A central issue for our class is that many of our unions are, and have long been, in the hands of bureaucrats, grafters, and gangsters. The story of New York’s I.B.E.W. Local 3.

‘The Electrical Workers Union’ by John Rogers from Labor Age. Vol. 21 No. 3. March, 1932.

A FEW years ago the national office of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers desired to gain control of the big N.Y. local No. 3, which has jurisdiction over all electrical work in Greater New York and the whole. of Long Island. They sent in a young international vice-president, H.H. Broach, who came riding out of the west like a young Lochinvar.

Broach charged that the officials then in charge of Local 3 were grafters and inefficient, and that they were not making a real effort to organize all electrical workers. He announced that the International office was determined to clean up New York and began a big attack on our local officers. After a terrific fight in the union and in the courts Broach won out and men who were ready to go along with him were put in charge of our local.

Not long after this the International President, James Noonan, died and at a hastily called meeting of the Executive Board, convened at Noonan’s funeral, to the surprise of many, young Broach was made International President.

A Union Mussolini?

Broach, who in the opinion of some of us had acted a good deal like a Mussolini in New York, though at first this did not change our confidence in him, now took a step which showed that he was really more of a Mussolini than a democratic trade union leader. He said unions were inefficient and ought to be run on a business basis, that a lot of rank and filers were ignorant fools, and could not be trusted to run a big modern union. So he proposed that a committee of eleven persons should be named by him as President to rewrite the International’s constitution, and that if his proposition was accepted, any constitution these men might write should go into effect without the membership being consulted any further. The proposition was accepted by a referendum vote. In that referendum all the members of local 3 were recorded as for the proposition, though not more than half of them, I believe, voted on it. Maybe that gives an idea as to how this thing was carried in other locals too.

This new constitution gives Broach, the International president, the right “to suspend the card and membership of any member who, in his judgment, is working against the welfare of the I.B.E.W. (since a man cannot work at the trade unless he has a union card, this puts a man’s living at Broach’s mercy); to either suspend or revoke the charter of any local union–to take charge of the affairs of any local union–to remove or suspend any local union officer” and to “fill any such office or position by appointment of others.” There is more of this kind of thing in our new constitution, but this is enough to show that we live under a dictatorship.

The way this dictatorship has worked out in local 3 has been stated recently in some circular letters issued by the Electrical Workers New Deal Group of Local 3, I.B.E.W., which seem to me to tell the case pretty well.

Where Does the Money Go?

We members want to know, for one thing, where all the money goes. Before Broach came to New York we were paying dues at the rate of $40 to $50 per year and he said that was too much. Now our dues are $108 per year. As we have about 8,000 members, that’s a lot of money.

In the Spring of 1929, our officers told us we were going to be attacked by the employers, etc., and so they put across a $50 tax on every member.

We figure that they collected around $350,000 in this way. We have never had an accounting of a single cent.

If we suspect that under the Broach regime there is some grafting in connection with these large sums of money, we can hardly be blamed. For example, Wm. Hogan, who was convicted and served a term in Sing Sing as a result of the Lockwood investigation into graft in the building trades, was made Financial Secretary and an important cog in our union “machine” by Broach.

Another thing, many of us believe that the local’s unemployment relief measures are not fairly and squarely carried out. The union is supposed to give out jobs to members impartially, but we have cases where “yes” men get long time jobs, while any one who has shown any opposition to the administration gets sent to a job that is good for only a few days. Then, sometimes for weeks no unemployment relief is paid out, and men who do not stand in with the machine are deprived of their relief by some technical point.

We charge that all the big electrical jobs in New York go to four big contractors. We believe these firms agree on prices to charge for jobs and so have a monopoly. The union favors these big contractors and puts heavy burdens on the small contractors. We want to know if union officials get any graft out of that.

We hold that our union is not at present making any vigorous effort to organize all electrical workers, and in particular it is not trying to organize the workers for big public utilities like the Edison Co. Is there an understanding with the Edison Co. which keeps our union from doing its duty by these fellow-workers?

Terrorism

An iron hand rests on the members of our union today. Strong-arm men stand at the door at local meetings. If you are not liked by the administration, they kick you downstairs. You cannot attend union meetings. A man got up at one of our meetings and made a motion that an election be held, which we haven’t had for several years. Not only was he put out, but a member who offered to go with him to the station-house as a witness was beaten, arrested on a charge of inciting riot and suspended from membership. Sometime ago a group of members went into court and asked for an order to put our local into the hands of a receiver. On the advice of their lawyer they called a meeting of members to explain the reason for their action. Some of those who had the nerve to attend have been fined $300 and suspended from membership (deprived of a chance to work, therefore) for a year! Our members must decide whether we are to be a union or a racket, but how they are going to get a chance to make their wishes known and put them into effect under present conditions, is a mystery.

Labor Age was a left-labor monthly magazine with origins in Socialist Review, journal of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. Published by the Labor Publication Society from 1921-1933 aligned with the League for Industrial Democracy of left-wing trade unionists across industries. During 1929-33 the magazine was affiliated with the Conference for Progressive Labor Action (CPLA) led by A. J. Muste. James Maurer, Harry W. Laidler, and Louis Budenz were also writers. The orientation of the magazine was industrial unionism, planning, nationalization, and was illustrated with photos and cartoons. With its stress on worker education, social unionism and rank and file activism, it is one of the essential journals of the radical US labor socialist movement of its time.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/laborage/v21n03-mar-1932-labor-age.pdf