Editor’s note:

IWA Regional officers concerned at
the amount of pressure “right-wing”
groups are exerting to have the provin-
cial government bring in so-called right
to work legislation in British Columbia,
that they had the Union’s Public Rela-
tions Director Tom Fawkes do a study on
the subject for the IWA. The following
are excerpts from the booklet Fawkes
prepared and the Union had published.
The excerpts will run in the Lumber
Worker in serial form over the next few

_ issues. PART TWO

Similar to the “open shop” drive, the
“American Plan’ was headed by the
National Association of Manufacturers
and the National Metal Trades Associa-
tion. Like the earlier scheme it was tre-
7 mendously effective.

: INCREDIBLE LOSSES

: The Machinists Union, the union
; which represented employees of mem-
‘ bers of the National Metal Trade As-
sociation, suffered incredible losses in
membership during the initial years of
the “American Plan.” Machinist Union
’ membership dropped from 330,000
zs members in 1920 to 78,000 in 1924. This
‘ tremendous drop in membership was
bo typical of most unions during the period.

; Wartime gains in the meat packing
and shipping industry unions were wiped
out by the American Plan. The Mine
Workers Union which in 1920 had
500,000 members, had half that many by
the end of the decade. Total union mem-
bership in the U.S. in 1920 was approxi-
mately five million, by 1923 it had been
~- decimated to about three and half mil-
é- lion, a million and half drop in just three
a years.

WAGNER ACT

In 1935 the unions won relief from the
“American Plan” through the Wagner
Act, which is the basis of the modern
Labour Code. It gave working people
rights to form unions and organize unor-
ganized workers; it required employers
to sit down and bargain collectively with
their employees and their employees’
union. With the right to collective bar-
gaining now established by law it al-
lowed the labour movement to bargain
the “closed shop” clause into the collec-
_ tive agreement. With the right to organ-
_ ize and bargain collectively the Wagner
_ Act effectively killed the American Plan.

tt is not clear who coined the term
“Right to Work” but it was used as early
as 1935 when the Automobile Manu-
_ facturers Association (AMA) involved it-
self in the attempt to have the Wagner
Act defeated. In the process of this
battle the AMA used the statement
“men have the inalienable right to work”

‘from the coercion of trade unions.

. THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER
eS

' Between 1935 and 1939 the labour
movement set about organizing workers
and bargaining with employers under the
protection of the Wagner Act. With the
Start of the second world war the unions
once again got a boost. However, after
the organizing which the employers ex-
perienced during the first global conflict
they were not prepared to sit back and
let the same thing happen again. For the
first time they faced the’ natural phe-
nomena of working people organizing
willingly during prosperity. They also
faced the fact that the Wagner Act made
it all legal and afforded a certain amount
of protection to the trade unions.

During the early war years the em-
ployer associations developed the use of
their most effective weapon, the press
and radio. They worked at tying the

labour movement to organized crime in .
order to discredit legitimate and honest -

trade unions. Typical of this attack was a
headline that appeared in the New York
Times in the spring of 1941. The front
page headline read: ’“UN/ON ‘TAKE’ IS
$400,000 IN JOB. FEES AT. FORT
MEADE.’ The story was in reference to a
major construction project at Ft. Meade,
Maryland. The story carried the sub-
headline: “ORDINARY WORKMEN IN
HUGE CANTONMENT HOUNDED BY
DUES COLLECTORS AND BY A GREAT
SWARM OF RACKETEERS.”

DEVELOPED HEADLINES

The headlines were well developed to
give people the worst possible sugges-
tion of what was going on at the project.
The accepted meaning of the word
“take” during this period was extortion.
The sub-headline made a clear distinc-
tion between “workmen” and ‘dues col-
lectors” and “

and the same and the workmen on the
project were left defenseless. at the
hands of these law breakers.

As the story developed it was revealed
that the $400,000 was in fact the legal
and legitimate collection of dues and
initiation fees by the trade unions in-
volved. Union officials protested that the
figure was inflated because not all the
workers on the site had paid the initia-
tion fees or dues as was called for in the
agreement with the employer.

There was, however, the unauthorized
collection of “dues” and both the union
and the employer realized it. On a site
with thousands of workers the criminal
element saw an ideal income by sending
in their own people to collect “dues” on
behalf of “the union” then just pocketing
them.

To correct the situation the employer
posted notices around the site advising
the workers of the proper procedure for
paying dues and fees to the union. The
story in the Times specifically stated that
the unions were not responsible for the
state of affairs at the site, but this state-

racketeers” leaving the :
impression that the latter two were one -

APRIL-MAY, 1978 .

ment did not appear until page eight,
while the charges and headlines ap-
peared on the front page. Naturally the
desired effect was achieved with the
public being convinced that the poor
workmen on the site were being terror-

ized by. union dues collectors and
racketeers.

In addition to the newspaper articles
and editorials on the closed shop, those
legislators who were in favour of the
“open shop” latched onto the patriotic
aspect of the issue. Newspapers also
played up the “win the war” effort and
blamed the closed shop and forty hour
week for what they considered was a
poor war production record.

THE “OPEN SHOP”

An editorial which appeared in the
Daily Oklahoman gave all the ammuni-
tion these politicians needed to call for
the “open shop.” The editorials, and also
small ads which appeared in the paper —
which could be torn out and sent to
legislators calling for the end of the
closed shop, were effective.

The Oklahoman editorials alleged that
the closed shop and the forty hour week
resulted in military reverses. for
American soldiers in the field overseas.
The editorials were inflammatory and
played on the patriotism of the reader.
One such editorial contained the fol-
lowing:

“, . » To expose unequipped batta-
lions to massacre while racketeers
are collecting dues from helpless
workers is an infamy for which the
governing authorities of our country
are responsible.

“, .. fear of political reprisal at the
next election is leaving war produc-
tion paralyzed at the mouth of
hostile cannon and sending un-
equipped and unsupported soldiers

to their death on hostile battle-
fields.“

VICIOUS EDITORIALS

Certainly not even the authors of such
vicious editorials could have believed the
trash which they were writing. But the
editorializing, both in the newspapers
and on the radio, had the desired effect.
Thousands of Americans, convinced
their sons and loved ones were being

. sent overseas to die because the closed

shop and forty hour week slowed war
production, wrote letters to their law
makers threatening to withdraw support
at the next election. If there is one thing
that every politician of every persuasion

understands and fears, it’s not getting re-
elected. :

The end result of the editorials and

letter writing was the Smith-Vinson Bill.
The Smith-Vinson Bill was introduced to
the Congress March 16, 1942.

See page 11