Philip Murray - - The objection is overruled

The Steel fist —

How Philip Murray and his aides
maintain their dictatorial rule
over the Steelworkers’ union

HE United Steelworkers of America was organized by the CIO
with money and organizers supplied by other unions. The Steel Wor-
kers Organizing Committee (SWOC) was established in 1936. During
the next few years, the CIO including the International Union of Mine
Mill and Smelter Workers and other unions, contributed $960,000. to

_ the drive, none of which was ever repaid. From the start, men from

other unions were placed in charge of the ‘drive.

Nearly all of the

officers, district and regional officials, came from the United Mine

Workers of America.

UMWA president John L. Lewis headed up

the CIO at that time. Later, when Murray broke with Lewis, many
of the Steelworkers officials left the Steelworkers union, others remained
and to this day still hold high jobs with the Steelworkers.

The Steelworkers Union has al-
ways been run from the top. A
tightly knit dictatorship rules the
organization with an iron hand.
The membership nominally has
‘the right to elect officers and at-
tend conventions, but in practice it
means only an opportunity to vote
“yes” to what Murray orders.

There have been occasional con-
tests for district directorship.
Usually, the defeated candidate
(unless he is anti-machine) is giv-
en some other berth in the organ-
ization. Even the contests’are be-
coming rare—in the 1949 elections
(the last held) only seven out of
a total of 43 elective jobs were
contested,

All key men in the Steel Work-
. @rs Organizing Committee were
-. appointed by Murray. The theory

' Was that the Steelworkers needed
_. guardians to run their organiza-

_tion until they became able to
govern themselves. Eventually,
‘when the industry was organized,
the union was to be set up on a
permanent basis and turned over
* to the members. The organiza-
tion has never been given back

to the rank and file. :

The Steelworkers never had the. }-

right to elect their national officers

until 1942, six years after the Steel
Workers Organizing Committee -

‘was established. In that year, a
convention dominated by paid
_ staff men elected the national offi-
-eers and the district directors, the
latter by district caucus.
’ Even then, fearing that Mur-
ray’s appointee in Canada—Char-
- les Millard, Canadian national di-
~~ veetot—might not win an election,
the newly adopted constitution
provided that ‘his job would be
filled by apointment until three
years later, when Canadian work- |
ers were allowed, for the first

time, to vote for their director. By
that time all possible opposition
had either been bought off or elim-
inated.

The first constitution of the
United Steelworkers of America
was adopted at the 1942 conven-
tion of the union, and later con-
ventions watered down what
meager. rights were originally
granted to the membership.

The result is that the Murray
machine completely controls the
organization and has virtually dic-
tatorial powers over all members.
The machine selects. directors,
appoints staff, controls local un-
ions, determines policies, con-
ducts bargaining, makes settle-
ments and calls strikes, as they
deem best—without any real
voice or vote by the rank and
file.

There are some disagreements
within the machine—over ques-
tions of jobs and patronage. There
is no disagreement over basic poli-
cies, which Murray determines.
The machine is united in its sub-
servience to Murray. Hach direc-
tor in turn has complete authority
over his own district, subject to
broad policies established from
above. In short, the Steelwork-
ers is run by the paid staff men,
the rank and filer is the forgotten
man. ‘

Murray and his board exercise
broad and virtually unlimited
powers over the organization.
These powers are exercised main-
ly through a huge staff of over 500,
which includes, in addition to the
board members, international rep-
resentatives (directly responsible
to Murray), sub-district. directors
and staff nepresantatives: Those

on the staff, among other things,
serve as strong-arm men for the
machine. They dominate and con-
trol every conference and conven-
tion.

Murray has absolute power of
appointment and discharge over
all members of the staff, other
than the elected district directors
(Article IV, Section 7 of the con-
stitution). He can also “institute
proceedings” against any local
union whenever he “shall have

reason to believe that it is failing -

to comply with any provision of
the constitution (Article IX, Sec-
tion 1). In practice, this has
meant the right to remove elected
officials ‘and appoint administrat-
ors whenever he wants to.
®

No strike can be called without
Murray’s personal approval (Ar-

ticle XVI). When they are so
called, the staff is not above
strikebreaking.

In the spring of 1948, workers
_at the Inland Steel tin mill in In-
diana walked out in protest
against the company’s failure to
settle a long-standing grievance.
International representatives went
to the company and assured it
that the strike did not have their
support. As a result the strike
was broken and over 20 workers
discharged.

In theory, persons and groups
opposed: to the leadership of the
union have the right to run their
own candidates for office. In
practice, it is an exceedingly diffi-

“union election committee.

cult, if not impossible task, to de-
feat any of the machine.

Election for national officers
and district directors are held
once every year. (Article V. Sec-
tion 2). A candidate for national’
office must be nominated by 15 or
more local unions, for district di-
rectorship by two or more local
unions—a very difficult task in’
face of staff control of the local
unions (Article V, Section 5).

Candidates for international of-
fice must have been in good stand-
ing for a period of five years im-
mediately preceding the election,
a citizen of the United States or
Canada, and must have worked
within the jurisdiction of the in-
ternational union for three years,
except for international officers or
staff representatives (Article IV,
Section 3).°

Members, “consistent support-

“ers,” or those who “actually par-

ticipate in the activities of the
Communist party . . . are barred
from holding any International or
local office.” Article III, Section
6). Note the looseness and all-
inclusive character of this pro-
vision. Adopted in 1948 this re-
quirement has been used to elim-
inate virtually all opposition.

Should a candidate manage to
qualify, inspite of all these re-
strictions still further obstacles
face him.

The election is run by the local
This
committee according to the inter-
national constitution must consist
of from three to nine members,
three of whom must be the local
president, financial and record-
ing secretaries (Article V, Section
12):

When this provision was first
adopted at the 1942 convention,
one of the delegates pointed out
that a similar section in another
union to which he once belonged,
enabled an international officer to —
stay in office for 17 years until he
finally died.

The international executive
board is the final judge on all
contests arising out of an election
(Article V, Section 21). Finally,
should an opposition candidate
manage to win an election as dis-
trict director, in spite of all this,
the executive board can dispose
of him by merely: consolidating

Concluded on next page

C. Hi. Millard - self appointed savior

~

PART from a brief period

of employment at the Gen-
eral Motors plant in Oshawa,
Ont., there is no record of Mil-
lard’s history as a worker.
However, prior to his employ-
ment with Genera] Motors it
is recorded that Millard had
made many attempts to estab-
lish himself as a businessman.
His last known business ven-
ture having failed in the mid-
thirties, Millard did find em-
ployment at the General Mot-
ors plant.

A glib speaker and smooth
operator among workers, Mil-
lard soon promoted himself in-
to the leadership of the United
Automobile’ Workers local in
Oshawa, then under intense or-
ganization by the UAW, one
of the first CIO unions in Can-

During the historic strike at
Oshawa in 1937, the winning
of which assured the future
success of industrial unions in
Canada, Millard soon lost the
confidence of the workers and
the International Union was
forced to send in one of its
top representatives, Hugh
Thompson of Detroit. The
strike was finally victorious,
and shortly afterwards Millard
and the machine he had al-
ready begun building in the
UAW were swept out of office.

H. A. Logan of the depart-
ment of economics at the Uni-
versity of Toronto, in his book
Trade Unions in Canada, Their

“In spite of the membership”

although generally sympathetic
to Millard, nevertheless has
this to say of Millard as the
first director of the Canadian
region of the United Automo-
bile Workers.: . .

“In the late thirties, senti-
ment developed among the
stewards against the policies
and personnel of the Canadian
union leadership, leading even-

tually to a repudiation of Dir- |

ector Millard and his lieuten-
ants.” (page 248.)
In other words,
workers got fed up with Mil-
lard’s leadership.
Having been thrown out of
this job, Millard spent several

the auto |

months in some high level con-

niving and in 1939 he announc-
ed his own appointment as as-

sociate director of the Steel-
workers Organizing Committee
on an assignment directly from
Philip Murray’s headquarters.
Millard served under Silby Bar-
rett, who was then director of

SWOC in Canada.

Again, quoting Logan: “The
appointment was not generally
popular” (page 255).

Logan further reports: “In
the spring of 1941, at the Can-
adian conference in Hamilton,
‘certain Nova Scotia delegates
led an attack on Millard as
leader and at the end of the,
day’s discussion the meeting,
by a large majority, called for
his retirement. A headquar-
ters assignment, however, Mil-
lard defied the indictment and
called on the delegates to get
ang with the task’! (pagie
56).

Thus we have the singular
spectacle of a trade union
leader being twice repudiated
by the membership he is sup-
posed to serve and yet continu-
ing in office and going on to
greater heights. This was pos-
sible only because of the un-
denjocratic character of the
Steelworkers Union. :

The dissension within the
Steelworkers Union in Canada
intensified, and finally Murray
sent another one of his investi+
gating committees into Canada.
The upshot of their investiga-
tion was assignment of Mil-

o

lard as Canadian director with
sole responsibility and full
powers to reorganize.

Millard used his ‘complete
authority to get rid of all op-
position but, in spite of this,
his position wasn’t too secure.
When “SWOC” in 1942 was of-
ficially changed over to the
United Steelworkers of Amer-
ica it adopted a constitution
which provided for election of
all officers. Special provision
was made in the new consti-
tution for Millard,

Despite his complete control
over the Canadian section of
the union for almost a year,
there was fear that he could
not survive an election. Hence
the constitution provided that
all officers and district direc-
tors should be elected at the
convention in 1942 except for —
the Canadian national director.
He was appointed by Murray
to hold office until May 31,
LOD tee ‘

’ Professor Logan who, it must
be repeated, is extremely
friendly and sympathetic to-
ward Millard, nevertheless is
forced to admit that: “... his
leadership has not always been .
democratic. As with many oth- —
er SWOC high officials, his
authority was, in the eagly
years, conferred from the top
.+.” (pages 256-7).

Thus, in spite of the mem-
bership, the Steelworkers dic-
tatorship has made Millard in-
to a labor “leader.” :

Vl

T "
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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 12, 1950—PAGE 4