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AFL-CIO DEPARTMENT OF ORGANIZATION
(1955-1973):
History of an Agency
By Rudolph Lewis
Established in the 1955 AFL-CIO Constitution at the
time of the merger, the Department of Organization during its 18-year
history passed through two major periods that followed roughly the
administrations of its two directors, namely, John Livingston
(1955-1965) and William Kircher (1965-1973). Broadly, these two eras can
be described, respectively, as periods of "internal" and
"external" organizing.
Livingston inherited two modes of organizing
department operations to choose from in structuring the AFL-CIO
Department of Organization -- that of the old AFL and that of the old
CIO. In integrating the two modes, Livingston followed the regional
organization approach. By 1957, the Department had developed
twenty-three regional offices, each with regional and assistant regional
directors, alternately persons with an AFL and CIO backgrounds. Staff
previously assigned to DALUs, national, international unions or central
bodies were assigned to regional offices.
Initially, the Department of Organization had five
assistant national directors of organization, but reduced them to four
by 1956 and to two by 1959. They included George Craig (1957-1959),
transferred to Public Relations; Carl McPeak (1957-1959), transferred to
Legislative Department; William Kircher (1955-1956), sent after one year
to an assistant regional director's post; John F. Schreier (1957-1963)
and Franz Daniels (1957-1963). Schreier and Daniels had the longest
tenure with Director John Livingston.
Livingston assigned his four national assistant
directors (up to 1959), one each for the New England and Mid-Atlantic
states, Southern states, Central states, and Western states, to oversee
the activities of the regional offices to develop stronger
communications between headquarters and field organizers. After 1959,
Franz Daniels coordinated activities in the South and West; and John
Schreier in New England, Mid-Atlantic, and Central states. During most
of the Livingston period (1955-1965), Alan Kistler, was the staff
assistant in the Department.
In 1955, Livingston considered three obstacles to
organizing workers: 1) "the intractability of the unorganized labor
force," particularly white-collar workers); 2) "the advancing
years and diminished spirit of the organizing staff"; 3) "the
conflicting jurisdictional claims."
Livingston set up three projects to deal with it.
First, a study and evaluation of existent staff and financial
facilities, including national and international unions; two, reduction
of general figures into specific information of individual national
industries and geographic areas of concentration; and three a study of
overlapping and coinciding jurisdictions of two or more unions.
Between 1955 and 1956, AFL-CIO headquarters sent
staff members (about 340) each a brief questionnaire to enlist specific
information, including amount and type of experience; type of
organization work interested in (handbilling, house calls, leaflet
writing, speaking, etc.); current assignment and location; union
affiliation; and offices held. These materials were studied and
catalogued with an additional report from regional directors. This
information was used in the assignment of staff to organizational
projects on the most "efficient and productive basis."
During the first year, the Department of Organization
staff was "engaged in preparing the most comprehensive organizing
survey ever attempted on a national scale, along with the cooperation of
AFL-CIO Department of Research and many AFL-CIO international unions.
Livingston presented the results of this survey of "organizing
potential" to labor's first united Executive Council meeting in
1956. The survey revealed its findings by industries, by craft, region
by region, state by state, "analyzed the total organizing factors
involved in the industries and services, pointed up "the major
problems and suggested approaches to meeting these problems." One
finding suggested a "more detailed survey" of local areas.
Such surveys stimulated organizing activity, for example, in the Miami
area, in which 10,000 new members were organized within several months.
The survey also revealed a dynamically changing
workforce: the rapid growth rate of white-collar jobs at the expense of
blue-collar job; the movement of industry to the South and West. The
rate of growth in the South was 25% and ten million of the white-collar
positions were located in the South. Partially in response to the
importance of the South President Meany appointed a Special Staff
Committee on the South. In 1957-1959, Livingston brought attention to
the importance of surveys of workers' attitudes and the need to modify
organizing techniques and methods and develop certain qualities in
organizers for a new revitalized modern trade union movement.
In 1957 and 1958, Livingston carried out staff
reductions. The Department began with 340 organizers. By 1957,
sixty-seven positions were lost to death, resignation, retirement, or
return to internationals, leaving a total of 275 organizers. In 1958,
another one hundred organizers were laid off, leaving 175; in 1958, the
Department was down to 158 total organizers, including regional
directors and headquarters staff. Livingston's intent was to encourage
the internationals to expand its staff and use the AFL-CIO staff as
supplements to international staffs or as coordinators of campaigns.
Numerous factors stood against the growth of
unionism. Employer sponsored anti-union activity in the form of
handbooks, seminars, labor consultants, and public relations experts;
their use and abuse of the Taft-Hartley Act (1947), which made
organizing in the South more difficult; public hostility against
so-called union "corruption" fueled by the McClellan Committee
(1958) and the Landrum-Griffin Act (1959).
In 1959, the AFL-CIO Department of Organization
sponsored the first national organizing conference in Washington, D.C.
The attendants included 75 AFL-CIO unions, 32 international union
presidents, 27 vice-presidents, 11 international secretary-treasurers,
21 international union directors. Among the topic discussed were NLRB
and court rulings, organizing white-collar workers and the southern
states, regional conferences, and the roles central bodies can play in
organizing.
The Washington conference was followed by conferences
in 44 states. Organizing activities increased among Retail Clerks
International Union, American Newspaper Guild, Sheet Metal Workers,
Bakers, Plasterers, Communication Workers. By March 1960 more NLRB
petitions had been filed than in any single month in 14 years. In 1960,
a charter was issued to the Agricultural Workers Organization Committee
to organize in California. Franz Daniel coordinated the campaign. John
Schreier, coordinated a campaign, to assist IAM to organize the 31
unorganized plants of U.S. Gypsum.
The two-year campaign (1958-1960) to restore
legitimate trade unionism to the bakery and confectionery industry was
rewarded by 82,920 members joining the American Bakery and Confectionery
workers International Union (ABC). Another outcome of the 1959
conference was the publication of the pamphlet "Number 1
Objective," a compilation of practical organizing suggestions
advanced by panelists and delegates. The conference increased the number
of signatories to the AFL-CIO No-Raiding Agreement (June 9, 1954) to 104
of the 135 national and international unions.
In 1960, the Department sponsored in Washington,
D.C., a conference on state and local central bodies. Delegates
formulated programs and procedures to obtain maximum affiliation,
developed a reporting system, and established an advisory committee
headed by Stanton Smith of the Tennessee Labor Council. President Meany
sent a letter of all central bodies encouraging cooperation. The
Department sponsored also a legislative conference a few days later,
which stressed the importance of the following issues: aid to depressed
areas, minimum wage, unemployment insurance, health care for the
elderly, housing, education, natural resources, in effect, "a
program for the welfare of America."
Even with its modifications in structure and staff
and organizing techniques, the growth of unionism was barely keeping
pace, only sufficient enough to offset losses in membership resulting
from job elimination. In 1961, Reuther, Raftery, and Suffridge reported
that a quarter-million workers were organized per year between 1955 and
1960. The workforce increased by .85 million a year and was expected
between 1960 and 1970 to increase by more than one million a year, that
is, about 13.5 million were expected to enter the workforce.
White-collar workers and service workers, a considerable number of them
female, represented over 60% of the workforce, while jobs for its
blue-collar members were declining.
In response, the AFL-CIO established in 1961 an
Executive Council Committee on Organizing, headed by Paul Hall
(Seafarers Union). The Committee would be a vehicle for working
meetings, discussion of the problems, and a free exchange of ideas. The
Committee directed the Department of Organization to work out specific
organizational targets, joint cooperative and coordinated organizational
projects, and "provide the practical mechanism for coordinating
organizational activities and for achieving the maximum effectiveness in
the utilization of manpower and organizational resources."
Between 1961 and 1963, organizing activities
quickened. There were 8,482 NLRB elections, the AFL-CIO unions won 4,
620 of the elections, bringing in 324,000 persons within a 21-month
period. Some of this increase was the result of the January 1962
Presidential executive Order that allowed federal employees to organize
into unions. Still the net membership gain had been small.
In 1963 the AFL-CIO Executive Council Organizing
Committee recommended a pilot program in the Los Angeles- Orange
Counties metropolitan area. This project was up and running by September
1965. A similar campaign was developed and carried out in the Baltimore-D.C.
metropolitan area. Other cooperative campaigns developed on a smaller
scale in other locations.
In 1964, Regional Director Fred C. Pieper pointed out
that the union movement still had a number of internal problems that
needed to be addressed before the desired advances in growth could be
made. Pieper sketched out the problems. There was a lack of sufficient
staff to survey, study, and organize; jurisdictional problems, that is,
"inter-union rivalry" continued; congressional committees
acted as propagandists for employers; service to members at local union
level resulted in negative publicity and decertifications.
Pieper suggested actions to improve the organizing
efficiency of union campaigns: 1) careful survey and research of both
community and organizational projects; 2) adequate, trained, and
qualified staff available throughout the campaign; and 3) improved
communication skills of organizers. In December 1965 Livingston resigned
after ten years at the helm of the AFL-CIO Department of Organization
and returned to his native Missouri and his cattle farm.
After a year (1964-1965) as national assistant
director of organizing, William Kircher became the Director of the
Department of Organization. Under Kircher's directorship (1965-1973),
Alan Kistler (1962-1974) and Edward Haines (1966-1971) were the two
assistant directors. Many of the programs and approaches started under
Livingston were continued under Kircher's regime. In 1966, Kircher
kicked off a coordinated campaign against Standard Oil, with the
cooperation of the Petroleum Workers Union, Oil Chemical, and Atomic
Workers International Union, and the Western States Service Station
Employees (unaffiliated).
At the 1967 Organizing Conference in Bal Harbour,
Florida, Kircher emphasized changing the hostile image of unionism and
developing new approaches to attract into unions young men and women who
have no memory of the 30s and 40s labor struggles and triumphs and the
depression era. He also placed an emphasis on organizing farm workers in
California. He supported "qualitative" rather than
"quantitative" organizing. He thought the AFL-CIO unions
should reduce the number of organizing campaigns and increase
"organizing efficiency."
In addition Kircher outlined the increased services
that would be offered by the Department of Organization. They included
60 Leaflets of the Month (LOMs), staff training of international unions,
development of audio-visual aids, and a clearinghouse for new programs
and ideas. By 1968, the Department increased staff time spent on
organizing from 50% to 75%. Much of this activity was spent in training
conferences and the development of literature.
But the AFL-CIO staff spent half of that 75% on the
farm worker campaign in California and Texas, which was coordinated by
Kircher, directed to assume that position of responsibility by President
Meany.
By 1970, three other large cooperative campaigns were
underway. Locals affiliated with the Metal Trades Department organized
federal workers in naval shipyards (CCOFE). Assistant Director Ed Haines
coordinated by a multi-state campaign with four unions in the graphic
arts field (CODE). Alan Kistler coordinated eight unions in a campaign
to organize all non-union General Electric facilities.
By 1970, Kircher had developed a corps of Organizing
Specialists that were easily shifted from campaign to campaign,
depending on their special abilities (ethnic relations, pamphlets,
coordinators, home contacts, etc.). Kircher's emphasis on staff training
led him to develop internship programs for field staff and for
developing young NLRB lawyers. By 1970 three interns had completed the
legal intern program.
During all this activity some restructuring of the
Department continued. Regional offices were reduced to eighteen by 1970.
Kircher reduced the department staff from 155 in 1967 to 138 in 1971. As
a result of such staff cuts, including at headquarters, Kircher reported
in 1973 a curtailment of training sessions for international unions.
Kircher tried to decentralize this program, directing field staff to
conduct such training programs.
Kircher also created a program for developing more
effective in-plant committees. The union organizer's performance record
with smaller groups, Kircher argued, was better than with larger. The
bigger the plant the harder the union falls. Not as a leader but as an
educator the organizer too often lacks the necessary qualifications.
This is the area of skill in which organizers have to be trained today
more than any other time, Kircher persuaded his staff.
In his Executive Council Report, Kircher revealed
that the NLRB case load exceeded in the period ending June 1972 with
41,039 cases. The union won 55% of 8,472 elections in which 286,365
became members. By his estimates nearly 20 million workers belonged to
unions. One of the curious items Kircher noted was that the union
performance was greater in smaller units. The average size of units won
in NLRB elections was 68, while the average size of losses was 78.
In 1973, at the height of his success as organizer and administrator,
William Kircher resigned his position as Director and took a job with
the Hotel-Restaurant Workers Union as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C.
Alan Kistler became the head of the reorganized and revamped AFL-CIO
Department of Organization and Field Services.* * *
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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Weep Not, Child
By
Ngugi wa Thiong'o
This is
a powerful, moving story that details the
effects of the infamous Mau Mau war, the
African nationalist revolt against colonial
oppression in Kenya, on the lives of
ordinary men and women, and on one family in
particular. Two brothers, Njoroge and Kamau,
stand on a rubbish heap and look into their
futures. Njoroge is excited; his family has
decided that he will attend school, while
Kamau will train to be a carpenter. Together
they will serve their country—the
teacher and the craftsman. But this is Kenya
and the times are against them. In the
forests, the Mau Mau is waging war against
the white government, and the two brothers
and their family need to decide where their
loyalties lie. For the practical Kamau the
choice is simple, but for Njoroge the
scholar, the dream of progress through
learning is a hard one to give up.—Penguin
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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1965
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 24 July 2008
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