V
TACTICS OF COMPANY UNIONS.
Introducing the Plan.
An elaborate literature of tactics has sprung up around the company union. Manuals, produced by such federated employers' associations as the National Industrial Conference Board, show the employer just what moves are necessary to convince the workers of his sincerity. The personnel and management associations hold conferences to compare employers' experiences in installing these employers' devices. The reports of these meetings are used to stimulate others to adopt the plans.
The technique of introducing a plan is given particular attention in this literature. The employer who contemplates putting in a works council is warned of the pitfalls, and given advice on the best courses to follow. Suggestions are made as to how the plan can best be "sold," as they put it, to the workers. The employer is told that he must educate his employees to the plan; that he must introduce it gradually, that it must not appear to be forced on the workers, that the workers must be made to feel that the plan originated with them, and not with the company. The science of plan introduction has been worked out in the greatest detail. And from the employers' point of view it is well that this is so. For many employers, in their indecent haste to put over a plan, have blundered unnecessarily, and spoiled their own game! In one well-known instance the workers voted three times on a plan and the first two times they rejected it. "The third time," according to a reliable trade union official, who is quoted by A. B. Wolfe in his Works Committees and Joint Industrial Councils, "they were given a space of time to think it over and during that period the company got busy thru its superintendents and bosses who told the men they had better vote to accept the plan, because if they didn't the company would shut down."
One expert on the technique of introductory methods, writing in Industrial Management, warns the employer that he "must be ahead of the game if he expects to win. Let him put it off until the unions are on the ground and getting better entrenched every day, and he will have the fight of his life when he wakes up and tries to put across an organization that leaves the union in cold storage."
A rather neat way of expressing it.
The Yellow Dog Contract.
We find the corporations often using the "individual contract" or "yellow dog contract" to tie the workers down to the company union and prevent them while in the employ of the corporation from affiliating with the regular labor union. The Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation and the Interborough Rapid Transit Company of New York both use this type of contract in connection with their company unions.
When a worker takes employment with these companies he signs a contract to belong to the company union, and when he fills out his application to belong to the company union he, in turn, swears not to join the regular A. F. of L. street railway employees' organization. For example, the workers on the Interborough are compelled to join the Brotherhood of Interborough Rapid Transit Employees and to sign an obligation the last paragraph of which reads as follows:
"In conformity with the policy adopted by the Brotherhood and consented to by the Company, and as a condition of employment, I expressly agree that I will remain a member of the Brotherhood during the time I am employed by the Company and am eligible to membership therein; that Iam not and will not become identified in any manner with the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees of America, or with any other association of street railway or other employees, with the exception of this Brotherhood, and the Voluntary Relief Department of the Company while a member of the Brotherhood or in the employ of the Company—and that a violation of this agreement or the interference with any member of the Brotherhood in the discharge of his duties or disturbing him in any manner for the purpose of breaking up or interfering with the Brotherhood, shall of itself constitute cause for dismissal from the employ of the Company."
Another instance will illustrate the practice. The Pacific Coast Coal Company, shortly after severing relations with the United Mine Workers of America, organized its own "Bargaining Council." In the constitution of this council we find it expressly provided that:
"membership in, or activity on behalf of, the United Mine Workers of America, or membership in, or activity for any other mine-labor organization will be a bar to employment."
It is well known that the "yellow dog" contract is common thruout the bituminous mining fields and the metal industry, but most of the corporations forcing this form of slavery on their workers are of the super hard-boiled type not usually inclined to employ the hypocrisies of "employee representation" to gild the individual contract.
Those companies which combine industrial democracy with the "yellow dog" contract enforce an actual "closed shop" in favor of the company union. All workers are compelled to join it. Many of these companies belong to employers' associations which carry on an incessant campaign against the trade union closed shop. But the company union closed shop, they will tell you, is quite another matter! They call it "industrial freedom."
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad System is a typical railway line that writes into the constitution of its Association of Maintenance of Way and Miscellaneous Foremen, Mechanics and Helpers a clause which forbids its members joining the trade unions covering this line of work. The Rock Island Lines did likewise in 1923 and the New York, New Haven, and Hartford enforces the "yellow dog" in its shop craft company union.
Still others, such as the Inland Steel Company, have the "worker representatives" solemnly swear to "faithfully support the constitution and laws of the United States and the State of Indiana, and the plan of representation." Patriotism—plus allegiance to an anti-union state of industrial relations.
Another method that has been used to cement the company plan upon the shop is the check-off system whereby the dues to the company union are deducted by the company from the pay envelopes. The Shop Employees' Association of the Union Pacific Railroad, for example, enjoys this advantage, and the Chicago and Alton and other roads attach it to their plans. The dues are taken out of the pay-check in a manner that would make the Wall Street press rave about the "tyranny of the closed shop" were a real labor union benefitting by the practice.
Using the Sub-Committees.
One favorite method of the employer in putting across certain measures in his household union is to create a large ramification of sub-committees. These small committees can be dealt with more easily. As one unionist put it in writing of the plan of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation: "the sub-committees are called into the office and requested to recommend to the other committeemen various matters which the company officials want to put over on the men." This assumes that the sub-committee can be "reached" in one way or another. This is not difficult where the company has absolute control over the right to hire and fire, besides possessing a large assortment of minor "inducements" which, as we shall note later, it can bring to bear on the weaker members of the committee.
"Equal" Representation.
There is also the obvious disadvantage to the workers which comes with the so-called equal representation with management on joint committees. The management delegates always stand firm for the company and never veer from this position. Thus, should one worker committeeman "side" with the company in a vote the company is bound to win. This is what happens in hundreds of cases. The advantages of such an "equal" arrangement are all on the side of the company. The large number of minor grievances which may be settled in favor of the workers has nothing to do with the case. The company will frequently encourage its representatives on the "equal" joint committees to yield on these insignificant questions but to remain adamant on the questions involving the workers' most important economic demands—wages and hours.
Discharging Trade Unionists.
It is obvious that the employers can get a good deal accomplished thru company unions that would otherwise be difficult to put over on the workers. For example, upon one occasion a "Mill Council" in a Rhode Island cotton plant was persuaded to approve the discharge of a spinning room foreman who had joined the textile workers' union. The union men who struck in sympathy with the foreman were also fired. The company union agreed to this and was thus used to soften the sting of the employer's absolute right to hire and discharge. It was considered a great success because it had produced these results. As an article in Printers' Ink put it some time ago, in describing the great achievements of the employees' representation plans of the Standard Oil Company and the International Harvester Company: "When the time came to cut wages, the machinery was at hand with which to do this expeditiously and peaceably."
Of course there are exceptions which prove the rule, and which once in a thousand times may make it uncomfortable for the employing company. A certain expert speaking before the National Safety Council some years ago cited an instance where the company unions had apparently "gotten out of hand." "Committees which have been given free sway," he stated, "have sometimes failed to use good judgment in the determination of hours and wages. In one plant it is said that wages were forced up despite the company claim that they could not meet the increase." This action was probably corrected by the company in due season and the workers made to see that. the "claims" of the company were "sound economics." In any event we may repeat what we have said above, that the workers' committees are given only as much power as the management cares to permit them to exercise. This is the logic of the company union and the outstanding truth which workers should remember above all else.
Spy Agency Plans.
No matter how ingratiating the words of the employer, the introduction of a company union is not considered inconsistent with the use of undercover men and espionage operatives. As is well known to students of American industrial relations, the spy practice is extremely common in this country. Such railroads as the Santa Fe, the New Haven, and the Pennsylvania are very substantial clients of the labor spy agencies whose first purpose is to undermine such unionism as the road cares to destroy. At the same time these companies are superlatively unctuous in their brotherly expressions toward their employees when introducing company unions. Indeed, it was the suave Sherman Service, Inc., leading American industrial spy agency, that received a huge retainer from the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad in 1922 to install a suitable company union among the shop crafts strike-breakers on the road. Sherman Service drew up the constitution and by-laws of the plan, sold it to. the men thru its undercover operatives, and reported all opponents of the plan to the company which promptly removed them from the payroll!
In the same manner a certain Boston agency a few years ago, was caught in negotiations with the National Spun Silk Company of New Bedford. This detective organization promised to install an attractive company-controlled union with House, Senate, and Cabinet functioning in the most accepted "constitutional" fashion. All for the purpose of offsetting the union drive of the Amalgamated Textile Workers of America. Such a company committee plan was adopted for a while. When the emergency passed, and the union had been driven away, the agency plan was no longer needed to fool the workers, and was forthwith abandoned.
Another well known believer in "representation"—the S. S. White Dental Manufacturing Company—employed "operatives" to fight a strike of metal workers in its Staten Island plant some time ago. At the same time it possessed a Works Manager who could unblushingly deliver himself of the following sentiment, while writing of employee representation in Industrial Management:
"There must be one aim only; namely, that of close friendly cooperation between men and management for their mutual benefit and for the good of the establishment."
Operatives X17, Y33, and S58—installed as labor spies—are fitting carriers of this good will!
The Sperry Gyroscope Company was another New York concern that employed Sherman Service spies while submitting a plan of representation to its workers. The workers innocently adopted the plan after they had been beaten as members of the regular machinists' union. However, when they attempted to use the plan to secure wage increases, the company refused to consider it and confined the operation of the plan to trivial matters within the plant.
Political Uses and Abuses.
A significant function of company unions, particularly those on the railroads, has been political lobbying on behalf of the most reactionary legislation sponsored by the railroad companies and powerful corporate interests. An example of this was the activity of some of the railroad company unions in petitioning for the Mellon scheme of income tax which has shifted a larger tax burden on to the worker and has lessened the amount paid by the millionaire class. Again, in 1924, in the case of the Howell-Barkley Railroad Bill, backed by the rail unions, and opposed by the Association of Railway Executives, the company associations proved themselves the willing tools of the railroad owners. The Pennsylvania, the Santa Fe, and other roads sent petition-bearing delegations to Washington to create a publicity and legislative backfire against the labor unions working for the bill. All the expenses for these lobbying junkers were, of course, borne by the railroad companies.
By "going into politics" the company unions have struck a heavy blow at the legislative agents of the trade union administrations which have always boasted of their skill in persuading capitalist politicians to "do them favors." The old time Washington trade union officials see developing a rival group of labor lobbyists bought and paid for by company money. They see a competitive circle of congressional vote-watchers rising up to "speak for labor." This spectre, as much as the loss in trade union membership, has stirred at least a few of the venerable labor officials to face the rising menace of the company union. Altho they make frequent statements discounting the importance of the company unions and predicting their early collapse, it is clear that they realize the seriousness of the company-controlled committee especially if it can be transported to Washington to clash with the regular labor officialdom in vote-chasing parties around the lobbies of Congress.
No Outsiders Allowed!
A cardinal principle of the company union is that no "outsiders" shall be permitted to speak for the employees. No spokesman from without the factory wall shall be admitted into the bargaining councils. The plan, say the labor relations experts, is "intra-mural." No trade union agents are needed to argue their cases. The workers are flatteringly assured that there are plenty of "smart fellows" in the plant who can debate a case and present an argument better than any "outsider." The workers swallow this taffy when they accept the company union. It is a major manoeuvre of the employer to lead the workers up to the point where they will believe that they can get along "independently," without any "interference" from trade unionists and affiliations or connections with the labor movement. Once they have accepted this "fundamental principle" of the company they make easy meat for its skilled negotiators, who lean heavily upon the legal, statistical, and personnel experts hired at considerable expense by the employer. While using all this outside talent to present his side of a case the employer forbids the worker the right to be represented by a competent trade union expert. This is the typical "equality" of forces found in practically every company union. What does an equal number of men on a "fact finding committee" mean to the workers when their men must depend entirely upon their own knowledge? At the same time the management's representatives have the treasury of the company behind them to purchase statistics and information with which to argue a case and to overpower the workers' representatives with the sheer weight and length and bulk of their evidence. Lacking "outsiders" to help him, the company-duped worker is helpless before the employer no matter how equal the representation on "joint commitees."
"No Discrimination."
Most of the company unions have clauses in their constitution providing that no worker shall be discriminated against because of "affiliation or non-affiliation with any labor union." However, in most cases the final authority to hire and fire rests with the management. It is not likely that it would be so clumsy as to tell a discharged worker the true reason for his discharge. There are plenty of plausible technical reasons with which the management may camouflage its real objectives. It is extremely rare in any industry, no matter how fully nonunion it may be, for the management to tell a discharged worker that he is being fired for union affiliation. Some other reason is always given. How can we believe, then, that management drops this practice the minute it adopts a company union plan, which in nine cases out of ten is admittedly an anti-union device?
Furthermore, we find in some of these "no-discrimination" clauses certain limitations which confine the "protection"—such as it is—to only a part of the workers. For example, the Memorandum of Terms between the Shell Oil Company of California and its employees provides "that membership in any labor union affiliated with the American Federation of Labor shall not be a bar to employment, nor shall any man be discharged or discriminated against for membership in any such union." It happens that the I. W. W. are active in California. They are placed beyond the pale by this agreement. It is perfectly proper and legitimate to discharge a "wobbly" should he happen to be discovered working for the Shell Oil Company. The same is true, for example, of the Phelps-Dodge Corporation, and other mining companies using company unions in the West. The wobblies are beyond the law, and United States Department of Labor commissioners of conciliation, assisted by Department of Justice agents and Burns dicks are employed to drive them off the properties, to hound and deport them. The A. F. of L. unionists—the few that there are—may be promised "protection" and "no discrimination," but so long as they are not recognized as a union and have no say in the bargaining arrangements of the company, they are, from the standpoint of organization, not a particle better off than the wobblies, even tho as individuals they may not be fired so quickly should their labor affiliation be discovered.
The "no discrimination" clauses of the company unions are as dead as the free speech Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution. The bosses mouth them both—and violate them both.
One of the officers of the Standard Gas Company of Oakland, California, which operates a company union, puts his no-discrimination pretense in a nut shell when he writes: "If any employee wishes he may be a member of a labor organization, but no interference in the affairs of the company is tolerated from outside." Which means that the worker may. be permitted to pay dues into a real union, but if the real union gets busy, by way of justifying its existence,—that is, tries to improve the conditions of the workers by collective action—then it is time for the trade union member to "take his time" and get out! This is the logic of no-discrimination as applied under the company union system.
Vehicles of Economic Propaganda.
The company union serves also as a convenient syringe thru which the most reactionary economic doctrines can be shot into the arm—and into the minds—of workers. On the railroads, where there has at one time existed a widespread sentiment in favor of the Plumb Plan and public ownership—in fact, two million organized railroad workers, as well as the A. F. of L., officially endorsed the principle—the company associations have been used to flood the employees with canned arguments showing the horrors of such a mildly progressive measure as government ownership of railroads. The Pennsylvania Railroad, thru its company-controlled associations of clerks and other crafts has been particularly energetic in this field. Its printing presses and mimeographs have knocked out tons of this type of propaganda.
Indeed it would be difficult to find a company union which has not been engaged in one way or another in furthering the capitalist view of society and preaching "sound economics" and "practical business" to the workers. This poison may be injected in several ways, three of which are:
1. Thru paid personnel experts who lecture the workers on orthodox business "fundamentals";
2. Thru the speeches and arguments of the company agents—foremen, lawyers, labor managers, and others in the committee meetings;
3. Thru the shop or house organ edited by a salaried company tool; the chief purpose of this organ is to divert the workers from consideration of economic problems by means of comic strips, sports, baby pictures, family items, et cetera. But a little "sound economics" is usually dropped in,—just as much as the worker can absorb, or stand, without throwing the journal away.
Perhaps foremost among the factors which make for the success of the company union—from the employers' point of view—is the possibility it opens for sowing the seeds of reactionary economic views among the workers. Even among those "industrial democracy" plans—such as the one at the Columbia Conserve Company—which are heralded by all good liberals and many socialists, we find personnel managers and plan experts taking about "foreign labor unions" and their "objectionable doctrine of class consciousness." It is to fight any manifestation of this class consciousness that these uplifters and social workers are employed by the "idealistic" Christian employers.