tripartite agency to settle disputes that might hold up
war production. But when the War Labor Board (WLB) was established
corporate America choked at the thought of approving
agreements
that included union shop clauses. In the early months employer
organizations cranked out tons of propaganda denouncing the union
shop. In the summer of 1942, the Journal reported that the
National Association of Manufacturers "bought costly ads in the
newspapers, had taken time on the radio and flooded the schools with
anti-union booklets in a desperate effort to arouse the public
against labor." The Board's four employer
members lined up solidly against union security in any form. This
led the Journal to comment that "the bosses want unions
kept as weak as possible during the war so they can more readily be
smashed afterwards."
The showdown came in a case involving the Ryan Aeronautical
Company of san Diego. The public members accepted the union's offer
to forego its demand for a union shop in exchange for Board approval
of maintenance
of membership. The compromise formula did not require workers to
join the union, but it required those who
joined to retain membership for the period of the contract. The
employer members grudgingly accepted this compromise but only on
condition that all members be given a fifteen-day grace period to
resign, assuming an escape clause would trigger a mass exodus from
the union. Experience proved that few members dropped out during the
grace period while many non-members signed up.
|
