Now Was the Time to Set GM As the Organizing Target: All of the Leaders Recognized That

Revised 1/02/2006

ORGANIZING GM 1936-38

After the South Bend convention on April 27, 1936, the UAW was now established as an International Union, in name if not in fact with Homer Martin as president, Mort, Walter Wells (Detroit) and Ed Hall as VPs, George Addes as secretary-treasurer and ExBd members like Fred Pieper, Walter Reuther, Russell Merrill (Studebaker)--in May, 1936, with Father Coughlin’s blessing, the AIAW affiliated as did the remnants of Greer’s AAWA--Smith still refused to affiliate the MESA members, despite his proclamations of support for industrial unionism, because the UAW was given charter over the skilled trades. so John Anderson pulled the three left-wing Detroit locals out and into the UAW, so there were now 30-40,000 workers united while Smith maintained a membership of 1,000--on July 2, 1936, the UAW officially affiliated with the CIO, Martin received a seat of their ExBD and William Green wrote that he was “greatly hurt” and “considerably confused” to learn that the UAW had “deserted” the AFL

Now was the time to set GM as the organizing target: all of the leaders recognized that Ford, with its reliance on violence, would be a hard target so Adolph Germer (CIO Director in Detroit) thought Chrysler would be a better possibility, but on to GM they went, realizing that, as GM went, so went the country!--there was also an accidental nature, as the organization inside some of the GM shops was more aggressive and militant than in other areas

The GM campaign was part of a brazen effort by the young UAW to get established: in Detroit, the organizing project was headed by Dick Frankensteen, out of Chrysler, who had brought over his AIWA, including one Roland J. Thomas, who became the second president of theUAW, and is better known as RJ Thomas; Ed Hall was sent to Anderson, IN, Stanley Novak was assigned to organize Polish workers in Detroit, John Anderson, who had brought over locals of MESA, was assigned to organize the tool-and-die makers--the campaigns used leafleting and extensive radio programs--Frankensteen was a wonderful radio commentator and would notify a company each week before he trashed them--Novak did the Polish radio programs and Kraus kept alive the newspaper, despite opposition from Martin and some difficulties holding a political line--Ed Hall brought back 2,500 copies of one issue about AFL internal problems as “what am I supposed to do with this stuff?”

A last project, hardly mentioned by Martin, was on the vast west side of Detroit, almost organizationally barren but filled with plants--given such low priority that the ExBd member who took on the task was “forgotten” by Martin when he named the organizers--Martin, assisted by Fred Pieper, the president of the Atlanta local, also spent some time trying to verify that Reuther had, in fact, never worked at Ternstedt, even under an assumed name, so that he could toss Reuther off the ExBd-

As we already learned, GM was not big, not huge but colossal: 110 plants in 14 states and in 18 foreign countries, about 70% of them in the auto production industry--controlled 45% of the US market, and Chevy, its leader, was made in 15 manufacturing and 11 assembly plants across the country--the subsidiary Fisher Body made virtually all of the GM bodies in 22 factories, contiguous to the assembly plants--other major shops: Ternstedt manufactured grilles, glove compartments, hinges, overhead lights, and body hardware; Delco-Remy (Dayton) made batteries, self-starters, ignition sets, generators, locks and horns--in 1937, GM gross sales were $1.6 billion (more than the budgets of MI, MN, CA, PA, and NY combined!), employed 250,000 workers and net profit of $196 million--E.I. duPont de Nemours & Co. owned 23% of the stock--duPont also owned 17% of the stock in U.S. Rubber, whose tires were purchased by GM

”decentralized operation with centralized control”--the distance between policy and administration was symbolized by a geographic distance: Sloan had his office on the 23rd floor of the GM Building in NYC while Knudsen had his offices in the GM Building on West Grand St. in Detroit--unions “were a threat to the prerogatives of management” but GM, for publicity reasons, did not wish to use the Ford approach--according to testimony at the LaFollette Committee, from 1/34-6/36, it spent $994,855.68 for spies, and in espionage, GM once again led the country--Alcoa spent $35,000, in contrast--every GM plant manager operated a spy network, Pinkertons rented a room next to the UAW headquarters in Detroit, followed all of the UAW leaders, “so the UAW had the doubtful distinction of being the most infested union in the American labor movement” and may even have maintained Arthur Greer on the payroll and had received a $10,000 bonus

Also used brute force: after the Toledo Chevy strike in 1935 and the company was forced to bargain with the union, within 6 months half of the machinery and many of the foremen had been transported to non-union Saginaw, and 900 workers were terminated

Flint was the worst: all of the ExBd members were spies, the 13 members were divided between Pinkerton and Corporation auxiliary, and Richard Alden, who represented the local at the South Bend Convention, was a spy

GM dominated Flint:”The city’s atmosphere reeked with sycophancy in behalf of the corporation, a fawning which did not halt at the pulpits or even at the schools and was prompt to assume the character of rabid partisanship in a crisis.”(Kraus, 5) so that when Mortimer arrived in June, 1936, as part of the UAW’s first extended organizing effort, he said the only safe topics of conversation were “sports, women, dirty stories and the weather”--at the same time, Frankensteen was given authority over Detroit’s east side. Reuther was given the west side, Ed Hall went to Indiana to organize feeder plants and John Anderson aimed to organized the skilled trades during the retooling period

Homer Martin feared Mort as a rival for the presidency of the union, and Mort probably could have been elected in South Bend if he had not withdrawn to blunt the red-baiting--Martin thought Mort would either refuse Flint or would fail

Mort looked strategically at GM, and knew that for the 1937 models, GM had built only two sets of dies: one for Fisher Body No. 1 in Flint and the other for Fisher Body, Cleveland, which had the nucleus of an organization--if the UAW could strike both of these plants, GM would be strangled--needed proper timing, and planned to wait until after the first of the year, 1937, with 3 important factors:

1. On 12/18/36, GM workers were to receive an $ 80 bonus

2. A shutdown before Christmas was bad psychological strategy

3. On 1/1/37, Frank Murphy would become Governor of MI, with union support--had even appeared at street corner meetings with Dick Frankensteen to proclaim “human rights above property rights”

Mortimer basically dissolved the existing UAW locals, because of spies and created an underground network by home visits and neighborhood meetings-- “you bring your friends, I’ll buy the ice cream and cookies”--he felt that if he had an open meeting, the only workers who would attend would be dedicated union workers and spies, and the spies would finger the unionists and have them fired--had some difficulties with ex-UMW, who resented JLL’s autocratic style

Sporadic organizations--in 1935, in Flint Chevy, the machinists who were making camshafts set a production standard for themselves--each man gave 118 day, then the company asked for 124 and were about to increase the rate when the men agreed at a ceiling of 124--hid work, saved work for second half of the shift, even overnight, but in GM fashion, everything was carefully reported by a spy called Machine Operator No. 8004, who tried to increase production and to provoke fights among the men over their production standard

Mortimer’s work was successful: if the UAW had 100 members out of 25,000 workers when he started (and most of them were spies) he soon was mailing out a personal newsletter to 7,000 GM workers--leavening the dough, as he called it

episode of family, young pressman vomiting before dinner

Internal politics: the spies who were “officers” of UAW kept demanding to see Mort’s records and claimed that he was trying to build “a red Empire” in Flint-- Homer Martin was already playing desperate political games and was getting assistance, in the anti-socialist game, from thecreepy Jay Lovestone, a former official of the CP, who had been expelled from the party and became almost a professional anti-communist, especially associated with David Dubinsky, of the ILGWU, who was carrying out similar purges, creating an environment into which the Reuther brothers entered in 1936--

In late summer, 1936, Martin held a “secret” meeting of the ExBd without notifying Mort, who came anyway--almost a physical fight but Mort agreed to step back once again, and George Addes suggested Bob Travis, a Chevy worker from Toledo who had become involved in then Auto-Lite struggle and then was active in the Chevy campaign, as his successor in Flint--

Black Legion--as a symbol of the times, an expose of the Black Legion unfolded in the summer of 1936, starting in May, with the arrest of an obscure man named Dayton Dean, charged with the shooting of another man, Charles A. Poole--Dean broke down and began to describe the stalking and killing of a black worker, Silas Coleman, and eventually an fascistic organization of tens of thousands in southern MI, northern OH--list included prominent politicians, police and worked as anti-union vigilante force--a rat named Isaac “Peg leg” White was implicated in the murder (1933) of George Marchuk, secretary of the Auto Workers (TUUL) and later of John Bielak, an activist at Hudson, who was lured to a meeting, shot and left in a ditch with a union card stuck under his head

In August, 1936, Harold Hubbard, a former officer of the UAW at Fisher Body No. 1 publicly admitted membership in the Black Legion and implicated other officers, corroborating Mort’s accusations against these officers and the Legion--a couple of the BL members later joined with Homer Martin to try to take the UAW back into the AFL

A letter from Harry Anderson, GM vie-president for personnel, to another executive, faced with a CIO organizing campaign:”Maybe you could use a little Black Legion in your country. It might help.”

In fact, GM was so brazen that Marie Schlacter, a union activist working OT on Saturday, found a supervisor, Nellie Compton, sewing and trying on back robes and hoods!

Another group called The Invisible Eye of Labor was common, and part of the oath (after receiving the replica of a bullet) included “In the name of God and the Devil, one to reward and the other to punish. . .I pledge and consecrate my heart, my brain, my body and my limbs. . .to the obedience of my superiors, and that no danger or peril shall deter me from executing their orders: that I will exert every possible means in my power for the extermination of the anarchist, the communist, the Roman hierarchy, and their abettors.”

GM also worked, with Dupont, Westinghouse, Standard Oil, and US Steel, with “the Sentinels of the republic,” another pro-fascists group--remember, this was a time of the rise of world-wide fascism

The LaFollette Committees- a congressional investigation into the labor spy racket, and while they could not definitely tie GM to their rackets, Travis was able to get the LaFollette investigators to look at certain questionable UAW “activists”--subpoenaed suspects’ phone records, and traced out-of-town calls to detective headquarters--

As Travis was organizing, other sit-downs were happening--UAW won major settlement at Chrysler, and when union supporters bragged that the union got the raise, they were fired--co. refused to negotiate return to work, but on October 5, FDR made a campaign stop and drove from Hamtramck to Detroit, in crowds of 100,000 and Chrysler capitulated and took back all of the union activists--

Strikes at Briggs Auto Body involving 1,500 workers while assembly line at Hudson devised “the skippy” when hood production was raised from 140 to 160, allowing every seventh hood to pass untouched--remember the IWW song about “Big Boss Briggs”--

In November, 1936, Travis and Kraus put of the first issue of The Flint Auto Worker, reflecting the campaign--Travis had been building a campaign inside the shops, especially at Fisher Body No. 1, with Bud Simons, Walter Moore and Joe Devitt--Simons had house meetings lit by a single candle while Travis talked about the success of Toledo--eventually, as the FDR election passed, there were seven stoppages at Fisher One in a week--speed-up was the issue, though a GM newsletter said that if you were tired at the end of the day, “something is wrong. Perhaps you had insufficient rest the night before, or it may be eyestrain. . .”--Travis set up a network for 40 workers in each area, with the key demand: nobody gets fired and don’t leave the shop under any circumstances

In November, the stoppage of the “bowmen” at Fisher One--episode of the Perkins boys, involving dozens of non-union workers--the UAW roared through the shop after the boys came back to work, the campaign jumped to Fisher Two, Buick and Chevy--the UAW rented a store across from Fisher One, held a rally with Travis, Mort, Frankensteen and Adolph Germer--union begins to distribute multiple newspapers, edited by Kraus: a Flint Auto Worker, a GM special edition of The Auto Worker, and even a special tabloid for Fisher One

Series of stoppages around the country--Fred Pieper called a disastrous sit-down in GM-Atlanta over piece-rate cuts posted for the 1937 model year and wired all the other locals asking for a UAW general strike on November 7, promising his own members that “If every General Motors plant isn’t struck within a week and 24 hours, you can horsewhip me.”--no other shop struck and the UAW ExBD voted not to try a general strike at this time, a vote taken while Homer Martin simply disappeared in the middle of a meeting even though he had enthusiastically supported the strike movement

Bendix--a spontaneous stoppage in South Bend, IN, broke out after FDR’s election on November 17, to demand an NLRB election against a company union recognized by Bendix bosses, who had obtained a restraining order to delay any vote--about 1,000 workers stayed in, including 300 women and, on the second night, Bendix turned off the heat but the union rallied, got food and blankets into the shop and after six days, evacuated after a tentative agreement with Vincent Bendix--the strike exposed the vulnerability of the major manufacturers, since Bendix was a principal subcontractor--in one of history’s greatest ironies, Henry Ford sent reps to South Bend to reclaim brakeshoe dies, stating to Bendix “We cannot take any more chances with you since it’s plain that you don’t know how to control your labor force.”--and the dies were given to. . .Kelsey-Hayes!--[stress the importance to UAW today of organizing parts plants/suppliers]

Midland Steel--the shop had come over from MESA, and John Anderson headed up negotiations with Frankensteen--gave company an ultimatum on November 24 but Frankensteen, still intimidated by the Motor Products strike, backed down at midnight--ironically, it helped because the LaFollette Committee had uncovered a UAW “activist” named James Howe as a paid spy, even though mgt denied ever using spies at Midland--Howe had just won a prize for signing up the most new UAW members but also agitated in the local against allowing blacks to join because he did not want to have to “sit next to a stinking n-----” at a meeting--when a black was added to the negotiating committee by Anderson, Howe began to attack women:”Women are only good for two things, frying fish and f-----.”--eventually, Anderson exposed Howe, who admitted that he had been getting $50/month (he had 11 children) and, more importantly, he was told that, as a good Catholic, he could help fight communism by ratting on the UAW--

On the Friday after Thanksgiving, the sit-down strike began as workers shut off the power when negotiations failed and 700 workers took over the shop--set up the first big sit-down support network--”the chiseling committee” and a commissary headed by Max Gazan, a member of the Cook’s Union, who was head chef at a businessman’s club, and another volunteer, who had been a cook in the Army and skilled at serving huge numbers--operation was so skillful that it turned a profit of $200 in the course of the sit-down--one sit-downer yelled to Frankensteen, “Don’t ever settle this strike, I never ate so good and I gained 10 pounds”--after six days, a contract was settled and a huge victory dance was held--James Howe was publicly exposed, as were company ties to paid spies, and Howe fled town