Thanks for nothing, Rusty Dunn. You just equated 780 striking Caterpillar workers to a potentially disastrous tornado or fire. The strike began on May 1 with peaceful picketing by the International Association of Machinists (IAM) Lodge 851. A few days later the union called for a solidarity rally in front of the Caterpillar plant. 

Mr. Dunn, I was at the IAM Lodge 851 strike rally on Friday May 11 near Joliet IL. I saw a sea of a red union shirts. I heard speeches and I listened to what the striking Cat workers had to say. I walked among people who made Caterpillar a global leader in heavy construction equipment. They are builders, not wreckers. I saw anger, but not rage. I saw quiet determination, but not fury. I saw human beings who work hard and solve complex production problems everyday. They are worth every penny that Caterpillar has been paying them and more. Rusty Dunn, you owe them a heartfelt apology.

 Caterpillar had been paying the Joliet  workers at rates from $13 to $28 an hour depending upon skills and years of service. The “best and final offer” from Caterpillar management would have frozen wages for the next 6 years and allowed Caterpillar to pay “market rate” for new hires. Market rate means that Caterpillar can slash wages according to its definition of market rate.This “two-tier” wage system divides older workers against younger workers and weakens the labor movement, its obvious intention.

 But according to Lodge 851 President Tim O’Brien, the contract offer was so outrageously bad that the strike vote carried by an unprecedented 94%, “Normally in the past, they could buy some votes by making the contract better for younger workers or better for older workers. With this contract though … everything was takeaways.” 

The workers even rejected a thinly disguised bribe of a one-time $5000 signing bonus if they would agree to Caterpillar’s demands.

 The company offer allows Caterpillar to end health care for current retirees and sharply raise healthcare costs for those now working. Workers would also be subject to arbitrary scheduling so that they can never predict when they will be working. This places a great burden on workers with family responsibilities. While at the strike rally, I observed several Cat workers on their cell phones figuring out today’s complex family scheduling with its unexpected surprises and outright emergencies.
 

Caterpillar claims its wage, work rule and benefit cuts are necessary to stay “competitive” in the global market. Yet Cat has recently gained market share in the mining industry, especially after purchasing rival Bucyrus in 2011. North American companies are placing orders to replace aging bulldozers and excavators. Caterpillar is rushing to fill an order backlog of $30 billion dollars and some companies will have to wait until 2014 to get their new heavy equipment. As a result, Cat profits posted a  record breaking 29% increase in the first quarter of 2012.

Cat CEO Doug Oberhelman has stated that “We’re seeing strong global demand for most mining products and significant growth in replacement demand for products in the United States, which more than offset slowing in China and Brazil.” Oberhelman’s executive compensation rose nearly 60% in 2011, earning him $16.9 million in 2011.

Caterpillar is competing just fine.

It takes great skill to build hydraulic parts for a bulldozer or mining truck. The job also requires custom work and special modifications. This is the kind of work that the Joliet employees do on a day to day basis.

 At the May 11 rally, a Cat employee who works as a blacksmith told me how he runs a hot forge to create individually built tools and parts. He is given a problem to solve, sits down, studies it, makes the drawings, builds what is needed and tests it. With a gleam in his eye, he told me,” Not even the foreman really understands what I do.” Another Cat worker told me about the razor thin tolerances of the parts he makes and the programming that goes into them. Many of these workers have been there for decades.

There is a genuine creativity and artistry that goes into crafting solutions to the problems given to a skilled machinist. It takes experience and a pride in one’s work that has been handed down for generations, going back to the first iron smiths of ancient times. 

 One cannot simply walk into Caterpillar’s Joliet facility and do these kinds of jobs. As one Cat striker told me, “I wouldn’t trust anything coming out of that plant now that we’re not in there.”

According to some accounts, Caterpillar did  2 weeks worth of hasty  strike preparations, but union president Jim O’Brien still thinks,”They never thought we would walk out. … We caught them with their pants down. The last time we had a strike at his plant was in 1985.” 

 Because of the technical nature of their work and Caterpillar’s backlog of orders, the machinists do have some bargaining leverage. At the strike rally, both the mayor of Joliet and the Will County executive appeared and promised to help pressure for a fair settlement. Judging by the number of truck, car and motorcycle horns that were blowing in support of the strike as drivers passed the May 11 rally, the machinists have considerable local sympathy.

 But no one I talked to said that this would be an easy strike. It is unclear what pressure local politicians can bring upon a global corporation, even one based in nearby Peoria IL. Local sympathy is good for strike morale and can translate into food donations and neighborly assistance, but there is no evidence that the IAM is going beyond this level of community support. There were speeches at the rally about how their Caterpillar union brothers and sisters around the world meant that the strikers were not alone, although exactly what their brothers and sisters might do was left unsaid.

The workers of IAM Lodge 851 did not go on strike May 1 on a careless whim. They clearly believe they can win against a viciously anti-union company. During the the 1990’s Illinois labor “War Zone” when there were several industrial strikes unfolding at the same time, the UAW fought a bitter 17 month strike at multiple Caterpillar facilities that saw in-plant rallies, wildcats and creative publicity tactics. It ended with many UAW members giving up and crossing the picket lines until the UAW leadership ended the walkout. Labor historian Sharon Smith wrote about the aftermath in 1998:

 Even a month later, although the contract was accepted by a 54 percent margin, significant sections of workers voted it down  including 71 percent of the Decatur local. Many Cat workers have lost homes and cars and suffered broken friendships and families as the sides hardened over the years. But this has only increased their determination to keep on fighting. “I go to work with anger every day. Most people do,”said Wayne Schmidt, who has worked almost 30 years at the Peoria plant. This was echoed by Mike Moats, who is just one year away from retirement but voted against the contract in February. ‘”I’ll fight Caterpillar till the day I die. I’d love to get my job back, but I won’t settle for this deal.”

The same UAW locals that had fought Caterpillar in the 1990’s accepted concessionary contracts in 2012 rather than risk another confrontation. Last winter, Caterpillar locked out members of the Canadian Auto Workers union when they refused to accept  pay cuts of up to 50% at Cat subsidiary Electro-Motive. Electro-Motive had received $5 million in tax breaks that Canadian PM Stephen Harper announced from the factory floor. This was before Electro-Motive was bought by Caterpillar. The work will be moved to the Muncie plant in the right-to-work state of Indiana. The move stunned Canadians across the political spectrum.

Cat workers know the company’s history. But as Cat worker Jeff Yost explains,”You can only bend people so much until people can’t take it anymore. With the big attacks on workers, like here at Caterpillar, the 99% movement and Wisconsin, everybody is starting to see that unions might have some influence after all.”

Cat workers understand that the company’s attack on them has implications beyond the plant. IAM activist Bill McCarl made this point to me when we discussed the regional impact if Caterpillar’s offensive is successful. The smaller towns surrounding the plant like Channahon, Morris, Braidwood & even the city of Joliet will be adversely affected. Small businesses need the money that well-paid workers spend. Schools, emergency services and basic social needs depend upon their tax contribution. Mortgages need to be paid to prevent foreclosure and blight. Families will be stressed and parents will miss important family milestones because of forced overtime and arbitrary scheduling.

McCarl also pointed out that if the plant is closed, lower and middle management will also suffer as he doubts Caterpillar would transfer them.

It’s especially shameful that Caterpillar is based in Peoria IL, but has so little regard for the working people of the state. Yes, Spokesperson Rusty Dunn and CEO Doug Oberhelman, there is a destructive force reminiscent of a a fire or tornado loose inside of Caterpillar, but it’s not coming from the workers. It’s coming from Cat’s top management with its socio-pathic corporate greed. 

You need to heed the words written by one of the wisest leaders to emerge from the Prairie State, a man known throughout the world for his decency and humanity.

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.–President Abraham Lincoln, December 3, 1861

It’s time Caterpillar top management and stockholders showed some respect and humility before the thousands of Cat workers and their families who are the real heroes of the company.

Please send food or monetary assistance for the strikers at Caterpillar to: Local Lodge 851, 23157 S. Thomas Dillon Dr., Ste. B, Channahon, IL  60410

Sources Consulted

Union workers at Cat plant in Joliet poised to strike by Steve Tarter

780 Caterpillar Workers Unexpectedly Go on Strike in Illinois by Mike Elk

Striking Caterpillar workers rally at Joliet plant by Bob Okun

Caterpillar workers strike; rejected signing bonus edited by Lisa Von Ahn and Gunna Dickson

Strikers blast Caterpillar greed, reject concessions by John Bechtell

Compensation for Cat’s Oberhelman jumps 60% by Alejandra Cancino

Caterpillar Profits Soar, Boosts View by  Zacks Equity Research

Striking Caterpillar workers in Illinois speak on their struggle by the WSWS reporting team

>

 Labor Notes readers proudly think of themselves as part of the “International Troublemakers and Boat-Rockers Union”. Their symbol is the slingshot, a weapon  associated with David bringing down the mighty Goliath. It’s not an actual union of course, but a state of mind. Their brand of aggressive organizing is not only hated by global corporations but is unwelcome among those union leaders who cling to the tattered status quo of their big salaries, with little effective action to show for it. Workers from 20 nations, including the USA attended the 2012 meeting.

Chicagoland was well represented on Friday’s opening night session. Uylonda Dickerson of Warehouse Workers for Justice(WWJ) opened the conference on Friday night with an impassioned welcome speech. Dickerson is among the leaders of Warehouse Workers for Justice centered in Joliet IL. The big box stores like Target and Walmart rely on these workers to route shipments across the USA, but reward them with poverty wages, unsafe working conditions and sexual harassment from the labor contractors they hide behind. WWJ has challenged their practices with rallies, one to one organizing and court actions. Warehouse worker groups in California and New Jersey are doing similar work.

Warehouse Workers for Justice of IL, Warehouse Workers United of CA and New Labor of NJ receive an
award for their courage in taking on the big shippers and the big box stores 

 Alfredo Galdenez of the Restaurant Opportunities Center-Chicago (ROC-Chicago) also spoke Friday evening. ROC is confronting mega-resturant chains like Darden which owns and operates approximately nearly 2000 restaurants worldwide; including Capital Grille, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, and Longhorn Steakhouse. ROC is suing Darden based on allegations of racial discrimination, wage theft, creating a hostile  work environment. Both WWJ and ROC have gone to court on behalf of workers, but also partner with community groups to publicize the cause of worker justice.

Partnering with community groups was also the theme of the workshop on how transit workers and transit riders are creating alliances to save and improve public transit. Transit workers from Louisiana, Massachusetts, Florida and New York talked about the successful coalitions they have built with community groups. Both the Amalgamated Transit Workers(ATU) and the Transport Workers Union(TWU) were present.

Jackie Jeter President of ATU Local 689  from Washington DC.
My brother Craig, a retired bus operator, worked closely with her as a Local 689 legislative liason.

Chicago bus and train operators listened to their stories and discussed Rahm Emanuel (aka “Mayor 1%”) and his recent efforts toward privatization of public services, including transit. The bus operators represented by Chicago’s Amalgamated Transit Union 241 were especially concerned as they are in a local which is currently under trusteeship because of poor financial management by the previous union leadership. They reported confusion and demoralization among Local 241 members which make it difficult to create and maintain strong ties with riders and community groups.

 That afternoon, Jesse Sharkey, vice-president of the Chicago Teachers Union Local 1 took the microphone in a workshop so packed that hotel staff had to bring in extra chairs into the meeting. Sharkey is part of CORE (Coalition of Rank-and-File Educators) which swept into union office dedicated to union reform and grassroots activism with parent and community groups. Sharkey spoke of the immense challenges ahead as Mayor Emanuel (whose name elicited a chorus of boos) continues his union bashing and privatization efforts. Union activists from LA, NYC and other cities were clearly looking to Chicago as Ground Zero in the fight to defend teachers and public education.

The Chicago Teachers Union information table was a busy location

 Occupy Wall Street got glowing endorsements in both speeches and informal discussions. You could see the influence everywhere from the transit workers’ orange “Occupy Transit” t-shirts to the many references to the 1% and the 99%. In fact the official theme of the conference was  was “Solidarity for the 99%.” Occupy Chicago was represented by Jan Rudolfo of National Nurses United and Andy Manos. At a labor education workshop, Steve Ashby of Occupy Chicago’s Labor Outreach spoke of the cordial relationship between Occupy Chicago and labor that helped create a number of solidarity actions including a march of thousands against the Mortgage Banker Association who met at the Art Institute last fall.

 Overall there was a spirit of optimism throughout the conference, but no one was underestimating the challenges ahead. The wave of legislation against public employees led to huge demonstrations in Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio, but they have also resulted in layoffs and a full frontal attack on the very existence of unions. Private sector workers like Longview Washington’s longshore workers from Local 21 of the IWLU who sat down in front of trains to protest job losses and Verizon CWA and IBEW employees who hit the picket lines last summer, were defending not just themselves, but workers everywhere who want to end the “race to the bottom” that the dominates the global economy today.

Troublemakers know how to party and laugh too. There was music and dancing to the sounds of  Mwelwa and Quinto Imperio.  Rebel Diaz delivered some scorching political hiphop. Anne Feeney and Elise Bryant led the acoustic music crowd in two song sharing sessions. There was even a special workshop on making labor mischief to spark organizing with humor, skits and songwriting.

 You can be sure that the 1500 “troublemakers” who met in Rosemont IL will be in the front lines of resistance. During the Saturday noon break, hundreds of Labor Notes conferees skipped lunch to march over to the nearby Hyatt Hotel to support the hospitality workers who are confronting the powerful Pritzker family(owners of the Hyatt chain), a family hellbent on turning hospitality work into a hellish nightmare of injuries and rock bottom wages. Did I mention that the Pritzkers are close allies of both Mayor Emanuel and President Obama?

The mid-day Hyatt protest near the Labor Notes conference

But of course Labor Notes readers are not really the “troublemakers.” That role falls to  powerful global corporations and their hired politicians like Wisconsin’s Scott Walker(Republican) and Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel(Democrat). Labor Notes is really a journal for “The Troubleshooters”, the first responders who take on the  toughest labor conflicts. They thrive on difficulty and meet obstacles with creativity and courage. In today’s ongoing class war they carry on the tradition that was expressed in the most desperate days of World War II,”The difficult we do right now; the impossible will take a little longer.”

I’ve been thinking about that a lot since Addie Wyatt, the celebrated South Side Chicago labor leader died in March of this year. I read several of the obituaries about her, but none of them really explained the road she traveled to become an associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, a founder of the Coalition of Labor Union Women, an international vice-president of the United Food and Commercial Workers(UFCW) and a Time MagazinePerson of the Year (1975).

She was a very unique and talented person, but throughout her life, she had the solidarity of others to draw strength from. Great leaders need great people to work with them if they are to accomplish their goals. The obituaries I read in the mainstream media left out that she not only shaped social justice movements, but that she was shaped by them as well.  After reviewing her life and accomplishments, I don’t think Addie Wyatt would want to be remembered as a one woman show.

Faith and solidarity were her tools for greatness. The young Addie Wyatt found these tools within her family, at her church and in the harsh realities of the Chicago meatpacking industry. Born in Mississippi, she first lived on a quiet residential street near gardens, fields, chickens, hogs, and  fruit trees. Her dad was a tailor and her mom a teacher.

The Depression hit when Wyatt was still a small child and her parents heard that there were more opportunities in the North. It was a rumor that proved to be illusionary for the Wyatt family. When the family moved to  Chicago they found that work was scarce and and pay was rock-bottom. Housing and food were expensive so they had to rely on the solidarity of their extended family: staying with relatives and moving frequently. Her father would work for 50-60 hours a week when jobs were available, but still could not support his spouse and their 8 children.  He turned to alcohol in his anger and frustration, further complicating the family’s already perilous existence. Addie Wyatt grew closer to her mother and grandmother:

“They were loving women, they prayed together and they shared together and they raised us together. We had very little economic security. There were times when there was no money in the house. At the age of eight I started making little paper flowers and fiber glass flowers and sold them. I also made candy and wrapped it in little papers and sold it. I sometimes brought fifty cents or a dollar into the house. I know now this was like ten, twenty, or twenty five dollars, but I didn’t realize it then.”–Interview with Elizabeth Balanoff

As a member of the Church of God, Wyatt came to know the importance of both faith and solidarity. Like many black churches then and now, faith in God also meant faith in the people around you, faith that as God’s children, they would come together in what Dr. King later called “a beloved community.” In practical terms, this meant pooling both material and spiritual resources to survive the ongoing economic calamity that was compounded by the entrenched racism of American society. Her particular church practiced an equality among men and women. Women were encouraged to be leaders in all aspects of church organization. Based on her family and church experience, Wyatt came to know the power of women’s leadership and solidarity. These experiences would later form a basis for her work in the labor and feminist movements.

After attending high school, getting married and having children, Addie Wyatt applied for a job at the Armour meat packing company as a typist. What she didn’t know at the time was that Armour did not hire black women for their front office. She was hired, but when she went to work on Monday, she was given a uniform and a cap and sent to the canning department. She joined the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) union after learning it was responsible for her benefits and grievance protection.

She stayed at Armour 3 years, was fired from a job at a hatpin factory for union organizing and then found a job at Illinois Meat in 1947. She was once again a member of  the UPWA, but reluctant to become deeply involved because of her church work and her community activism in her Altgeld Gardens neighborhood. But the UPWA was very unique and its leaders would soon recognize Wyatt’s strong character and leadership potential.

The meatpacking industry is not for the faint of heart. The work of slaughtering and dismembering large animals takes a toll on the human workers too. Upton Sinclair’s famous book The Jungle, written in 1905, exposed the brutal dangers of the work, the unsanitary conditions and the contempt that meatpacking owners had for their own workers. A strike for better wages was crushed in 1904 and  another was crushed in 1921. The big meatpackers used ethnic differences to divide workers. At first it was by nationality and language, but especially after 1921, when a large number of black strikebreakers were hired, the division came by color.

Typical early slaughterhouse 

Children of meatpackers search for food scraps
 

When the UPWA was born in the 1930’s during the depths of the Depression packinghouse organizers confronted the problem of ethnic and racial division head on. The communists, socialists, IWW members, independent labor militants, New Deal visionaries and class war hardened CIO evangelists had learned a hard lesson.

“The first accomplishment was the bonding together of different nationalities. They didn’t even speak to one another. At Squires we had the Irish, Italian, Greeks, Portuguese and others. It was through the organizing committee that they were approached They were hesitant at first, because the one didn’t trust the other…There was fear of being discharged to make room for one of the other group.” –William Hosford (UPWA member)

In Chicago, the situation was even more complicated. Ethnic and racial conflict in 1919 had led to a deadly race riot, a civil war instigated by whites between the black and white working class on Chicago’s South Side. Distrust ran deep after the blood that had flowed. During the 1930’s Black Chicago developed a well deserved reputation for social and political militancy in the struggle against white supremacy in the city. The communists were probably the best organized group pushing for multi-racial working class unity. When the UPWA established itself in the Chicago stockyards and huge meatpacking plants, black workers immediately became a dynamic and powerful force within the union. The slogan of the UPWA was “Negro and White, Unite and Fight,” showing how the rivalries among European ethnic groups were fading as they came to see themselves as “white people.”

Depression Era Chicago stockyards revolt
 

Much of the pressure on the meatpacking companies came from actions within the workplace using slowdowns, sit-ins and mass rallies. This culture of direct shop floor democracy was carried into the the organization of the union itself, and the UPWA became one of the most democratic unions within the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and the labor movement as a whole. Their democratic tradition was put to the test during the Red Scare of the Cold War that followed World War II. The CIO was torn apart through government repression and internal power struggles about the presence of  communists in the labor movement. The UPWA had communists among its leadership but emerged  with its militant democratic traditions largely intact.

UPWA mass meeting
 

The leadership of the UPWA knew that freedom is a constant struggle and undertook a unique strategy of encouraging leadership to come from the rank and file workers through labor education classes and regional conferences. Union leaders like the socialist Ralph Helstein and the communist Jesse Prosten were especially concerned about promoting people of color and women within the union. Racial and gender job discrimination in the industry was still a major problem and the owners liked it that way because of the bitterness and strife that it sowed. Discrimination meant division and divisions among the working class could be fatal to the union’s success.

Addie Wyatt attended one of the conferences in the early 1950’s and described it this way:

“At this conference we were told that our talents and skills were needed, and the leaders urged women and blacks and Spanish speaking people to become involved. Well this was a good sign to me because nowhere had I seen the picture that I saw at the union meeting, at the union conference — blacks, whites, Spanish speaking people, men and women, young and old meeting together, talking about their common problems. This was a very impressive sight. So I went back after that conference, recommending to the women that we ought to find a woman to run for vice president of our local union.”— Interview with Elizabeth Balanoff

UPWA: Unity in diversity
 

No one wanted to take such a big step so Wyatt reluctantly agreed to run, sure that she would not win. Not only did she win, but when the president of the local resigned, she moved into the top spot as president. Now with a house full of kids and leadership of  her Altgeld Gardens community group, she was now head of a UPWA local with all of the heavy responsibilities of grievance handling and negotiating. Eighteen months later, she was hired by the UPWA to become a paid union staffer for District 1 which included responsibilities for a 5 state area.

Addie Wyatt, with her already formidable experience as a woman of faith and solidarity was now a leader in a union which took those values very seriously. The union leadership had faith that with dedicated  organizing, white workers could learn to abandon racism and that men could learn to respect and value their women co-workers. The union leadership believed that solidarity among working class people could bring about long overdue social changes and that the union’s job was not just to fight for better wages and working conditions, but to help build a better world. The union went beyond short term pragmatism and the model of business unionism favored by most of the US labor movement. The UPWA had a a moral vision and they were not afraid to share it.

Packinghouse workers had come a long way since the days of Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle. 

Of course some workers blissfully ignored the union’s brand of social unionism and others were openly hostile. It became one of Addie Wyatt’s jobs to uphold the union’s moral vision in her practical day to day work. She traveled to the predominantly white locals of Southern Illinois under the direction of Charlie Hayes, the first black UPWA midwest district director, and later a member of the US Congress.

In the those days of Jim Crow accommodations,  Wyatt could not always find restaurants or lodgings because of her color. She sometimes ate a dinner of crackers, cookies and lunch meat in her car. But her steadfast work representing the often suspicious and distrustful white workers made a difference. During a long bitter strike she traveled all over the region organizing soup kitchens and Christmas parties for the children. That made a huge difference. Straight forward and respectful, she was also no pushover and her persistence and patience was legendary. The walls of Jim Crow began to crack even in the Dixie-like conditions of Southern Illinois.

UPWA mobilization meeting
 

Wyatt was very sensitive to what would some have called the “triple jeopardy,” being black, female and working class:

“I find myself as a black woman oft times fighting on three fronts — the worker’s front, the black front and the female front — trying to overcome all of these pressures. And I got a three fold impact of all of these discriminations “isms.” Sometimes I think it’s much more difficult as a black woman, because we have to carry the burden of all these problems. It isn’t always easy for women, and especially for black women, because we have the white male, the white female and the black male all three looking down upon us, and we black women are on the bottom rung.”— from the interview with Elizabeth Balanoff

The UPWA did not confine its anti-discrimination efforts to the workplace. The union was one of the most fervent supporters of the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1956 led by Dr. Martin Luther King and was the only union to take part in founding the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Addie Wyatt was tasked with raising money for the bus boycott from the predominantly white locals in the Midwest.

While most unions were content with an anti-discrimination clause, the UPWA was pro-active and assertive, both for the practical necessity of multi-racial unity, but also because of its core moral vision. Although the Chicago locals with their large and militant black membership were a driving force in the union, the UPWA as a whole was majority white and white workers took part in the anti-discrimination efforts. Wyatt was appreciative of white support for the black freedom struggle:

“[W]hen you think in terms of the white people, there are decent white men and women. Had it not been for some of them we never would have broken through and come out of the degradation of slavery that we’ve come through.”–from the interview with Elizabeth Balanoff

Wyatt had the honor of meeting Dr. King personally when he came to Chicago to accept the donations that UPWA had collected for the Montgomery struggle. She reports that in private King had a great sense of humor and a relaxed unpretenious manner. He spoke at the 1957 UPWA national conference and Wyatt followed up with more invitations to speak.

Dr. King responded by saying,“Addie, I’m coming because you called me, and I know you wouldn’t be calling me for just anything. You know how busy I am.” Wyatt was later jailed in Selma for her part in the voting rights protests of 1965 where many people were badly beaten and Viola Liuzzo was murdered. She was with Dr. King when he came to Chicago in 1965-66 in his open housing campaign which was met with the contempt of Mayor Richard J. Daley and the rocks of white racist mobs.

 
Dr. King on the streets of Chicago
 

The UPWA mobilizations around racial discrimination inspired union women to take on gender discrimination. This was during the 1950‘s when feminism was supposedly “dead.” Black women were especially prominent in this effort. Although not as successful in fighting the entrenched sexism in the industry, women were able to make material gains, gain more confidence in their own power, change male attitudes and help to plant the seeds for the feminist revolution that would explode in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Wyatt was one of the leaders of this movement within the UPWA and as in the battle against racial discrimination, she took women’s concerns outside of the workplace and into the larger community. In 1961, President Kennedy, under pressure from women’s groups, created the Commission on the Status of American Women headed up by Eleanor Roosevelt, widow of Franklin Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt asked Wyatt to serve on the Labor Legislation Committee of the Commission. The Commission published a final report, but more importantly, brought women together  and established important connections that eventually led to the founding of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966.

Wyatt participated in the early meetings of NOW, but  not satisfied that the organization could adequately promote the interests of union women, went on to help found the Coalition of Labor Union Women(CLUW) in 1974. CLUW’s early years were difficult because of major disagreements among union women about how to move forward. Many of the more radical rank and file women objected to the domination by union staff people and officials like Wyatt. Coming out of the women’s liberation movement and the rank and file labor revolts of the time, they envisioned something that was (ironically) more like UPWA in its most militant period.

Wyatt’s work in the labor movement had become more difficult as well. Out of the  killing floors of the USA’s meatpacking industry had been born the UPWA, a working class organization for human rights that helped change the face of a nation. Although largely ignored by the history books, the work of Wyatt and the other UPWA activists was vitally important to the black freedom movement and later the women’s movement.

But by the 1960’s, the meatpacking industry was changing. The big companies were facing new competition as they deployed new technology.  The big plants in Chicago with their largely black workforce, the heart of the UPWA’s progressive base, were shut down. The union became more white, more rural and less numerous. The UPWA’s social mission needed dues money and activists and by 1968 the UPWA was in grave financial difficulty. A series of mergers with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and the Retail Clerks union brought what remained of the UPWA  into the United Food and Commercial Workers. The old UPWA’s shop floor democracy and vibrant social mission became lost in the shuffle of union politics.

Then in the 1980’s, an all-out assault on packinghouse workers by the owners resulted in a bitter lost strike in one of the union’s flagship locals in Austin, Minnesota and was accompanied by severe concessions across the industry. Today with a largely immigrant workforce, conditions in some of the USA’s meatpacking plants are scarcely better than what Upton Sinclair described in his 1905 novel The Jungle.

Police use teargas in the tragic 1980′s Hormel strike in Austin MN
 

The United Packinghouse Workers of America was a brief and shining moment in American labor history, but it casts a light on where the labor movement stands today. Topdown narrow “pragmatic” business unionism  proved to be a poor defense against the corporate assaults on the working class that began in the late 1970’s. The UPWA social militancy couldn’t do it alone, but maybe they showed the broader labor movement the way to a better future.

Can US unions adopt a  democratic rank and file driven culture to overcome the cruel assaults on the US working class and help make a radical societal transformation? The grassroots working class revolt that began in Wisconsin last year and continued with the emergence of Occupy Wall Street suggest that may be a possibility.

Addie Wyatt retired from the United Food and Commercial Workers in 1984. She had seen both inspirational victories and heartbreaking defeats, had her personal triumphs and made her personal mistakes, but her faith and solidarity remained unshaken.

With her husband, she plunged full time into her work with the Vernon Park Church of God, a church with a social as well as a spiritual mission. The corporate assault on the working class had deeply wounded Chicago’s South Side with lost wages and lost jobs, causing mounting social ills. As usual, these wounds were felt most grievously among communities of color. When she and husband retired from the ministry, they then established a community center close to her home. In 2002 she reflected on her life’s work:

“We now have a family life community center where young people and seniors can come and interact with each other, where they can feel wanted, loved, and appreciated, and where they have an opportunity to express their Godgiven talents, and to know their purpose for being here, and to help others. That’s been a great joy which we have shared in the labor movement, in the women’s movement, in the civil rights movement, wherever we go, and I don’t separate them. We don’t, because it’s the total package that God has given us.”— from the interview with Joan McGann Morris

Wyatt had returned to her spiritual roots in Black Chicago, still living a life of faith and solidarity.

Addie Wyatt passed away on March 28, 2012.

Sources Consulted

The Rev. Addie L. Wyatt, 1924-2012 by Ronnie Reese

Addie L. Wyatt Biography at JRank

Video Oral History Interview with Addie L. Wyatt by Julieanna Richardson

Rev. Addie L. Wyatt Interview with Joan Morris

Addie Wyatt Interview with Elizabeth Balanoff

UFCW Commemorates Black History Month: Celebrating Our Own by Leilah

The King Philosophy by the King Center

Negro and White: Unite and Fight by Roger Horowitz

Out of the Jungle by Les Orear

The Mental Health Movement is made up of mental health workers, clinic users and their supporters. It has been fighting the closure of 6 mental health clinics in Chicago. Thirty-five people have been arrested so far in the struggle. More about that HERE and HERE. Yesterday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel offered free bus passes to patients of the closed clinics(!) 

Photo of the original tent encampment

Back to Saturday’s health fair. An hour of Saturday travel took me through through the now-gentrifying West Side, through the shady towers of downtown and to the city’s South Side, where institutions like the Illinois Institute of Technology and Sox Park stand amidst Chicago’s ever changing working class neighborhoods. 

Woodlawn, just south of affluent Hyde Park, home of the University of Chicago, was once the stronghold of the Blackstone Rangers, aka the Black P Stone Nation, aka the El Rukns. Led by Jeff Fort, aka Prince Malik, they were the most feared black street gang on the South Side. Decimated by deaths, prosecution and the aging process, they have disappeared from the public scene. Jeff Fort is now incarcerated at the Florence Supermax prison in Colorado. He will no doubt die there, alone in a cell that amounts to a medieval dungeon updated with 21st century technology. 

Few mourned the end of the El Rukns and few will mourn the passing of its former maximum leader. According to Horace Howard, a grad student at Governors State University and one of the leaders of the Mental Health Movement, the street violence on the black South Side is now largely among small groups  and aggrieved individuals seeking revenge. Ironically Jeff Fort’s daughter  Ameena Matthews is an anti-violence activist on the streets of the South Side and one of the subjects of the award winning film 2010 documentary film, The Interrupters. 

The University of Chicago has long coveted the traditionally black Woodlawn neighborhood. After I descended down the long flight of stairs from the CTA station at 63rd & Cottage Grove, last stop on the Green Line, I walked a few blocks east to Woodlawn Ave past vacant lots awaiting developers to perform the seemingly inevitable process of gentrification and working class displacement.  

At the corner of 63rd and Woodlawn, just across from the Woodlawn Clinic is the Robust Coffee Lounge, full of University of Chicago students and neighborhood residents working on laptops and engaging in intense conversations. Members of the Mental Health Movement are frequent visitors and the owner wears a button supporting their efforts. Besides the warmth, the Wi-Fi and the conversation, this quaint coffee house also has two functional toilets, a powerful attraction to the Occupiers who are its neighbors. 

When I arrived at the Health Fair a little after noon on Saturday, there were about 75-100 making up the racially mixed crowd who had gathered on that clear cool spring day. People came and went all afternoon and numbers seemed to hover around 100 most of the time.The familiar Chicago smell of  outdoor BBQ was in the air, wafting over the canopies and health fair attendees. It had the atmosphere of a traditional Chicago block party or neighborhood picnic. 

63rd and Woodlawn: Site of the health fair

There was a nurse doing blood pressure tests while delivering free advice about hypertension. A woman was getting a massage on a portable massage apparatus. The food table was busy with people receiving chili and chips while waiting for the ribs to cook. 

The BBQ. This also served as a warming place in the evening.

There was dancing to urban sounds from a portable sound system while others gathered in small circles for intense discussions. T-shirts supporting the clinic struggle hung from an improvised clothes line while young people stamped out “Our City Our Clinics” buttons on a manual button making machine.  

The buttonmakers. Horace Howard is seated with red jacket

People were encouraged to create their own button slogans with a sharpie marker on pre-made templates and then stamp out their own custom buttons. Others took leaflets and petitions to circulate in their neighborhoods. An AFSCME organizer babysat with with the sometimes cranky sound system.

Dancers

Around mid-afternoon there was a break in the music. Mental clinic users and mental health workers gave short speeches. Horace Howard, one of the original arrestees and a grad student at Governors State University was among the speakers. 

He told of how he had been abused by the private mental services he had been receiving. He wanted very much to enroll in a masters degree program but was discouraged from doing so by his caseworker. He was told that seeking higher education was just the “manic” phase of his manic-depressive condition and his therapist wanted to increase his medication. Of course doing that would have made him unable to study properly or interact with the other students. 

He went ahead and  enrolled in a Governors State graduate program despite their “diagnosis”.  

Howard made a link between the clinic closings and the globalization of the economy. The shift from a higher paying manufacturing base to a lower paid service economy has had devastating consequences in working class communities, especially in the wake of the 2008 financial disaster. The increased stresses in peoples’ lives have made mental health services more crucial than ever.  

But working class people with health issues are being told by the LaSalle Street financial barons to take their problems to private providers who will then profit from their distress. They are also expected to go quietly and not make a public fuss about it. Occupy Chicago has called this “The Sit Down and Shut Up Policy.” 

Howard named both Bill Daley (brother of former Mayor Richie Daley) and Rahm Emanuel as major political players in the Chicago’s role in this transformation. From Howard’s speech and my own reading, it looks to me that Rahm is presiding over a globalized increasingly  gentrified Chicago whose local rulers are the City’s financial elite,  with their international connections to global capital.  

They want a shrunken low wage non-union working class  They see that as more profitable, whence the headlong rush into privatization and unionbusting. Many of the traditionally unionized jobs that built the city are gone and with them much of the political pressure for public services to working  class communities. 

Howard’s analysis  of the city’s social crisis tallied with what Occupy Chicago has been saying about the Windy City 1%. Dr. Pauline Lipman of the University of Illinois at Chicago has written extensively in a similar vein within context of education. There is an ugly racial component to all of this, with black and brown Chicago the target of the most drastic public service reductions. 

The cold shoulder toward working class black and brown Chicago was echoed echoed by another speaker who talked about the decision of the University of Chicago Hospital located just a few blocks from 63rd and Woodlawn to close its last trauma center. There is now no trauma center on Chicago’s South Side, despite the obvious need for one.

Youth activist Damian Turner was shot dead just 2 blocks from the University of Chicago Medical Center in August of 2010. He bled to death while being transported to Northwestern Memorial Hospital 10 miles away. For those familiar with American history, it was all too familiar. In the Jim Crow South, blacks were routinely transported to far off hospitals even when their lives hung in the balance. 

According to Dr. Marie Crandall, an associate professor of surgery at Northwestern University: 

“We finished our analysis of Illinois State Trauma Registry gunshot wounds from 1999-2009 and we did find that there was a difference if you lived more than five miles from a trauma center both with respect to transport and mortality,”   

Crandall believes that survival from gunshot trauma depends heavily upon access to Level 1 trauma as soon as possible. Since 2008, South Side Chicago has experienced 40% of the homicides due to trauma. 

There is a march to the University of Chicago hospital to demand a South Side trauma center planned for May 12 at noon that will begin at 61st and Cottage Grove. It is sponsored by FLY( Fearless Leading by the Youth). 

A community gathering with the generally festive air of a picnic or block party may seem like an inappropriate place to discuss economic globalization, denial of mental health services and traumatic gun violence, but the speakers were all greeted with enthusiasm. People know that lives are at stake, but morale and optimism was high.  

Even when the police showed up demanding that tent canopies shading the blood pressure screening and literature tables be taken down did not dash peoples’ spirits. It was not a day for confrontation and besides the sun was low in the horizon and they were not really needed anyway.  

An AFSCME organizer makes nice with the police

I left around 4 pm because of another commitment, but the party was still going strong. We may be up against some of the most powerful and wealthy people on the planet, but they are finding that working class Chicago does not bend easily, quietly or without a good party.

 Sources consulted:

10 arrested outside Woodlawn Mental Health Clinic  from the Chicago Tribune

Woodlawn Mental Health Center Protests: 10 Arrested As Police Break Up Another Demonstration from the Huffington Post 

Emanuel: Mental health clinic closures mean more patients served by Fran Spielman 

Lack of South Side trauma center may be costing lives, new study indicates

by Ariel Ramchandani

The issue of closing mental health clinics first came up last fall during the protests surrounding Mayor Emanuel’s proposed budget, which also included slashing library services, privatization of neighborhood health clinics and layoffs of public employees. There was an hours long sit-in outside the Mayors office demanding that all mental health clinics remain open. Below is a video produced shortly after the fall round of protests.

OUR LIVES ON THE LINE: Voices from Chicago’s mental health clinics

Last Thursday night (April 12), a group of patients and mental health workers barricaded themselves inside the Woodlawn Mental Health Center on the South Side to protest its closure. Early the next morning on April 13, police used  tools to break through the door and arrested 23 people who were inside.  

Inside the Woodlawn Clinic before the bust:

Outside of the Clinic before the bust:

Together with with Occupy Chicago, protestors than set up a small tent village outside the clinic to rally support and gain news coverage after months of being ignored. The protests are being led by Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP), a 5 year old community group. The Mental Health movement is a member of STOP. Occupy Chicago has helped organize people and gather supplies to keep the tent city protest going. The tent city endured a couple of rough nights due to bad weather but is still holding strong. 

WGN TV reports on the tent encampment:

At the Monday morning press conference clinic patients and mental health workers who had been arrested told of not being screened for possible mental health episodes, of having their medication denied to them and being ridiculed by jail personnel. One woman said that she was groped by a male officer in her vaginal area under the guise of being searched, a search that should only be conducted by a female officer. 

There was fear expressed that if clinics are closed, there will be more police brutality toward mental patients, more drug addiction, more self-destructive behavior and more suicides as patients seek help elsewhere, a help that may not be forthcoming as many of these patients are indigent. 

Later the group met with the  officials of the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) who tried to reassure people that their needs would be taken care of by the CDPH “partner institutions”, as well as the remaining public clinics. This was met by deep skepticism by the Mental Health Movement activists who told of people already being turned away after referrals. One woman gave details about the understaffed Greater Lawn Mental Health Center whose workers cried when they had to turn away new patients. 

The term “partner institutions” is just a gussied-up term for privatization, and private health care has no interest in patients that don’t generate a profit.

The Mental Health Movement issued a 23 page report last January with the help of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). I have quoted from that report below. For the full report, please go HERE. 

Dumping Responsibility:The Case Against Closing CDPH Mental Health Clinics 

• The city’s claimed cost savings are tiny and illusory. CDPH claims closing clinics will save $2 million—barely 1% of its $169 million annual budget. And this claim ignores the budgetary, societal and human costs of inevitable disruptions in patient care—including increased emergency room visits, hospitalization, police intervention and incarceration.
• CDPH should cut waste—including $1.67 million in new spending on upper management salaries, outside contracts, advertising and surveys. This amount should be used to sustain and improve city MH clinics.
• CDPH would transfer at least 1,100 Medicaid patients to private providers— effectively giving away federal reimbursement for their services. If this plan is budget-driven, it is illogical to turn away patients with the ability to pay.
• Closing six clinics will force 2,549 patients to travel to other city clinics or seek private care. There is no guarantee that private providers and hospitals will offer treatment regardless of ability to pay. The system’s more than 3,000 uninsured individuals are least likely to find private care since such providers already face shrinking budgets and reduced state funding.
• CDPH is rushing to close clinics in just eight weeks—despite having six months of funding in the budget and nothing but an outline of a plan for patient care. CDPH has circulated a list of private providers, but admits it has no formal agreements with or information regarding capacity, services and wait times from these agencies.

 As I sat in on the meeting with the Department of Public Health this morning, I thought of my own struggles with depression, of being lost in that long dark tunnel of despair and on at least two occasions, wondering if I was going to come out alive. Fortunately I had access to some limited treatment, even though my health insurance didn’t cover it because it was a pre-existing condition. When people are in that kind of state, it’s difficult for them to fight their inner demons, much less ones with the power of the Mayor’s Office and the LaSalle Street financial barons. My heart goes out to the brave patients of the Woodlawn clinic.

 But despite all of the facts presented and the personal stories told, the Mayor’s obsessive catering to the wealthy and his compulsive dissing of the working class goes on unabated. Mr. Mayor, don’t you think that’s a little crazy?

Faces of Chicago’s Mental Health Movement

Sources consulted: 

Rallying against mayor’s plan to close mental health facilities  by Kaley Fowler

Activists Set Up New Encampment At Clinic In Woodlawn  by aaroncynic

Southside Together Organizing for Power

Politics in Woodlawn: Occupation of the Mental Health Clinic by Ramsin Canon

Protesters Stage Sit-In Of Woodlawn Mental Health Clinic by aaroncynic

Dumping Responsibility: The Case Against Closing CDPH Mental Health Clinics by the Mental Health Movement and AFSCME Council 31

Although mostly forgotten now, Wallace was the Halley’s Comet of the neo-confederate universe in the 1960’s, trailing a constellation of stars and bars behind him. As governor of Alabama he stood in front of the schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama in 1962 in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent its desegregation by  black students. 

At his 1963 gubernatorial inauguration he vowed,”Segregation Now. Segregation Tomorrow! Segregation Forever!” When segregation was outlawed by the 1964 Civil Rights Act, he changed his rhetoric to the racial coded language that has inspired generations of Republican politicians from Richard Nixon to Newt Gingrich.

When he ran for President in 1964 and 1968, Wallace got a substantial vote from rural and moderate income white Maryland voters, but he also met with strong opposition. Maryland is a border state and contested terrain, south of the Mason Dixon Line, but north of the Old Confederacy. A former slave state, Maryland was the site of the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day of the Civil War. Gettysburg PA is nearby. Even in 1972, the sight of a Confederate flag in  Maryland set off strong, even violent emotions, both for and against; and so did the presence of George Corley Wallace.

He was running in the Democratic primary for President and he was expected to carry the state.

I was writing for a local underground paper and we organized a bunch of people to confront him at both Wheaton Plaza and Capital Plaza. These were not upscale malls but older shopping centers that catered to lower middle class shoppers. We knew we would be probably be outnumbered by Wallace supporters, but we didn’t care. 

As a former Wheaton resident, I felt bad about having to miss the Wheaton Plaza event, but I was able to make it to Capital Plaza in nearby Prince George’s (PG) County, a Wallace stronghold. I was driving a delivery truck then, so with magic markers, poster board and my limited art skills I made a sign that read “Truck Driver Against Wallace.” I knew that would get some attention.

A bunch of us drove over to Capital Plaza where several hundred enthusiastic Wallace supporters were swaying to country music, some waving Confderate flags. To me, the Confderate flag is the American swastika. More about swastikas later.

Including us, there were maybe 75-100 counter demonstrators off to the side of the main crowd. We chanted anti-racist slogans; the favorite being “Bus Wallace back to Alabama!”. Busing for desegregation was a big issue in PG County at the time. 

When Wallace began to speak I took my sign, left the main contingent of counter-demonstrators, and accompanied by a couple of friends, patrolled the outskirts of the Wallace supporters. As I hoped, the sign really pissed some people off and I did my best to answer their taunts while getting ready to beat a quick retreat if necessary. Picking my teeth up off the pavement of a suburban parking lot was not on my proposed agenda. A few people made threatening gestures, but nobody got violent and the cops didn’t seem to be taking any of it very seriously.

Finally Wallace finished his speech and exited with his entourage.I was standing at the western side of the parking lot with my buddy Charlie when we noticed a bus at the eastern end, maybe 100-150 years away. The large swastikas on the side were hard to miss; so were the people who were blocking the front of the bus. Charlie turned to me and said in total surprise “Fuckin’ Nazis!” Several men emerged from the bus, one with a club in his hand. We shook off our complete shock and began running toward the bus. 

It was the Nazi Hate Bus. I had heard of it, but had never actually seen it. As we came closer, I could see that the bus blockers were scattering, the bus was pulling away and that PG cops were  converging. They began arresting people, for what I had no idea. Charlie and I stopped where the bus had been and looked around. PG County law enforcement had a sizable population of racist thugs. Mentally recording their behavior looked like a good idea. 

A stout guy in a suit quickly planted himself in front of me and demanded that I leave the scene. I looked at him and said,”Who the hell are you?”  He shouted,”You’re under arrest.” I was grabbed from behind and cuffed. Within minutes I was in a PG cop car and heading for the local Hyattsville lockup with 2 teenagers. It turned out they from the Students for McGovern club at a nearby high school. McGovern was the liberal Democrat running that year. They and their pals had organized the sit-in front of the Nazi Hate Bus. I congratulated them and wondered if I would have done the same. Probably not.

There were 8 of us at the lockup, 7 of the McGovern kids and me. The bemused jailer looked at us and asked why we were there. One of the kids proudly said that we had been demonstrating against Nazis. 

The jailor looked at us for a few seconds and then said firmly,” Nazis? I hate Nazis. You boys sit down until someone comes to bail you out. I’m not going to put you in a cell because of a bunch of Nazis.” 

All 7 of the McGovern kids turned out to be Jewish. They were great kids to hang out with. I was charged with disorderly conduct and got bailed out for $100 a couple of hours later.

The next day I called Gary Simpson(no relation), an ACLU attorney we relied on and asked him what I should do. He said he’d look into it. The next day he called and told me that the guy who had “arrested” me was an Alabama State Trooper, a member of Wallace’s security detail and a man with no jurisdiction in Maryland. Then Gary said,” I can’t believe it, but they want to go to court over this. It’s outrageous.”

Gary took my case for $100 and as he always did, channeled Clarence Darrow in the courtroom.  I was found not guilty.

While awaiting my court date, I happened to be in my delivery truck in an industrial park about a mile south of Laurel MD. Sirens were wailing from the long line of cop cars and emergency vehicles as they passed me at high speed  heading north on Route 1. I had never seen so many flashing lights. The truck dispatcher came over the radio and ordered me to leave the area ASAP because George Wallace had just been shot. 

The next day there were rumors in the truck lot that all of the black and hippie-looking drivers were kept a safe distance away from the scene by the company. I was one of the hippie-looking drivers, so maybe  that’s why I got that  call. I guess they were afraid of retribution by angry Wallace supporters.

As for George Wallace, he survived his wounds, painfully paralyzed until he passed away in 1998. Wallace never really believed the racist crap  that he spread around in public. It was cold-blooded political calculation and late in his sad life he repented; in my opinion, quite honestly. 

Arthur Bremer, his would-be assassin, was released in 2007;  his motive seeming to be no more than bringing publicity on himself. Maryland Wallace opponents told a cruel joke about the shooting, saying that if Bremer had been tried by a “Peoples Court”, he would have been found guilty and sentenced to 6 months of target practice.

Wallace supporters had their Confederate flag. We had our Artie Bremer  joke. Racism never paints a pretty picture.

 ATU national president Larry Hanley was inspired to ally ATU with the Occupy Movement when he learned of a proposal from Occupy Boston for a national day of protest around transit issues. Occupy Boston had issued this statement:

“In Boston and in cities around the country, our hard-won and necessary transportation systems are under attack. Their viability is being threatened by savage cuts and fare hikes in a calculated push toward privatization by corrupt and unresponsive politicians and their corporate benefactors.”

 On April 4, the ATU led demonstrations in 15 American cities to draw attention to today’s transit crisis.

 The ATU wants our mass transit systems to better serve the needs of poor people so that they can get to jobs and enter the mainstream of society. April 4 was the anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination and ATU leaders made a point of calling public transit “a human right” and quoting from Dr King’s speeches. Dr. King began his career as a civil rights leader by leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott which sought public transit  equality for all people.

 In Newark ATU leader Ray Greaves warned that $100 million in planned budget cuts will affect commuters who don’t use public transit because the cuts will put more cars on the road resulting in worse traffic jams as “gas prices are going through the roof.”

 Here in Chicago between 75-100 ATU activists, Occupy Chicago members and transit riders gathered in front of the Chicago Transit Authority headquarters for a scheduled 6pm rally. As the CTA Green Line rumbled overhead every few minutes, ATU members passed out orange “Occupy Transit” T-shirts and signs supporting public transit.

ATU International Vice-president Javier Perez(photo below) congratulated CTA workers for the excellent job they did in the 2011 blizzard, something even the Chicago Tribune acknowledged. But as Perez pointed out, the Tribune failed to mention that these were unionized employees. It seems that when unionized employees respond courageously and competently in emergencies, their union status is forgotten.

Perez went on to criticize the U.S. Congress for its ‘kick the can down the road” attitude toward transit funding. As an example he raised the issue of CTA maintenance employees who are forced to work in rat infested garages. At that point CTA workers raised a chorus of cheers. Perez made it clear that the ATU is tired of politicians and corporate leaders blaming public employees for city budget crises and he strongly stated his opposition to selling off public assets. 

The issue of selling off public assets is a critical issue for Chicago public transit. Recently Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a massive 7 billion dollar package of infrastructure initiatives that had been largely cobbled together from previous proposals. What alarmed some longtime City Hall observers was Emanuel’s emphasis on “public-private” partnerships which they see as merely a back door method of privatization. Chicagoans are still reeling from the public-private leasing of the city’s parking meters which raised drastically parking rates while enriching Chicago Parking Meters LLC for the next 75 years. The Emanuel proposal includes private-public deals for transit infrastructure upgrades. 

Members of Citizens Taking Action, a CTA riders organization, expressed their opposition to such deals in a leaflet passed out at the Occupy Transit rally. Charles Paddock, secretary of the group was quoted as saying:

”Public transit is a central municipal service, and we don’t put money into a fare box to make some guy rich. I foresee three things happening: loss of control by the city, increased or added fares and diminished service. You might want to add corruption on a scale never seen before. And once it’s done, there’s no going back. Sometimes these deals are for contracts lasting 99 years.” 

A CTA rider makes her views clear

Jan Rodolfo of National Nurses United spoke passionately about how public transit connects us all, how it gets us to our jobs and school, how extended families are often spread across a distance and rely on public transit to come together. It also helps build communities and allows for different communities to connect. 

“Public transportation is no less important than the veins and arteries that bring blood and oxygen to our bodies. And to say that we are going to cut off a neighborhood or a community is like cutting off circulation to a limb and that is totally unacceptable.”

 Jan Rolofo of National Nurses United

 Karen Louis, President of the Chicago Teachers Union echoed Rolofo’s concern about schools and education while pointing out that the thousands of transit workers have children in the Chicago Public Schools and that teachers  and transit workers will always stand together. 

Missing from the April 4 ATU message about public transit was how our dependence upon the automobile is an environmental disaster. Automobile pollution is deadly. A 2008 study done in Southern California showed that car pollution killed more people than car crashes. Public transit takes cars off of the road which makes a huge public health difference. This could improve even more as we move toward sustainable energy generation.  Indeed, sustainable public transit is crucial for limiting the dangers of climate change as well.

 Hopefully ATU members will raise their voices at the upcoming April 22 Earth Day and show how their work is part of a liveable and breathable environment.

Probably the best known library of all time was located in Northern Africa. The great library at Alexandria in Egypt was, before its destruction, one of the ancient wonders of Mediterranean civilization. Containing thousands of scrolls, it was the Library of Congress for its day. Its destruction did not come in a single tragic fire, but several, and even historians can’t agree how many fires burned and who set them alight. There was also scroll deterioration plus the inevitable thefts and losses. For the Library of Alexandria, it was death by a thousand cuts.

How much information and imagination was lost? We’ll never know.

For the Chicago Public Library system, its deterioration is proceeding with death by a thousand budget cuts, cuts coming from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office on the 5th floor of City Hall, following up on cuts made by his predecessor Hizzoner Richard M. Daley. Libraries are especially important in working class communities where people have less income and where educational opportunities are generally more limited.

Mayor Emanuel doesn’t think that Chicago’s working class deserves a great library system, even though working class people built the city that he  now rules. Rahm comes from the world of Wall Street where one’s worth is measured in stock options, derivatives, credit swaps and margin calls, not the blood, toil, tears, sweat and imagination it takes to build a great city.

Contrary to cheap and degrading media stereotypes, working class people do have an intellectual life and libraries are an important part of that. Adults check out books, take out DVD’s and do research. Kids go to story hours, check out books and do school projects.  Reading makes people smarter, stimulates their imagination and is an important form of recreation.

Libraries serve as community centers where local residents can hold meetings to explore their hobbies, discuss the latest books they are reading and plan social action around community issues. They serve as employment centers for people looking for jobs and for individuals who seek to improve their occupational skills. Libraries also do outreach to schools and other community institutions. They  provide shelter for the homeless.

Here is how one  librarian on Chicago’s impoverished  West Side describes their job:

I was the only librarian on staff in my branch and there were a lot of elementary school students there working on projects. I helped one boy find biographical information on Descartes. He had been looking at an article on Wikipedia and said he couldn’t really understand it. I showed him how to find kid-friendly articles in SIRS Discoverer. Another boy was in with his uncle and grandmother, doing a report on the seven continents. After working with them for a few minutes, I realized that the adults with him couldn’t read. I was able to help him find all the answers he needed in an almanac … I have helped people create resumes, fill out online job applications, find information about health and legal matters, search for jobs and apartments. I have suggested great age-appropriate kids’ books for parents who look around at all the children’s books and don’t know where to begin. As an avid reader, I find it easy to recommend books to adults who are simply looking for something interesting to read. And librarians are doing these same things every day in every neighborhood of Chicago. —from the Go Librarians 

Rahm’s attack on Chicago libraries came down in October of 2011. His cuts included reduction of library hours, the loss of 363 full-time positions, and the closing of libraries on Monday and Friday mornings for a grand total of 10 million dollars in “savings”.

Chicago library users and library workers began organizing immediately. On October 31, protestors gathered in front of the Mayor’s office for a massive story hour accompanied by singing and chants. Some of the parents, library workers and kids were in their Halloween costumes.The group  also delivered a petition to the Mayor.

The October 31 story hour and read-in

Stay-at-home mom Amber Cregar put it this way,” There’ll be no more programming for me and my child. It’ll just be a place that warehouses books and computers.”

Megan Russell, a library student, decried the cuts by saying, “The effect will be horrendous for both children and people that cannot afford Internet and cannot afford books.”

Girl Scout Troop 51178 joined the library protests at the West Side Roosevelt Branch  in November, holding their own Occupy-style demonstration outside of the library. Ten year old Girl Scout Charlotte Manier, who hopes to become a fashion designer, said this,”Our library has already cut hours. It would only be open a couple of hours a day if they cut anymore. A lot of kids depend on the library for research. Computers are fine, but they will never completely replace neighborhood libraries.”

Girl Scout Troop 51178
 

These actions were  followed up by January 2012 read-ins outside of branch libraries that were closed on Monday mornings. This action was supported by Occupy Chicago’s Labor Outreach Committee and many community groups. People driving by honked their horns in support. In communities where gang violence has spread fear among residents, libraries are islands of calm, a point that was made by library worker Norma Sotelo who said,”It’s a safe haven for people who don’t have much.”

AFSCME Local 1215, the union that represents the library staff, collected over 500 letters in support of libraries and delivered them to the Mayor’s Office on the morning of March 22, 2012. The Mayor had rescinded some of the worst cuts by then, but that is typical Rahm. He presents an outrageous proposal and then backs off a little to appear reasonable. How reasonable? Well, when a city aide came out to collect the letters, someone asked if the Mayor would actually see them. The aide answered,” Possibly.” Since Rahm does most of his listening to the financial barons of LaSalle Street, this came as no surprise to the assembled workers and their supporters. That’s democracy Chicago-style.

Service Employees add their support

The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees(AFSCME) has been instrumental in the battle to save Chicago’s public library system. Since that union represents Chicago library workers, it obviously wants to save its members’ jobs and improve their working conditions, but there is also a deeper purpose. Most people go into library work because they love reading and have a burning desire to share knowledge and imagination. They are workers on a mission, a mission for reading and study that has been part of the American labor movement since its earliest beginnings.

 
City aide receives the letters. He later commented
 that the Mayor might “possibly” look at them 
 

The pre-Civil War American labor movement called for free public education and supported the development of public libraries. Libraries that were designed to teach apprentice and  journeymen mechanics appeared as early as the 1820’s. The National Trades Union newspaper called upon its 1830‘s readers to use their leisure time to read books and to ensure that their families did the same. In 1834, a national trade union convention in NYC demanded the establishment of free public libraries “for the use and benefit of mechanics and workingmen.”

There were avid readers among the female mill workers in New England, one of whom remarked that she had come to work the mills of Lowell MA because of the town’s public library. Sarah Bagley, mill worker and founder of the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association spoke of the reading rooms and lyceums (public lecture halls) that were available. The Lowell Female Labor Reform Association helped lead strikes and campaigns for the 10 hour day in the 1840’s. What good were lyceums and libraries if workers did not have the time and energy to listen and read?

After the abolition of slavery, freed African Americans demanded equal access to education. Slaves were normally prevented from learning to read so this included basic literacy classes. The newly formed Freedman’s Bureau(1865-1870) did its best to provide books and facilities for schools. Along with the efforts of Black Southerners themselves, schooling for black children in the South rose from 10% in 1870 to 40% in 1890. Actual public libraries were rare in the South until the 20th century and once established, were generally segregated.

The Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland ( a former slave state), was something of an exception as it was open to all races from its beginning in 1886. The first library designed specifically for African- Americans living under Jim Crow was a 1904 small room in a segregated black school in Henderson, Kentucky. The segregated libraries for Black Southerners were usually not well-funded. It took the 1960′s civil rights movement and multiple sit-ins at all-white Jim Crow libraries before library services became available to all Americans on an equal basis.

The post Civil War period century saw a rapid expansion of public libraries. The National Labor Union called for the establishment of “workmen’s lyceums and free reading rooms” in 1866. The Chicago-based Workingman’s Advocate demanded a public library well in advance of  the the 1873  Chicago Public Library opening in an abandoned water tower. The labor movement played a significant role in getting public libraries for such cities as Buffalo NY and Washington DC.

When the fiercely anti-union steel magnate Andrew Carnegie began giving grants for public libraries, it opened up a debate within the 19th century labor movement that showed how libraries were part of the ongoing class conflict between capital and labor. Eugene Debs, the radical leader of the American Railway Union leader decried Carnegie’s efforts, calling them basically a PR stunt to clean up Carnegie’s bad image saying this:

“We want libraries and we will have them in glorious abundance when Capitalism is abolished and workingmen are no longer robbed by the philanthropic pirates of the Carnegie class. . . Then the library will be, as it should be, a noble temple dedicated to culture and symbolizing the virtues of the people”– quoted by Sparane

American Federation of Labor leader Sam Gompers was more welcoming:

“Yes, accept his [Carnegie’s] library, organize the workers, secure better conditions and, particularly, reduction in hours of labor, and then the workers will have the chance and leisure in which to read books” – quoted by Sparane

These differing views showed how libraries became contested terrain. Whose interests were they to serve? It’s true that spokespeople for the upper class  wanted libraries as a form of social control, hoping to avoid the class war they associated with Europe. The American Library Association even published a 1896 article that said:

“Laboring men could not discriminate between their own real interest and such sham reforms as are brought before them by their so-called labor leaders.” – quoted by Sparane

But for labor leaders, libraries were essential to a democratic republic where working class people could gain knowledge and expand their imaginations so they could build a better society for themselves and their children. Librarians became involved  with the  Worker Education Movement of the 1920’s  which sought to do exactly that.  The first library union was started in 1916 at the Library of Congress, but large scale successful unionization of librarians did not begin until the  labor revolts of 1930’s and then really took off with the social upheavals of the 1960’s.

With the protections offered by unionization and civil service rules, librarians are in a better position to resist political attacks and irrational  censorship. They can then ensure that all members of the community have their library needs properly served.

Given today’s ongoing economic crisis, working class people, especially working class people of color, need libraries more than ever. Public education is under constant attack, as corporate interests work to reduce it to a vast rote-learning factory “measured” by testing companies with no real interest in imagination and critical thinking. Colleges and universities are viewed by corporate interests as little more than vocational training centers and product research labs. The increasingly monopolized mass media is well on its way to becoming a shotgun marriage of Big Money and Big Lies.

I’m trying not to sound too dramatic here, but library workers really are on the front-lines against this rising tide of ignorance, mediocrity and mendacity. Some will say that working class people no longer need libraries because they have the Internet. Well I hate to break it to you, but a lot of people are too poor to afford Internet access and broadband Internet connections are scarcer than hens’ teeth in rural areas and small towns. As for e-books, have you looked at the lending restrictions that many publishers slap on them? And what happens when the electricity gets cut off? At least people can read printed books by the light of day.

And guess what, how does one sift through all of those thousands of hits on a Google search? It’s nice to have a trained librarian nearby to help make sense of it all.

OK, so here’s my library story. As a child I lived in segregated working class Glenmont, Maryland until my parents moved to a “better” neighborhood when I hit my teens. It was the 1950‘s: virulent naked racism, social repression, male supremacy, ferocious religiosity, red-scare Cold War politics and a widespread public distrust of intellectuals who were derisively termed “eggheads”.

Every week I rode my bike down the sidewalk of Georgia Avenue toward the Wheaton Library 2 miles away. It wasn’t much to look at, just another dingy storefront in a nondescript suburban shopping strip, but it meant the world to me.

To the left as I entered the library were the science fiction shelves where the books of Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clark, Isaac  Asimov, Andre Norton etc. took me on travels through space and time. I met beings from other worlds who made our minor human racial and ethnic differences seem so insignificant. Behind those sturdy wooden shelves were the science and nature books where I learned about evolution, ecology, relativity, atoms, molecules, stars and planets. Nearby was the history section with its Landmark Books: so much human history, so many freedom struggles, so many scientific and technical discoveries, so little time to read about them all. Next to that stretched the regular fiction section with its stories about sports, animals, sailors and adventures in places I could never visit on my bike or even in my parents’ Chevy when they took me on weekend excursions.

That crowded little branch library opened my eyes and mind to possibilities beyond the tract homes of Glenmont and the threadbare airless world of 1950’s  dominant culture with its intolerance and narrow view of humanity.

I later spent 25 years as a teacher in the working class neighborhoods of West Side and South Side Chicago. I know damned well how important libraries were to the students I taught. Many were immigrants or the children of immigrants and like the immigrant Isaac Asimov whom I quoted at the beginning, they had their dreams too.

Obviously some were less enthused about libraries than others, but I think that even those kids who didn’t much like libraries, at least learned to respect their existence and importance. I have yet to see a single Chicago working class person pick up a sign and protest against libraries in their community.

Attacks on libraries are attacks on the minds of hard working decent people. So when Rahm Emanuel goes on the offensive against libraries, he’s getting on “the fightin’ side of me” (to quote Merle Haggard).

Rahm is famous for his incurable public potty mouth, so I’ll send him a message in a language that even he can understand, “Rahm, libraries are sacred spaces. Show some fucking respect.”  

Sources Consulted

Library cuts threaten working class access to culture by Esme Choonara

Public Libraries and Social Class by John Pateman

Library Service to Unions:  A Historical Overview by Elizabeth Hubbard

Overdue Notice: Defend Our Libraries  by  Antonino D’Ambrosio

Library Quotes 

Encyclopedia of African American History Paul Finkelman, editor

Service to the Labor Community: A Pubic Library Perspective by Ann Sparanes

‘There’s a Ripple Effect’: A Chicago Librarian Speaks Out About Cutbacks by Joe M. and Kari Lydersen

Girl Scouts protest library cuts

Letters to Rahm Demand Restoration of Library Hours, Staff By Aaron Krager

Library lovers speak out for Chicago’s public libraries!

Patrons want Chicago library hours fully restored

Restore library hours and staff!

The Public Versus Publishers: How Scholars and Activists are Occupying the Library  by Barbra Fister

How libraries help the unemployed by allpurposeguru

A march to the gates of the Republic Steel plant was scheduled to begin shortly. Workers at  Republic Steel, Youngstown Sheet and Tube, Inland Steel and Bethlehem at Johnstown had been on strike for a week. Their goal was union recognition and a decent life in the middle of the worst depression this country has ever known. The strike was known as the “Little Steel” strike because the larger steel companies like US Steel had already peacefully agreed to recognize the SWOC and sign union contracts.

Marshall had come to the USA from Mexico in 1917 and was active in the Mexican-American civil rights movement and the communist organized Popular Front, a coalition of many organizations. A mother of 3, she mingled with the  kids cavorting about eating popsicles and women dressed in their Sunday best.

There were speeches, including the reading of a statement made by Chicago Mayor Kelly that the workers had the right to peacefully picket. Marshall planned to return to Hull House after the demonstration to oversee the play she was producing. She never made it.

When the rally ended people began walking across an open field toward the Republic Steel plant: men, women and children. Marshall first accompanied a young writer who had originally invited her, but she soon found herself with a group of singing women toward the front of the crowd. Some women had brought their children.

At around 4:30 pm, about 250 yards from the plant gates, they were met by phalanx of Chicago police who blocked their path. As the people behind her pressed forward, Marshall was pushed up against a cop named Higgins who called her dirty name. She heard a tense discussion between the police and SWOC organizers. Behind her marchers shouted,” Mayor Kelly said it was all right to picket.” The police were slapping their hands with their billy clubs. A cop pulled out his revolver.

She heard a sound like a thud behind her. Other accounts say that someone had tossed a tree branch. Then came the thunder of police gunfire. She turned and saw people lying on the ground, some with blood on their backs. She stood there stunned, not wanting to run across the backs of the dead and wounded.

What came to be known as the Memorial Day Massacre had begun.

   

The shooting only lasted 15 seconds, but approximately 200 hundred rounds were fired.  Then the police came into the crowd swinging their clubs. Marshall was hit on the back of the head as she tried to flee through an opening where there were fewer club-swinging police. 
 

 

Below is the testimony of Lupe Marshall given under oath to the U.S. Senate Committee on Education and Labor chaired by Senator Robert La Follette

———————————-

Senator LA FOLLETTE. Were you successful in your efforts to get away from the police?

 Mrs. MARSHALL. No; I was not. After I evaded these policemen that were immediately in front of me . . . . I was aware that my head was bleeding. I noticed that my blouse was all stained with blood, and that sort of brought me to, and I started walking slowly toward the direction from which a policeman had just clubbed an individual, and this individual dragged himself a bit and tried to get up, when the policeman clubbed him again. He did that four times.

 Senator LA FOLLETTE. When he was on the ground?

 Mrs. MARSHALL. While he was trying to get up. Every time he tried to get up the policeman’s club came down on him. Then he took him by the foot and turned him over. When the man finally fell so he could not move, the policeman took him by the foot and turned him on his back, and started dragging him. As he turned over, I noticed that the man’s shirt was all blood stained here on the side, so I screamed at the policeman and said, “Don’t do that. Can’t you see he is terribly injured?” And at the moment I said that, somebody struck me from the back again and knocked me down. As I went down somebody kicked me on the side here, a policeman kicked me on the side here.

 Senator LA FOLLETTE. How can you be sure they were policemen?

 Mrs. MARSHALL. Well, I could see from the sides. I could not identify the particular policemen that did it, but I could see their uniforms, and I could see the edges, the ends of the clubs from the side of my eyes.

 Senator LA FOLLETTE. How much do you weigh, Mrs. Marshall?

 Mrs. MARSHALL. I weigh 92 pounds now. I weighed 97 when this happened.

 Senator LA FOLLETTE. And how tall are you?

 Mrs. MARSHALL. 4 feet 11.

 Senator LA FOLLETTE. Go ahead.

 Mrs. MARSHALL. So, after he kicked me I tried to get up, and they hit me three times across the back, and then somebody picked me up and took me to the patrol wagon. As we were walking along to the patrol wagon I noticed men lying all over the field. Some of them were motionless. Some were groaning, but nearly all of those that were lying down had their heads covered with blood, and their clothing was stained with blood. They took me to one patrol wagon, and as I was walking toward it the policeman is dragging me by the arm. As I was walking toward it, one man that I presumed was a newspaper reporter asked my name…

 Mrs. MARSHALL. …and I said “Lupe Marshall”, and I gave him my address as quickly as I could, and I was about to give him my telephone number when he twisted me around and he said, “Come on, get going!” And as we approached the patrol wagon I noticed that it was full, so they said, “No, we can’t get her in there.”

———————————-

An empty patrol wagon pulled up and Marshall was shoved in so hard that her face was smashed against the grating of the window at the front of the wagon. Then police began picking up the men lying on the ground, some of whom had obvious bullet wounds.  The cops tossed them into the patrol wagon like sacks of potatoes. Marshall got up and did what she could for the wounded in the police wagon. One man died in her arms despite her desperate ministrations. She became hysterical and screamed at the cop who was in the back of the wagon:

 “I hope you get the medal for this.” I said, “Your children and your wife must be very proud of you.” And he says, “I didn’t do that”, he says,“I wouldn’t do that. I am just doing here what I can for you now. I am trying to help you as much as I can. That is all I have to do, is to see that you get medical care now”, he says, “But I wouldn’t do that.” And as he said that I noticed the tears rolling down his eyes. —from the testimony of Lupe Marshal before the La Follette Committee”

 The cop and the social worker had found a common humanity amidst the horror of one-sided class war. After a seemingly endless ride around the city, Lupe Marshall and the 16 wounded men she was tending made it to Burnside Hospital. When she arrived she told the shocked nurse on duty that more wounded could be expected. Since there were not enough doctors and nurses to handle the casualties, Marshall  grabbed a pitcher of water and some table napkins and applied compresses even as a cop tried to stop her. When she tried to telephone her family and the phone numbers from men in the police wagon, she was ordered to put down the phone. A plainclothes detective from downtown arrived:

“I imagine it was from downtown, since that was the only place where they had detectives—came in, and made a terrible noise. He screamed at these policemen that were standing at the doorway there. He said, “Who the hell ordered this (such and such) shooting?” He swore at them, and the other fellows started to answer, but the policeman that had been advised to watch me—one policeman had been assigned to watch me—said, “Shut up your mug! They are not all dead yet”—and he went like this (indicating) to me, motioning to me.”—from the testimony of Lupe Marshal before the La Follette Committee

Marshall was among the last to be treated. Her kindly doctor was concerned that the head injury may have been a bullet graze and not a police club wound. While waiting for X-Rays she was constantly harassed for more information despite her state of shock at what she had just experienced.

10 marchers were killed and 90 were injured, 30 of them by bullet wounds. About 15% of the wounded were  permanently disabled. The police officers had 32 minor injuries and 3 that required hospitalization. None of the police injuries were inflicted by the marchers, but by cops who tripped over obstacles, or were hurt in other ways amidst the confusion.

The deaths were also the beginning of the end for the Little Steel strike. The smaller towns of the Little Steel strike had became virtual fascist dictatorships with bloody repression meted out to anyone who resisted the companies.  If you lived through the the civil rights era of the 1960‘s, think Birmingham and Selma. When the SWOC realized that the strike had been defeated, members were told to go back to work without a contract. The total strike casualties were 18 dead workers and many hundreds injured, some seriously. Observers sympathetic to the SWOC asked if the new organization had really been prepared for the strike.

In those days before YouTube, FaceBook, blogging, online alternative media, Amy Goodman and Bill Moyers, it was much easier for the Little Steel companies to “control the narrative” that was presented to the public. In the wake of the Memorial Day Massacre in Chicago, the Chicago Tribune described the peaceful march on Republic Steel as red rioters who had assaulted the police and “lusted for blood”. Other newspapers followed suit in blaming the strikers, even if in less lurid terms. Paramount Pictures had a cameraman that day who recorded nearly the whole event. That film was suppressed for many years to keep the truth from leaking out. Public opinion turned against the strikers.

Labor historian Les Orear & eyewitness Sam Evett present some of that Paramount footage.

President Roosevelt commented on the Little Steel violence as a “plague on both your houses.” He said this even though the worst bloodshed came from the companies and their refusal to bargain  was a violation of the new National Labor Relations Act passed in 1935. A Coroner’s Jury declared the killings to be “justifable homicide”.

There was hardly a whisper of public criticism of Little Steel from Wall Street or even from US Steel which had peacefully agreed to work with the union. It was as if the captains of industry were waiting to see if the CIO might be crushed once and for all. It was a case of violent civil disobedience by Corporate America.

Little Steel was represented by Republic’s President Tom Girdler (photo on right). Girdler had a well deserved reputation for ruthless ambition. After taking over the ailing Republic Steel in 1925 he burned through the companies cash modernizing plants and introducing new technology. By buying up other companies and applying hard-nosed business tactics, he hoped to monopolize light steel manufacturing where Republic excelled and had his eye on heavy steel as well.

To prepare for the SWOC, Girdler amassed an arsenal including thousands of rounds of ammo, tear gas bombs, clubs, revolvers, automatic weapons and high powered rifles. There is no record of him hiring a team of high powered negotiators. He vowed,”I’ll go back to the farm and dig potatoes before I sign with the C.I.O.” After the news reached him of the Memorial Day Massacre at the Chicago gates of Republic Steel, he expressed no contrition and offered no condolences.

It was corporate gangsterism, worse than than the 1927 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre perpetrated by the Al Capone mob. The Memorial Day Massacre was the killing not of rival mobsters, but of American working people.The Capone mob’s violent exploits became the source of movies, TV shows and books. The Memorial Day Massacre is hardly remembered outside of labor circles. It seems that not all gangster legends are created equal.

Despite his staunchly anti-union “principles”, Girdler acquiesced to a collective bargaining agreement in 1942 that included back pay and vacation money for workers fired after the Little Steel strike. Girdler had been under pressure from the War Labor Board.  He also wanted Republic to get in on lucrative on government defense contracts. He remained with Republic Steel until his retirement in 1956.

 

 A World War II poster honoring Tom Girdler

What about Lupe Marshall, who showed so much courage during that terrible  Memorial Day, and who bravely testified before the La Follette Committee? She was charged with communism and faced deportation under the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952. Marshall’s association with communists was no secret as the Communist Party was a prominent member of the Popular Front, a Depression era coalition that she belonged to and which met at Hull House during the those years. There is no evidence that she had done anything illegal or was a threat to national security, but it was the McCarthy period and any left-wing associations (former or present) were suspect.

Tom Girdler, the man who had declared war on American steel workers, continued to enjoy his life as a wealthy man. Lupe Marshall fled to Jamaica with the help of friends, becoming an  exile after over 30 years in the USA. She never returned and passed away in 1985.

After the Little Steel Strike, labor relations in the USA remained antagonistic, but have not resulted in such mass bloodshed again. Did Corporate America learn to put away the gun in its clashes with organized labor and those opposed  to corporate domination? Not really. US companies operating abroad continued to ally with gangster terrorism, supporting US government intervention against pro-labor governments and labor movements, especially in Latin America: Guatemala, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Uruguay being some examples.

The campaign against communist Cuba after it nationalized US companies nearly touched off World War III.

Today US corporations continue to be charged of violent crimes. The Coca-Cola company has been implicated in the murder and torture of trade unionists in Columbia. Victims of Columbian rightwing paramilitary violence accuse the Drummond mining company of hiring death squad members to kill and torture. Drummond is now in US federal court facing these charges. Chiquita has admitted making payments to Columbian rightwing terrorists and is being sued by their victims in US federal court. Both Chevron and Shell have been cited for violent crimes  by residents of the Niger Delta in Nigeria who were protesting environmental destruction and labor abuses.

The international justice system has proven to be woefully inadequate for dealing with this type of crime. But then no one was ever prosecuted for the May 30, 1937 Chicago shootings either.

As I write these words, American citizens are becoming more alarmed by the militarization of our domestic police forces and the increasing power that corporations hold over our political process. Could we see more Memorial Day Massacres here in the USA? I would not dismiss the possibility.

Sources Consulted   

The Mexicans in Chicago by Louise Kerr 

Labor Rights are Civil Rights by Zaragosa Vargas 

Latinas in the United States by Vicky Riuz and Virginia Sánchez Korrol 

“The Man . . . Died on My Lap”: One Women Recalls the Memorial Day Massacre of 1937  Testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Education and Labor (1937) 

Big Steel, Little Steel and the CIO by Benjamin Stolberg 

Labor’s New Millions by Mary Heaton Vorse 

The Memorial Day Massacre by Daniel J. Leab 

Memorial Day Massacre of 1937 Offers Stark Reminder: Media Usually Side With Corporations, Police by Roger Bybee 

Chicagoist Flashback: Memorial Day Massacre of 1937 by Chuck Sudo 

The Memorial Day Massacre of 1937  (Video) edited by the Illinois History Society 

The 1937 Memorial Day Massacre: ‘We don’t want fascism in America’ by Chris Mahin 

Memorial Day Massacre by the Illinois Labor History Society 

An Occurrence at Republic Steel By Howard Fast 

They Remember Girdler by Howard Fast

His weapons are not guns or remotely piloted drones, but his laptop, his books and his videos. He is also a seasoned warrior, one with many years of experience. He’s even testified in Congress. Phillip Wilson (photo on right) runs the Labor Relations Institute. Its innocuous sounding name conceals its actual purpose. It is a “union avoidance consulting firm”. Labor activists use the term “unionbuster”, usually with several NSFW epithets attached to it.

Breaking unions or smashing organizing campaigns pushes down wages and reduces pensions, making it more difficult for people to buy products and services. This lack of spending holds back an already weak economic recovery and threatens to unleash what financial writers like to call a double dip recession. Even certified OnePercenter Fed Chair Ben Bernanke says this:

“The fundamentals that support spending continue to be weak: real household income and wealth were flat in 2011, and access to credit remained restricted for many potential borrowers. The job market remains far from normal.” from the Financial Times 2-29-12

Strong healthy unions raise wages and preserve pensions so that people buy the goods and services crucial to a sustained economy recovery.

Phillip Wilson’s firm and others like it provide advice and propaganda for employers to defeat union organizing drives, weaken existing union contracts and decertify unions when possible. He freely admits that his most powerful weapon is the “captive audience” meeting. He advises his clients to hold multiple mandatory meetings where employees must endure Wilson’s videos and his anti-union pitch. It’s not just the content that makes an impression.These forced attendance gatherings are a direct expression of the dictatorships that exist in most American workplaces.

Even the jargon employers use, like “my employees” or “our company family”, betray the language of servitude. Words like “my” and “our” are possessive pronouns, as if employers “own” workers. It is the language of totalitarian, not democratic values. And what about the term “captive audience”? Are workers prisoners of war? Caged people? Caged animals?

Because our professed values of freedom and democracy barely exist within the American workplace, Wilson’s 1984ish psychological warfare can be very effective. But don’t give Wilson too much credit. In the atmosphere of fear brought on by high unemployment, employers can threaten mass firings, move jobs elsewhere or stay put and bring in cheaper more desperate temps or contract employees. Employers can also illegally fire pro-union workers with relative impunity because our weak labor laws are only barely enforced.

Take the case of Tashawna Green  for example (photo on left with daughter).  She was fired from a Valley Stream, NY Target store for leading a union organizing drive to affiliate with United Food and Commercial Workers(UFCW) Local 1500. Green, a Jamaican born single mom was making $8 an hour with a work week under 20 hours. Green said that many of her co-workers were on food stamps.

Workers at Target reported that when they would ask for more hours, Target would ask them if they had friends who needed jobs.  Longtime Target workers also reported that supervisors have increased pressure to work faster with no corresponding raise in pay, resulting in unreasonable stress and exhaustion. Workplace stress is directly linked to many medical ailments, some of them fatal.

After the union drive began in 2011 the company resorted to intimidation tactics that the National Labor Relations Board(NLRB) later charged are illegal, including threatening to close the store if the workers voted for the union. According to Alvin Blyer of the NLRB:

“One rule prohibits off-duty employees from returning to non-work areas, such as store parking lots; another bans employees from wearing union paraphernalia; a third restricts employees from talking about working conditions on breaks or before or after work; and a final one prohibits workers from passing out literature to colleagues.” from Crain’s New York

When a powerful retail corporation dictates terms like this, you have to ask, what kind of freedom and democracy do we really have? What kind of “free market” is this anyway?

In this atmosphere of fear and intimidation workers finally decided to vote against unionization. Phillip Wilson and his colleagues in the union busting business would hail this as a great victory. A great victory over struggling working class people, many of them single moms with kids? A great victory over our struggling economic recovery because low pay means lower economy activity? Just how many more “great victories” like that can this nation afford?

Genuine economy recovery demands an extension of democracy into the workplace. Unions themselves need to embrace a more democratic culture if they are to reverse their downward spiral in membership. This is not an easy transition as most unions are organized in a top-down manner and many union leaders do not welcome rank and file activism they don’t control.

But change is happening. The Wisconsin Uprising and Occupy Wall Street have awoken a spirit of labor movement activism that is sweeping through America’s unions. But it goes beyond that. Although unions are the beating heart of the labor movement, the movement also includes immigrant rights organizations, feminist organizations, anti-racist organizations, human rights organizations, community organizations, global solidarity organizations, peace organizations, student organizations, eviro-organizations, religious organizations, business organizations, and a lot of individuals who simply want to do what is right.

This New American Labor Movement is still in its infancy but it has forged alliances the likes of which have not been seen in decades. An old union principle guides this new movement. Solidarity. Solidarity is not uniformity. Solidarity means finding common ground despite differences. Solidarity requires a deep commitment to stick together for social justice—come hell or high water.

In addition to raising working class incomes, a sustainable economic recovery will require massive changes in our tax policy and massive public investment in our aging physical infrastructure. It will require improving our public schools and investing in new cleaner, greener technology. It will mean dismantling our global military empire and moving into a peacetime economy. All of this will require far-reaching progressive legislation.

Despite the corporate attacks on unions, there are still nearly 15 million union members in the USA. They represent the true diversity of our nation in a way that the OnePercenters cannot. They can still bring considerable organized political power to lobby for progressive legislation and elect progressive candidates.

Unions also have considerable resources for organizing and supporting public demonstrations. This includes civil disobedience, a tactic that unions are slowly beginning to embrace again, largely because of the Occupy movement.

Chicago Federation of Labor sit-in Fall 2011
 

Unions also have the power to strike. We live in a brutally competitive market economy and The OnePercenters are largely immune from appeals to the heart. If you want to teach them some manners, they have to be hit in their wallets. Hard. Strikes can do that, but only if they have a chance of success. This requires that unions not only grow in membership but in active membership. The days when union members could treat their unions as a kind of insurance policy requiring nothing more than a regular dues payment are over.

The AFL-CIO has a new campaign called “Work Connects Us All”. Through a broad labor movement activists can meet people from the diversity of working class America to discuss and  plan a better future for us all. The labor movement is also global. The labor movement of one country cannot work in isolation, we have to form solidarity connections and steer the global economy into a more decent and humane future. It’s not just the USA that needs a sustainable economy, it’s the entire planet.

The stakes are high. Income inequality in the USA is the worst since the 1920’s. The income inequality of the 1920‘s grew partly because of the  savage union busting campaign that followed World War I. Phillip Wilson and his union-hating pals might regard this as a great victory. But what did this great union busting victory help bring on? How about the 1929 stock market crash, the collapse of the world economy, & the political chaos that fed nazism, fascism, militarism, stalinism. The grand finale was World War II.

My parents lived through the horrors of depression and global war.  From them I learned an important lesson. Never again.

Sources Consulted

The Labor Relations Institute Inc.

Union Avoidance: 5 Keys To Winning Your Union Election by Phillip Wilson

Do We Still Need Unions? Yes by Ezra Klein

Beyond the Weekend by American Rights at Work

Union-Busting Is Theft — a Weapon of Class Warfare from Above by Joshua Holland

Seeking living wages, benefits, Target workers weigh union by Steven Greenhouse

Target fires pro-union employee by Daniel Massey

A Former Target Team Leader Explains Hiring, Firing, and Staying Union-Free by Hamilton Nolan