‘Dupe’ Shouldn’t Be Used as a Union Label

Not since the 1940s have so many prominent union leaders been subjected to the kind of harsh attacks leveled against those who helped organize last Saturday’s demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco against President Reagan’s foreign policies.

But the allegations that sponsors of Saturday’s demonstrations were Communist dupes will not produce the kind of schism in the AFL-CIO that occurred as a result of the far more ferocious attacks against suspected Communists in unions nearly 40 years ago.

While some of the accusations then were false, there really were Communists in several unions in those days. And by 1950, the old Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) had expelled 11 unions on grounds that they were dominated by Communists.

The wisdom of that dramatic action is still debated. It meant that the CIO lost affiliates that represented nearly one-third of the almost 3 million CIO members, only a handful of whom were Communists. The labor federation also lost many effective leaders, some of whom were Communists.

On the other hand, the CIO ouster of the 11 unions helped bring about a merger in 1955 with the more conservative American Federation of Labor (AFL) to form the AFL-CIO. In time, the expelled unions changed their leaders and most either merged with AFL-CIO unions or went out of existence.

Ever since the expulsions, there have been no credible accusations that any mainstream American union is dominated by Communists.

The current furor is vastly different from the turmoil of the late 1940s. None of the union leaders who sponsored last Saturday’s demonstrations is even suspected of being a Communist.

Those union leaders, who head the nation’s largest labor organizations, were denounced for allegedly allowing their names and organizations to be used by supporters of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government and “various Central American Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries.”

The critics are militant anti-Communists, in and out of the AFL-CIO, who were strong supporters of the U.S. role in the war in Vietnam and in general describe themselves as hawks in the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland has been a moderating influence, and he has usually helped bridge the gap on foreign policy issues between liberal and conservative AFL-CIO leaders.

But Kirkland himself was one of the first prominent critics of Saturday’s demonstrations, though his attack was relatively mild. He objected to some of the scheduled speakers and complained that the policies of the Reagan Administration and those of the rally organizers were “equally irresponsible.”

After Kirkland’s remarks, the militant anti-Communists in and out of the AFL-CIO began to escalate the attacks on the demonstrations and their sponsors.

The attacks by outsiders reached a peak of virulence with a widely distributed article by Arnold Beichman, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Beichman said, offering no evidence, that “there is simply no point in beating around the bush.” The demonstrations are “a Communist-inspired and Communist-directed event dedicated to 100% support of Soviet foreign policy.”

Despite the furious denunciations, the demonstrations were reasonably successful.

An estimated 75,000 to 100,000 protesters braved a cold rain in Washington to call for an end to U.S intervention in Central America and strong actions against South Africa’s government. About 30,000 took part in San Francisco. None of the leaders of the 19 unions who backed what was called the National Mobilization for Justice and Peace in Central America and Southern Africa withdrew their support.

Their reaction to the attacks varied from outrage to, as one put it, “sorrow that we seem to be slipping back into the ugly days of ‘guilt by association.’ ”

Others said they were insulted; several were angry. But interviews with the union officers or their aides made it clear that they do not expect, or want, the furious arguments over the demonstration to cause a major split in the AFL-CIO.

They believe that their critics inside the AFL-CIO feel the same way, and an AFL-CIO spokesman said there is no sign of a serious schism within the 13.5-million-member federation because of the argument.

One union president, who didn’t want his name used, said: “We agree with Lane (Kirkland) on most issues. We are united in the federation on almost all issues, except foreign policy, and we are not going to let those differences split our ranks.”

The strongest reaction to the attacks came from Stanley Hill, head of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union in New York, who used newspaper ads to denounce the “red-baiting.”

Hill noted that the demonstrations were backed not only by leaders of the nation’s largest unions, but also by leaders of almost every Protestant denomination, 12 Catholic bishops, prominent rabbis and Jewish leaders and members of 15 women’s religious orders.

Leaders of the National Council of Churches complained to Kirkland that his criticisms were inaccurate. They said they were not trying to stop all U.S. aid to Central American countries, as Kirkland had contended. Instead, they said, they were calling for an end to U.S. military intervention in the area.

Kirkland was the mildest of the critics. David Jessup, of the AFL-CIO’s American Institute for Free Labor Development, sent out a memorandum in which he contended that the steering committee of the Mobilization group included some who “openly support the Marxist-Leninist guerrillas in El Salvador” and the Sandinista rulers of Nicaragua.

That was followed by a lengthy denunciation of the demonstrations from John Joyce, who is president of the Bricklayers Union and a vice president of the AFL-CIO. It was Joyce who provoked the most anger from the protest leaders when he compared them to puppets who were being manipulated “by radical left-wing groups dedicated to putting unions, as well as religious organizations, to those groups’ purposes.”

Joyce’s views were echoed by Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers and an AFL-CIO vice president who is one of the leaders of the ultraconservative bloc in the AFL-CIO on foreign policy issues.

By standing up to the harsh attacks against them, the sponsors of the demonstrations proved that the most conservative wing of the AFL-CIO on foreign policies is no longer the dominant wing.

Kirkland could best serve the cause of labor unity by making sure that the bitter emotions stirred by the attacks on the demonstrations lead to calm debates in the labor federation over foreign policy questions, not more divisive name-calling.

Arbitration Needed in Disputes Over Firings

California’s Legislature should pass a law creating an arbitration system to help settle charges by workers who contend that they have been unjustly fired.

Since 1980, courts have upset the traditional right of management to fire non-union workers “at will.” As a result, many employees have brought legal action against their employers, in some cases winning substantial back-pay settlements on grounds that they were unjustly discharged.

Employers complain that the settlements have been excessive--some have run as much as several hundred thousand dollars. Workers have complained that only those who can afford high legal fees are able to bring their “unjust discharge” cases to court.

One proposal to answer the critics is before the Legislature. It would set up a voluntary arbitration system. If both the worker and employer agree, a neutral third party would decide how much money, if any, the worker is entitled to receive. The idea is to get such disputes out of the courts, where costs are high.

A better idea than the voluntary proposal is one by the American Civil Liberties Union that would first allow mediators to try to settle such disputes but, if that fails, there would be mandatory arbitration. The ACLU’S Paul Schrade notes that unionized workers have a grievance procedure through which they can challenge dismissals. But in California alone, he said, an estimated 200,000 non-union workers are fired each year for non-economic reasons, and they, too, are entitled to an easily available, low-cost system to protest if they think they have been unjustly discharged.

The idea makes sense since it apparently would benefit both employers and workers.