BOOK OF
FACTS
FOR
SHIPYARD WORKERS
CONTENTS
|
Page |
| HISTORY
OF CONDITIONS IN THE SHIPYARDS
|
3 |
|
PRESENT CONDITIONS IN THE INDUSTRY
|
4 |
|
RISE OF THE INDUSTRIAL UNION
|
6 |
|
STORY
OF FIRST CAMDEN STRIKE
|
7 |
|
ORGANIZATION
OF OTHER YARDS BY INDUSTRIAL UNION
|
7 |
|
STORY
OF SECOND CAMDEN STRIKE
|
9 |
OUTLOOK
FOR THE FUTURE
|
12 |
| APPENDIX |
|
|
PROFITS
ON THE NAVAL WORK
|
15 |
WAGE
SCALES AND COMPARISONS
|
16 |
INDUSTRIAL
UNION'S PROGRAM
|
19 |
ANSWERS
TO QUESTIONS
|
19 |
THE
RED SCARE SPIKED
|
21 |
RECOGNIZED
BY THE PRESIDENT
|
22 |
LIST
OF UNIONS THAT DONATED TO CAMDEN STRIKE
|
25 |
RELATIONS
WITH AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR
|
28 |
TREACHERY
OF THE METAL TRADES DEPARTMENT, A. F. OF L.
|
29 |
|
LIST
OF SHIPS UNDER CONSTRUCTION IN MAJOR YARDS
|
32 |
Conditions
in the Shipyards,
and how they got that way.
"In
nineteen hundred and twenty-one
The
shipbuilding business went on the bum."
Many of us can remember well enough what happened in the
early 1920's. Thousands of men were thrown on the street, wages were
slashed, the A. F. of L. unions were practically wiped out. Business was
bad, and the bosses used the opportunity to get rid of the unions and
cut the rates. There were a great many strikes, and most of them were
lost, and the workers found themselves worse off than before.
In many cases, in those days, one union would come out, and
all the rest would go on working; with the result that the craft union~
were licked one at a time. The machinists, boilermakers, sheet metal
workers, and other unions were in a bad way. They lost money on strikes,
and members were thrown out of work so they couldn't pay dues. Some of
,the union officials and business agents ran away with the treasuries,
and some grafted, and some got good jobs for themselves at the expense
of the rank and file membership.
At about the same time shipping and commerce started to go
bad, which meant less work for the repair yards. This put more shipyard
workers on the street.
By 1924 the shipbuilding industry was open shop for all
practical purposes. 1:he A, F, of L. craft unions were finished in the
shipyards.
The
records show that between 1920 and 1924 the membership of the
International Association of Machinists declined from 331,0.00 to
78,000, and the Boilermakers from 103,000 to 17,500. These were the
leading A. F. of L. unions in th.e shipyards, and they became so weak
that the big corporations no longer took them seriously. That is still
the case today.
The weakness of the old A. F. of L. craft unions was that
they divided the workers instead of uniting them. With a dozen different
unions in the shipyard the boss could playoff one against the other.
There was jealousy and rivalry between the crafts. We have learned now
from bitter experience that all shipyard workers must stand together in
one union and
use their united strength if we are going to get anywhere.
Once the real unions were cleaned out of the industry, the
big corporations proceeded to build up company unions. Bethlehem
started off and was followed by New York Ship, Newport News, New London,
and others, These company unions kept the workers fooled for a long
time, and meanwhile wages
stayed low and working conditions got worse and worse. Speed-up systems
were introduced, with piecework, incentive, and bonus systems
3
for every
kind of a job. The shape-up system was invented, and shipyard workers
were forced to stand in line day after day for the privilege of being
told there was no work for them.
The shipbuilding corporations had everything their own way.
Whenever they felt like it they called in the company union stools and
said, "Boys, business is bad. For the good of all concerned we
will have to have a wage cut.
The company stools, as always, answered "Yes, boss," and the
wage cut went into effect.
The company union leaders held their jobs in good times and
bad, keeping the rank and file of workers under their thumb by spying
and lying, graft and favoritism. Work was so scarce for all these years
right up to 1 933, that most men were afraid to kick for fear they would
lose their jobs. They took it: on the chin and kept their mouths shut.
"In nineteen hundred and thirty-three
The Navy
Department went on a spree."
The Navy Department in 1933, hooked Congress for over 200
million dollars to build up the Navy and put men to work (they promised
to put 60,000 men to work in two years, but the time is up and they
haven't put more than 40,000 to work.) This money was parcelled out to
the navy yards and the private yards - most of it going to the private
yards. The big corporations got their heads together (see the Nye
Committee investigation) and divided up the loot: 40 million for you, 40
million for me, and 40 million for Charlie Schwab over there. There was
a lot of profit in these contracts, and still is. In 1934 they got a
little more. In 1935 they got another slice. In 1936, with a
war scare in Europe, the melon will be bigger and
juicier.
When the NRA was set up, the government forced the
corporations to raise the wage rates. But hours were reduced at the same
time, leaving us just about where we were before, except that we bad
more leisure time to worry about the rent bill and the installment on
the Ford, if any.
The shorter week put more men to work, but the speed-up of
production put them on the street again. Efficiency systems and
incentive systems have been developed to such an extent in the big
yards, that two men now do the work that three or four used to do. We
produce as much now in 36 hours as we used to do in 40- or 44.
Craft lines are being broken down. The old style mechanic
who could do about everything in the shop isn't wanted any' more. Every
man is a specialist nowadays, and because it doesn't take as much skill
or experience to be a specialist, he gets a lower rate. We have helpers
and handymen doing mechanics' work, and mechanics getting helpers'
wages.
4
As a result, the
mechanic who comes into a shipyard from outside, finds himself getting
20 or 30 cents an hour less inside the yard.
Today the
mechanic in the shipyard gets 20 or 30 cents less per hour than the
mechanic in building
construction, and 20 or 30
cents less per hour than the mechanic in the Navy
Yards, where the wages are
fixed by Congress (see Appendix in back of book).
Shipbuilding is
one of the most skilled industries in the country; it ought to be the
highest paid, but it isn't.
Today there is no
shipbuilding in the country to speak of outside of naval shipbuilding.
This is divided amongst the following shipyards (exclusive of the navy
yards): Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine; Bethlehem's Fore River Plant,
Quincy, Mass.; Electric Boat Co., New London, Conn.; United Drydocks,
Staten Island, N. Y.; Federal Shipbuilding, Kearny, N. J.;
New York Ship, Camden, N. J.;
Newport News Shipbuilding, Newport News, Va.; and Bethlehem's Union Iron
Works, San Francisco. These yards are now employing 18 to 19 thousand
men. There are 8 navy yards doing government building, employing 25,000
men.
Repair yard work
is still slack, besides being very uncertain and irregular.
The vicious
shape-up system is in general use, and in most ports the wage levels are
very low.
Now that the NRA
is dead, there is no restriction on hours whatsoever.
This is
especially true of the repair yards, where men are working as many as
fifty and sixty hours a week. The big shipbuilding plants are still on
the 36-hour-week, but there
is absolutely no law that
can force them to maintain it. Meanwhile, 40 to 50 per cent of the
shipyard workers of this country are unemployed.
There are a few
crafts that are in demand,
and in these crafts there is a shortage of men; but the corporations are
operating schools to teach men these crafts so that there will soon be
an oversupply there too, and the army of unemployed will increase.
Some of the worst
abuses now common in the industry are the following:
-
No
classifications of work or wage standards. Unskilled men, helpers and
apprentices are made to do mechanics' work at low rates of pay. Often a
group of unskilled men are put to work on a particular job under the
supervision of one or two mechanics, and expected to do skilled work. As
they become more proficient and experienced they gradually displace the
skilled men altogether, although their pay remains the same. Skilled men
are kicked out in the street, and perhaps hired back later as second or
third class mechanics at reduced rates. The result is that in
many shops and departments only a small minority of the men are getting
the first class rate. Also it is the practice to have six or eight
different rates for exactly the same type of work. Differentials of from
1/2c to 5c an hour are maintained in
each classification in each
department. The great number of different rates set up in this way
enables the management to chisel and discriminate.
-
Night work,
without extra pay.
-
Dangerous and
dirty work, without extra pay.
-
Welding on
galvanized metal, without rest periods or respirators.
5
-
North-South
differential. Wages in the South are 10 to 20 per cent lower, for no
reason except that the bosses can get away with it.
-
The Shape-up.
Report for work every day, and stand around for hours waiting to be
told there is no work for you, but only for some company stool.
-
The Speed-up.
Bonus system, piecework. The faster you work, the sooner the piece rates
or bonus contract will be cut. You do twice as much work and get maybe
10 per cent more money. Chiseling, graft, favoritism are common under
these incentive systems.
-
Furloughs and
lay-offs. Very few men in the shipbuilding or repairing industry work
as much as 9 full months a year. The average annual income of workers in
this industry is only about $1000. Who can maintain a family decently on
that income? Especially with food prices up 15 to 20 percent
more than they were a year and a half ago.
These conditions
can be changed. They must be changed. The Industrial Union needs your
help to change them; because it can't be done in one yard. It has to be
done throughout the whole industry. (See Union program in Appendix.)
RISE OF
THE INDUSTRIAL UNION OF MARINE AND
SHIPBUILDING WORKERS OF AMERICA
In the summer of
1933 wages and conditions were so bad in Camden that the men began to
get really sore about it. We had all heard about the NRA and the
promised New Deal, but our earnings were lower than ever. At the same
time food prices and the cost of living were going up.
There was a
company union in the Camden yard, but it was worse than useless, and its
leaders didn't even try to get more money for the men. So Johnnie
Green, a tinsmith
in the yard, together with a handful of other men, got together and
decided to start a real union of their own. The American Federation of
Labor would give us no help. They wanted the machinists to go into one
union, the chippers into another" the coppersmiths into another,
etc. We knew that unless We were all united in the 'same organization we
would be licked before we started, because we were up against a rich and
powerful Corporation. We called secret meetings and talked it up in the
yard. Then we printed some application cards and started passing them
around.
The idea caught
on quick, and within a couple of months we had a majority of the yard
signed up. By this time, of course, the company had heard about it, and
the company union officials were up in the air. It was decided to
conduct a secret ballot to see which union the men wanted. The vote was
taken in December, and the Industrial Union won by a majority of 20 to
1. That settled that.
We sent committees down to Washington to see the
Labor Board and other NRA officials about getting us a wage increase;
but all we got was delays and red tape. The company agreed to meet with
us, but all they did was talk-they wouldn't come across.
6
First Camden
Strike
Finally, a set of
demands was drawn up. These were presented to the company early in
March, 1934. We told them we wanted more money, or else-
The Company, in
the person of Clinton L.
Bardo, said No; so on March 24th, 1934, a
strike vote was taken of the Industrial Union membership. It carried,
and the company was given three more days in which to make up its mind. Bardo
still refused to give in, so a mass meeting was held Monday night
where the strike vote was reaffirmed. The following morning, Tuesday,
March 27th, the whole yard walked out on strike, even to the leaders.
The plant was shut -down 1 00 per cent.
As soon as the
men saw the Union meant to fight, they rushed in to pay up their back
dues. But even with all this money coming in there was only a few
thousand dollars in the treasury-not much to spread amongst 3000 men.
However, the other unions, local merchants, and friends of the
workingmen came to our support. We ran the strike economically, "borrowed
and chiseled, and made every dollar do the work of two or three, so that
when the strike ended we were better off financially than before.
The strike lasted
seven weeks. Every week or so the company would offer us a little more.
First it was 6 per cent; then it was 10 per cent; then it was 1 3 per
cent. But the men continued to stick and the picket line held fast.
Nobody wanted to go through it and nobody tried to.
Finally the
strike was settled on May 11th for 14.8 per cent increase and other
concessions, including a week's notice of layoff, a reduction in the
number of rates, preference for former employees in hiring, and most
important- recognition
of the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America.
Mr. Bardo signed the
agreement, and we went back
to work on May 14th with the first union contract signed by any big
shipbuilding company for 15
years.
Within 3 months,
the men at Fore River, Bath, New London, and Newport News were given
general wage increases!
Organizing the
Other Yards
We realized
that-Camden could not reform the whole industry by itself.
It was necessary
to bring other shipyards into the same organization. Within the next
year the men of Camden put up over $8,000 to send organizers to the
other yards, and help them build up Locals of the Industrial Union. By
the spring of 1935 we had Locals in the following places:
Local No. 1 N. Y.
Ship, Camden, N.J.
Local No. 2 Sun Ship,
Chester, Pa.
Local No. 3 Dravo,
and Pusey & Jones,
Wilmington, Del.
Local No. 4 Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine.
Local No. 5 Fore
River Plant (Bethlehem), Quincy, Mass.
Local No. 6 Electric Boat, New London, Conn.
7
Local No. 7 Union
Iron Works, San Francisco. Calif.
Local No. 8 Newport News Shipyard. Newport News. Va.
Local No. 9 Repair Yards, San Pedro, Calif.
Local No. 10
Repair Yards, Seattle, Wash.
Local No. 11
Repair Yards, Oakland. California
The struggle to
get these yards organized is a long story and we will not tell all the
details here. It is enough to mention Newport News, which we tackled in
the winter of 1935. In two months' time we signed up close to a thousand
men, mostly welders and shipfitters. Then the company got worried about
it and decided to kill the Union before it could grow strong.
Early in April
the Newport News management picked out 30 leaders of the Union and fired
them out of the yard. They knew they could get away with it because the
old Labor Board was dead, and the new Wagner Labor Board not born yet.
We were forced to call a strike; and for three long weeks, the town of
Newport News saw the first real picket line in its history. As there
were close to 6000 men working there at the time, our picket line was
not 'big enough to hold them out. The whole town, the bankers,
merchants, lawyers, and businessmen were against us, and the company had
most of its employees so terrorized that they were afraid to come out in
our support. We could not get county relief for our men, and the grocers
shut off their credit. Camden, with some help from the other Locals,
carried the burden of paying the Newport News strikers' benefits to keep
them going. But Camden was facing another strike of its own, and we
were finally forced to call off the Newport News strike on May 8th-but
with the determination to come back and organize the yard right.
This is a sample
of what we are up against in fighting the big shipbuilding corporations.
They will use every possible method to keep their employees from
organizing a real union that will fight for the men's rights and decent
wages.
After we left
Newport News the Metal Trades Department of the A. F. of L. came
sneaking into town and tried to make a deal with the company on the
strength of the company's fear of the Industrial Union. (See Calvin's
letter in Appendix.) They made the deal with the company all right, but
they couldn't organize the men, so it did them no good.
8
Second
Camden Strike
The
Union's agreement with New York Ship was to run out May 11th, 1935, For
six weeks before this date we tried to reach an agreement with the
company for a new agreement, or renewal of the old one with a few
changes, including an increase in wages. The ·company not only refused
to negotiate a new agreement, but even refused to extend the old one.
There was nothing for the Union to do but call a strike to enforce its
demands, and protect its members.
The
company was insisting on a company union type of set-up which would have
meant the quick death of the Industrial Union if it had been adopted.
The
yard came out as before, 100 per cent-4000 strong. The picket line
extended along Broadway for fully half a mile, four men abreast.
The
management had a few conferences with our committee, but would not
concede a single point. Instead they tried to foist their company union
agreement on the men over the heads of the Union officers. They sent
letters to all the men and tried to get them to vote to go back to work.
But the Union held meetings every day, and decided that the men would
back up their committee to the limit.
A
strike kitchen was set up, which fed about 3000 pickets every day.
Food
and other donations were contributed by local merchants and sympathetic
farmers. Raffles and tag days were run to raise money, and donations
started to come in from the other Locals of the Industrial Union and
from many other labor organizations (see list of unions in Appendix).
Hundreds of strikers went on relief and so did the officers of the
Union,
The
Union sent committees and delegations to Washington to enlist the aid of
the Labor and Navy Departments, and also the Nye Committee and various
Congressmen and Senators. We got a great many promises, but practically
no help at all. The Navy Department had a deaf ear for us. The Labor
Department sent in a conciliator, but he didn't have any power to force
the company to settle. Although $50,000,000 worth of naval construction
was tied up, the government wasn't interested enough to force the
Company to come to terms with the strikers.
Meanwhile
the management was trying other tricks to get the men back. They ran big
advertisements in the newspapers calling the leaders radicals and
Communists, and telling the men to come back on the company's terms.
When this failed, they got a big advertising company, N. W. Ayer &
Son, to conduct a "survey"
of the strikers. They got a New York lawyer by the name of Major Henry
L. Holthusen, and he hired a bunch of college boys to canvass the
strikers at their homes, to see if they could be persuaded to break
ranks and return to work.
The
Union got wind of it the night before the great "survey"
started. We
had cars waiting at the entrance to Camden and followed the college boys
around the city. We rounded them up, gave them a lecture on the evils of
strike-breaking, and sent them back home. The survey was a flop.
The
major then got hold of some local American Legion officials, and had
them agree to cooperate in holding a vote amongst the strikers on the
question of returning to work on the company's terms. As soon as we
heard of this, we put on a couple of demonstrations at Legion
headquarters, and the rank and file legionnaires raised such a protest
that the officials quickly backed down. So the vote wasn't held.
9
A section of the
mass picket line at Camden-July, 1935, ten weeks after the strike
started. This line extended almost half a mile along Broadway, and was
on every morning and afternoon for the full 16 weeks of the strike.
Every man was required to report for mass picket twice a day, besides
his hourly picket duty. The yard was picketed 24 hours a day, on both
the land and water side. Result: nobody went in to work.
10
The
company then put on a great drive to reopen the yard on July 23rd. They
wrote to every man that the yard was going to resume work, and sent
foremen around to the men's homes to tell them to come in on that day.
When
the morning of July 23rd arrived, however, over 3,000 men reported for
picket duty instead of work. With the aid of the police, a few scabs
were rushed through the gates. But two days of running the gauntlet was
all these scabs could stand, and on July 24th the company again abandoned
its attempt to operate.
Instead
they went into court and tried to get an injunction against us. While
this injunction was' hanging fire, Secretary of Labor Perkins proposed
that the men should return under the old Union contract and arbitrate
the new demands. The Union accepted the offer but the company refused.
They didn't succeed in getting their injunction, however, so they went
to work on the Navy Department, and got it to make a different
proposal for settlement. This proposal didn't provide for recognition
of the Union, so the men turned it down.
Back
into court, the Federal Court this time, went the company in another
effort to get an injunction against us that would break up our picket
line.
Meanwhile,
Congressman Marcantonio, of New York, and the House Labor Subcommittee
began to open up on the company for its anti-labor tactics, and on the
Navy Department for supporting the New York Ship as against the
strikers. The Committee called all parties concerned down to Washington,
and investigated the causes and condition of the strike. In his
statements to the press, Marcantonio made it clear that he thought the
blame fell entirely on the company, and that it was using the red scare
to try to dodge its obligations to the men and the government. Protests
began pouring into Washington against the government's delay in taking
strong action to force a settlement. But the company still refused to
arbitrate or to recognize the Union.
Finally,
on August 22nd, President Roosevelt issued an executive order creating
the Camden Board of Arbitration, which was instructed to attempt to
settle the strike on the following terms: recognition of the Union, all
men to return to work under the old contract; and the board to arbitrate
all the Union's demands and to embody its awards in a Union agreement to
be signed by both parties. The company was licked, and had to accept.
The President's settlement was signed on August 27th, and the men
returned to work August 29th the same way they had come out- all
together. The strike had lasted about 16 weeks.
The
Camden Board of Arbitration, consisting of Admiral Henry A. Wiley,
Robert Bruere, and Colonel Frank Douglas, conducted hearings in
Washington for a month and a half after the strike was settled,
considering the Union's demands and the company's answers.
On
October 12th the final decision was handed down in the form of a
contract to be signed by the Corporation and the Union which is to run
for about two and one-half years. It provides for a 5 per cent general
wage increase, 5 per cent increase in piece rates and bonus contracts,
week's notice of layoffs, maintenance of the 36-hour week, machinery for
handling grievances by the Union Shop Stewards, and an Arbitration Board
to settle all disputes that can't be settled by negotiation between the
Company and the Union. There is also a provision that bad days cannot be
averaged up with good days on piece work; and the piece rates and bonus
contracts must be shown to the men before they start work on any job.
11
This Union
agreement is now in effect in Camden. It gives us the highest average
wage rates on the east coast, and conditions that no other big shipyard
has. We have some protection against unfair discharges, cutting rates,
transferring men, setting piece rates, etc. Prominent labor leaders
throughout the country have hailed ours as one of the outstanding
strikes of the year, and, with the single exception of the coal miners'
strike, the most important victory for organized labor that was won in
1935.
Where We Are and
Where We Are Going
As things stand
today, the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of
America is the only important union in the shipbuilding industry. It
is the biggest, and the strongest, and is growing all the time. It is
recognized by the corporations and by the government.
This Union has raised wages in Camden by 20 per cent in the past year
and a half. It has forced the other big yards to raise their wages 10 to
15 per cent. We have ten locals on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. We
have the sympathy and support of some of the biggest labor unions in the
country.
There is still much work to be done. If we are going to win good wages
and conditions (see Union program in Appendix) we have got to build
strong Locals in All the major shipyards throughout the country. Navy
yard rates are still 25 per cent above Camden, which is the highest paid
private yard on the east coast. We can carry out this program only by
solidarity and united action.
Your place is in
the Industrial Union with your fellow shipyard workers.
Join the ranks of
those who are marching forward.
Shipyard workers
of America, Unite!!
ON TO
VICTORY!!!
INDUSTRIAL UNION OF MARINE AND
SHIPBUILDING WORKERS of AMERICA
General Office, 5 7 2 Fairview St.
Camden, N. J.
12
