THE forces of evil are closing in on Mike Tighe. His tight little refuge, the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers, is slowly collapsing; it must eventually float down the broad river of industrial unionism to a sea of mass organization. The sixty-first convention of the union met in Canonsburg on April 28. A few days later the rank and file forced open its tightly closed doors to John Brophy of the United Mine Workers, and Mr. Brophy, against the will of the Amalgamated officials, explained to the delegates the offer of the C. I. O. (Committee for Industrial Organization) to contribute $500,000 for the organization of the steel industry, provided the campaign is along industrial lines and its leadership is such as to inspire confidence of success. After that a committee was appointed to study the proposal. The convention is temporarily not in session; the committee has gone to Washington to confer with President Green of the A. F. of L. and his executive council. The executive council will do what it can to save its craft-union skin. But it is difficult to see how the surge toward industrial unionism can be stopped.
In the country town of Canonsburg one is conscious of great issues being decided. Organize the steel industry and the whole course of labor history will be changed. From the beginning the tides of industrial unionism were rolling to the very doors of the convention, though Tighe and his lieutenants had taken every precaution to avoid the flood. The Amalgamated convention was held in Pittsburgh last year; it was removed this year to the safer conservative ground of Canonsburg, on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, where the union has one of its few strong locals. There is no decent hotel; the town is out of the beaten path of newspaper reporters. In contrast to the wide-open convention, 1,700 strong, of the United Mine Workers in Washington, the doors of the Canonsburg hall, where less than 100 steel delegates met, were ostentatiously locked and guarded by a doorman who looked dangerously like a bouncer. The threat of expulsion was held over the head of any delegate who revealed any of the proceedings. There were no accommodations for the press. At the close of the sessions we gathered along an iron railing before the hall. Between times we leaned against the telephone poles of Canonsburg's main street.
It was no accident that the most interesting people were outside; some of the future leaders of American labor took part in the telephone-pole caucuses. John Brophy of the C. I. O. came the first day and went away again; Charles Zimmerman of the International Garment Workers' Union, Ferdinand Bindel of the Federation of Flat Glass Workers, and James Carey of the United Electrical and Radio Workers, the latter two being "NRA unions" which have made and held phenomenal gains, were in and out of the town. Clarence Irwin, outstanding figure in the rank-and-file leadership in steel, was busier than Mike Tighe. They are a vigorous, experienced, confident group, radiating a sense of power that flows directly from the C. I. O. and its strong component groups.
An ancient buggy goes down the sunny street and in a chorus it is named the Amalgamated. A reporter admits his Newspaper Guild unit has not tried to get a contract, and Ferd Bindel, wiry, young, intelligent, gives him an earnest lecture on solidarity. As adjournment approaches, the crowd moves toward the hall. As we sit on the iron railing a steel worker just out of the mill comes to see what his union convention is doing. He is covered from head to foot with dark glistening steel dust. His face is shadowed with it; his shiny tin lunch bucket is the high light in this living portrait of a steel worker. At the same time a newcomer approaches. He is an old man of huge frame but feeble in his steps. He peers with apparent effort through horn rimmed spectacles, and his hat is planted firmly over them to keep out as much light as possible. He carries a battered suitcase and an overcoat. He goes to the bolted door and knocks. After a few words with the doorman and a fumbling of papers, he turns back and the door is locked once more. Mere members are not admitted. He joins the group and immediately gets into an argument with the steel worker, who has just delivered a little speech on one big union. It is a good speech. "When a war breaks out," he says, "the whole country's in it. Florida's in it and so is Washington--that's 4,000 miles away. It's the same thing with a union. We've got to have one big union." The Old Guard protests; he points a long and aged finger. "That's wrong," he says with moral fervor. "Unions are bad when they get too big." There are hoots from the audience on the railing, but he continues. "Why, even the United States Steel has found out that it's a bad thing to get too big." "I suppose," comes somebody's answer, "that's why U. S. Steel keeps buying new properties." The Old Guard is beaten and moves off in disgust.
As usual, there was no news from the inside except what was bootlegged. There had been a test vote on a move to invite a member of the C.I.O. to come and address the delegates. The vote had been forty-two to forty-three with seven officials voting no. The tide was setting in. On Friday morning a delegation from the convention of the State Federation of Labor in session at Uniontown arrived at Canonsburg carrying fraternal greetings to the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers. By a strange coincidence the delegation included John Brophy of the United Mine Workers and Pat Fagan of the same organization. Tighe did his best to keep out these agents of Lewis bearing gifts. When the first messenger came to announce that the delegation waited outside, Mr. Tighe said that the convention could not interrupt its pressing business. When the second messenger came, the chair, under strong pressure from the floor, was forced to accept the greetings of the State Federation. Mr. Brophy no doubt delivered them in proper form. He also explained to the delegates the offer of the C.I.O.
Tighe himself will probably retire gracefully. There is nothing sinister about Michael Tighe. He is a pleasant old fellow of seventy-eight, proud of his horse-and-buggy virtues, distrustful of "reds." I talked to him after the second day's session. He was ruddy and cheerful in spite of a recent protracted illness. He told me proudly that the Amalgamated had 12,000 members--another estimate is 7,000; when I asked how about the other hundreds of thousands who work in steel, he answered in fatherly tones "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." But he preferred to talk of other things. He told me of his wife, "the sweetest little German-descent women" who weighs less than a hundred pounds and doesn't like the way the newspapers talk about Mr. Tighe's age. He seemed to be revealing what he thought was the secret of his success when he asserted that he doesn't drink alcohol, use tobacco in any form, or run after fast women. I withdrew quietly after that. Mike Tighe is better left to his memories. He obviously has no regrets.
His official family, headed by Louis ("Shorty") Leonard, is another matter. They are neither sentimental nor old. They will fight to the last ditch.
Three years ago the Tighe stronghold was threatened by the forces that must now overwhelm it. Under the impetus of Section 7-a membership in the Amalgamated rose to 100,000. But Section 7-a went down under the concerted pressure of the Weirs, the Joneses and Laughlins, and United States Steel. And this collapse, combined with a militant' lack of support and an open attack On the rank-and-file groups by the Amalgamated itself, soon reduced the lodges to a pathetic impotence. Today Mr. Tighe is proud of his 12,000 members. But the Weirton lodge, where 8,777 out of 11,000 workers were members, did not even send a delegate to Canonsburg; the delegate from Aliquippa, Albert Attalah, who has kept that lodge alive against tremendous odds of discrimination and espionage, instead of being rewarded for his fight was admitted only over the strong resistance of the Old Guard. Today in the beleaguered steel towns the bitterness against "the company" is almost matched by the hatred of the union officialdom which has run out on lodge after lodge and left the most active members to the stool-pigeons and the bosses. Most of these local leaders have been fired; some of them have sold out or turned defeatist. The Amalgamated has much to answer for in somber company towns where company houses and banks and stores are painted with company smoke, and the light of trade unionism flared brightly for the first time in 1933.
What that light meant to thousands in steel can scarcely be exaggerated. The exploits of 1933 and the meetings, the parades, the strikes, the minor victories over the company, the little bursts of public freedom--these are legends fondly rehearsed and dwelt upon. The significance of that brief interlude of union strength is perhaps best indicated by the reiterated assurance in town after 3 town that in spite of the NRA fiasco, the terrorism of the companies, and the desertion of the Amalgamated, a bona fide campaign with guaranteed support will sweep the industry. The workers are extremely wary. They have reamed much since 1933. They will have nothing to do with a movement dominated by Tighe; over and over again that point was driven home. They know the power of the company over courts and judges charged with enforcing the best-intentioned laws. The only agency they look to with hope is the Committee for Industrial Organization.
One descends into Weirton, West Virginia, as into some desolate lower region, through a series of ravines. The first sign of the town is a row of stacks, some of them pouring out smoke reddened by melting iron ore. At the last turn in the road the town is revealed lying in a final depth and spreading up two steep hills. "The mill" is the thing. It covers a large area, and two strands of barbed wire top its high fence. It is an impressive symbol of industrial power. From this central point the town goes out in rows of drab houses, most of them built to a single pattern not bad in itself but monotonous in its endless repetition. Away from the main streets the roads are unpaved.
In one of the houses I learned from a steel worker what life is like in a company town, and of the tempering fires that are welding fighters for a strong union. Weirton has 27,000 inhabitants but no local government. Weirton is run by the county, which is in turn run by the company. For the most part the company does not own the houses in Weirton, that is, not directly. A few years ago, just before the bottom dropped out of the real-estate market, in a burst of magnanimity it offered its workers bargains in houses. Prices for the seven- or eight-room dwellings ranged as high as $8,000. Many a worker used his savings to make a payment of $1,000 or $2,000. The remaining debt he assumed in the form of a mortgage held by one of the local banks. The relation of the company to the banks of Weirton can easily be surmised, even though one of them is named the People's Bank. Some of the houses changed hands as many as ten times, to the benefit: of no one but the mortgage holder. The rent for one of these houses set in a desolate town in the wilds of West Virginia is $45 or $5 5 a month. The occupant must furnish his own heat; he must also pay as much as $25 a year for water; he must also do his own papering and painting.
As for the atmosphere in which the steel worker and his family live, it is a sinister mixture of company smoke and espionage. Half a dozen times during that afternoon, whenever there was a knock at the door, there came a sign to lower voices or talk of something general. The people next door are company people; sometimes one finds that one has rented the upstairs rooms to company people who can't be turned out as long as they pay their rent "steady." The necessity to be on guard against "the rat" even in one's home--that is a force that works continuously in Weirton.
The wage for common labor in Weirton begins at $3.20 a day. The rate for highly skilled workers is much higher, but their average earnings are not high and their numbers are limited. During the strike of 1933 "whoopies" from the West Virginia hills were imported to break it. When they lined up at the company employment office, "you'd a thought there was a squirrel hunt." Now that the union is dead the "whoopies" are losing their jobs, and the old skilled men are being taken back. Meanwhile technological improvement is taking a heavy toll.
The control of the company over local politics need hardly be emphasized. This year a rank-and-file man was running for constable. In his honor the company ruled that there was to be no campaigning in the mill, but not long afterward a company candidate was allowed to go through unhampered. "The best way," said the steel worker in Weirton, "is to see which one they want you to vote for and then vote for the one that's running against him." The labels of Democrat and Republican of course mean nothing. The press? In 1933, according to the proud story, the union cut down the circulation of the Weirton News 80 per cent and kept out the advertising of the independent stores. The News has never quite recovered. It is such triumphs as these, never forgotten, that keep the union spirit alive. "The labor spirit is strong," said the man in Weirton. "Mike Tighe couldn't get nowhere if he brought in $2,000,000, but they'll go with the C.I.O."
The Aliquippa fortress of Jones and Laughlin lies a few miles down the Ohio from Pittsburgh. It extends for three miles along the river and behind its massive barrier lies the blackened town. Aliquippa is a "planned" community--its sections are still called by the numbers given them when the place was laid out. For instance, the superintendents and other officials live in Plan 6. Plan 12 is occupied by mere workers. The highest hill is called McDonald Heights, a dreary unpaved district of company houses. Nevertheless, McDonald Heights is a restricted residential section; no Negroes are allowed there. They live instead in the lower "plans," which are equally unpaved, equally desolate.
Stool-pigeons are rife in Aliquippa. Suspicion is in the very air. Again and again they were pointed out with a dropping of voices and a significant glance. "There's one. He turned after twenty years. His wife left him. She said she wouldn't live with no rat." A silent but open warfare goes on between union men and the stools. They know one m>ther; they have lived in the same small town for ten, fifteen, twenty years. As one of the company men put it to an organizer. "You're here to organize; I'm here to disorganize." In times of stress espionage grows more subtle.
Jones and Laughlin has been one of the National Labor Relations Board's most recalcitrant clients. The victims are workers whose only crime is the determination to live decently. Take Domenic Brandy, Italian. He worked twenty-five years for Jones and Laughlin, and then was fired for not washing coal right! Domenic's name is on the list of World War veterans on the front of the Aliquippa post office. Domenic can't quite believe he's out. Angelo Volpe is an Italian known for his gaiety. He was an officer of the
union in Aliquippa. First he was fired from the mill. Then he was fired from his WPA job. His wife and daughter are sick. As for Albert Attalah, president of the lodge, he hasn't worked since September. He hasn't exactly been fired. He stopped work in September because of a severe illness. His case is being "investigated."
In Aliquippa the Amalgamated at least still has an office. At the height of the "movement," as they call it al-most with religious fervor, the lodge had 6,200 members. Its officers and members, left high and dry by the Amalgamated, have been fired or discriminated against or intimidated. But persecution has only made more clear the need for complete unionization; and the great days of 1934 when Aliquippa was "opened" for the first time gave them a taste of independence and cooperation they cannot forget.
At Homestead, one link in the long chain of United States Steel forts that line the Monongahela for miles, it is the same story. The lodge that was formed there, "The Spirit of 1892," is disbanded. The new fight will be tough because, as one man put it, "this is a community of scabs whose ancestors were scabs imported by Frick." But the sons of scabs are learning--while the sons of the strikers of 1892 cherish their memory. Even in the company union the men are doing their bit. I heard that one of them- in a speech at the annual conference had dared to speak of-the increase in earnings. "Gentlemen," he said, "I mean corporation earnings, for whoever heard of a laborer's earnings? Incidentally, I averaged not over $50 per month in the year 1935." He went on to recite the earnings of some of the corporations during the same period--to the intense discomfort of the company representatives.
The steel workers are voting for Roosevelt, despite the failure of 7-a-for that they blame the Supreme Court and the companies. And in many cases the shift to the Democratic rolls represents a significant rebellion. In one steel town the workers had for years been automatically registered by the company as Republicans. To register Democratic meant an extra effort, since they had to do it themselves, and a genuine revolt since it was anti-company.. One of the curious results was the discovery that many of them were not full citizens and therefore not entitled to vote. Many a veteran steel worker, proud of his Americanism was deeply hurt to find after fifteen or twenty years of voting Republican that he was not a citizen.
Though Roosevelt will get the vote this year, talk of a Farmer-Labor Party is met with in every town--but in local terms and usually as something which must wait on: industrial organization. At Weirton one intelligent worker was obviously speaking out of his union experience of: 1933 and 1934. "There shouldn't be a third party this year," he said. "We've got to wait till we can put up a real fight." At Canonsburg Ferd Bindel said that to go into politics now would be to "burn our candle at both ends."
The steel towns around Pittsburgh are waiting for Lewis. Albert Attalah, for one, will go back from the convention to the dismal streets of Aliquippa full of an overpowering hope. "Next year," he told me, "or the year after, that convention will be so big three halls won't hold it!"
