An in-depth, six-part look at the struggle of New York’s thousands of bicycle messengers to organize a union as part of a national drive in the summer of 1934.

‘The Telegraph Messengers’ Union Sows the Seeds of Militant Trade Unionism’ by Philip Randolph from The Daily Worker. Vol. 11 No. 157. July 2, 1934.

The T.M.U. Sows the Seeds of Militant Trade Union in the Telegraph Industry. July 2, 1934.

The communications industry is one of the basic industries of this country. A great many large businesses depend upon it, and were they deprived, even for a week, of its assistance, they would find themselves seriously crippled. But it is the telegraph industry I want to write about first.

The telegraph industry is a very essential part of the war machine. During the last war, the U.S. Government lost no time in taking over all of the telegraph companies and placing them under strict censorship and control. With the advent of a new war, with the fascist motivation of the Roosevelt administration. it is not surprising that the government is proposing, with the Dill Bill, to place the entire communications industry again under its centralized control.

The telegraph industry is a gigantic trust. With its millions it controls State Legislatures, and its power reaches into Washington. Because the telegraph companies convey the news dispatches to the press, they can be very easily used as a weapon of suppression. Witness the recent incident of the telegram about the terror in Birmingham. Alabama, which was sent by the Daily Worker correspondent, via the Western Union wires, but which did not reach the offices of the “Daily” because the manager of the Western Union office in Birmingham took it upon himself to characterize the news story as “propaganda” and refused to send it.

The telegraph industry employs thousands of young workers. More than half the employees in the Western Union and Postal Telegraph companies are under the age of 21. These young workers are exploited in every way. Their hours are in most cases intolerable. These they work under conditions that are long, they are underpaid, and young workers can be organized into militant unions. Some progress has already been made in that direction.

Organize Unions

Fighting messengers unions are already organized in Detroit, Minneapolis, and Cleveland. Unions are being formed in Chicago and Philadelphia. In New York militant messengers have organized themselves into the rank and file-controlled Telegraph Messengers, under the guidance of the Office Workers Union An excellent bulletin, the “Telegraph Messenger’s Voice,” is eagerly read by hundreds of messengers. Contacts are being made in other cities and the foundation for a National Telegraph Messengers Union is being laid. This national organization is to be formed by the unification of all existing messengers unions and the setting up of locals in cities where no unions are organized.

There is a great need for the organization of revolutionary trade unions in the telegraph industry. The Western Union and the Postal Telegraph together employ about 60,000 workers, many of whom work only part time, and are thoroughly disgusted with their conditions.

Many in Company Union

About 30,000 of these workers belong to a company union, the Association of Western Union Employees. This union was formed in 1918 by Newcomb Carlton, the then president of the Western Union, and was openly called a “company union” by Carlton.

At the present time, because of the betrayals of the union leaders, who work hand in glove with the company officials, who have sold out the rank and file in every dealing with the company, the Association is discredited in the eyes of its membership. Thousands have already resigned from it. Meetings are held at infrequent Intervals, and are poorly attended. Due to lack of interest on the part of the rank and file the same officers continue to hold their positions without any change.

Other Unions

The other unions in the industry are the Commercial Telegraphers Union, an A.F. of L. union, and the United Telegraphers of America, an independent union. The C.T.U. is a weak shell of less than 2,000 members, and offers nothing to the telegraph company employees to rally them to struggle for better conditions. The telegraph workers sense the need of a strong independent union. They feel that only through such an organization will their best interests be served, especially if the expected merger between the competing companies, the Postal Telegraph and the Western Union, goes through.

The United Telegraphers of America, after a period of controversy to oust company elements, bids fair to become the representative union of all telegraph employees. Already the response to it is wide-spread and it may well become a national organization.

The Young Messengers Show the Way

But it is the young messengers who are showing the way to the older workers in the struggle for better conditions. They have already won important concessions through their militancy.

Recently in Minneapolis the Postal Telegraph messengers, in a spontaneous strike which tied up the entire Postal Telegraph system, won a wage increase. In Detroit a few weeks later, the Western Union messengers struck and won recognition of their independent. union and a 20 per cent wage increase. In Cleveland a strike for higher wages and better conditions won some concessions.

In New York the tremendous growth and the great activity of the Telegraph Messengers Union, started in January of this year, resulted in the use of armed gangsters and thugs, to say nothing of numerous stool pigeons in an attempt to break up the union.

The Western Union Company attempted to keep the exploited messengers from the T.M.U. by forcing them into the company union, where they would be stifled into meek submission. But they soon perceived that they could get nothing from the company union—that their just demands for $15 a week, a 40-hour week, vacation with pay, etc., were disregarded and laughed off. Already the more militant tant messengers are resigning from the company union, and joining the union of their own choice, the T.M.U.

The next article will describe the conditions and grievances of the messengers in New York City, and what the telegraph messengers have accomplished since its inception.

Conditions Under Which Messengers Work Led to Formation of T.M.U. July 9, 1934.

Last week I wrote of the importance of the telegraph industry, and the labor organizations now in it. This article will describe the conditions under which the New York City messengers work, and which led to the formation of the Telegraph Messengers Union.

The Western Union Company carries approximately three-fourths of the domestic telegraph business in the United States, and last year made a profit of $4,364,882. The Postal Telegraph Corporation, controlling the remainder of the business, is a subsidiary of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corp., which made a profit of $694,126 in 1933, in contrast with a loss of $3,934,960 the preceding year.

These companies made enormous profits by forcing their lower-salaried employees to shoulder the burden of an economy program by back-breaking speed ups and wage cuts. But, in the face of published financial reports, they answer the demands of the underpaid and over-worked telegraph workers for the return of the wage slashes and an improvement in conditions with the statement that they cannot meet them because of their uncertainty concerning this year’s profits.

As a result of the company’s desire for more and more profits, the conditions of the telegraph messengers, always the most exploited, became increasingly worse. These young boys, one-fourth of them under sixteen, had to work harder in order to make at least the miserable sum of $8 a week.

Work to Support Families

Most of these young boys are working to help support their families, who have suffered severely from unemployment and the rising cost of living. Their work, because of the constant speed-ups and the accidents resulting from the former, is very hazardous, not only to their present physical condition, but to their future health. Statistics prove that nine out of every hundred messengers throughout the country suffer injuries every year sufficiently severe to keep them from work. Because the pay schedules for the delivery of telegrams are so low, these boys are forced to deliver messages with the utmost speed so that they may return to the telegraph office for another message. This has caused many boys to suffer from pulmonary diseases and heart trouble. Because of the continual strain on their legs, some of them suffer considerably with swollen ankles, flat feet, and other foot and leg ailments.

In the boys’ haste to deliver messages they are frequently struck by automobiles and street cars while crossing busy thoroughfares. The number of messengers injured by automobiles has mounted considerably.

Paid on Piece Basis

Messengers are paid on a piece basis according to zone schedules. The zone furthest away from the telegraph office receives the highest scale and the closer the zone to the office, the lower the rating. If a particular office becomes busy and the boys have an opportunity to make a trifle more because there are more messages, the company immediately lowers the zone schedules and the rate of pay per message is reduced correspondingly. In this way the companies keep the wages of the messengers very low. The conditions in the various telegraph offices are very bad. The boys must come to work in their street clothes and put on their uniforms in the wardrobe. In many cases the office where the boy works is situated quite a distance from the wardrobe, but the messenger is not paid for the time which he spends travelling between them.

In order to save money, many messengers bring their lunches with them and are forced to eat them in the wardrobe, since there are no accommodations in the office for eating. This makes it necessary for them to walk to the wardrobe, and back to the office, all in the 45 minutes they are allowed for lunch.

One of the worst conditions with which the messengers have to contend is the burden of “idle time.” The boys must sit in the offices and wait for their turn to deliver a message. Many times, when business slackens, the messages come in very slowly, and the boys are forced to wait for hours without making a cent. Although they are wearing their uniforms, and are therefore supposedly working, they do not receive even a minimum wage. If business happens to be slow for a week, the messengers’ salary for that week is drastically lessened. When it is considered that the boys barely average $8 even at best, what the problem of “idle time” means to them can well be imagined.

Messengers work on the average between 46 and 48 hours a week. During busy periods they must work overtime regardless of their wishes. During holidays, boys are sent out to solicit holiday greetings, for which time they are not paid. They are used to canvass and solicit these greetings in order to secure business for the company. This disagreeable task is forced on them with the threat of being put on the “reserve” list or being transferred, if they fail to obtain the messages.

The Western Union messengers must buy brown, high-top shoes which can be used on the job only. These shoes are not practical for other wear. If a messenger works but a short while, he has on his hands a pair of shoes which he paid for out of his own meager earnings, and for which he has no further use. Boys who use bicycles must buy them out of their own wages and pay for their upkeep themselves. No provision is made by the companies for the protection of these bicycles, and many are stolen. In case of accident the messenger is not compensated for the damaged bicycle, but must replace it himself. In most cases compensation for injuries is inadequate to cover hospital and medical expenses.

Very Few Get Vacations

Messengers are not entitled to vacations with pay unless they are over 21 years of age. Since the majority of the messengers are under that age, very few of them I receive any vacation. This lack of any rest is not conducive to the health of young boys who work the year round in all kinds of weather.

These are some of the conditions under which thousands of messengers throughout the country work. When the boys rebel against their exploitation, they are intimidated and threatened with firing. When they begin to organize for better conditions, they are transferred to other offices.

Despite this sort of intimidation, the messengers, disgusted with their conditions, have formed their own organization, and their militancy has already gained certain concessions for them from the companies. The Telegraph Messengers Union is constantly growing, and is rallying the messengers in the fight against the terrible conditions. At present messengers are picketing two Western Union offices, one at 1440 Broadway, the other at 37th St. and Eighth Ave., and are demanding a minimum wage of $15 for a 40 hour week, the recognition of the union, and the reinstatement of all messengers fired for organizational activities.

The next article will describe the fight of the messengers to organize their own rank and file-controlled organization, their delegations to the code hearings in Washington, and the strike situation in which they participated.

How Telegraph Messengers Organized Their Own Union And Prepared for a Strike. July 16, 1934.

This article will describe the experience the messengers had with a labor misleader in their efforts to organize their own militant union, and their preparations for a strike after they had been successful in organizing the Telegraph Messengers Union.

Thoroughly dissatisfied with their conditions, the New York messengers began to look for an organization of telegraph workers to which they could affiliate themselves, and together participate in a joint struggle for better conditions in the industry.

The only organization which seemed to answer the needs of the messengers was the United Telegraphers of America, a young but growing independent union, with an ostensibly militant program of struggle, lire messengers decided to join this union, and on October 1, 1933, Abe Dubroff became a member of the U.T.A. Dubroff was placed on the executive board and he immediately began to fight for the policy of making a drive to organize the messengers. A majority of the executive board supported him in this demand.

Opposition from Union Misleader

Opposing these sincere workers were the President of the union, William Shinnick, and his clique of boot-lickers. Personally ambitious, Shinnick, while mouthing militant phrases to the rank-and-file telegraph workers, would betray them by playing along with company officials.

Currying the favor of the company, he tried to stifle any real organization by the employes. When this labor faker and his adherents saw a large number of messengers appear at one of the membership meetings, they became fearful, sensing that this large group of young workers would strip them of their executive power if a real fighting program was not carried out. With this fear uppermost, Shinnick proceeded to sabotage the recruiting of the messengers into the union, and, aided by his supporters, succeeded in keeping it at a standstill.

Seeing that little was being accomplished within the U.T.A., Dubroff organized a group of messengers who were not members of the union, and this nucleus called a mass meeting on December 7. One hundred and fifty enthusiastic boys showed their desire to be organized by attending the meeting, which was held at the Labor Temple. From this meeting the nucleus gained 72 more members, and this group voted unanimously to affiliate itself to the U.T.A. as an autonomous union of messengers.

Directly after the meeting the messengers presented this proposal to the executive board of the United Telegraphers and the board members voted to accept it, despite the opposition of Shinnick. By the next board meeting, however, the misleader had again marshalled his forces. He brought forward the demand that the executive board revoke their previous approval of the messengers’ proposal, and vote instead to allow them in the U.T.A. only if they agreed to join as regular members of the union. The board members over-ruled this. Despite this action by the executive board. Shinnick raised the same demand at the next two meetings. Each time he was over-ruled.

Meanwhile, he continued his policy of obstructing the progress of the messengers. He refused to let them meet in the union headquarters. He refused to allow them to use union stationery. Finally, he sent Abe Dubroff a letter, the day after he was ruled against for the third time, saying that he had withdrawn the autonomous rights of the messengers, and that they must return all stationery, records, etc. to him. because he no longer considered them as members of the U.T.A.

Decide to Start Own Union

The messengers decided to start, their own union and asked the Office Workers Union for assistance and guidance. The O.W.U. offered the messengers their hall as a headquarters, and these two unions began to work together.

A few days later, the Western Union, taking active cognizance of the growing strength of the Telegraph Messengers Union, and hoping to break up the organization, fired Abe Dubroff, the general organizer of the Union. Despite this intimidation, organization continued and by April, two months later, the Grand Central section of the city with its 300 Western Union messengers was solidly with the T.M.U.

Wave of Messengers’ Strikes

During the month of April there were a succession of messengers’ strikes throughout the country. On April 3 the Postal Telegraph messengers in Minneapolis struck for higher wages and won a 20 per cent increase. In Detroit, the Western Union messengers struck on April 10 and gained a proportionate increase and union recognition. On April 14 messengers of both the Postal Telegraph and the Western Union in Cleveland struck and won wage increases and other concessions.

Strike Preparation

Inspired by the example of these successful struggles the New York messengers began to think of strike preparation. On April 30 at a membership meeting of the union the boys voted to prepare for strike. Representatives of 60 offices met at a conference on April 24 at the union headquarters to formulate plans. The next day the telegraph companies started their own associations of messengers. They arranged swimming meets, hikes, and baseball games for the messengers, hoping that this would make the boys forget their miserable conditions, and soften their awakening militancy. The companies sent armed gangsters to the union headquarters to intimidate the organizers. and Abe Dubroff was threatened with death if he did not abandoned his activities. Stool pigeons and company agents began to infiltrate themselves into the union and religiously attended every meeting.

Despite these tactics the strike situation intensified. On April 25 a membership of 300 messengers voted to send committees to present the demands of the boys to the companies and to strike on the 27th if the demands were not met.

These demands were:

1. All messengers, regardless of race, color or locality of work to receive a minimum of $15 a week.

2. All messengers to work no more than 40 hours a week.

3. All equipment, Including shoes, uniforms, bicycles, etc., be provided by the telegraph companies.

4. All messengers regardless of age receive a week’s vacation with full pay yearly.

5. All messengers to have the unrestricted right to organize or join any union of their own choosing without interference or intimidation from the companies.

6. Abe Dubroff, who was fired by the Western Telegraph Company for organizational activity, to be immediately reinstated.

Negotiations with Companies

A telegram was sent to each of the two companies advising them that the committees would call on the 26th and that the deadline for an answer to the demands would be 4 p.m. of the same day. The company officials met the messengers, flatly refused their demands and told the committees that they must wait for the telegraph industry code hearing for any adjustment of their grievances.

The companies prepared for the strike. Both through their own inter-office bulletins and the columns of the yellow capitalist press, they proceeded to raise the cry of “red.” Besides this “red scare” they hoped to break the strike by promising double-pay to scabs and strikebreakers, and threatened the messengers with police terror.

This was the situation on the eve of the strike.

The First Round of the Fight of the N.Y. Messenger Union. July 23, 1934.

Impatient to hear the reports of the committee which they delegated to present their demands to the companies, 500 messengers crowded into the Office Workers hall the evening of April 26th. It had been agreed previously that if the demands were not granted the same day, the boys would go on strike the next morning. Dave Newman. President of the Telegraph Messengers Union and a member of the committee, gave the reports, announcing that both companies had refused the demands, and instead had tried to put them off by telling them to wait for the Code Hearings in May. The next move was up to the messengers.

The telegraph companies were feverishly preparing for the strike. As soon as the company officials had ascertained that the sentiment of the boys was strongly in favor of striking, they had proceeded to use every form of intimidation in an effort to break the morale of the messengers. They enlisted the aid of two notorious strike-breaking agencies, namely the Berghoff Detective Agency and the New York Police Department. They hired hundreds of scabs, promising double pay and police protection to those who remained on the job.

The night of the meeting, the headquarters was surrounded with uniformed and plainclothes officers, and other minions of the law were stationed in the windows of the armory across the street, spying upon the meeting with powerful glasses. Inside the hall, company agents and other stool pigeons mixed in the crowd of messengers, and here and there, too tough and cruel in appearance to be honest workers, stood the easily-recognized guerillas of Berghoff.

Many Threats

The messengers were not unaware of these things. Even Before they came to the meeting they had been threatened if they went on strike, they were warned that any boy who walked out would be fired, and that the companies would not be reluctant to use terror, under the guise or protecting their property. The officials had also dragged in the “red herring,” and some of the boys had already allowed this to obscure the basic issues for which they had been ready to strike.

Company Tactics

These company tactics had not been without their effect. This was discerned as the meeting progressed. The weaker boys began to drift in increasing numbers toward the strike opposition group, led by the stools and company elements. The strategy of this group was well planned.

They contrived to crowd out the militant and sincere messengers from gaining the floor to speak. They noisily cheered those who favored a policy of further negotiations with the companies, and yelled down those who demanded an immediate strike. Many boys, new to strike struggles, and already intimidated by the police and the gangsters, chose to forget the miserable conditions under which they worked, and permitted themselves to be swayed by the clique of mercenaries.

Feeling that they were strong enough to defeat the sentiment for strike, the company faction demanded that a vote be taken. The results of this showed that they had gained the support of about half the boys present. Because of this split, the other messengers felt it was best to postpone the strike, as it was evident that the union was not yet strong enough for strike. The telegraph companies had won this round.

Western Union Splitting Tactics Fail to Break Up Telegraph Messenger Union. July 30, 1934.

The telegraph company officials thought that their splitting tactics during the strike situation had demoralized the messengers, and that they could now proceed to smash the Telegraph Messengers Union.

Early in May, two weeks after the strike meeting, the Western Union fired the President of the T.M.U., Dave Newman, although his service record during his employment of 3 and a half years had been consistently excellent. The reason given for the dismissal was that Newman had frequently absented himself without any notice, a charge winch the boy easily disproved. About the same time another messenger, Louis Zucker, was also fired. Zucker had been asked by the Western Union to become a stoolpigeon, imparting information concerning the activities of the T.M.U. to the company officials. Zucker refused to do this. Instead, he organized the messengers in his office to demand better working conditions, attacked the company union, and as a member of the delegation to the Washington code hearings he exposed the miserable conditions in the Western Union.

A complaint was made to the N.R.A. Regional Labor Board about the discriminatory actions of the company. Ben Golden, of the Labor Board, told the messengers that their grievances would be taken care of, and that the Western Union would not receive any information concerning the complaints until the day of the hearing. In the face of this statement, the company must have been informed, for the day before the scheduled hearings was to take place, Zucker received a telegram to report back to work.

Washington Code Hearings

In order to expose their working conditions, and present their demands, which included a minimum wage of $15 for a 40-hour week, union recognition, etc., the Telegraph Messengers Union sent three mass delegations to the Code Hearings in Washington. The last of these hearings took place on May 16 in the Department of Commerce auditorium. The telegraph messengers, young boys, stood up before the audience, and made well-fed company executives squirm with their stories of low wages and terrorization.

Company union representatives were present in full force, quoting voluminous statistics gathered for them by the companies. President F.G. Burton of the Association of Western Union Employees (company union) upheld his company’s objections to the code. R.B. White, President of the Western Union telegraph Company, had denounce the labor provisions of the proposed Code of Fair Competition, although minimums as low as $9 for a 40-hour week had been designated. Francis R. White, Western Union counsel, objected to the code as “arousing entirely unfounded hopes among telegraph workers.” Vice-President Howard L. Kern of the Postal Telegraph Company wanted to cut the code minimum to as low as $9 and $8 a week in the larger cities, and $8 and $7 in the smaller cities of the north and south respectively.

Companies Plead Poverty

The code proposed a minimum wage for messengers of $10 in the north and $9 in the south, with a 40-hour week and an 8-hour day. President White of the Western Union said these labor provisions could not be applied because of the emergency character of the business, and that they were “financially unbearable on the basis of present earnings.” Since the Western Union had made millions of dollars profits in 1933, the latter statement by White becomes rather difficult to digest. The Western Union lawyer, Stark, stated that he had been assured by the N.R.A. dictator, General Hugh Johnson, that no code would be imposed on the companies against their will. A real friend of labor, this Johnson.

The New York messengers took the floor and told of having to buy their own equipment out of wages that averaged only from $5 to $8 a week, their poor conditions, and the discrimination and terrorization they encountered in their efforts to organize a union of their own choice.

Many Join Western Union Messengers’ Code Protest. August 6, 1934.

The New York messengers were not the only workers present at the Telegraph Industry Code Hearings in Washington on May 16. Telegraphers and others came to voice their protests against the treatment and discrimination to which the companies had subjected them, and to ask for a Code which would accord a fair deal to the workers in the industry.

One speaker charged that a yellow-dog system operates in the Western Union. He stated that preference for employment is given to applicants who are willing to join the company union (association of Western Union Employees), which sets up an elaborate disguise as an honest labor organization. In support of the demands of the messenger boys for a minimum of $15 for a 40-hour week, he brought out the fact that many of the “boys,” because of unemployment and necessity, are grown men who have been forced to take these jobs to save themselves and their families from starvation and death.

The hearing was not without its irony. Frank B. Powers, President of the Commercial Telegraphers Union, affiliated to the American Federation of Labor, made a speech in which he expressed his sympathy for the messengers, and then, immediately belied this by stating that his organization did not authorize or support any struggle for better conditions in which the messengers throughout the country had participated. Powers declared:

“I listened with great sympathy to the stories of the boys, but we do not give authorization for sporadic strikers, or for strikers of any character until first all constitutional steps have been carried out.” The reader may recall that only a few short weeks ago, William Green, the President of the A.F. of L., issued a very similar statement in reference to the San Francisco general strike, disavowing any interest in or authorization for that struggle.

The fight of the heroic San Francisco workers was smashed, and arch-misleader Green was able to add another one to the list of strikes which he and his shady cohorts have assisted in breaking.

The Code which was proposed stipulated that the messengers were to receive a minimum wage of $10 in the north and $9 in the south. The boys were denied even this, for both the Western Union and Postal Telegraph refused to pay the set minimum, and the Code was never signed.

The companies were thus given carte blanche by the government to continue their policies of wage-cuts, speed-ups, wholesale layoffs, discrimination and intimidation, But to the surprise of the executives, and despite the increased terror, the organizing of the messengers for struggle is continuing and growing.

The New York Telegraph Messengers Union has held picket lines in front of some of the largest Western Union offices in this city, demanding union recognition, reinstatement of all messengers fired for organizational activity, and a minimum wage of $15 for a 40-hour week. In New Orleans, almost the entire messenger force of the Postal Telegraph Cable Company walked out on strike July 26 in protest against a new wage slash of $2.

The Code was the last dissuading factor against militant struggle for many young messengers. Hoping against hope, they thought that the Roosevelt “New Deal” administration might force the powerful and influential companies to better their conditions. Now the boys know that the companies are inexorable linked with the government, and that they can expect no help from that source. They are resigning from the company union, and flocking to the T. M. U. They have already been through a strike situation, and they will enter the next one refusing to be misled by “red scares” and terror, and resolved to gain their demands.