In writing the book, one of the hardest things for me was not what to put in, but what to take out after I had written it. This portion of the website gives me a chance to include some of the deleted material. –James English
Chapter II – Dealing with the Decline in Revenues
The harsh recession and the steep decline in membership and revenues experienced by the United Steelworkers in the 1980s made layoffs necessary. Seniority (employment service with the union) was used. My book discusses the complicated factors that went into deciding who in this multi country, multi bargaining unit, multi language system would be laid off. It turns out that some who were almost laid off and some who were laid off would go on to play very important roles in the union as this excerpt makes clear.
Staff Layoffs
Despite the precision of the process, last minute additional retirements and voluntary separations caused the line which determined who would be laid off and who would be retained to move somewhat.
Leo Gerard was the field staff person in Canada whose seniority made him the last person expected to be laid off there. It turned out that he was not because one of the staff took a pension at the last minute. (In 1985 Gerard would run for Director of his Canadian district (Ontario) and would defeat the then incumbent David Patterson. In a very few years Gerard would become National Director of Canada, then Secretary-Treasurer. Finally, when Becker retired, Gerard succeeded him.
Mike Wright was an Industrial Hygenist in the Safety and Health Department. (He would eventually become its Department Head.) He was out of town on the final day. Knowing he was on the edge, he called back frequently that day. On three separate occasions he was told that he would likely be laid off and then that he would not be. Ultimately he was not laid off.
Among those laid off who would return to a full career in the union were three who would become District Directors — John DeFazio, Billy Thompson and Michel Arsenault, as well as Jerry Fernandez who would head the union’s International Affairs Department, take over responsibilities for corporate campaigns and serve as an Assistant to Leo Gerard when he became President. John Molovich from the Safety and Health Department was laid off and would become the Director of the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration – Indiana’s OSHA. Eventually he became embroiled in a dispute with then Governor Evan Bayh and returned to work for USWA. The Legal Department was exempt from the layoffs because most of the union’s legal activity were defensive. If the union’s inhouse lawyers were laid off, the work would need to be done by outside lawyers at greater cost to the union. This exemption spared two who would eventually become General Counsel of the Union, Rich Brean and Paul Whitehead, as well as Kim Siegfried who would serve as Executive Assistant to President Gerard. Sadly, there were other very talented personnel who were laid off, took other jobs and did not return. Fortunately, the layoffs were not permanent. The February 1985 issue of Steelabor reported that any of the field staff who wanted to return to work had been recalled by that time.
Chapter III – Organizing
When Becker became Vice President of the union, he took a hands on approach to Organizing. That included looking for new areas in which to organize. One search led him to Red Dog, Alaska:
Someone had informed Becker that there was a mineral mine located in Alaska that was being developed by Inco. For employees, the company was using native Inuits obtained through agreement with a local tribe leader. USWA represented employees at Inco facilities in the U.S. and Canada including the mine in Sudbury, Ontario where Leo Gerard had worked.
Red Dog was in the Arctic Circle. Because of its remoteness, the employees were flown in and worked 30 days on and 30 days off. They were housed at a Ramada Inn set up just for them. Becker was intrigued and decided to check it out. But how to get there and do so was a problem.
Bernie Hostein’s wife Karen ran a small travel agency. She saw an invitation to investors to come up and see this nickel operation. She arranged for Becker and Hostein to be invited. They were accompanied by about 10 other potential investors. They flew to Nome, Alaska. Then by pick up truck they drove along the packed sand by the sea. Because they were essentially “under cover”, they had to keep their stories as potential investors straight. As it turned out, the remoteness of the operations and inaccessibility of the employees made a successful attempt at organizing the facility very unlikely. But the fact that he was willing to explore it demonstrated Becker’s determination to organize.[1]
On their journey back from Red Dog, Becker and Hostein stopped off in Sitka, Alaska, a small city controlled by Russia until Alaska was sold to the United States in 1867. There, while wearing a Steelworkers jacket and doing a little sightseeing, Becker wandered into a Russian Orthodox Church and then out into the back yard where he was about to be surprised. He heard a voice saying, “Steelworker, I’ve been waiting for you.” The eerie message was repeated. Unsure what he was about to experience, Becker turned and saw a Russian Orthodox priest. It turned out that the priest was originally from his hometown of Granite City, IL and had known many of the people that Becker had. The priest had spent most of his life in the wilds of Alaska and Northern Canada working as a missionary among the Inuits.
Years later, when my wife and I were planning to go on a cruise to Alaska, he asked me if I was going to stop in Sitka. When I checked and indicated that I was, he told me the story and suggested I visit the church and ask for the priest. While I was not sure whether he was “pulling my leg”, my wife and I did visit the church. We learned that the priest had indeed been resident there for many years and was widely known in the area for his work among the Inuits. Unfortunately, he was now working among Inuit tribes much farther North so we could not meet him.[2]
[1] Interview of George Becker by Kate Bronfenbrenner, Jun. 7, 2006.
[2] Bernie Hostein was not at the Russian Orthodox church when the event described occurred, but in a June 14, 2019 conversation with me he verified that Becker told him of the incident later in the day that it occurred..
Chapter III – Election as President and Transition
One of the Issues Lynn Williams asked Becker to get into after it was clear he would be the next President of the Union was an ongoing dispute with the Building Trades Unions that had festered since 1972.
Agreement with the Building Trades
In 1972 USWA entered into a merger agreement with District 50, Allied and Technical Workers. District 50 had been created by the United Mineworkers as a vehicle to provide membership for non-mineworkers whom it organized in areas where Mineworkers had a significant presence. At the time of the merger District 50 was not affiliated with the Mineworkers or the AFL-CIO. It claimed to have 250,000 members. While that number was somewhat overstated, it had significant membership in a wide range of industries including manufacturing, chemicals, health care, construction and government.
The merger provided instant membership diversification that would be of great value in the 1980s when USWA’s core industries declined severely. It would also bring a significant talent pool to the union and to Becker.[1]
But the 1972 merger was not without its challenges. District 50’s relatively minimal involvement in the construction industry was bitterly resented by the AFL-CIO construction unions. They viewed District 50 as a “company union” that was weak in the industry and undercut their collective bargaining agreements. They reacted to the merger by strongly opposing its approval by the AFL-CIO. Then USWA President I.W.Abel made it very clear that if USWA had to leave the AFL-CIO in order to keep District 50 it would leave. The issue was resolved with an agreement between the USWA and the Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), the construction unions’ arm within AFL-CIO. Under it, USWA agreed to limit the scope of its existing contractor agreements to the geographic areas and type of construction work then being performed by District 50. BCTD agreed that USWA could continue to organize construction contractors in three states (West Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania) and USWA agreed not to organize construction workers in other states.
A glaring weakness of the agreement from USWA’s viewpoint was its lack of an effective enforcement mechanism. BCTD Local Unions frequently picketed and walked off the job when USWA’s construction members were present, thereby putting pressure on their contractors to cease doing business with USWA companies. When contacted, BCTD at the International level recognized the problem, but insisted that they could not control their Locals. The conflict became so much of an irritant to Lloyd McBride when he was USWA President in the early 1980s that he wrote a letter to the AFL-CIO and the Building Trades unions notifying them that he was cancelling the agreement. The Building Trades unions protested saying that he could not do so. But he held fast and USWA began organizing construction contractors outside the three state area.
Finally in 1993 Lane Kirkland, then President of the AFL-CIO, asked Lynn Williams and Bob Georgine, the head of the BCTD, to appoint representatives to meet and try to resolve the dispute. Williams appointed Becker. Becker enlisted me and Bernie Hostein to assist him.
The meetings followed in the fall and early winter of 1993. By that time it was clear that Becker would be the next President of USWA. While the dispute was bitter at the local level, the Becker-Georgine discussions were conducted in an atmosphere of respect and with a clear attempt to understand and deal with the issues on both sides of the dispute.
USWA, through Becker, expressed a willingness to reinstate and clarify the fundamental principles of the 1972 agreement but stressed the need for an effective enforcement mechanism. From USWA’s point of view, the most difficult part about reinstating those principles was the fact that, with the passage of time, a USWA construction local in New Jersey had become very active in organizing. New Jersey was not one of the three states under the 1972 agreement where USWA was permitted to organize new units.
USWA also made a more general argument that it was willing to agree to limitations on its right to organize and operate in the construction industry, but the BCTD unions had to accept some limitations on their right to organize in the manufacturing sector. In fact, for a number of BCTD unions the manufacturing sector was a very significant part of their union membership.
A key point of resolution came when BCTD agreed to establish an arbitration mechanism for quick hearings and decisions on disputes. If the arbitrator’s decision was not immediately complied with, USWA would have the right to enforce it by seeking a Federal Court injunction.
On the USWA’s equity argument, BCTD agreed that its unions would not organize the production and maintenance employees of employers in what was then considered to be USWA’s key industries – steel, aluminum, can and non-ferrous.
One major issue remained. Would the agreement be subject to termination, and, if so, on what basis? USWA argued that both sides should have the right to terminate. BCTD argued for a permanent agreement with no right to terminate. Ultimately that issue was submitted to Lane Kirkland for mediation. I observed at the time that I suspected that whichever side prevailed on the termination issue might well wish it had not.
Kirkland proposed that the agreement not be subject to termination except on a showing of a recurring pattern of violations. Both sides agreed to the suggestion and the long standing dispute was resolved.
As it turned out, USWA had to resort to arbitration quite a few times in the first few years of the agreement. Mel Stein from the union’s legal department handled these cases. He won virtually all of them.
Gradually both sides came to realize that the agreement was in the best interest of both parties. Most importantly, it removed a source of bitter contention between USWA and the Building Trades unions which had festered since the District 50 merger in 1972. Becker was to start his term as President with the satisfaction of knowing that he had been able to reach a resolution of a long festering internal labor movement problem.
[1] Distict 50 employees who enjoyed successful careers in USWA following the merger included Richard Davis who served as Vice President in Becker’s Administration, Bernie Hostein who served as Organizing Director and Assistant to Becker and Gary Hubbard who served as Communications Director.
Chapter X
An article by Daryl Lindsey published April 18, 2000 in Salon.com and titled Labor meets the Granola Crunchers contained an extensive interview of George Becker in 2000 when he was in Washington DC for the rallies against Most Favored Nation status for China. My book only briefly references the article on page 280. The article suggested Becker’s voice was “eerily reminiscent of James Stewart” and, with his motorcycle, “a little bit “EasyRider.” Here are a few excerpts from the actual interview:
How was the “blue-green alliance”[1] between labor and environmentalists in Seattle created?
We went to Seattle for a lot of different reasons. We went up there because of trade, these kids went there for human rights and environmental things and we came together. We were all fighting the same war. It’s like fighting a war — you don’t look too close at your allies. What I saw when I looked at these kids was my children and my grandchildren. These are very beautiful, idealistic kids. They know something is wrong and they’re willing to stand up for it. Our society has gone through this time and time again. These kids take positions and do so at risk and I admire them. They stood against the war on Vietnam on the college campuses and in the streets of America. Time and circumstances have made them right.
You’ve been outspokenly critical of Vice President Al Gore for his role in Clinton administration trade policy. And yet, you gave him your endorsement last fall.
I held it off for a long time and met with Gore to get a better understanding of what his trading policies were going to be. Gore has promised us that, under his administration, he will break with the traditional trading policies of the “Republican” Democrats and he would require labor accords, labor standards, the right of assembly, the right of building a free democratic trade union movement to be incorporated into core provisions of any trade agreement. He would also pledge to work with us on environmental accords. Gore is still trying to walk down both sides of the street — eventually he’ll have to be very definitive.
Labor is often accused of nationalism and isolationist policies, in contrast to the trend toward globalization.
How can you not be more concerned about yourself and your family and your communities? But that doesn’t mean we’re not concerned about others. We’re not the enemies of the Chinese people or the Korean people or the Brazilians. We have a common enemy, and that’s the multinationals and international finance, the WTO and the IMF and the World Bank. That’s the enemy … those are corporate entities and corporate entities are always out to maximize their profits at the expense of everything else. These multinationals hold no allegiance to the United States. They’re world powers in themselves. If you put a ranking of the economic powers in the world, you’ll find multinationals ahead of most countries.
We’ve become a corporate state. And that’s what we’re doing. We’re not doing this for the good of man, we’re doing this for the good of corporations. We are making a success out of communism in China. We’re giving them the world wealth and the technology in order to continue to enslave those people. They would collapse if it weren’t for that — communism is a corrupt theology.
But if you go beyond sovereignty, if you have Coke in every country, like Iran and Iraq, for example, doesn’t that make it more difficult for those countries to fight wars against each other?
If that was the case, then explain to me with all the companies that have built into China, with all the trade that’s there, we’re running the greatest deficit now with any nation now in the world with China, over $70 billion last year alone. Tell me why China feels comfortable in going after Taiwan? It’s just for precisely the opposite reason. They believe that with the trade relations we’ve established in China, the businesses will not permit us to intervene on behalf of the Taiwanese people. It’s precisely the opposite: It ties our hands.
Listen, the President’s Export Council (and I’m a member of that council) tried to take a position that the governmental sanctions against Iraq and Iran should not stop them from doing business with them. Because if we don’t then other people will. I asked them, What about military hardware? They said, Well that’s no different because they’ll just get the military hardware from someone else. So I said, Let me make sure I understand you. You’re saying, We should supply the AK-47s, we should supply the missiles that they would use in defense against Americans and I couldn’t get an answer from them. That’s precisely what they’re saying.
I think it ties our hands. We have become such a slave to corporate profits that we really don’t give a damn about those people. The reason they want permanent most favored nation status is so the State Department doesn’t have to compile a human rights record annually on China. They can just pretend it doesn’t exist. Once they get the corporate ties into China, they can do whatever they want. Our business people would not permit our government to jeopardize that. I think it’s just the opposite from what you say and what they’re saying.
[1] The reporter’s question and Becker’s answer refer to an unstructured relationship between the union and young environmentalists in Seattle. A formal Blue Green Alliance between unions and environmental organizations was initiated near the end of the Becker term as President, largely through the efforts of Leo Gerard and Carl Pope of the Sierra Club. See page 64 of the book.