Union Power: The United Electrical Workers in Erie, Pennsylvania by James Young

Author:James Young [Young, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781583676172
Goodreads: 29949229
Publisher: Monthly Review Press
Published: 2017-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

PROBLEMS DID NOT DISAPPEAR as a result of the May 1950 elections, as IUE maintained a presence among Erie’s GE workers for another decade. But at 506 matters flowed into a more routine rhythm than people had known for some time. A threatened challenge of UE 506 officers by the IUE faction failed to materialize at the June election, and workers’ confidence showed signs of improvement as three serious work stoppages erupted within a three-week period after the May balloting. Meanwhile, UE 618 remained intact, despite the resignation of a disheartened Roy Christoph, and awaited the chance to regain power. Because of the disarray among GE’s salaried workers caused by the complete lack of preparedness of new IUE officers and stewards, the wait was to be brief.52

Shortly after the election, UE received certification from the NLRB for the many industrial plants that the union represented. A week later the members of Local 506 voted their endorsement of American policy in defending South Korea, which had just been attacked by the Communist regime in the North, and the local resolution added that “we condemn Communism as detrimental to the United States.” Jim Kennedy could not resist commenting two weeks later that none of the recently rabid anti-Communists from the anti-UE campaign had volunteered for combat in Korea.53

Good news and bad news arrived during the months that followed. UE won elections in Lowell, Massachusetts, and at Westinghouse Air Brake near Pittsburgh. Locally, several smaller shops—including Erie Resistor, where weak leadership led to IUE’s victory—went over to other unions. Yet UE organized workers at Sims, Inc., a metal shop on East 18th Street.54

The Erie Daily Times chose that summer of 1950 to abandon all sense of political and constitutional restraint in cheerleading the burgeoning American witch hunt. And persecutions of UE members continued at the national level, with HUAC’s contempt citations against Julius Emspak and James Matles. Yet despite the union’s first head-on confrontation with the new GE labor relations tactic of Boulwarism, UE negotiations with GE concluded, following a credible strike threat that improved management’s characteristic “take it or leave it” offer, and members ratified the agreement in October, providing UE workers with a contract that was an improvement in several major aspects over the agreement that the IUE had concluded hastily with GE in August.55

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