the history of labor in the united States

The History of Labor in the United States: The Iowa Experience is based on oral histories conducted with Iowa workers. Over one thousand interviews were collected under the auspices of the Iowa Labor History Oral Project. Excerpts of a number of these interviews have been selected for this book.

The interviews deal with the general subjects of union organizing, collective bargaining, political action and community service. Each of these four subjects have an introduction and interviews dealing with the general subject. Further, each interview excerpt has questions to guide your study.

This book is designed as a supplement to an American History or other social studies text, although it could stand alone as the basis for a unit dealing with labor. A list of other readings dealing with organized labor is available from your library or from the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO.

This material would not be possible without the help of many. The Iowa Labor History Oral Project has collected over a thousand oral interviews upon which this curriculum is based. Thank you to the interviewers, Paul Kelso, Greg Zieren, and Merle Davis, and to Mona Lepic who transcribed most of the interviews and coordinated the mechanics of the project for 10 years. Thank you also to the members of the advisory committee, past and present, who guided the project: Fred Adams, Professor of History, Drake University; David Crosson, Executive Director Iowa State Historical Department; Jack Fiorito, Professor of Industrial Relations, University of Iowa; Richard Gage, Consultant, Department of Public Instruction; Ellis Hawley, Professor of History, University of Iowa; Loren Horton, Iowa State Historical Department; Richard Kottman, Professor of History, Iowa State University; Paul Mann, I.S.E.A.; Roger Morse, Business Agent, Teamsters; Gene Paul, Professor, Management Department, Drake University; Gene Redmon, Labor Liaison, Cedar Valley United Way; Ralph Scharnau, Professor of History, University of Dubuque; Shelton Stromquist, Professor of History, University of Iowa; Roberta Till-Retz, Director, Labor Center, University of Iowa; James Wengert, President, Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO; Ed Czarnecki, AFL-CIO; Hugh Clark, past President of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO; Adrian Anderson, Executive Director, Iowa State Historical Department; Richard Byerly, President South West Community College; Lloyd Freilinger, former Vice-President of the Grain Millers, AFL-CIO; Lynn Feekin, former Director of the Labor Center, University of Iowa; Marian Moffitt, Representative, C.W.A.; Harry Wilford, Business Agent, Teamsters.

Thank you to Professor S. Samuel Shermis, Purdue University and to Lulla Shermis who provided the initial conceptual framework upon which the format and general direction of the guide is based. Thank you to Mark Smith and Merle Davis who put together the first guide. Thank you to the Directors of the Project, Ed Czarnecki, Lynn Feekin and Roberta Till-Retz.

A special thank you to the members of affiliated unions of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, who have funded the project through their per capita tax since 1975. Thank you also to the Teamsters Union and the Iowa U.A.W. Cap Council, who have also contributed to the funding of the project.

Another special thank you to Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO President James Wengert, who was one of the early and key supporters of the project and whose persistent encouragement and commitment to the project kept it moving.

The life of the project, emanates from the hearts and souls of the union men and women of Iowa, whose interviews make the ILHOP one of the finest collections of oral labor history in the country. Their willingness to take the time to share their recollections, and to reconstruct their union histories, give this guide its unique spirit of history in the making.

Des Moines history teachers James Bush and Tom Long and Social Studies Supervisor, Carol Brown, along with other Des Moines teachers piloted these materials in 1990. Their additions to and deletions from the materials provided by the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO made this book more useable and more meaningful. Their changes, as well as their time spent, was invaluable.

Subject

Timeline

Brief History of Labor in Iowa

Organizing Table of Contents

Organizing Objectives

Organizing Introduction

Organizing Interviews

Collective Bargaining Table of Contents

Collective Bargaining Objectives

Collective Bargaining Introduction

Collective Bargaining Scope

Collective Bargaining Interviews

Unions and Politics Table of Contents

Unions and Politics Objectives

Unions and Politics Introduction

Unions and Politics Interviews

Community Service Table on Contents

Community Service Objectives

Community Service Introduction

Community Service Interviews

Glossary of Labor Terms

Workers organized in the state of Iowa for exactly the same reasons they did elsewhere in the United States: to improve salaries and working conditions, but also for dignity and a more just and humane social order. As an individual, no single worker could bargain successfully with his or her employer for better wages, shorter hours, and safer working conditions. But in association with others, workers recognized they would have greater bargaining power.

As early as 1778, journeymen printers in New York City combined to demand wage increases. In Philadelphia a few years later, shoemakers formed a local union for the purpose of collective bargaining. Since the end of the nineteenth century, workers have struggled to gain recognition from employers and the general public as members of legitimate unions. They sought—and continue to seek—higher wages, shorter hours, a safer and more pleasant workplace, better fringe benefits, the elimination of racial segregation, and the end to discrimination against women and minorities.

Nineteenth Century unions in Iowa and the United States

The first trade unions in Iowa date from the late 1850s. Printers in Dubuque and Davenport formed local Typographical Unions. During and after the Civil War, union formation increased rapidly, due to the growth of large-scale industry. Unions of printers, shoemakers, tailors, blacksmiths, machinists, carpenters, cigar makers, iron molders, locomotive engineers, coal miners, and team drivers made their appearance.

Knights of Labor

Many of these unions fell apart in the economic depression that followed the Panic of 1873. But as economic conditions began to improve in the late 1870s and 1880s, the union movement took on new life and the ranks of organized labor began to swell. Of particular importance during the 1880s was an early union known as the Knights of Labor. Founded in 1869 in Philadelphia, the Knights grew steadily as a secret organization until the late 1870s. In 1886, more than 750,000 workers could be found among its ranks. Its rallying cry, “An injury to one is the concern of all,” appealed to all workers without regard to skill, race, or gender.

Coal miners from the east side of Des Moines organized the first local assembly of the Knights of Labor in Iowa in 1877. In 1879, various locals in Iowa formed a district assembly which eventually included all of the state local assemblies. In 1886, it was reorganized under the name, the Iowa State Assembly of the Knights of Labor. By 1888, the Knights consisted on 188 locals with 30,000 members in Iowa alone. When the Iowa Legislature met, the Knights maintained local representatives in Des Moines to protect the interests of working people. As a result of these efforts, the Iowa Legislature established a Bureau of Labor Statistics and passed several laws dealing with mine safety in the 1880s.

During 1881, as the Knights of Labor continued to grow, several national trade unions formed a new and separate organization, called the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions. Under the initiative of this organization, a crusade was launched to establish the eight-hour work day, a movement which was regarded by many as radical and extremely disturbing. On May 1, 1886, when tens of thousands of workers took part in mass demonstrations demanding the eight-hour day, a new tradition was begun. May 1 continued to be observed as Worker’s Day in many parts of the world, but in the United States, the first Monday in September became the holiday when organized labor celebrated by calling attention to its achievements and goals through parades and speeches. Today it is known as Labor Day.

The A. F. of L. Replaces the Knights

In 1886, the Knights peaked in strengths, but soon after, its numbers began to decline. During the same decade, a new organization of laborers was born and became the dominant national labor body in this country. This new force was known as the American Federation of Labor, simply called the A. F. of L. The A. F. of L. was generally composed of skilled craftsmen from various trades. Until the mid-20^th century, the A. F. of L. continued to organize primarily along craft lines. This new federation of national unions consisted of skilled workers such as: typesetters, cigar makers, plumbers, and electricians.

Union Demands

The first president of the A. F. of L. was Samuel Gompers, a cigar maker. Except for a single interruption lasting only one year, Gompers remained at the helm of the A. F. of L. until his death in 1924. In this position, Gompers became the acknowledged head of the American Labor Movement. His goals were quite modes: he sought to use the tool of peaceful collective bargaining to improve the conditions of working people. In response to the question, “What does labor want?” Gompers replied:

Strong Opposition to Organized Labor

Working people faced many obstacles in their effort to form and sustain trade unions. Federal and state courts issued injunctions that forbade unions to strike or even to organize. Courts sided with owners and managers in crushing strikes. State and Federal officials frequently called out the U.S. Army or the State National Guard to break strikes. One of the first labor injunctions used in the United States was issued in Boone County, Iowa, in 1885, to prevent picketing by striking coal miners. Iowa governors called out the state militia whenever large numbers of working people went out on strike.

Resistance to trade unions and hard times caused by the Panic of 1893 forced many unions to collapse. Thousands of men and women were thrown out of work as mines, shops, and factories closed by the hundreds. Workers who managed to keep their jobs faced drastic wage cuts. Unemployment, bank failures, loss of savings, and other problems caused by economic depression continued until 1897.

Limited Gains

On the eve of the economic collapse that followed the Panic of 1893, Iowa trade unionists created a new umbrella organization entitled, the Iowa State Federation of Labor. This organization, with statewide authority, was intended to serve as the political arm of the Iowa trade union movement. Its purpose was to work for the interests of labor in the State Legislature and also to serve as the principal voice of the working people of Iowa. A year later, it was granted a charter from the A. F. of L., signed by Samuel Gompers. By 1900, it bean to maintain a permanent lobbyist at each session of the General Assembly.

The State Federation of Labor worked successfully to build coalitions with forces they hoped would prove friendly, such as teachers, farmers, and religious organizations. With their assistance, the State Federation began to shepherd labor legislation, such as workers’ compensation, factory inspection, and child labor laws through the Iowa General Assembly.

Unions Enter the Twentieth Century

During the final years of the 19^th century and the first decade of the 20^th, the trade union movement in Iowa and throughout the nation grew rapidly. By 1890, most of Iowa’s more than 5,000 coal miners were members of the United Mine Workers of America. In that same year, most of the Iowa miners won the eight-hour day. Railroad workers in Iowa were numerous and among the earliest to organize, initially along craft lines and briefly in the 1890s along industrial lines in the American Railway Union. Other trades also joined existing unions. By 1902, working people in Des Moines could boast 53 separate crafts organized into unions.

Most unions were created by highly skilled craftsmen, but less skilled workers also sought and found protection in the union fold. In Des Moines, for example, women telephone operators formed a union. Button workers in Muscatine joined the ranks or organized labor as did retail clerks in numerous Iowa towns.

The Industrial Workers of the World (I. W. W.) was organized in 1905 and sought to build a revolutionary alternative to the American Federation of Labor. Its most spectacular successes came in the lumber camps, mining towns, and settlements of agricultural laborers in the West and among unskilled immigrants in factory towns in the East. The I. W. W. was briefly present in a few Iowa communities, notably Sioux City. It also provided a direct and powerful experience in industrial unionism for numbers of young workers who left Iowa, but later returned to play important roles in building industrial unions among packinghouse and farm equipment workers during the C. I. O. era.

After the United States entered World War I, increasing numbers of semiskilled and unskilled industrial workers began to form or join unions. Large numbers of packinghouse workers in Ottumwa, Des Moines, Sioux City, and elsewhere formed unions, as did workers in the gypsum mills and mines in the Fort Dodge area. This was the direct result of Federal wartime measures which gave workers the legal right to organize for the purpose of collective bargaining. This battle was not won then, nor was it won 15 or 20 years later. Employers fought with all the weapons at their disposal to smash existing unions and prevent the formation of new ones.

Unions at the Lowest Ebb

During the 1920s, many of the working people’s wartime gains were wiped out. Some employers instituted the “American Plan,” a systematic effort to destroy trade unions. They refused to recognize unions established by their employees and refused to engage in collective bargaining. They set up “company unions,” that were actually controlled and manipulated by employers. They also hired armed guards and placed union workers on blacklists, making it easier for all factory owners to identify and refuse employment to potential union organizers.

During this time, there were long, bitter strikes which often became violent. Who committed how much violence is debatable. Some retired workers have admitted to engaging in scattered violence. However, it was the employer who could afford weapons and armed guards, who hired scabs, and who prevailed on governors to send the National Guard to break up strikes.

The “Roaring Twenties” was a dismal and bitter period for organized workers. Despite the appearance of economic prosperity, affluence was extremely spotty. Since the end of World War I, Iowa farm owners and workers had suffered their own economic depression. As mines closed in Iowa, thousands of coal miners lost their livelihood. In 1921, employers succeeded in crushing gypsum mill and packinghouse unions. A year later, a strike of railroad shopmen went down in defeat.

Without the protection of a recognized union, workers had little say about anything that affected their working lives. Needle trade workers were forced to work in badly lighted and ventilated sweatshops, bakers worked in bakeries where the temperature was 130 degrees in the summer, and machinists, miners, and foundry workers seldom had adequate protective clothing. Workers were not provided treatment for accidents on the job such as the frequent knife wounds that occurred in meat packing plants. Workers were frequently denied rest periods and their wages were sliced without warning. Blacks and women faced the worst forms of discrimination. Blacks were frequently given the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs and women received less pay than men for the same work. Workers had no way to protest. They could be fired for even uttering the word “union.” Company spies mixed with workers and reported anyone who appeared to have even the slightest interest in organizing.

If times were bad for working people during the 1920s, they grew even worse during the Great Depression that followed the Wall Street Crash of October, 1929. As the construction industry ground to a halt and factories went out of business, thousands of men and women were out of work. The Depression continued unabated until Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President. In March of 1933, when Roosevelt took the oath of office, nearly 13.5 million were underemployed. This number represented more than one-fourth of the civilian labor force. Unemployment uprooted whole families. Thousands of people—both old and young—were cast adrift. An estimated one million young men spent years “bumming the rails,” i.e., hitch-hiking in—or under—railroad cars, looking for whatever work could be found.

Unions Under the New Deal

Even before Roosevelt was elected in 1932, Congress passed the Norris-LaGuardia Act which outlawed injunctions and yellow dog contracts. After Roosevelt assumed office, the Federal government played an increasingly important role in fighting the Depression. A flood of legislation filled the hoppers of Congress. Programs were hastily devised to insure bank deposits, support farm incomes and provide support payments for the jobless. These and other programs—some of which remain today—became known as the New Deal. To provide jobs and income for the unemployed, Roosevelt launched several major programs, which included the Civil Conservation Corps, the Civil Works Administration, the Works Progress Administration, the Public Works Administration, and the National Recovery Administration.

Of all of these programs, the one which affected organized labor the most was the National Recovery Administration, called by its initials, the N. R. A. This agency allowed businessmen to fix prices and allocate production quotas through codes of competition. Included in the law was the famous section, Section 7(a), which provided that every code of fair competition must provide employees the right to form and join unions of their own choosing in order to bargain collectively with their employers.

Section 7(a) acted as a catalyst for the labor movement. Immediately, workers across the nation again began to form unions. The union that made the most significant gain in membership was the United Mine Workers of America, headed by John L. Lewis. Lewis was born near Lucas, Iowa, and spent his youth in Iowa coal mines. The U. M. W. A. launched a massive organizing drive. By the end of 1933, it had organized the country’s major coal fields and emerged as the nation’s biggest and strongest union. The U. M. W. A. was, however, not alone in taking advantage of Seection 7(a). packinghouses and factories across Iowa and the nation also established unions. Many were shortlived, for management continued to bitterly oppose them and, despite the law, refused to deal with them. In 1935, the United States Supreme Court overturned a major portion of the law creating the N. R. A.

It appeared the legal support that gave workers the right to organize had been jerked out from under them. However, before the Court ruled on the matter, U.S. Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York introduced a bill to guarantee the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively with their employers. This bill, usually called the Wagner Act, was entitled the National Labor Relations Act. It established the first national policy of protecting the rights of workers to organize and elect representatives to engage in collective bargaining. Signed by President Roosevelt in 1935, the Act created the National Labor Relations Board (N. R. L. B.) to enforce its provisions. The N. L. R. B. was charged with conducting elections to determine if workers desired to be represented by a union. The N. L. R. B. was also to make sure that collective bargaining was carried on in good faith. The passage of the Wagner Act in 1935 marked a turning point in American labor history and helped to generate the rebirth of the labor movement in the United States.

For the next two years, many employers fought the Wagner Act with every weapon at their disposal by fighting enforcement of the Act in court, throwing barriers in the way of elections, continuing to fire organizers, and even refusing to speak with N. L. R. B. representatives. Finally, in the spring of 1937, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Wagner Act, and union organizing shifted into high gear.

In some instances, unions were formed almost overnight. At other times, organizing drives dragged on for months or even years. Much union organizing was undertaken, not by paid organizers, but by ordinary working men and women who volunteered their time and money to spread the union message. Union membership rose from less than 3 million to about 8.5 million in 1941.

Years of Growth

Beginning in 1937, Iowa unions started a rapid and sustained growth that continued well into the mid-1940s. These years witnessed the establishment of unions in bakeries and butcher shops, hotels and grocery stores, laundries and foundries, brickyards and cement plants, gypsum mills and grain mills, packinghouses and auto repair shops across Iowa. Workers in plants assembling electrical equipment fought to establish unions. The same struggle took place in farm implement factories. Truck drivers and warehousemen joined unions. Carpenters, bricklayers, pipefitters, painters, electricians, and other skilled craftsmen formed and joined unions in their respective crafts.

Even after 1937, many firms continued to resist the efforts of their employees to form unions and gain bargaining rights. Workers in a number of Iowa industries were forced to undergo protracted strikes to win union recognition. Members of the Machinists and Molders Unions in Dubuque were on strike for months. Workers had to engage in sit-down strikes before their employers would bargain with them. The laundries and dry cleaning shops in Des Moines were closed for weeks before proprietors would consent to bargain.

Some unionizing efforts did meet with violence. Armed vigilantes blocked the streets of Estherville to prevent union men from entering the town to speak with workers employed in a local packinghouse. When employers in Newton and Sioux City appealed to the governor, he responded favorably by sending out the National Guard.

Industrial Union Growth

While unionizing efforts on a large scale were underway in the 1930s, the trade union movement was itself divided. Most unions were affiliated with one of the two union federations, the A. F. of L. or the new Congress of Industrial Organizations (C. I. O.). The A. F. of L. organized workers in skilled crafts or trades which were called craft unions.

Many workers, however, were not members of a skilled trade, nor were they eligible to join a craft union. Their desire for union representation gave rise to a new type of union organized on an industrial basis. In 1935, a Committee on Industrial Organization was formed within the A. F. of L. and led by John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers of America. This committee sought to commit the A. F. of L. to supporting these new organizing efforts. The Federation refused, and in 1936, expelled those unions and their leaders. In the mass production industries—auto, steel, rubber, meatpacking, electrical equipment—union organizing was given timely support and essential resources by Lewis and others in the C. I. O. By 1938, the C. I. O. had become a powerful federation in its own right and promoted unionism within industries, not crafts.

C. I. O. and A. F. of L. Competition

At times, the distinction between A. F. of L. craft unions and C. I. O. industrial unions was murky. Industrial unions such as the United Mine Workers of America and the Amalgamated Meat Cutters had been affiliated with the A. F. of L. for years. Traditional A. F. of L. craft unions like the International Association of Machinists and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners began organizing unskilled and semiskilled industrial workers and became part craft union and part industrial union. “Jurisdictional disputes” broke out as organizers from the A. F. of L. and the C. I. O. competed with each other for members and official recognition.

World War II and Organized Labor

The outbreak of World War II in Europe in September, 1939, brought an end to the Great Depression in the United States. In August of that year, about 10 million Americans were still unable to find work. The war in Europe brought a sudden spurt in economic activity as the United States began to ship weapons and supplies to those who would soon become our allies. Even so, in 1940, more than 14 percent of the eligible workforce still could not find jobs. Entry of the United States into the war after the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor brought a dramatic turnabout to the employment situation.

With extraordinary speed, the nation turned its energies to war production. By the end of 1942, the United States began to experience a shortage of workers, a condition that became progressively more critical as World War II continued. At the same time, the composition of the workforce began to change dramatically. Tens of thousands of women found employment outside the home in booming defense industries—those that manufactured planes, ships, tanks, guns, munitions, and other implements of war. This expansion of the female workforce was facilitated by the dramatic increase in child care opportunities. As the need for additional workers grew, more jobs were opened to women and blacks.

The Growth of the Federal Government

During World War II, the Federal government affected the lives of ordinary Americans as never before. Men were required to register for the draft. More than 13 million men and women were in uniform. Governmental regulations, needed to speed up the war effort, began to proliferate. Nearly every American was affected as the Federal government regulated prices and rationed basic commodities. War Bond drives brought the government into factories, movie theaters, and schools. Armed guards patrolled defense plants. Security checks became routine. The F. B. I. Fingerprinted millions of workers in shipyards, munitions plants, and even packinghouses. Taxes were increased to help pay for the war and the Federal government initiated the practice of withholding income taxes.

In their efforts to speed up all of these activities, the Federal government established numerous commissions and boards to oversee war production and control prices, wages and the supply of labor. By 1943, the government effectively froze prices, wages, and salaries—but not profits. Government contracts were routinely let on the basis of what became known as “cost-plus.” Under this system, the government agreed to pay a firm the cost of producing an item plus a certain percentage above that cost, frequently 10 percent, which was the margin for profit. It was known that this system had the potential for abuse, but the government’s position was that the most important priority was winning the war. Massive and rapid production of goods was the best means for reaching this aim.

The Federal government established the National War Labor Board as its principal agency for resolving wartime industrial disputes. In an effort to prevent strikes and lockouts, the N. W. L. B. instituted a system of compulsory arbitration. In effect, management and workers were legally required to submit their grievances to a third party, a governmental official assumed to be impartial, with both sides required to accept the final decision. Further, the Board played a central role in the government’s efforts to curtail wage increases. It tried to keep workers’ wages within the narrow limits of a prescribed formula, which generally allowed wages to increase no more than 15 percent above their January 1, 1941 level. The War Labor Board was far less successful in keeping down the prices charged to consumers. Price increases rapidly outstripped meager wage advances and many workers found that they could keep ahead of inflation only by working long hours, often in trying and hazardous occupations. The 48-hour work week became standard in defense industries and overtime, time-and-a-half pay and similar arrangements became accepted. In some cases, this has continued to the present.

Worker Solidarity

In factories, shops, stores, and job sites where workers had established unions before and during the war, unionized workers often made significant gains in the 1940s. Unions won bargaining rights and signed contracts. Procedures for handling shop floor grievances were established. Unions fought for better and safer workplaces. Working through the War Labor Board, unions also won wage increases. Unionized workers gained a sense of solidarity and saw themselves as an organization of men and women with the same goals, needs, and aspirations who needed to cooperate with each other.

By 1945, nearly 15 million American workers had joined trade unions. The labor movement in the United States was larger and stronger than ever before. Over 25 percent of the civilian labor force was enrolled in trade unions. A. F. of L. unions claimed over 10 million members while the membership of C. I. O.-affiliated unions hovered around 4.5 million.

The Post-War Era

The war’s sudden and dramatic end in August, 1945, brought an abrupt cancellation of military orders. Thousands of workers suddenly found themselves without jobs. Even workers who kept their jobs saw their income slashed as overtime wages suddenly ceased. In Iowa, thousands of workers who had been employed in huge ordinance plants in Burlington and Des Moines became unemployed as the plants closed. Blacks experienced what they had already known: they were the last to be hired and the first to be fired. Women workers were also hard hit by the loss of defense jobs. Told that their proper place was in the home, motherhood was once again romanticized. In short, as soon as the economic necessity for women in the workplace declined, their job security ended.[1]

Post-War Threats to Unions

Anti-Labor Legislation

At the war’s end, long-smoldering grievances over wages and other issues that had accumulated during the war—when calling a strike was considered an unpatriotic action—suddenly reached the crisis stage. Management tried to return to the days before unions were organized and workers were without bargaining power. Unions were branded “Communist dominated” and blamed for price inflation. Many workers were unhappy and strikes were widespread. An avalanche of antiworker legislation filled the hoppers of Congress and the state legislatures. In 1947, Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act. This Act amended the Wagner Act and significantly eroded the rights workers had gained in earlier legislation. Taft-Hartley outlawed the closed shop, the secondary boycott, and established union unfair labor practices. By making the wildcat strike illegal, the Act tried to break the power of the unions on the shop floor. The Act also allowed states to enact “right to work” laws.

“Right to work” laws have nothing to do with the right to work. These laws outlawed union shop agreements in which unions and management agree that all members of a bargaining unit must become members of the union within a specific time period. “Right to work” laws allowed individuals to reap benefits won by unions without paying union dues. The Iowa “right to work” law was passed in 1947 and is still in effect today.

Unions Change with the Times

Despite constant efforts to weaken unions, the labor movement remained vigorous. By the late 1940s, unions began winning “escalator clauses” which provided for wage increases based on the Consumer Price Index. In the 1950s and 1960s, unions recognized the need to change as the economy and the nature of the labor force changed. Thus, in the early 1950s, unions embarked on a new emphasis: increasing “fringe benefits.” These included pension systems, hospitalization plans, severance pay, and maternity benefits. New jobs were created in the service and trades sectors while jobs in basic industries like mining, manufacturing, and transportation declined. These new jobs were in finance, insurance, the professions, repair and servicing, and state and local government. Unions had never been particularly active in these sectors of the economy, but workers in these sectors needed the protection of unions every bit as much as other workers. In the last 25 years, workers in these fields have worked vigorously to form and join unions.

Iowa Merger

Dramatic change occurred in 1955 with the merger of the A. F. of L. and the C. I. O. This merger brought to an end many years of conflict and competition as the two rival federations raided each other’s membership. The merger was greeted with a great deal of enthusiasm. Many hoped that the newly consolidated A. F. L.-C. I. O. would use its finances and energies to organize the unorganized. For the first time in 20 years, American labor could speak with a single political voice.

At the state and local level, the once-rival A. F. L. and C. I. O. organizations also combined forces. The Iowa State Federation of Labor was the A. F. L.’s state organization. The C. I. O.’s state body was the Iowa State Industrial Union Council. These two organizations met in convention in Des Moines, and on June 26, 1956, became the Iowa Federation of Labor. The establishment of this new unified organization was accomplished without turmoil. In fact, Iowa was the third state in which the two major labor bodies merged. Since its founding, the Iowa Federation of Labor has worked to safeguard and promote the rights of workers, farmers, and consumers and protect its security and welfare of the people as a whole.

Since World War II, American unions have played an increasingly important role in the political process. Workers realize that gains made at the bargaining table could be rested from them in the legislative halls. The Taft-Hartley Act, the various “right to work” laws and the Landrum-Griffin Act, which placed limits on organizational and jurisdictional picketing, had hurt unions. Labor also felt the effect of having unfriendly appointees on the N. L. R. B. and the boards of other Federal and state agencies which regulate matters of concern to unions and working people.

Labor’s Political Victories

Since the merger of the A. F. L. and C. I. O., organized labor in the United States has achieved a number of notable political victories. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order #10988, which granted Federal employees’ unions the right to bargain collectively with government agencies. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 prohibited wage differentials based on sex. President Lyndon Johnson persuaded Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a section of which barred discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in hiring or apprenticeship programs. In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act (O. S. H. A.). This legislation established the right of government inspectors to enter workplaces to inspect for dangerous working conditions. In the 1970s, Congress also attempted to end discrimination against both the handicapped and the aged. Legislation—and education campaigns—made it illegal to discriminate in hiring, promotions, tenure and salary increases on the basis of a person’s age. It also provided that individuals with handicaps be granted “reasonable accommodations” and not be refused employment or summarily dismissed.

By no means have all legislative victories occurred at the Federal level. In Iowa, the Iowa Federation of Labor and other labor organizations have fought to strengthen Iowa’s laws governing workers’ compensation and unemployment benefits. The Iowa labor movement has fought hard to eliminate laws that made it difficult for people to register to vote[2] by helping push through postcard registration.

From the 1950s through the 1970s, the Iowa Federation of Labor spearheaded the fight for this fair apportionment of the State Legislature based on one person, one vote. Battles over this issue raged in both the General Assembly and the courts.[3] In 1972, the Iowa Supreme Court did finally implement a reapportionment plan that for the first time apportioned the Iowa General Assembly on the basis of one person, one vote.

Iowa labor has long fought for higher pay for teachers and a fairer tax system. It has worked long and hard for legislation giving public employees the same rights to collective bargaining as enjoyed by other Americans. In 1974, the Iowa Public Employment Relations Act was signed into law.

Labor and the Continuing Struggle for Dignity

The struggle for human dignity has continued despite many years of discouraging setbacks. In recent years, the labor movement has faced a host of enemies determined to erase the gains working people have made since the passage of the Wagner Act. Presidents and governors have railed against organized labor. Programs to help the poor, aged, and infirm have suffered devastating cuts. Boards and commissions originally created to advance the interests of working people have been filled with the very enemies of the programs they were entrusted with administering. Employers have closed profitable factories in American towns and moved them to Third World countries where they could become more profitable—largely because unorganized workers could be hired to work for the lowest possible wages.

The labor movement has not abandoned its goal of building a more just and humane society. The struggle continues. In the fair and just society which the United States must become, it is right for working men and women to be accorded decent salaries, working conditions, dignity, and respect.

Objectives

Unions came into existence for one very simple reason: workers were dissatisfied and found themselves in a position of helplessness. When they realized that as individuals they could do little to change the job situation, they began to search for ways of organizing to bring about change. Out of attempts to cooperate with one another to change an unacceptable situation, unions were formed.

Union organizers did not create dissatisfaction with the job. The dissatisfaction was already there. The organizer transformed dissatisfaction into collective action. Even though there may be a desire on the part of workers to form unions, it is one thing to want a union and something else to translate desire into effective action.

Despite legislation guaranteeing the right of unions to form, it has never been simple to create a union. Many employers have opposed unions and union organizing efforts. They have made use of a whole arsenal of weapons in fighting unions, including hired thugs, court injunctions, state militias, and blacklists. Employers have fired workers outright, had them evicted from their homes, framed them on trumped-up charges, and enlisted the local newspapers to spread negative attitudes.

Until the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933 and the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, employers held the upper hand. The language contained in these two laws protected the right of workers to form and join unions of their own choosing and to bargain collectively with their employers. The National Labor Relations Act, usually called the Wagner Act, remains the foundation upon which other labor law is based. It continues to afford workers important protection in their efforts to organize unions and bargain with their employers.

Even with the Wagner Act, organizing unions continues to be a hard, discouraging job. Employers can—and still do—get away with firing workers for organizing unions because it is difficult to prove in a court of law. Thousands of workers are illegally fired for attempting to form unions every year, even today. Workers and organizers are still jailed. Highly paid labor consultants are sometimes hired by management to place road-blocks in the way of workers bent of forming a union.

By no means were all workers covered by provisions of the Wagner Act in 1935. Farm workers and those employed by the Federal government and by state, county, and municipal governments fell outside its scope. These excluded employees were not forbidden to form or join unions. However, if they did form unions, the governmental bodies for which they worked often refused to bargain with them and were not required to do so by law. It was not until President John F. Kennedy signed an Executive Order in the 1960s that Federal employees could bargain collectively with their employers. In Iowa, workers employed by state, county, and municipal governments were without the right to bargain with their employers until 1974.

In the following excepts, Iowa workers will describe some of the conditions they faced while attempting to organize unions.

This excerpt is from a Teamster organizer in Cedar Rapids. He describes five reasons why workers join unions.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

“There are five basic things that people are looking for when they want to form a union. The first thing they want is job security. They need the right to know that as long as they do a good job, show up for work and perform in the proper manner, they’ve got job security. Management can’t come in and say, “Hey, we don’t think you’re doing your job. Joe Blow is a friend of such-and-such, and we’re going to lay you off and hire him.”1 So job security is always number one as far as collective bargaining is concerned. Number two is recognition of seniority. Without a collective bargaining agreement, the worker doesn’t get recognition of seniority.2 Number three is fringe benefits. Fringe benefits are holidays, vacations, sick leave, insurance, and pensions. Number four is wages. Number five is the most important thing—it is union recognition. It is getting the union, getting somebody to represent the workers. It is getting a spokesman for the workers.”

This interview is with a worker who grew to adulthood in Des Moines. When the C. I. O. was starting in Iowa, he quickly became one of its principal leaders. He organized workers across Iowa and throughout the Midwest and eventually worked for several different industrial unions, including the Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee, the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, the United Electrical Workers, and the United Auto Workers. In this interview, he tells how he went about organizing workers in the late 1930s.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

1. What part did the media play in organizing unions? Can you cite instances of media influence on unions today?

“Well, normally, we’d go into a town like Mason City. There was always a person or two people, three people, six people, that were sympathetic to the union, and in some instances I’d get a letter. You see, I was getting a lot of publicity as [C.I.O.] Regional Director in the Des Moines Register…I was getting a lot of publicity, pictures, and so on, and every once in awhile they’d put the address. Oh, maybe I’d get letters addressed to the C.I.O. in Des Moines, Iowa. So I’d get a letter from a guy in Mason City or some place, he’d say, “We want to organize.” Or maybe [it was] somebody coming in my office. If they come into my office down in Des Moines, which they did from Wood Brothers Threshers and the cement plants and what have you, I’d say, “how many workers in your plant?” “A hundred and fifty.” And I’d ask this gal I had working for me, “Count out 150 cards,” and I’d give them 150 cards and I’d say, “See this card? You sit down and fill it out.” So all he had to do was put his name and address and the name of the plant and he’d sign it. I’d say, “okay, you take them cards back.” And I’d give him some caution about, “Don’t do this while you’re working. On your relief time, your breaks, your noon, before work and after work, you have the right and you’re protected by the law.” I’d read him the law a little bit. So I’d say, “Now, when you get those cards signed up, you come on back and see me.” And I would give him a little bit about what the next stage was. Maybe not. Well, sometimes that night the guy’d come back. He got this whole bunch of dirty cards, see. Or maybe he’d be two or three days or a week, but he’d come back. So I’d take it from there, see. Or maybe he’d be two or three days or a week, but he’d come back. So I’d take it from there, see. I’d write a letter to the company and say, “We’ve got your employees organized, and I officially request that you recognize that they are. If you refuse, I’ll file a petition with the National Labor Relations Board.” So it was just like that. There was a number of plants that was literally organized—and I don’t mean to say that they signed up everybody, but they signed up the overwhelming majority--…in the matter of a few days or a few weeks at the most.

…Back in the early days of the C.I.O., there was a lot of people that couldn’t write, particularly in the big cities among the Polish and other ethnic groups. They put their ‘x’ down and somebody else would sign their name and put their initials. We had a regular routine. “if you can’t sign your name, that’s okay. Just put your ‘x’ down and have your buddy or somebody sign it and put his name under yours, and that’s just as good. The Government of the United States will recognize that…If your hands are a little dirty, just put your thumb print on there, too.” You know, we’d get a big laugh out of that, to relax the people.

…If all the workers live in a community, it’s easier to hold meetings and get them to come to meetings. After all, you say, if a guy wants to come to a union meeting, why don’t he come, even if it’s ten miles away? Well, back in the Depression and so on, a guy had to walk. He didn’t have any car. Believe it or not, transportation was a big issue in getting people to meetings. We used to have to hold meetings around, when he was in a big city, we had to hold meetings around a lot of places, particularly in the city of Chicago. We didn’t hold them all in one place.

…[Sometimes] the trouble with renting a hall was we didn’t have the money to rent a hall. There was time when we had to take up a collection to put out a leaflet, you know. The company would send some stool pigeons to the meeting and so on, but we used to pretty well be able to identify them. After all, these workers, not a very high percentage of them had a high school education or maybe even near it, but they weren’t dumb. They were smart. They sure knew that they were hungry.”

The following excerpts are from an interview with a member of the Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers who later became a member of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union. Here the worker describes some of the conditions in the 1930s that led to the formation of his union. In addition to the issue of wages and benefits, this worker also raises the issue of seniority, just as it was discussed in Interview 1. Seniority, as we have seen, means that the worker with the most time on the job gets consideration with regard to such issues as lay-offs, job bidding, job choice, and the like.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

1. If two workers have equal ability to do a job, on what basis should an employer make a choice?

“When we formed a union in the 1930s, the things we were looking for were better working conditions and better wages. That’s what caused us to organize. We had no fringe benefits. We had no vacation pay.

I remember one time I got laid off, and I had more seniority than my father. But the company would keep him working during the slack periods, and I’d be laid off. It happened throughout the plant. If management liked the color of your hair, you got to work. If you were a good friend of the boss, you could work.

We could’ve been fired at that time just for attending a union meeting, let alone joining a union. Going to a union meeting was sort of sneak-in and sneak-out deal in those days. But it wasn’t too long after, thanks to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, that we got the Wagner Act, which said we could join a union.

Of course, there were unions before my time. But before the Wagner Act, management could fire a workers for joining a union, and they could make it stick.”

This interview is with an industrial worker from the Quad Cities area. His plant was first organized in 1940 by the Farm Equipment Workers. He later joined the United Auto Workers.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

“Well, working conditions were mighty bad. Things weren’t clean—restrooms, machinery, work areas were in bad shape. Lighting was bad. There was no heat. Oh, they had radiators…around the side of the building…but the shop was a hundred and fifty foot wide and a block long. With just a couple of radiators around on the outside, they ain’t going to get it all heated. Working conditions were bad. Housekeeping was real bad in those days. It was terrible working there. That’s one of the first things the union got. We got the union in and the first thing we did was clean the shop up.”

This interview is with a man from Council Bluffs who spent many years representing the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen in Nebraska and western Iowa. In this excerpt, he explains the process of organizing workers in the 1950s.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

Most of the organizing I’ve been involved with happened as a result of people coming to the union office Omaha and saying that they’d like to have their plant organized. [First] we check this out, put out a handbill and hand out application cards—whether they want to be represented or not. When we secure enough of these cards through either these handbills or knocking on doors, or meeting in restaurants or even in taverns, then we petition the Nation [Labor] Relations Board for an election. There is no way to organize people without a personal tough. They must, to be organized, finally believe in somebody from the union. And I think the hardest job today is for a union official to sell himself, because the newspapers are opposed to unions; TV’s opposed to unions.

I feel that if a company is smart and treated their people fair and treated them squarely, unions could never organize anybody. When you tell me that you’re going to allow me to have Good Friday off and then you hire a new foreman and he tells me I can’t have it, and he says, “And if you don’t like it, you can quit!” then he’s going to make me go hunt for a union. Or he tells me I can have a day off for my grandmother’s funeral, and then all at once he says, “No, you can’t!” then I’m going to hunt me a union. I believe these are the things that help unions to be organized. You hate to admit it, but…management is what makes a union look like an angel. I don’t know how to explain it any better than that!”

The following interview excerpt is with the A.F.L.-C.I.O. Central Body leader in Des Moines (A central body is a coalition of unions in a particular city.)

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

1. What role did the central body play in helping local unions organize workers?

2. If you were working in a non-union shop, what impact would it have if one of your relatives who was a union member encouraged you to join? Would it be more effective than a union organizer asking you? Why?

3. Why would a coalition of unions in Des Moines want to help one union organize?

“The Office and Professional Employees Union tried to organize one of the banks here. We went down and take do that group. C.W.A. (Communication Workers of America) was trying to organize Banks Life at one time, so we went down and talked to that group of workers…If a local needed some help…we were willing to come in and do anything that was necessary. Several organizing drives came on and we mailed letters out to all the delegates [to] say, “If you have a sister or a daughter working here, be sure and contact us.” Because we were convinced that everybody knew somebody working at that particular place.”

Public employees have long been treated as second-class citizens. Even their right to join unions and bargain collectively has frequently been challenged. In this interview, a Cedar Falls man who helped form a local union affiliated with the United Packinghouse Workers relates his experiences in attempting to deal with one of Iowa’s state universities. The man interviewed here, and the local union he helped organize, was later affiliated with the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.

Use the following question to focus your reading and be prepared to answer it when you are finished.

1. According to this interview, what is the impact on organizing and bargaining if there is no legislation to support it?

“When we first formed our union, our primary concern was wages. Secondly, it was promotions. If a job opened up, the university either downgraded the job or hired somebody off the street to do that job. There was no promotional opportunity at all. When a carpenter’s job opened up or a pipe fitting job opened up, people who started as custodians might ask to be considered for those jobs, and they never were.

It was hard for public employees to get organized at that time. But we decided we had to get more strength, and the way to do it was to form a union and get organized with our brothers and sisters throughout the state and country. Public employees had very few rights at that time, and they weren’t sure if they had any rights at all. Public employees were governed at that time by an Attorney General’s opinion of 1961, which said that they had a right to join a union, but the employer couldn’t bargain with them. That really discouraged a lot of people, because what was the purpose of joining a union if the employer couldn’t bargain with you? But, if you’re strong enough, they’ll bargain with you whether they can or not! That’s what we were shooting for.

Although we could not negotiate a contract with the university, we accomplished a lot in those years. We got a wage adjustment for forty-five people. They had a sixteen-step salary schedule at that time. We finally got the salary plan down to three steps. We had a starting salary, a six months salary, and a top rate after one year. We also bargained for overtime pay. When we formed the union, we just worked straight time. We didn’t get time-and-a-half or anything like that. One of the first things we got was overtime after forty-two hours. The next year we got it after forty hours like everybody else. One of the other early things we accomplished was that we got a retirement program that was twice as good as the one we had before. We got the same sort of program as the professors had. For every dollar we contributed, the university contributed two dollars. We couldn’t see why the professors were any better than we were. They were public employees just the same as we were.”

The following interview was with the president of AFSCME Council 61, a statewide organization.

Prior to 1974 there was no law for collective bargaining in this state. There was a ‘meet and confer’ piece but they had no ability to bargain wages or working conditions unless the employer was willing to agree.

1) Mandatory subject of bargaining. “Mandatory” subject of bargaining is an item that is required and has to be bargained by the employer and the union. If the union is not happy with management’s final position after mediation, mandatory subjects of bargaining are the only subjects of bargaining that can go to an arbitrator for final resolve.

2) Permissive subject of bargaining. “Permissive” subject of bargaining is a subject that the employer and the union both agree to talk about that is not illegal. Permissive subjects cannot go to the arbitrator.

Permissive subjects of bargaining include reasonable work rules, discipline and discharge, promotions, the right to have the union put items on bulletin boards, putting a management’s rights clause in the contract, a no strike/no lockout clause, a zipper clause and savings clause are all permissive.

3) Final offer arbitration. Our arbitration procedure is different from most, and I’ll talk on that in a second. But on a mandatory subject of bargaining going to arbitration, we have what is called “final offer” arbitration…it’s not that way in other states. In interest arbitration, we make a final position, the employer makes a final position, and then each of us goes to the arbitrator and tries to persuade the arbitrator to take our position. The arbitrator has no flexibility in mixing the award up. The arbitrator can award item by item either to the union or to management. One item would be wages – we want 5% and the employer wants 0%…then the arbitrator makes the decision, 5% or nothing. He can’t go 2 ½%.

We went to the bargaining table in 1977. We soon found out that the collective bargaining law in Iowa had anumber of voids that created a number of problems for us. The major problem being that not everything you enjoy on the work site can be bargained for collectively.

So we found that through the bargaining process the law needed to be shored up. There needed to be pieces of the law that protected the employees better. Since 1977, in conjunction with the Iowa Federation of Labor and other coalitions, we here at AFSCME have been trying to promote a broader “scope of bargaining.”

On an overall basis, the law that we have in this state has worked well for both labor and management. There are some things that could be improved, but we’ve learned how to use the system and we’ll move forward from there. If we had the opportunity to rewrite the legislation at this point in time, there would only be maybe three areas that we would put in as mandatory subjects – those being discipline and discharge, promotions and work rules, and things like that. As far as everything else goes, we’ve got a pretty decent law.

“Bargaining” is a term that describes discussion and negotiations between two parties. In the case of union-management bargaining, it is called “collective” because it involves persons acting together in a group (most obviously on the union side). It is “bargaining” because it involves give and take. Collective negotiations are the way in which groups agree upon and establish some disputed point. Collective negotiations may involve landlords and tenants. They may involve groups of farmers and the purchasers of farm products. When collective negotiations involve groups of employees and an employer or employers, the disputed points ordinarily concern wages, hours, conditions of labor or fringe benefits—or some combination of these.

Collective bargaining here refers to the process by which workers and their union representatives sit down with employer representatives to negotiate agreements covering wages, hours, and conditions of employment. The process, which was first legalized by the Wagner Act in 1935, has been extremely successful. Over 98% of all labor agreements in the United States are settled without work stoppages.

The collective bargaining process involves not only the negotiation of a contract, but also the relationship between workers and their employers during the contract. Often disputes arise as to the exact meaning of a contract. The resolution of these disputes is collective bargaining.

The Association of Computer Chip Workers, consisting of 2,500 union members who are engaged in some aspect of the computer chip industry, has designated four individuals to act as chief bargainers and representatives. The other side consists of the Electronic Manufacturers Association, which has also appointed four persons to represent them in negotiations. These negotiations follow a three-year period in which a contract which had been in force, is about to be renegotiated.

The A.C.C.W. representatives are scheduled to meet for an unspecified length of time with those of the E.M.A. As much as possible, the negotiations are done in privacy, although of course, there is intense interest by the union, by the stockowners in E.M.A., by the media—and sometimes by the public. There is an agenda consisting of 16 items, ranging all the way from a proposed wage increase to retirement benefits. The A.C.C.W. representatives will bring to the table the proposals (often called “demands”) agreed upon by a majority of union members. These same demands will be countered by the E.M.A. bargainers who will put a counteroffer on the table.

The bargaining that takes place involves a series of offers, counteroffers, and discussions with a great deal of information presented by both sides. Both sides wish to persuade each other and will provide literally reams of data on everything from the company’s overall profit picture to extrapolations about inflation next year. In all likelihood, the bargaining process will terminate successfully. It is unlikely that each side will get exactly what it wants, but each will agree sufficiently to justify the signing of a contract. The contract is binding, that is, it requires both sides to strictly observe all agreed-upon provisions.

If the bargaining procedure is not successful, the union representatives will return to an open meeting of many, if not most, union members. Probably one of the four bargainers will be designated to speak and will report on the day’s or week’s unsuccessful negotiations. The union members will have to make a decision: to accept or reject the contract offers given by the E.M.A. They may simply accept the company’s last offer in the conviction that it is the best that can be expected.

But if they do not accept the company’s last offer, they may send their bargainers back to the table with a mandate to continue making certain demands. Or they may decide that it is times to strike, i.e., to withhold their services for a period of time, presumably until their demands are met.

If the management representatives give in to the union, then the strike is successful from the union’s viewpoint. If management—or the boards and stockholders from whom they take orders—refuse to make concessions, and the union ends its strike, then we will say that management won and the union lost. But in the vast majority of cases, both sides “win”—they each gain something in negotiations without a costly strike.

Although quite simplified, this description paints a broad picture of what happens in collective bargaining. When the procedure breaks down temporarily, you may be certain that TV, radio, and the newspapers will take note of it, for a strike is inherently more dramatic and readable than a run of the mill account of a successful negotiation. Unfortunately, over the years, the public has received a fairly distorted picture, believing instead that collective negotiations are simply preludes to strikes. They are not.

There are a good many variations on the model we sketched above. A group of employees joined together in a trade union may bargain with a single employer. Unionized workers in a factory will sit down to bargain with management. A local group of employers may bargain with one or more groups of employees, as when building contractors in a given city bargain with unionized building trades, such as Carpenters, Bricklayers, Pipefitters, etc. a number of employers in a region may bargain with workers in a single craft, as when trucking companies bargain with over-the-road drivers who are represented by the Teamsters Union. In the model above, a union—consisting of all those in a particular industry—bargains with another group who belong to a manufacturer’s organization.

When workers are joined together in unions, the conditions of employment established through collective bargaining are ordinarily formalized in collective bargaining agreements. These agreements are commonly called “contracts,” “labor agreements,” or “union contracts.” Contracts may be brief or may extend for hundreds of pages. The trend is for contracts to cover more and therefore to get larger. Ordinarily they cover a wide range of subjects, the most obvious being wages and hours. They have begun to cover health and safety conditions in the workplace as the public becomes increasingly aware of workplace dangers. They also cover what are called “fringe benefits,” non-wage items which include health insurance and hospital benefits, dental provisions, and in recent years, even legal fees.

Collective bargaining also involves the settling of disputes during the lifetime of an agreement. Sometimes questions arise as to the exact meaning of the language in an agreement. Did a supervisor allow “reasonable” time for a restroom break? Was a worker “negligent” in not reporting a departure from procedure? Problems of this sort may sometimes be handled informally through discussions on the shopfloor or on the job site. On other occasions, a more formal, careful, and extended procedure may be employed. These may involve formal arbitration in which a neutral outsider comes in and decides the issue.

It should be kept in mind that roughly 20 percent of the workers in the United States are involved in the collective bargaining process. Many workers are not represented by unions. In such cases, employers may arbitrarily discharge whomever they wish for whatever reason they wish unless such reason is prohibited by law (for example, race is not a valid reason to fire someone because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964). They may grant wage increases, if they are so disposed. Or they may take them away. The point is that when workers do not have unions to protect them, employers may make unilateral decisions. That is, they need not confer with workers. They may simply make whatever decision they feel is in their best interests without workers. They may simply make whatever decision they feel is in their best interests without concern for worker feelings or rights. Individual employees without union protection have little recourse but to obey the employer’s dictates or quit and seek employment elsewhere.

Collective bargaining serves both the employee and the employer. It forces management to set long-term strategies regarding their employees and employment practices. It tends to require management to become aware of the day-to-day problems in the operation of the business or industry. Collective bargaining establishes a “common law of the workplace” in which the actions of management are subject to the oversight, i.e., review, of employees through their unions. Employees under union protection no longer have to “like it or lump it,” that is, smile and accept employer dictates or quit their job and try to find another.

Collective bargaining agreements serve as a means of establishing industrial order. In the United States, over 98 percent of all labor agreements are reached without strikes or work stoppages. Union agreements tend to forestall the development of either despotism or anarchy in the workplace.

In short, there appear to be three choices. The first—which took place in the 19^th century, before unions were a significant factor—is to allow employers to make all decisions concerning workplace rules, wages, or conditions or employment. The second—which exists in many authoritarian societies—is to allow government to make all decisions. The third is the democratic alternative: permit and encourage the widest possible collective bargaining, under the assumption that uncoerced, give-and-take bargaining will permit workers and employers to resolve the majority of differences which inevitably arise.

The scope of collective bargaining agreements has changed markedly over the years. Two examples of the changes in agreements are printed below.

The first agreement dates from July, 1917. It was reached between an electrical contractor and a Dubuque local of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Effective on 7/18/17 each employee of the Schmid-Lowe Electric Co. is to work under the following rules and conditions which have been agreed to between the Company and Local Union 407, I.B.E.W.

The second example is merely the table of contents of an agreement drawn up in 1970 between a local lodge of the International Association of Machinists and a firm manufacturing electrical equipment located in Burlington.

3. How many items in the 1917 contract appear to be in the 1970 contract? How many in the 1970 contract are not mentioned in the 1917 contract?

4. On the basis of your comparison, reach and defend some conclusion or conclusions about the two contracts.

The following excerpt is from an interview with a member of the Teamsters Union from Mason City who expresses a fairly common view of union goals.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

2. The speaker wants employers to “share those dollars with us in a manner that’s fair so all of us can live decently.” What do you suppose the interviewee means by “fair” and “decently?” Pretend you are the employer the speaker is talking to. How would you respond to these statements?

3. There is an implication here that employees who are helping to produce wealth should therefore be able to negotiate over what is a “fair share” of that wealth. Do you agree with it?

“When I negotiate a contact with employers, I tell them, ‘Look, fellows, us laboring men aren’t organizing unions. You guys are. You employers are the people who are organizing labor unions through your insatiable greed. If you adopt the philosophy that every man who works in your company is your partner, then we will be working together. We are going to produce ‘x’ number of dollars every day that we work, and we want you to share those dollars with us in a manner that’s fair, so all us can live decently. In other words, please redistribute the profits of industry in such a way that each of us can live a decent life.’

I am strictly in favor of private enterprise. I want to work for my employer, and I want to make him a dollar, and then I want him to give me a decent share of that dollar.

As I once said to an employer, ‘We, you and me and that driver, are partners. We are like a team pulling a wagon down the road of life. We are producing wealth. Now, please share it with us.’”

In the ‘30s and ‘40s, many of the first contracts were simple one and two-page agreements that recognized the union as the bargaining representative and perhaps outlined wage rates. There were few or no provisions for dispute resolution under the contract.

A United Auto Workers member from Waterloo recalls the first agreement in 1943. “We had a big committee, and they had a long battle to get that first contract negotiated. It wasn’t very thick. It was quite small.”

A miner from Madrid recalls: “You get so much more now. The only thing we got in those days was just kind of safety protection. Well, we did get wage protection.”

A woman from Des Moines who was a member of the National Federation of Telephone Workers (later to become Communications Workers of America) recalls their first contract. “When I first started in 1941, we did not have hours according to seniority, but it was a short time later, maybe 1942, when they came up with schedules that you selected on the basis of seniority. The union, the National Federation of Telephone Workers, were just getting started, band there were very few things contained in that 1941 agreement. One of them was not choice of hours according to seniority.”

Contrast the descriptions above with that of a Machinist from Waterloo who describes only the changes his union wanted to make to their contract during the 1970s.

“So we went in and we prepared. We put together all of our demands in a book and we called this a “bargaining book.” When we went into negotiations, we gave the company copies of [this bargaining book]. We included the contract clause we wanted changed. We also included…our reasons [for each change] in the columns. It was 120 pages.

We went in with 120 pages of typewritten demands. In everything we proposed we had our reasons…We weren’t just looking. One of the things we were going for was employee rights. Up to this time, we didn’t have many transfer rights or job-bidding rights. [Before this contract] there are very few rights for the employees.”

The following excerpt is from a Machinist union leader from Sioux City. In his interview he answers the question, “Are unions really necessary today?” He also suggests new items that are just now being negotiated. He argues that his job as a union leader has changed significantly in the last 20 or 30 years.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

3. Many have argued that unions have outlived their original purpose. Unions are, it is sometimes said, no longer necessary in order to ensure a better life for workers. What would this worker say in response?

4. It appears that this worker is making a point about fairness. What point is he making?

“Are unions really necessary? The answer to that is definitely yes. I think people need to be represented even more now than they did back then. There were glaringly unjust deeds back then. Today we have the same thing going on. I experience them every day. People walk in this office that have been summarily discharged because the boss didn’t like them. We are changing with the times where we’re negotiating new things in our contracts all the time, which our grandfathers never would’ve thought of—job enrichment, job bidding, procedures for advancement. So it’s not just the brown-noses going to get to be tool and die makers, that is the person that has actually been there the longest and has learned the most. We’re fulfilling needs now that never existed, or, if they did exist, nobody every addressed them 20 or 30 years ago…I’ve now branched out to where we represent our people and other people in all different arenas. We provide people representation, not only in the plant, but also outside with insurance companies, which is a major hassle. Our members save an awful lot of money each year from us going to bat on insurance claims and getting them processed properly and disputed claims paid. We represent people before the Job Service, which has become one of our specialties, workers’ compensation, disability, and Social Security.

We do an awful lot of work that would maybe fall in the purview of a social worker or something. People come to us when they’re in trouble and when they got problems. Although we’re laymen, we send them on to the agencies that can help, or sometimes they simply want somebody to listen and somebody to share their problem with.”

Bargaining during a contract was sometimes necessary because problems arose that had not been covered by the contract. At one time, unions used the “wildcat strike” as a weapon to force management to take care of these grievances. A wildcat strike is one which occurs during the term of a contract. It is not a strike held at the time a contract is negotiated to help emphasize worker demands. The purpose of a wildcat strike is to protest a perceived problem. A grievance is an allegation or complaint by a worker that he or she is not being treated according to the terms of the contract.

Before wildcat strikes were effectively outlawed, they were considered an effective weapon of organized workers. Indeed, they were seen as the only effective weapon workers had to win their grievances. However, managers and owners strongly opposed them because they disrupted production schedules and involved a lot of lost time.”

The following excepts describe actions taken by workers during the period of early contract formation, in the 1930s. the first excerpt is from a Waterloo member of the United Auto Workers. The second is from a Packinghouse Worker in Waterloo.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

1. The first interviewee appears to be saying that workers would produce 100 percent of the established quota but that company owners actually planned for a 130 percent quota. Does this description make sense to you? If not, what seems to be a little strange?

2. The speaker is planning what is called a “slow-down.” What is the objective of this particular strategy?

3. Even though there is no discussion of “sit-down,” can you figure out what it is? Can you also figure out the objective of a sit-down strategy?

4. What is the point of an entire plant of unionized workers taking a job action over the problem of one worker?

“We had a hard time getting management to deal with us. During this process, we had a lot of hell-raising in the plant. Certain guys stuck their necks out. They’d get in arguments with the foreman. We’d shoot some sit-downs and slow-downs, and what have you. We’d just [barely] make the piece rate. The company would be geared up for us to make 130 percent. And then we’d start making 100 percent. They couldn’t fire us because we were making 100 percent. But it would sure mess up their who production schedule…”

“We had a lot of problems. The company would fire a guy over in one department of the packinghouse and it wasn’t really justified. We knew what kind of answer we were going to get from the company. We knew the guy that got fired was going to be out of work and hungry until we got the problem settle. So we’d say, ‘Let’s go! We’re going to pull the pin at ten o’clock.’ And we’d all walk out at ten o’clock.”

The next interview is from a United Food and Commercial Worker representative from Cedar Rapids.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

3. The interviewee, while he seems to appreciate the effectiveness of wildcat strikes, does not regret their ending. What legally ended wildcat strikes? What replaced them?

“Grievances involving job loads probably caused the most work stoppages. The union would say that we needed ‘x’ number of people on a job or the chain at a certain speed. The company, by virtue of their industrial engineers, were arriving at job loads by using time study, a sophisticated procedure. We opposed those. We said, ‘Ain’t no time study in this plant! How can a guy with a stopwatch determine what a job load is? We’re the ones who are the best equipped to do that. We’re on the job. We know when we’re performing to our physical capacities. There’s no guy with a stopwatch going to stand there and tell us how hard to work!’

Instead of arguing a grievance, we’d say, ‘Okay, we’ll just shut ‘er down!’ Many things were accomplished by the shutdowns. Knife sharpening time was not [gained] by negotiations. It was done by people taking their knives and slamming them on the stall tables, and saying, ‘We got to have knife sharpening time!’ There wasn’t any going in an reasoning with management.

The wildcat strikes used to be taken for granted. You could shut the plant down or shut the department down. Then we began to get sued under Taft-Hartley. You couldn’t get away with it anymore. If you pulled a wildcat or a stoppage in a department, the company would say, ‘Okay, you steward and you, you’re fired! You’re violating the law. Wildcats are no longer legal.’ The day of the wildcat was over. You couldn’t settle problems with management by force like you could in the early ‘30s and in the ‘40s…

Later, in some of our grievance meetings, it seemed we were able to begin to accomplish more. It took time to sit and argue. We’d argue all day. Rather than walk in and demand and walk out, we spent some time to discuss the problem. We were getting more results, and the people were beginning to see more results from the grievance meetings.

In the following interview, a business agent of the Machinist Union in Dubuque describes a wildcat strike in which he was involved. Members of the Machinists as well as the Molders Unions are employed in the same plant in this case.

An increasingly important negotiating item is the set of rules, regulations, and procedures that govern employees. Rules, for instance, may cover the amount of time specified for a coffee break, restroom breaks, procedures for reporting absences, procedures for reporting accidents, and the like.

We have no information about the particular attendance and absentee rule that created the conflict between the Machinists and Molders and the company management in 1972. We do, however, know that feelings must have run high and that the leadership became very militant.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

1. Even though you have no information, can you imagine what particular management rule change prompted the very strong union reaction? If you were in the same situation back in 1972, how might you have responded?

2. Compare the difference in the effectiveness of this walkout and that described in the previous interview.

3. What do you suppose had changed during the period of time between the two walkouts?

“In about 1972, the company instituted a new set of shop rules, and a new absentee and attendance program. We had a meeting with the company and tried to negotiate over the new rules and attendance program. Some of the leadership in the union didn’t like what went on at the meeting. The shop committee at the plant was composed of three people from the Machinists and two from the Molders. The company took a very hard-line stand, and some of the leadership in the two unions decided that they were going to be out in front of the plant the next day.

We had quite a problem over that wildcat. It cost the Machinists and Molders a bundle of money. The company took after us right away. The company filed N.L.R.B. charges against us and filed a lawsuit for lost production hours. The lawsuit was for something like $85,000 or $90,000 for three or four days of lost production.

We ended up paying the company’s attorney fees, and the company dropped all legal charges with the N.L.R.B. and with the court. It cost the local lodge about $1,000 for the Machinists, and the Molders paid about $1,000.”

The word “politics” in our society often has a negative connotation. The fact is that in our society there are a very large number of groups—which our Founding Fathers recognized and called “factions”—and that much of the time the goals and purposes of these “factions” conflict with each other.

What characterizes our society, as it does a few others throughout the world, is that we are pluralistic. There are a great many different ideologies, races, and religions, geographical areas, occupations, ethnic groups, political philosophies, and economic interests. Our Founding Fathers clearly recognized this fact for they provided a political system to cope with such extreme differences. This political system is characterized by maximum opportunity for individuals in groups to realize their particular goals by possessing freedom to work in the political arena—as long as certain ground rules are followed. There are 200 years of conflict and competition in our country, in which, at any given time, individuals and groups in our society are struggling against other individuals and groups.

Organized labor works in the political arena, just as do many other groups. However, they are not part of the two major political parties. Over the years, organized labor has built its own national political organization independent of the two major parties. It works with and within the parties, but is not a part of them.

The traditional rose of labor in politics is to reward its friends and punish its enemies. To do this, labor attempts to educate rank-and-file members of the union and of the public at large about campaign issues. Labor assists friendly candidates through campaign contributions. Labor mobilizes and registers voters in the hopes that they will support candidates and issues which labor favors.

Unions also work to inform and educate elected officials about issues important to labor. Unions also attempt to arouse their members to write letters and otherwise contact lawmakers to express their positions on issues and on labor’s political agendas. Labor seeks to expand democracy.

In Iowa, the labor movement has worked long and hard to build a better society. In the early years of the 20^th century, the Iowa Federation of Labor fought for child labor laws and workers’ compensation. The former was designed to make certain that children would not perform backbreaking, dangerous, and unsanitary work 12 hours a day. The latter was designed to guarantee that workers injured on the job would not simply be cast off into a human discard pile to live like crippled beggars. Prison reform was espoused in order to eliminate a literally captive pool of workers who could be legally forced to toil for a few cents an hour without any protection from exploitation or dirty and hazardous workplaces. Factory inspection was high on labor’s political agenda, and still is, for often the workplace was, and still is, a dangerous, ugly, and depressing place. Labor organizations, such as the Iowa Federation of Labor, have helped pass legislation expanding workers’ compensation and improving unemployment benefits. Labor has also urged open-meeting or “sunshine” laws to prevent decisions that are legally required to be public, from being made irresponsibly in secret by a few.

In Iowa, as throughout the nation, organized labor claims a broad mandate. Organized labor speaks for the working people and their families as a whole—whether they are organized or unorganized, retired workers or future workers, employed or unemployed. The trade union movement in the United States is in the vanguard in the fight for human dignity.

A lobbyist for the Federation talks about coalition building with “a whole bunch of folks.”

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

2. As the Federation lobbyist sees it, what are the advantages of working with a coalition of people? Why would the labor movement want to be involved in a coalition?

3. What do you think might be an issue that a group of “religious folks” and organized labor would wish to work together on?

“We try to work with all sorts of people. For example, there is a group of folks who are involved in [many different kinds of] social issues. This includes…religious folks and every other kind…We meet each Friday morning at 8:30 in the Legislature and we spend an hour just going over such issues as Aid to Families with Dependent Children. We are concerned about unemployment. And we’re concerned about jobs. Health care concerns us. These issues are people issues. There’s a whole coalition concerned about [them] and the labor movement is part of that.

We in the labor movement believe we ought to work together to solve some of these problems. The folks we work with [who are not part of organized labor] sometimes help us out with strictly labor issues. We can go down and talk to them and say, “Hey, give us a little hand.” Sometimes that’s about all we need to say. They’ll help us. Maybe they’ll know a legislator who is pretty good on social issues, but may not be too worried about workers’ compensation or unemployment compensation. Maybe [these folks] can talk with that legislator, while that same person won’t give us in the labor movement the time of day. The folks we work with give us a little extra help and we’ve been able to help them on certain issues they are concerned with. We try to work together.”

A woman from Sioux City describes the role unions play in local elections. The AFL-CIO at the city, state or national level has the responsibility to evaluate candidates for office and then to endorse and help pro-worker candidates.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

1. Why would the labor group spend all this time and effort to get their members out to vote? (Hint: Find out what percentage of eligible Americans vote in elections.)

“The greatest asset the central body has is the AFL-CIO retirees’ group. Those people are invaluable. They do the detail work, the nuts and bolts work. They do the driving. They also knock on doors. When they reach the age when they can’t do those sorts of things, they can still use the telephone. They are also the greatest group of people in the world. The local unions also furnish us so many of their members, and the locals pay those people their regular wages for the time they lost from work while working for us. This year we had over a hundred people from the unions on the streets knocking on doors. Labor took the responsibility for working certain precincts. These were predominantly the heavy labor precincts, the working-class precincts. The people from the unions were paid only to knock on union members’ doors. We had regular Democrats on the streets who volunteered to knock on the doors of registered Democrats. The union people caught every union person, regardless of party affiliation, in Sioux City on election day. If they didn’t actually catch everyone, they at least attempted to catch them. Every union person’s door was either knocked on three times. Or the house was telephoned. We tried to reach them all.”

A woman Machinist member from Burlington describes the role of the A. Philip Randolph Institute which is a support group to the AFL-CIO and is primarily concerned with getting blacks involved in the political process.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

1. How does the role of the union in the political process differ in this interview from the previous interview?

2. You probably would not like to believe that after working many years you could lose your job and slide into poverty. But could this happen? Explain.

3. Can you find out what federal-state program is available to prevent you from slipping into poverty if you should lose your job?

“The main things we are concerned with are voter registration, voter education, and get-out-the-vote. We want to inform the minorities about issues that are important to them and other working people. Educating them in politics is going to help the poor people who are not as fortunate as some [others] in our society. We want to give the poor and the minorities an opportunity to improve their lives. We want to keep them in contact with union people. It doesn’t matter how much they make on a job now, they can lose that job tomorrow, just like any of us…And they might have to come back to the ranks of the poor again. The very poor need to be educated on how to better themselves through politics. They need to know which way to vote and how important it is to vote. They need to be able to ask and talk and lobby with elected officials or persons running for office. This is what we are doing. This is what the A. Philip Randolph Institute is all about.”

A United Food and Commercial Workers member from Waterloo who served as president of his local union and as an Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, vice-president describes the role of the Federation.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

1. If you were a union member and received a mailing from the Federation would it influence your decision about which candidate to support? Why or why not?

2. Consider the term “enough people to make a difference.” How many persons in an election are enough to make a difference?

“The Iowa Federation of Labor is principally the political arm of the AFL-CIO labor movement in the state of Iowa. It coordinates political activities. Through contributions of per capita tax3 from affiliated unions, it does mailings. It provides information regarding candidates and the candidates’ voting records. It leads extensive registration drives prior to elections and directs get-out-the-vote drives.

The Iowa Federation of Labor also serves as the lobbying arm of the AFL-CIO unions in the state of Iowa. [It] puts people out in the streets on election day and tries to get our message to enough people to make a difference.”

A United Food and Commercial Workers member from Sioux City who had served for over twenty years as an officer of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, responds to the question, “What has the Iowa Federation of Labor done that it is proud of?”

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

1. Assume that one of organized labor’s opponents reads this interview. Explain what his reaction would likely be.

2. In what ways does this interview illustrate the discussion of tactics of organized labor?

“Oh, I think we have to be proud of our role. We helped get a lot of good people in power in the General Assembly in the ‘70s. We have to be proud of the job we did in 1982 in helping them take control of the General Assembly. We had to be proud when we had people like John Culver and Dick Clark in the United States Senate. Iowa probably had the two most liberal senators in the history of this country out of our so-called “conservative” state. We had a good Congressional delegation at that time, too. This all resulted in more progressive programs.

The Iowa Federation of Labor played a big role in all those elections we won. There’s no question about it. Historically, we went from knowing that less than half of our membership was eligible to vote [in an election] to now when over 80 percent of our members are eligible. We still haven’t done as good a job of motivating them to go to vote on election day as we should have, but I think that will get better as people understand the importance of voting.

No question about it, whether it’s unemployment compensation or workers’ compensation, most people say Iowa has about the best laws of any state in the country. The labor movement did that. I think the State Federation of Labor did it. It wasn’t done overnight.”

A woman from Cedar Rapids who is president of her local International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

1. Assume that you wish to discover if a given candidates will “work in the best interests of our people,” that is, “organized labor.” Just what questions would you ask this candidate?

2. This interview discusses issues that are important to workers, such as unemployment. What relationship is there between unemployment and which candidates do an do not get elected?

“it is due to politics that trade unions were first allowed legal existence. That came through laws. So we have to constantly monitor those laws and look to the people who are favorable to labor to make sure that we keep what we’ve already gained. If we find candidates who are not going to work in the best interests of our people, we then do whatever we can to find and work for candidates who will be sympathetic to the issues that affect working people. We want to work for somebody who is going to go out and work for full employment so people can have meaningful jobs. People work all their lives and try to raise families and have nice places to live. So we want somebody in office who is going to protect what the working people have earned. We don’t want somebody in office who is going to protect what the working people have earned. We don’t want somebody in office who’ll try to take things away from the working people. We don’t want candidates who’ll cause unemployment and put working people out on the streets.

We need to get our people registered and encourage them to vote on election day. There have been times when we’ve had probably better than twenty people taking off work on election day to work the precincts and doing whatever is necessary to help elect good candidates. They drive to people’s houses, monitor the pools, knock on doors. We have a whole lot of people who are very politically minded. That’s good.”

The Voter Identification Program Director of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, describes the labor movement’s effort to make it easier for people to register to vote.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

1. Why are unions concerned about making it easier for people to register to vote?

2. Why do you think that some groups would be opposed to making it easier to register and to vote? In your judgement, whom do such groups represent?

“The labor movement has really been in the forefront for broadening and widening the ability of people to register to vote and also in getting them out to vote. When I first became involved in the trade union movement, the only place a person could register was in the County Auditor’s office in the court house. Court houses are only open from eight to five on weekdays and are seldom open on Saturdays. People had to take time off from work to go and register. And a person had to be a resident of the state for one year, the county for thirty days, and the precinct for ten days before he/she could vote.

At one time, the labor movement fought hard for mobile registration stations that could be set up at places convenient for people.

Then the unions worked hard for postcard registration. The County Auditors fought us on that issue, and so did the County Supervisors and other county officials. After the law was finally passed, it made a great deal of difference in the number of people that registered.”

One of the great victories for democracy in Iowa was the reapportionment of the Legislature on the basis of “one person, one vote.” From the 1950s into the 1970s, the Iowa labor movement fought for a fair apportionment of the Legislature. Battles raged in the courts and in the General Assembly. In 1972, the Iowa Supreme Court implemented a reapportionment plan that apportioned the General Assembly on the basis on “one person, one vote.” An Iowa woman who is an ardent trade unionist and a women’s activist explains the role of the labor movement in securing a fair apportionment of the Iowa Legislature.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepare to answer them when you are finished.

1. Why would the labor movement be concerned whether or not small rural counties were over-represented in the Iowa Legislature? (Remember that 80-90 percent of Iowa’s workers live in or near the 15-16 largest cities.)

2. In a representative government such as ours, when one group wins, another one loses.

“The Iowa labor movement worked long and hard for a fair apportionment of the Legislature. In the early 1960s, the Legislature was apportioned [such] that most counties had one House member, with a few of the larger counties having two members in the House. And in the Senate, most counties were combined so the Senate was half as large as the House. We didn’t think it was fair that a small county, like Adams County, which had a population of about 5,000 inhabitants, would have the same representation in the Legislature as Polk County, or some other large county. We thought there should be one legislator for a given number of people. We wanted people counted as a basis of apportionment, not cows or acres.

So the labor movement of Iowa went on a campaign to change the system used to apportion the Legislature. [The officers and staff of the Iowa Federation of Labor] went to every local union in the state. We visited everyone. We visited political clubs and town councils. We did Lions and Eagles, Elks and Moose, and service organizations of all kinds. We had a series of charts that showed the malapportionment of the Legislature. We had some literature that compared the county we were in with the smallest counties. Usually we used Adams or Adair because they’re the two smaller counties in the state. We just explained to people that they didn’t have their fair vote. Then the Iowa Federation of Labor, along with the League of Women Voters and a couple of other groups, took the issue to Federal court. The Federal court finally sent the problem back to the Legislature and said, ‘you must reapportion appropriately.’ The Legislature finally acted.”

Union members recognize they have an obligation to the community in which they live. For this reason, trade union members not only serve their own members, they also invest time and money sponsoring improvement in community life. The three ways in which labor sponsors community activities are: assisting social service and charitable organizations; providing consumer information and services; and operating programs that help unemployed workers find jobs.

Much of the community service program is coordinated by city central bodies and the community services representative. This person is a union member who works for the United Way. The goals of the program are to assist workers and their families when they need help. The representatives may, for example, assist unemployed workers in getting their benefits; assist in running food banks; and help a family get assistance for a handicapped child.

Union members labor long hours to raise money for such worthy causes as the United Way. Labor union members provide over 30% of the contributions United Way receives. Union members freely contribute tens of thousands of dollars and untold hours of labor in constructing and maintaining facilities for handicapped children, such as Camp Sunnyside near Des Moines.

There is no mystery about why union members do these things: a stronger, healthier, more prosperous and caring community is a good environment for everyone.

In this first interview, a member of the United Auto Workers from Waterloo briefly recounts some of the ways in which unions have helped to create a better society.

Use the following questions to focus you reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

1. This worker feels unions benefited the entire country when they worked for laws excluding children from factories. But is it not also a fact that unions were doing themselves a big favor by making sure that children did not compete with them on the labor market? How would you assess this argument?

2. Do you really believe this worker when he says that there are people who would like to return us to the “good old days” when there was an enormous gap between rich and poor? Isn’t this worker exaggerating?

3. How can unions take responsibility for making our country more prosperous, better able to afford electricity and indoor bathrooms?

“Social Security is a result of the labor movement in this country. Our educational system is a beneficiary of the labor movement because we insisted that education be made available for all kids. [Unions] took the kids out of the shops. The child labor laws were an outgrowth of the labor movement.

Without the labor movement negotiating for better wages and working conditions…two-thirds of the people…wouldn’t have all the conveniences they’ve got now. They wouldn’t have bathrooms in their homes, electricity…or refrigerators…

The American people are much healthier now than when I was a kid. Our unions cleaned up these plants [that is, those that sweated labor from children and were dirty, ugly, unsanitary and unsafe workplaces.] They’ve cleaned up the mills and the garment shops.

Food stamps are a result of the labor movement demanding that hungry people be fed. Because of the labor movement, working people can afford health insurance, life insurance, home insurance. My dad didn’t even know what the word “insurance” meant. There wasn’t such a thing for the poor farmer or working man when de died in the early ‘30s.

Some people think that…working people have too much. They don’t want us to [have a living standard even close] to the rich. They want a gap like there is in Mexico or the Philippines. They want the very rich and the very poor. And if they can put us back [to the old days], they’ll do it.”

In the following excerpts, a Community Services Representative describes his work.

1. What does “blue years” mean? What role does the representative play in dealing with problems?

3. Why would the community services people conduct a program explaining the power structure of a community? Why would it be important to understand the power structure?

Especially during those blue years that continued with the lay-offs and the closings, we helped coordinate filling out unemployment insurance forms, manned food distribution sites with volunteers, tried to help people hold things together, and worked very much with the agencies. Because we had, like the Director of Family Service Agency told me, a 40% increase in domestic violence cases since the recession hit. Teen suicides were up dramatically, that kind of thing. We tried to educate our people of what to expect, you know, when they lost work. Here’s what’s going to happen. It’s going to take this long, and you’re never, in the foreseeable future, going to find something that pays you what you made here. You’ve got to adjust yourself to that fact. It’s hard. If I’m worth $18.00 an hour here, today, why aren’t I worth $18.00 an hour tomorrow? I’m still me.

The Union Counselor Program is really the main stay of the community services effort of the AFL-CIO. This is a program where you take rank and file out of the plant, stewards, officers, whoever wants to learn, and run them through an eight to ten-week school on what kind of human services are available; what the eligibility requirements to get those are; how you go about securing them, so that they can become in-house referral agents to help their members in need. A Lot of people won’t pick up the phone and call Family Service Agency and say, “I’m thinking about killing myself.” But, you know, they will talk to a former co-worker or union steward, and say, “Man, I didn’t think things could ever get this bad.” Alright, if they have knowledge of what resources are there to be used, they can plug people into that. From that side. From in-house. That can still keep beating the drum at the policy making level, even. These are the unmet needs that we weren’t dealing with.

It’s been the main stay and another effort made, we call it the Community Leadership Program. Maybe you’ve heard of some communities where the Chamber of Commerce, usually in cooperation with the Junior League, will put on a community leadership thing. Take tomorrows leaders, and familiarize them with the community. Well, the Department of Community Services had our own leadership program, again, taking rank-and-filers, or stewards, officers, whoever would come; and teaching them about the power structure in their community.

Hunger in America is a baffling and serious problem. Why, many ask, should the most wealthy and powerful nation in the world permit anyone to go hungry? What changes in public policy we must make is being debated. However, until there is a permanent solution to the problem of hunger, individuals and groups will probably have to volunteer their time and funds.

This interview is with a Waterloo factor worker who is a member of the United Auto Workers. He tells how he and several of his fellow workers have labored in their local unions to fight hunger in the Waterloo area.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

1. How many different kinds of persons or groups in the community became involved in this cooperative effort to use locally raised vegetables to feed the poor?

2. What do you know about the reference to the “bureaucratic” procedures that are avoided by this cooperative group?

“I’ve always been interested in work with community services. For a long time, I’ve been a member of the Community Services Committee of Local 838. Our Community Services Committee was originally set up to help during strikes, but it has expanded since then. We sit on virtually all the boards of directors of organizations within the community that work with community services. We also still work during strikes, and we help laid-off people and do just a multitude of things.

In the last part of 1977, we started our Brown Bag Committee. The Brown Bag Committee actually started outside of organized labor. A bunch of us got talking one day about all the fruits and vegetables we saw rotting in the big gardens around the neighborhood. So we checked out the situation and found that anyone who raised a garden normally produced more than they could use, and a lot of it spoiled because all the neighbors had gardens. But there are elderly persons and handicapped people who couldn’t raise gardens. So the idea came to us to set up a little clearinghouse in a station wagon. People could bring fruits and vegetables to us, and we’d distribute them locally in the neighborhood. We soon outgrew our station wage, so we took the idea to the Community Services Committee of Local 838. The committee liked the idea, and it was dropped right back on my lap. They said, ‘It’s yours. Take it and run.’

After the local union got involved with the Brown Bad idea, we got quite a bit of media coverage, and it spread from there. We have people from all walks of live come through the union hall bringing in food to donate. We have people from the rank-and-file, and union officers, and even high-ranking company officials. We have people come in off the street with absolutely no affiliation with John Deere or with organized labor.

The Brown Bad program is probably the most cost-free program that organized labor has ever seen. It’s virtually 99.9 percent volunteer action. There are no salaries whatsoever. We got a lot of help from retirees. Some of them come from the plant, but people from virtually every senior center in the area help out. But the retirees from the plant do an awful lot of work for us, because our retirees are a fortunate group and have a pretty fair pension. They can see [that[ they are in pretty good shape, and they enjoy going out and helping people who are less fortunate.

We’ve seen absolutely no opposition to the program. Even people in the retail food business think it’s a good idea, because we’re not giving food to people who can afford to buy it. Since the Brown Bag program started, we’ve aided thousands of people. We have a stockpile of food people can come in and collect from, and we have home delivery. Nobody is turned away. If they are hungry, they can have food.

One of the most rewarding things that I have experienced in working with organized labor and with the volunteers that help us out is that things get done without a lot of bureaucratic procedures. A person shouldn’t have to show a tattoo or some kind of brand that says he’s entitled to food. No one should have to fill out twenty-four pages on a form in order to show that he’s a worthy recipient. We have a pragmatic program. If somebody’s hungry, let him have the food. That’s why the program has worked so well, and why so many thousands of pounds of food have been distributed.”

The next few sections detail many of the community service activities engaged in by various unions.

Use the following questions to focus your reading and be prepared to answer them when you are finished.

A woman member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers from Cedar Rapids tells about the activities of her local union.

“We’re very involved in community activities. We used to be real active in bond drives during World War II. Now we’re very active in the United Way. Our company has its own United Fund. But we give to more organizations that just United Way. Our people become involved in all sorts of community affairs. We have people who are involved in the Kinship Program. That’s a program sort of like the Big Brother and Sister programs, where you take a child or young person under your wing, and you donate some of your time to helping the child. You can take the child to your home or take him out to places and be friends with him. It’s called the Kinship Program.”

One of the major community service projects that many unions across the state of Iowa have been involved in was the construction of the Easter Seal’s Camp Sunnyside in Des Moines for the handicapped, and Camp Courageous in Monticello.

“We’ve been quite active for a number of years with community projects. We had several of our journeymen and some of our apprentices get involved in Camp Sunnyside when it [was] started. And then when it was decided to build what was originally Camp Courage and is now Camp Courageous, we [became] involved in that, too. A lot of times, United Way would furnish the material and our people would do the work. Sometimes we’d work during the week, if we weren’t working on a regular job, or we’d work on Saturdays. When we weren’t busy, we’d go out and donate a half day or so. Our people would volunteer to go out, and usually most of the apprentices would get involved.

Carpenters and other building tradesmen built Camp Sunnyside and Camp Courageous. We spent two different years on those projects during the summer season. All the labor was donated by the [craft unions]. It was kind of half-way building trades/United Way public-spirited deal. We had some carpenters who put in several hundred hours at Camp Sunnyside. I spent six or seven weekends there myself. At Camp Sunnyside, we had crews come from all over the state. They’d give up their weekends. We had some employers who donated the materials. But it was built by union workers who would volunteer their time and go there and work for a good cause. It was a great project for the labor movement to take on.”

A member of the United Rubber Workers from Des Moines who serves as the president of the South Central Iowa Federation of Labor, describes some of his community activities.

“Labor is represented on all sorts of projects in the Des Moines area. Labor was represented on the committee that helped build the Botanical Center. Labor was also behind the Des Moines Civic Center. I happen to be on the Home Health Aid Mobile Meals board and the board of the Central Iowa Health Association. Home Health Aid Mobile Meals is for the elderly and disabled. We deliver meals around the area. The Central Iowa Health Association is backed by both business and labor. We try to reduce health care costs in this area.

Labor is also involved with the Governor’s Task Force for Health Care. I was consumer chair on that task force. Labor is represented on the advisory board of Area Eleven Community College. Labor is also on the Area Eleven Adult Education board. I happen to be the chair of the Labor Studies board.

Labor is involved in a special school program that’s designed to put kids from high school in the skilled trades. It’s for kids who aren’t going on to college. They usually start in the program in their junior year. If they’re interested in the trades, we try to get them part-time jobs working on various projects where they can begin learning a trade.”

A Burlington woman who is a member of the United Auto Workers describes some of her local’s activities.

“We help needy families at Christmastime. We give them money, clothing, groceries, any kind of help. We’ve gotten eyeglasses for needy people. We’ve helped pay for prosthetic devices. We’ve gone to all the nursing homes and to the county home in this area and have taken food and clothing and games and things to the people and to work with needy people in the community. We try to address issues of concern to the community and help our brothers and sisters in the community who are less fortunate than we are. We’ve given hundreds and thousands of dollars. We’ve worked with the social agencies of the county, and they have notified us when our help was needed.

We’ve been very deeply involved with the whole issue of the cost of utilities. A few years ago, a number of community groups and labor unions formed the Iowa Citizen Labor Energy Coalition to act as a vehicle so consumers and ordinary people could have some input before rate-making and policy-making boards. The Iowa Citizen Labor Energy Coalition has been very active in trying to reduce the cost of public utilities to the consumers. We want the consumers to have more say in the cost of their utilities.”

AFL-CIO—A voluntary federation of labor unions, formed by the 1955 merger of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

Agency Shop—An arrangement that requires workers who are represented by a union but are not members to pay a service fee to the union approximately equal to the amount of union dues.

Apprenticeship—A training program for the skilled trades, often jointly sponsored by labor unions and employers that combines on the job training with related classroom instruction.

Arbitration—The settlement of a dispute by a person or persons chosen to hear both sides and come to a decision.

Blacklist—A list of workers to be refused employment because of trade union activities.

Blue Collar—A term for workers in industrial production, maintenance, and skilled trades and crafts occupations.

Boycott—An organized and sanctioned drive by a union to prevent the purchases of goods or services of an employer accused of objectionable labor practices.

Certification—Official designation of a union as the exclusive bargaining representative for employees in a bargaining unit.

Check-off—A system by which union dues and other assessments are deducted from the employees’ paychecks by the employer on authorization of the workers.

Closed Shop—The key distinction between a closed shop and a union shop lies in a hiring restriction in the agreement which makes the employee join the Union before he is hired. This restriction is prohibited by the Labor Management Relations Act. Legally closed shops may be found outside the scope of this Act (which applies to employers and employees in industries affecting interstate commerce) and outside of states with “right-to-work” laws.

Collective Bargaining—Negotiation between an employer (or employers) and a union to determine the conditions of employment; the successful outcome is a contract agreement.

Collective Bargaining Agreement (Contract)—The agreement reached between an employer and the union representing the employees. It contains the terms and conditions of employment. Ordinarily, the agreement is written and is effective for a definite period of time.

Company Union—A union limited to the employees of one company or business not affiliated with other labor unions and under the control of the employer.

Contract—An agreement between a union and an employer (or employers) arrived at through collective bargaining that is legally binding on both parties.

Cooperative—A business venture for the production of distribution of goods with the profits being shared by the members.

Craft Union—A trade union that limits membership to persons holding some specific skill, for example, electricians or carpenters.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission—Federal government agency established to investigate and enforce the law regarding employment discrimination.

Fact-finding—Investigation of a labor-management dispute by an official board or agency.

Fair Trade—The viewpoint that the United States should adopt reciprocal measures to counteract unfair and restrictive practices that other nations use to improve their trading position in the U.S. market.

Free Trade—The viewpoint that goods and services should be freely allowed into the United States, regardless of the trade practices of other nations toward goods produced in the United States.

Fringe Benefits—Benefits paid by the employer in addition to wages, such as paid vacation, health insurance, and retirement plan.

Grievance—A complaint about conditions of employment typically made by a worker who believes that the employer has violated a part of the contract agreement.

Industrial Union—A union with members who represent various trades and occupations within an industry. (Note: Many modern unions combine aspects of craft union and industrial union.)

Injunction—A legal order from a court prohibiting a person or group from carrying out a given action. Often used in labor disputes to halt or limit a strike.

Journeyman—A worker who has completed an apprenticeship program and is considered a fully skilled tradesperson.

Local Union—The level of union organization that represents the needs of union members in their own communities.

Lockout—Shutdown of a plant by the employer. Workers are not permitted to enter the plant. The purpose of the lockout is to discourage union membership or union activity or to force workers to accept the demands or economic terms of the employer.

Mediator—A third party called in to help in negotiating or in the settlement of a dispute between employer and union through suggestions, advice, or other ways of stimulating agreement, short of dictating its provisions (a characteristic of arbitration). Most of the mediation in the United States is undertaken through Federal and State mediation agencies.

Minimum Wage—The lowest allowable pay rate as set by the federal wage-hour law and related state or local laws. (Note: The wages may not apply to all types and sizes of business.)

National Labor Relations Act (also known as the Wagner Act)—The 1935 federal law that guarantees the right to organize unions and conduct collective bargaining.

National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)—Federal agency established to supervise union elections and investigate unfair labor practice cases and other violations of the National Labor Relations Act.

Occupational Safety and Health Act—Federal law (passed in 1970) that establishes standards for workplace health and safety and provides for investigation of unsafe conditions at the request of workers. (Note: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration--OSHA—is charged with enforcing this law.)

Open Shop—A workplace where employees are not required either to join the union or to pay a service charge to the union for representation.

Overtime—Work above and beyond the normal work week such as hours beyond forty per week. (Note: The rate of pay for overtime is typically 1 ½ times the times the regular pay rate.)

Pay Equity—(Sometimes referred to as “comparable worth”). A policy that calls for equal pay among occupations of similar skill level and responsibility, regardless of position titles.

Pension—A retirement plan provided by an employer in addition to Social Security.

Profit-sharing—An agreement in which employees share in a company’s profits.

Public Employee Relations Board—A state agency with duties similar to the NLRB that oversees union elections among state and local government employees.

Public Employees Unions—Association of employees working for governmental bodies, i.e., city, county, state, and national government.

Representation Petition—A document, prepared by a group of workers desiring a union election, that is sent to an area office of the NLRB that supervises the election.

Scab—A worker who refuses to join co-workers in a strike. Sometimes applied to members of a non-striking union who do not honor a picket line set up by another union.

Seniority-A system of granting preference in job security, promotions, or other rewards to employees in accordance with their length of service.

Service Unions—Association of employees working in a given service industry, i.e., restaurants, hotels, hospitals, airlines, etc.

Sit-down Strike—A strike in which workers stay inside a factory or other place of employment, refusing to work or leave until an agreement is reached.

Slowdown—A deliberate reduction of output without an actual strike in order to force a concession from the employer.

Social Legislation—Laws designed to overcome such social problems as discrimination, hunger, and poverty.

Social Security—A federal government program, strongly supported by labor unions, that provides retirement income, life insurance, and disability income to workers in private industry.

Strike—A work stoppage conducted by a union that is designed to compel management to recognize the union as a collective bargaining agent, to correct an unresolved grievance, or to agree on contract terms.

Strikebreaker—A worker hired during a strike primarily for the purpose of defeating the strike.

Taft-Hartley—A U.S. labor relations act passed in 1947 which imposed strict limits on unions’ ability to carry out strikes and boycotts. Also provided for the passage of ‘right to work’ laws by states.

Technological Unemployment—Unemployment caused by new production methods or machinery that requires fewer workers.

Unemployment Compensation—State-federal government program that provides payments to unemployed workers. (Note: Coverage currently is limited to six months in most states.)

Unfair Labor Practice—Illegal anti-union behavior, or, in come cases, illegal union behavior as determined by the NLRB. (Note: It often involves management attempts to hamper collective bargaining.)

Union Shop—A workplace where the contract requires members of the bargaining unit to become union members within a specified time after they are hired.

Union Steward—A Local Union’s Representative in a plant or a department of the plant; an office; commercial enterprise, or other job site to carry out Union duties, adjust grievances, collect dues and to solicit new members. Usually a fellow employee elected by the Union Members (sometimes appointed by the Union).

White Collar—A term for workers in professional, technical, sales, clerical, or service occupations, that is, employees not directly engaged in the skilled trades or industrial production.

Wildcat—A strike not sanctioned by a union and one which violates an agreement. A spontaneous or unannounced strike.

Workers’ Compensation—A government program to compensate workers injured or disabled on the job.

Yellow-dog Contract—An agreement between an employer and a worker that, as a condition of employment, the worker will not join a union. Now outlawed.

[1] This cultural conflict has by no means been settled. In the 1980s, even though the number of women in the national workforce has increased, it is often still held by many that mothers who work are depriving their families of necessary love and support and that children in families in which both parents work are penalized.

[2] In the past, many states passed a variety of laws which had the effect of severely limiting voter registration. Some placed voter registration headquarters far from potential voters. Others allowed only a very short period of time for actual registration. Some insisted that registration take place only during daylight hours, when workers are on the job. Some demanded unreasonably rigid residence requirements. Most of these registration laws fell especially hard on the urban and rural poor and on inner-city dwellers. It is difficult to escape the conviction that these laws were deliberately designed to weaken the political power of workers for this was precisely their effect.

[3] By drawing voting district boundaries in a certain way, it is possible to deprive more densely populated urban areas of representation in both state and national legislatures.

1 The word to describe this is “favoritism.” This means that management discriminates in favor of a worker in an unfair and arbitrary manner, i.e., on the basis of friendship or kinship. It follows, then, that the worker who may be older, more experienced, or more competent is discriminated against in an unfair and arbitrary manner.

2 “Seniority” means simply that workers who have been on the job longer, and are therefore presumed to be more experienced, have a greater claim to promotion, wage increases, job transfer rights, and the like.

3 A “per capital tax” is a tax on each member.