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Donnybrook at McDonnell
While the campaign to put Humphrey in the White House was
absorbing the IAM's attention nationally, a long simmering struggle
was coming to a head at the huge McDonnell Douglas complex in St.
Louis. The roots of this situation grew out of the vastly changed
relationship between District 9 and Local Lodge 837. When originally
chartered during World War II, Lodge 837's fifty-four members were
employed by a subcontractor producing parts for a Curtiss-Wright cargo
plane. After the war the plant was taken over by an engineering team
from Glenn L. Martin headed by James S. McDonnell. As McDonnell's
little company grew and prospered in the design and production of
aircraft for the U. S. Navy, Lodge 837 grew and prospered with it. By
the mid 1960's McDonnell (later merged with Douglas Aircraft
Corporation of California), was the primary producer of the F-4
Phantom jet, the military's favored aircraft in Vietnam. And Lodge
837, with more than 20,000 members, was almost as large as all the
rest of District 9 put together. For many years Lodge 837's members,
like others in the St. Louis area, were served by business
representatives elected by the total membership of the district. Most
of the people of McDonnell had no complaints about wages or working
conditions--considered good for St. Louis and comparable to the rest
of the aerospace industry--but as the membership continued to grow,
local autonomy inevitably emerged as a political issue in local lodge
elections.
In the beginning the issue centered on the right of Lodge 837
members to elect their own business representatives independently of
the rest of the district. But as time went on demands developed for
complete separation and establishment of a new district patterned on
those at Boeing, Lockheed and other aerospace giants. Though this
demand for autonomy was strong it was by no means unanimous. A
significant number of skilled journeymen, having trained in District 9
shops, remained loyal to the organization built by Elmer Walker, Lloyd
Weber and Larry Connors over at least three decades. While not
surprising that a lodge as large as 837 would seek more control of its
own affairs neither was it strange that District 9's leadership would
resist such a traumatic reduction in their membership, per capita and
political influence.
Mounting frustration over the District's inability to assign
more business representatives to handle a growing backlog of
grievances eventually spilled over into a wildcat strike in November,
1965. Soon thereafter, a small group of stewards contacted a lawyer
with Teamster connections for advice in developing a challenge to
District 9's leadership.
This was the beginning of an internal struggle that kept Local
837 and District 9 in an uproar for the next three years. Originally,
the stated objective was a new set of business representatives for
District 9. But, gradually the goal became repudiation of the IAM and
its replacement as the certified bargaining agent for McDonnell
employees by an "independent" union calling itself the
Technical Employees of Aerospace Manufacturers (TEAM). From the first
meeting with the Teamster lawyer to the final NLRB vote three years
later , TEAM, though claiming to have no connection with the Teamster
hierarchy, received direction and financing from sources close to or
identified with the IBT. Continuously handbilling the plants and union
meetings with leaflets and newsletters, TEAM partisans gradually
gained control of most lodge offices, including the editorship of the
column traditionally reserved for Local 837 news in the St. Louis Labor
Tribune.
Receiving reports that IAM supporters were being hooted down and
even physically threatened by a noisy clique of TEAM partisans at
monthly lodge meetings, Siemiller imposed supervision, direction and
control. This was followed by suspension shortly after a Grand Lodge
auditor and several GLR's were forced to barricade themselves in the
lodge offices for a weekend round-the-clock vigil to keep Lodge
837's books and accounts out of the hands of renegade officers
intending to shift more than $80,000 in lodge funds to TEAM control.
Though the per capital increase approved by the January 1966
referendum made it possible for District 9 to assign more business
representatives to Lodge 837, discord continued to fester throughout
the next year. By January 1967, the conflict between TEAM partisans
and IAM loyalists threatened to tear the local apart. With the
situation deteriorating rapidly District 9's leadership came to
the reluctant conclusion that only drastic action could save the unit.
With their agreement the Executive Council gave Lodge 837's membership
the option of voting for a separate and autonomous aeronautical
industrial district. This proposal was approved with cheers at a mass
meeting of the membership and a new district of four lodges was
quickly established. Having achieved their original goal--independence
from District 9 and separate election of their own business
representatives--the leaders of the TEAM pressed ahead with their
campaign for decertification and by the early fall of 1968 had enough
cards to demand a representation election.
With such a significant unit at risk, the Grand Lodge rushed in
a crack troop of top GLR's to take charge of the situation. An
experienced editor, assigned by the Machinist to coordinate public
relations, immediately kicked off the counterattack by setting up a
district newspaper to keep members better informed. In the campaign
that followed practically every known form of advertising and public
relations was used to present a positive image of the IAM. GLR's began
passing out handbills at plant gates each morning making house calls
each night. A telephone hotline was installed with messages changed
daily to keep members posted on late-breaking developments. Full-page
ads were placed in the city's dailies and radio spots were aired over
local stations during peak time. Roads leading to plant gates in
Hazelwood were lined with billboards bearing IAM messages. Workers
commuting by bus read overhead placards extolling the steady and
substantial long-term gains which IAM bargaining had produced for
members of Lodge 837. The cars of IAM supporters were bedecked with
pro-IAM bumper stickers.
At the last moment, the UAW filed for a place on the ballot. UAW
President Walter Reuther had recently pulled his members out of the
AFL-CIO, citing philosophic differences with George Meany, and had
promptly forged an unholy Alliance for Labor Action (ALA) with the
Teamsters. For years, the UAW had lusted for the IAM's unit at
McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis, but IAM representatives working on
this campaign were convinced the UAW, with no realistic hope of
winning the unit, intervened solely to help the Teamsters by
splintering off support that would normally go to the IAM.
Due to the UAW's interference, three elections had to be held
before the issue was finally settled. The UAW and "no-union"
were easily eliminated on the first ballot. When a run-off was
conducted the result was almost to incredible for belief. With more
than 15,000 votes counted, the IAM led by one vote with two ballots
challenged. The NLRB threw out one of the challenges but decided to
sit on the other in order to force both sides to agree to try for a
more convincing result. When a third election was scheduled the
campaign became even more intense. The dead heat in the second
election emphasized the need to get every possible supporter to the
polls for the third balloting. Some members who had been content to do
nothing more than cast their own vote began to actively electioneer
with their shop mates.
Though high feelings sometimes spilled over into the plant and
parking lots, violence and dirty tricks were fortunately limited to an
occasional fist fight or sugared gas tank. Originally coming out of
Lodge 837, and serving as the first business representative elected
from that lodge, Midwest Territory GVP Gene Glover knew McDonnell
Douglas workers would react negatively to hooliganizm.
This was proven a few days before the third election when an
officer of one of the newly established local lodges decided to stop
for a Friday night beer at a bar known to be a TEAM hangout. Though
loyal to the IAM, he apparently prided himself on maintaining cordial relations
with all parties. That night his "friends" from TEAM plied
him with drinks until they got him into a T-shirt emblazoned with one
of their slogans. While snapping pictures of him modeling the T-shirt
they persuaded him to sign a statement supporting TEAM's efforts to
supplant the IAM as bargaining agent for McDonnell Douglas workers.
Shortly thereafter an IAM staffer got a phone call from a friendly
tipster in a local print shop. The TEAM forces were preparing a
handbill, to be passed out just before the election, bearing a picture
of an IAM lodge officer in a TEAM T-shirt singing his name to a
statement urging support of TEAM.
Receiving news of this turn of events, GVP Glover took the next
plane out of Chicago and called an emergency staff meeting. Some of
the BR's and GLR's angrily suggested a course of action calculated to
raise doubts about the man's credibility and character. Coolly
studying the individual's obviously befuddled expression in the
picture, as well as the messy signature, Glover dispatched the chief
lieutenant in the campaign, GLR Jim Malott to find out what the man
himself had to say in the cold, clear light of the "morning
after." At the man's home Malott learned he was ridden with
remorse and ready to set the record straight.
Armed with first hand testimony as to the true facts in the case
IAM handbillers were able to deflect the potential damage of this last
minute "dirty trick" by TEAM partisans. In fact IAM reps
close to the campaign believe this incident created a backlash that
set off a last-moment surge of support for the IAM.
In the final days before the third and last ballot, both sides
scraped and strained to get every possible vote to the polls. The IAM
leased buses to go out to little towns sixty and seventy miles from
the plant to bring known IAM supporters to the polls. The final
result, though still close, was conclusive. With over 18,000 votes
tallied, the IAM saved its certification by 409 votes.
The dust of the battle for representation rights barely settled
before 18,000 IAM members at McDonnell Douglas were on the picket line
fighting for a new contract. Apparently believing it could exploit the
recent split in union ranks, the company immediately tried to launch a
back-to-work movement. A massive campaign of radio, television and
newspaper advertising promised instant pay raises and other benefits
to workers crossing the picket line. Despite the media blitz, the Machinist
reported the strike was "100 percent effective" from the
start. Throughout the next six coldest weeks of the winter, thousands
of District 837 members eked out Grand Lodge strike benefits with food
stamps and surplus farm commodities. The members ratified the new
district's first contract when the company agreed to remove the cap on
a cost-of-living escalator and made a number of other improvements in
vacations, medical care and pensions.
The Largest Award in Labor History
While aerospace members were forging unity on picket lines
outside St. Louis, air transport members were displaying a new sense
of trade union solidarity in Miami. Flying in from every part of the
country, more than 6,000 IAM and Transport Workers Union members
rallied at Miami International Airport to protest a lockout by
National Airlines. The dispute arose when three IAM members were
individually suspended in separate incidents for refusing to taxi
Boeing 727 jetliners at JFK airport in New York without a third person
in the cockpit. They pointed out existing work rules required such a
third person to check instruments not visible from the pilot and
co-pilot seats. When a thousand other IAM members walked out to
protest the suspension, National retaliated with a system-wide
lockout. Though ordered by the Federal district court in New York to
use three-man crews when taxing at Kennedy, management reused to
reinstate the locked out members, replacing them with scabs and
supervisors.
This was the genesis of a battle that spread from airstrips to
courtrooms and back on two continents over the next two years. Because
of restrictions in the Railway Labor Act, the IAM was barred from
calling on other unions to honor its picket lines. But other ways were
found to put pressure on National. At Miami Beach, a picket plane few
back and forth above the beach trailing a sign warning vacationing
sunbathers, "IAM skilled mechanics fired . . . Don't fly
National." Boats decked out with similar messages became floating
billboards sailing back and forth along the beaches. In New York,
Newark, Philadelphia and other National destinations, the lockout was
publicized by IAM pickets and motorcades. At the same time a battery
of IAM attorneys pressed cases simultaneously against both the airline
and the National Mediation Board charging violations of federal law.
Grand Lodge launched a union-wide drive for a special "lockout
fund," to supplement victimization benefits paid out of the
strike fund.
The IAM piled up a string of victories in the courts. By
September, almost nine months after the lockout began, the Court of
Appeals in New Orleans ordered National to reinstate all the locked
out IAM members, but the company delayed another five months with a
series of appeals and legal maneuvers. The IAM's affiliation with the
International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) paid off when British
airline unions informed National's top brass that if they went ahead
with plans to open a newly scheduled route between Miami and London
their planes would not be serviced. The Financial Times of London
reported National had already spent more than $1.5 million advertising
its Miami-London flights and was paying $62,000 a year rent for sales
offices described as ranking "among the bleakest, most miserable
in England."
After more than fourteen months, the airline agreed to reinstate
all the locked out employees with their seniority intact. But the
court battles continued until January, 1971 when the U. S. Supreme
Court finally upheld the right of 1,000 IAM members to receive
"full benefits including back pay" for the entire period of
the lockout. The ruling confirmed the IAM's contention that an air
carrier could not arbitrarily change work rules while a new contract
was being negotiated. The final settlement provided individual back
pay awards ranging from $500 to nearly $10,000. The total $6 million
was the largest back pay award in U. S. labor history.
Siemiller and DeMore Bow Out
Following the failure of the somewhat half-hearted effort to
raise the retirement age in Chicago, Roy Siemiller joined Matt DeMore
in bowing out amid a veritable cornucopia of gifts, congratulatory
messages and banquet oratory. They exited just as the first ominous
cracks wee beginning to appear in the facade of the prosperity of the
'60's.
In a commentary written on the eve of Siemiller's retirement a
nationally syndicated columnist observed that the
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