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Seventy-five years ago, what was perhaps the most dramatic national convention in UE history opened in Cleveland.
In the months leading up to the convention, the corporate and government forces that sought to wipe out UE’s brand of militant, rank-and-file unionism were gathering steam. The UAW and the Steelworkers had been taking advantage of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act, passed in 1947, to raid UE shops. And within the union, a faction that wanted to abandon UE’s principles of aggressive struggle, rank-and-file control, political independence, international solidarity, and uniting all workers was preparing to try to gain control at the upcoming convention by accusing the union of being “communist-dominated.”
That faction was led by UE’s first president, James Carey, who had been defeated by Albert Fitzgerald at the 1941 convention. Carey had help from some powerful friends, most notably the Catholic priest Charles Owen Rice and the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) of the U.S. Congress. Rice coached faction members on how to most effectively use red-baiting to win control of locals or get elected as delegates; meanwhile, HUAC summoned UE leaders to hearings to tar them as “reds” in the public eye. HUAC went so far as to summon leaders of Local 601 at the huge Westinghouse plant in East Pittsburgh — the largest UE shop in the country — to a hearing in D.C. just two days before the local’s election of delegates for the convention. U.S. immigration authorities also got in on the act, preventing virtually every delegate from UE District 5 in Canada from attending the convention — except those from the one Canadian local whose delegates supported the Carey faction.
The convention itself, as the UE NEWS reported, “was marked by more flagrant examples of outside interference, and by greater displays of disruption, filibustering and efforts to create disorderly situations … than any previous Convention of UE.” Father Rice himself attended, “sitting in the balcony with spy-glasses, dispatching messengers to his lieutenants on the floor,” and at one point encouraging a Carey delegate to engage in violent assault, calling out “punch him, punch him” from the balcony.
Father Rice also visited individual delegates in their hotel rooms, attempting to persuade them to vote against the union’s leadership. Delegate Jack Terry, of Local 332 in Fort Edward, New York, said, “Father Rice told me being a Catholic I should know it was my duty to vote for Kelley [the Carey-backed candidate running for president against Fitzgerald]. … That was an attempt to use the church to dictate how I should vote. I do not believe in the interference of the church in the union.”
Nonetheless, UE principles prevailed. Even a cursory reading of the convention proceedings make it clear that the Carey faction was given full liberty to speak on the convention floor and make their case — and were not met with the same kind of heckling and interruptions that they subjected their opponents to. Despite all of the outside interference, President Fitzgerald, Secretary-Treasurer Julius Emspak, and Director of Organization James Matles were all re-elected by roll-call votes of over 2,300 to around 1,500 for the Carey-backed candidates, and other resolutions and constitutional amendments opposed by the Carey faction passed by a similar margin.
In interviews with the UE NEWS, many first-time delegates were shocked at the behavior of the Carey faction. Samuel B. Meli, of Local 139 in Riverside, New Jersey, said, “Heretofore I was under the impression that the union in general fought for wages, hours and conditions. All these people seem to be doing is agitate about Communism.” Mary Helen Jones, from Local 1412 in Oakland, California, summed up her support for the UE leadership: “It’s not a question of left or right — it’s who wants to fight for my wages and rights.”
Even before the convention was over, the Carey faction issued a written statement to the press calling for the CIO to charter a rival union in the electrical industry, and appointed ten members to meet with the CIO to carry out this plan. In November, the CIO convention would do just that, chartering the International Union of Electrical Workers (IUE), a union with no members and no contracts but an appointed president (Carey) and a large treasury donated by the CIO. The IUE, aided by the companies, the press, Father Rice, and the U.S. government, would go on to do its best to destroy UE.
On the concluding day of the convention, Friday September 23, Secretary-Treasurer Emspak delivered an address to the delegates denouncing the efforts of employers, the government and the press to “create a labor movement in this country controlled by the government and dominated by the companies.” He declared that, “if we are going to have a union, and we are, we are going to have a union that is going to be based on rank-and-file democratic principles. We are going to have a union that is not going to be dedicated to the services of a political machine in Washington, or anywhere else. We are going to have a union that is dedicated to the service of the interests of the membership and nobody else.” The UE NEWS, “at the express request of many delegates,” printed the speech in full in the October 3 issue covering the convention; similarly, we are reproducing it in full below.
While UE lost the majority of our membership during the “dirty decade” that followed to raids by IUE and other unions, UE continues to exist, and grow, seventy-five years later, with our principles intact. As Emspak foretold, we continue to have a union based on rank-and-file democratic principles, a union not dedicated to the services of a political machine but to the interests of the membership, a union that continues to uphold UE policies of aggressive struggle, rank-and-file control, political independence, international solidarity, and uniting all workers.
Remarks of UE General Secretary-Treasurer Julius Emspak to the 14th UE Convention
SEPTEMBER 23, 1949—Many things have been said on this floor this afternoon but one thing that has been said is the real truth, whether it came from those who are supporting the statement of the executive board or those who are opposed, and that is: That the issues raised in this statement presented to the convention, the issues raised by the actions taken by this convention will be decided by the membership.
Those issues will be decided on the basis of whether this union is going to continue to make the great contributions that it has, not only to the workers in our electrical industry, but to the entire people of the United States.
the issues that are going to be decided are whether company union elements, aided by the employers, aided by reactionary elements in government, aided by the reactionary press are going to be able to create a labor movement in this country controlled by the government and dominated by the companies. That is the issue.
We say in that statement, very specifically, what our estimate is of the disrupters who mask themselves as rank and file committees and members for democratic action and all the cliches that any demagogue can find! We say in that statement, very clearly, what their objective is, and we stand on it. We’ll stand on it with the members. And do you know why we will be able to stand on it? Because the yardstick by which we measure the achievements of this union is not whether Charlie Wilson of General Electric likes us; it is not whether Thomas or Rankin or Wood (members of the House Un-American Activities Committee -Ed.) approve of us and call us “respectable.” No, our yardstick of whether this union is serving its members is whether the members are getting jobs, whether their wages are improving, whether their working conditions are improving, whether the basic conditions in this industry are being advanced; and they are.
It is very easy, the easiest thing in the world, to achieve the kind of respectability that this gang of disrupters is talking about. All you have to do is crawl on your belly to the boss. That is all.
All you have to do to achieve that respectability is to crawl on your belly to any lousy politician who offers you a trip to Washington.
All you have to do to achieve that respectability is to acquiesce to a legislative and economic program, that means the reincarnation in this country of the “yellow-dog” contract, government of labor relations by injunction. That is what you have to do to be respectable by the lights of those who are trying to impose their kind of policies upon the membership of this organization.
I don’t think that there is any doubt in the mind of any rank and file, honest rank and file, union member of this union or any other union of this country where this union stands. The record speaks for itself.
When I went to work for General Electric a little over 30 years ago and some of you have heard it, but it won’t hurt the rest of you to hear it, I went to work in that plant as a kid, 14 years old.
When I went in that plant it was right after the last major strike in General Electric until 1946. The company broke those unions, in Schenectady, in Erie, in Lynn, in Pittsfield and what there was in Fort Wayne. The company broke those unions. They broke them by using the kind of arguments they_are developing right now in our midst. They broke them by the red-baiting that was current then. They broke them by buying off the, leadership, just as they are trying to do now and are doing.
They drove those people back to work, and, yes, in some instances, imposed yellow-dog contracts on them, imposed the blacklist in the community to the extent that even today you will find people and they are old men now, who can’t get jobs, even today, because of that blacklist then. There are people in this hall who know that.
I tell you if we are going to have a union, and we are, we are going to have a union that is going to be based on rank and file democratic principles. We are going to have a union that is not going to be dedicated to the services of a. political machine in Washington, or anywhere else.
We are going to have a union that is dedicated to the service of the interests of the membership and nobody else.
We are going to have a union that is going to serve the economic and legislative interests of our members like no other union can, because we are going to fight for the right to maintain rank and file control, freedom from the companies and the company stooges in our midst.
And in doing this we will be serving the best interests of the people of our Union and of the United States.
