Influence of John L. Lewis.
Internal political issues played a considerable role in the year's activities of the C.I.O. For the most part they were concerned with the position and tactics of John L. Lewis in that organization. From the time in 1940 that Lewis had allied himself with the groups opposing the foreign policy of the Roosevelt Administration and had publicly supported Wendell Willkie for the presidency of the United States, the burning issue in the C.I.O. was the influence Lewis would be allowed to retain over its policies and management. Because he had already broken with Sidney Hillman, his former close associate and co-founder of the C.I.O., it was widely assumed that Lewis aspired to resume the presidency of the C.I.O. in the place of Philip Murray, who had succeeded him in that office the year before.
At the annual convention of the C.I.O., held in Detroit, Mich., in November 1941, the strength of the Lewis and anti-Lewis forces was brought to a test. While doubts and speculations concerning Lewis's intentions pervaded the atmosphere of the convention, the outcome of the struggle for control was settled by the way the convention dealt with several specific questions.
Captive Coal-Mine Strike Issues.
The foremost of these was the strike of the coal miners against the captive mines. This dispute originated early in 1941 in the demand by the United Mine Workers for a closed shop in the soft coal industry. After prolonged negotiations, several strikes, and the intervention of various Government agencies, the closed shop was conceded by the coal industry. The miners, then, sought to introduce the closed shop in the captive mines — coal mines owned by steel companies and producing exclusively for their own use. The steel companies, led by United States Steel and Bethlehem and supported by the overwhelming majority of industry, refused to grant the closed shop mainly because they feared that concession at this point would be an entering wedge for the adoption of the closed shop in the steel and other industries. For some months the issue defied solution despite the efforts of the Government to settle the dispute. It was finally submitted to the full membership of the Defense Mediation Board, which by a vote of 9 to 2 rejected the union's claims. Lewis thereupon ordered a strike of the captive mines, which shortly spread to the commercial mines as well, thus threatening vital defense production throughout the country. The strike was strongly condemned by the President, but it nevertheless continued and became widely effective.
The whole episode proved embarrassing to other unions and in particular to the officers of the C.I.O. To have opposed the strike would have been a violation of trade union tradition and would have given Lewis a strong political advantage. To support the strike meant opposing the Federal Administration and weakening the country's program of defense production. Whatever their private views may have been, the C.I.O. leaders made their choice. The C.I.O. members of the Defense Mediation Board resigned in protest against the captive mine decision and C.I.O. unions refused to bring cases before the Board. At the convention in November, the C.I.O. went unanimously on record in support of Lewis's position. The convention deplored the strike but condemned the attitude of the employers and the Mediation Board, which made a strike unavoidable.
Construction Workers Union Issue.
A similar question, terminating in a similar solution, was raised by the activities of the C.I.O. union of construction workers. This union, headed by Dennis Lewis, John L. Lewis's brother, had as its principal aim the disruption of the building unions of the A.F. of L. From its inception the construction workers' union was looked on with disfavor by several C.I.O. leaders, in particular by Sidney Hillman. It was the view of these men that the organization of the construction union was a political maneuver and, as such, was contrary to the original purpose of the C.I.O. to unionize the great unorganized industries of the country. This was manifestly not the situation in building, which had been strongly union for many decades. When, therefore, the construction workers' union came into conflict with the A.F. of L. building trades' unions of Detroit and these organizations were supported by Hillman, in his capacity as associate director of the OPM, John L. Lewis seized this opportunity to press for action condemning the Federation and Hillman. Again, the C.I.O. convention upheld the Lewis position and adopted a resolution supporting its affiliated construction workers' union, but it was unwilling to include Hillman in its denunciation.
Support of Roosevelt Foreign Policy.
Having given Lewis these victories, the convention proceeded to defeat him on the really important questions. It strongly endorsed the international policy and program of the Roosevelt administration, of which Lewis had been so severe a critic. Lewis's desire to reassume the leadership of the C.I.O. aroused little interest and Philip Murray was unanimously reelected president. The rumored candidacy of Lewis's daughter, Kathryn, for the office of secretary-treasurer of the C.I.O. failed to muster support and James B. Carey of the Electrical and Radio Workers' Union was reelected to that post. Lewis himself did not attend the convention. For the time being, anyhow, the efforts of John L. Lewis to seize control of the C.I.O. and to regain the ground he lost by turning against President Roosevelt in 1940 had proved unsuccessful.
Unionization Tactics.
On the industrial front the C.I.O. made notable gains. The long campaigns to unionize Ford and Bethlehem Steel culminated in victories over both companies. In both cases, the C.I.O. unions pursued their customary strategy of making trouble in the shops, inciting stoppages and strikes, and, when they considered themselves strong enough to win, appealing to the Labor Relations Board for representation elections. These were won by the C.I.O. by wide margins. The Ford company signed an airtight agreement, including the closed shop and the check-off, with the United Automobile Workers and Bethlehem entered into less far-reaching contracts with the Steel Workers Organizing Committee. In consequence of these developments, the C.I.O. had won nearly complete mastery over the labor relations of the steel and automobile industries. Intensive organizing activities in the defense industries, notably the rapidly expanding aircraft industry, accounted for large additional gains. By the end of 1941, the C.I.O. claimed between 4-5,000,000 members and had within its ranks three unions — the miners, automobile workers, and steel workers — each of which reported a membership of more than 500,000.
Wage Policy.
The C.I.O.'s wage policy had much to do with the progress its affiliated unions made in 1941. Early in the defense program the C.I.O. apparently decided to press for higher wages. This policy it pursued with great vigor particularly in the coal, steel, and automobile industries. The concessions which it won in these industries set the pattern for the course of wages generally. In bituminous coal, the United Mine Workers managed to raise wages some 15 per cent and, more important still, to force a uniform wage scale in the northern and southern mines, thus eliminating a wage differential that had long favored the southern mines. In the steel and automobile industries, the unions demanded increases of 10 cents an hour and finally got them. Increases of that amount, coupled with the establishment of minimum rates for common labor ranging from 65 to 75 cents an hour, shortly spread throughout industry.
Closed Shop Issue.
It was in the attempt to fortify its constituent unions against future uncertainties and vicissitudes that the C.I.O. encountered the greatest opposition and trouble. In consonance with the policy of many American labor organizations, the C.I.O. unions considered the closed shop indispensable to union security. During 1941, therefore, they began a concerted drive to insert in contracts with employers either an outright closed-shop clause or some provision requiring employees who had joined a union to continue their membership in it or face the loss of their jobs. Insistence on the closed shop led to the strike in the captive coal mines and it was the cause of strikes in the vital defense plants of the Allis-Chalmers, North American Aviation, and Federal Shipbuilding companies. In each case the union looked to the Government to force a settlement satisfactory to the C.I.O. But, although the unions concerned made some headway in achieving their purposes, interruptions of work in defense factories aroused intensive public protest against strikes and the closed shop and a considerable reaction against the C.I.O. At the end of the year, the closed shop issue remained unsettled.
Representation on Defense Councils.
In addition to the demand for the closed shop, the C.I.O. continued its agitation for fuller representation in the many defense agencies of the Government. The original form of this demand was a proposal made in 1940 by Philip Murray that joint industrial councils, composed of representatives of employers, labor, and Government, be set up in the leading defense industries and be given the responsibility of increasing the production of war materials. The plan was not adopted but it was kept constantly in the public eye. An outgrowth of this proposal, the Reuther plan, also advanced in 1940 by Walter Reuther, an officer of the United Automobile Workers, was adopted by the C.I.O. and became one of the leading issues of our war program. The aim of this plan was to entrust to the representatives of organized labor the task of surveying the tools and productive capacity of the automobile industry and indicating the most expeditious means of converting them to the purposes of war production. At first rejected by industry and the Government, it became late in 1941 the subject of heated controversy as the time drew near for the virtual suspension of automobile production and the use of the plants for war purposes. A similar plan was proposed for the nonferrous metals industry by the C.I.O. union of mine, mill, and smelter workers. Whatever the motives behind the proposal, it was commonly interpreted as a measure for dividing the functions of management between the employer and organized labor.
Rivalry with A.F. of L. and Other Policies.
Only in December 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, did the struggle between the C.I.O. and the A.F. of L. show any signs of abatement. Unions of both federations continued to raid one another's territory. The C.I.O. was defeated in its effort to persuade the administration to reappoint Edwin S. Smith to the Labor Relations Board. On his retirement, he was made an organizer of the C.I.O. oil workers' union. The A.F. of L. challenged the right of the C.I.O. to represent the employees of the Ford company. Elections held under the auspices of the Labor Relations Board gave the C.I.O. automobile union an overwhelming majority. See also AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR; STRIKES; WAGES, HOURS AND WORKING CONDITIONS.
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