Labor's Home Front

The American Federation of Labor during World War II

Andrew E. Kersten

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9780814748244
• eBook ISBN: 9780814748350
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

One of the oldest, strongest, and largest labor organizations in the U.S., the American Federation of Labor (AFL) had 4 million members in over 20, 000 union locals during World War II. The AFL played a key role in wartime production and was a major actor in the contentious relationship between the state, organized labor, and the working class in the 1940s. The war years are pivotal in the history of American labor, but books on the AFL's experiences are scant, with far more on the radical Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO).
Andrew E. Kersten closes this gap with Labor's Home Front, challenging us to reconsider the AFL and its influence on twentieth-century history. Kersten details the union's contributions to wartime labor relations, its opposition to the open shop movement, divided support for fair employment and equity for women and African American workers, its constant battles with the CIO, and its significant efforts to reshape American society, economics, and politics after the war. Throughout, Kersten frames his narrative with an original, central theme: that despite its conservative nature, the AFL was dramatically transformed during World War II, becoming a more powerful progressive force that pushed for liberal change.

1

The Politics of “Equality of Sacrifice”

The AFL and Wartime Labor Relations

This story begins with a bang and winds up with a wallop. The bang, which shocked American ears in the dawn of December 7, 1941, was the explosion of the first Japanese bomb at Pearl Harbor. The wallop, which will ultimately destroy the enemy, was the instantaneous response of American labor to the bugles of war.

—William Green, 1942¹

The price for civilization must be paid in hard work and sorrow and blood.

—President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1942²

Sacrifice defined the American generation—now dubbed the “greatest generation”—that endured the twin scourges of the Great Depression and the Second World War.³ Examine the wartime story of Pauline Szymanski, a hardworking member of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL). A mother of seven, she was by her employer’s estimation “one of the best sewing operators” he had ever seen. Her dedication to her work and to her family was legendary around the plant. Every morning she rose at five o’clock and made sure that her youngest son, Harold, was ready for school. Then she would get herself ready for eight hours on the sewing machines. Off at three o’clock, she was home in time to greet Harold at the door. Despite the hectic days and nights, Pauline was happy to have her full-time job at the mill. Like so many of her Detroit neighbors, she vividly remembered the personal and economic sacrifices that had been necessary during the Great Depression, when jobs and money were scarce. But she and her husband had made it through, and the new war had brought steady work. The war had also brought tragedy, more sacrifices. While Pauline worked, washed, cooked, and cared, she thought constantly about her six sons in the military. In her spare moments, she wrote to them and waited with bated breath for their replies. It was not long after the war began that she received the mail that no mother wants. Edward died first, in Africa, in 1942. Raymond was killed next. Unlike Edward, Raymond suffered, lingering briefly. The agony did, however, give him the chance to tell his captain his dying wish: he desired someone to kiss his mother for him one last time. Pauline’s union, the ILGWU, made certain that Raymond’s wish was granted. In 1943, union officials, along with the Red Cross, arranged for her to travel to Washington, D.C., to meet President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She was one of fifty-seven Gold Star mothers who saw FDR that day in March 1944. “I’ve never been away from Detroit before,” Pauline told an AFL reporter upon her return. “I was so—so green about traveling. But the Red Cross looked after me. … It was comforting to talk to [the president].” She did not remember what FDR had said to her. She only remembered “that moment when he kissed me—just a touch of the lips on my cheek. I can’t ever forget that.” As the reporter editorialized in the Federation’s monthly magazine, the American Federationist:

Mrs. Szymanski’s name may be hard to spell and even harder to pronounce. But she is the kind of American we of the labor movement can well be proud of. She is doing her job. She is doing the best to win the war regardless of sacrifices. She is not letting anyone down. May she be spared further suffering!

But, of course, to win the war, AFL unionists like Pauline had to sacrifice much more to defeat the Axis armies.⁴

American workers, and in our case unionists who belonged to the American Federation of Labor, were more than willing to do nearly anything it took to win the war. Significantly, that did not mean that they stopped their rekindled quest to bring equity and equality to American life. Moreover, it did not mean that the AFL’s members relinquished their cherished beliefs, traditions, or policies without good cause or without a fight. On the contrary, if anything, the resumption of war in Europe in the late 1930s focused labor’s attention and energies on the Federation’s organizational drives and political missions that the New Deal had helped to unleash. Thus, there were limits to the amount and kinds of wartime sacrifices AFL workers were willing to make. They were willing to commit their labor and their lives, but not if their sacrifices lined the pockets of big capitalists, emboldened reactionary politicians, aided the upstart Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), or forced them begrudgingly to recast their ideology. From the first hints of war in Europe in the 1930s and throughout the entire war period, there existed a politics of sacrifice that often put labor’s demand for democracy, equality, and fairness in direct conflict with the programs for defense preparedness and, later, war production. The negotiated solutions to these political battles—which involved labor and its readiness, or, as some maintained, its reluctance, to make the required sacrifices—shaped much of the history of the home front during the Second World War.

These fights also set the parameters of the American Federation of Labor’s response to the war. Initially cool to the defense preparedness program, the Federation reversed its political stance as the war with the Axis became inevitable. By the time of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the AFL was staunchly pro-defense. By working with FDR’s wartime administration, the AFL began to transform its core ideas, especially volunteerism and “pure and simple” unionism. No longer did AFL leaders eschew government intervention in labor relations or in workers’ lives. The Second World War became a watershed when the AFL finally realized that economic security and stability would come only with an alliance with the federal government. As we will see in later chapters, the Federation eventually bought into President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wide-ranging vision of a future America where the Four Freedoms were not an aspiration but a reality. This change was tempered by continuity elsewhere in the Federation. The AFL refused to use its power to redefine the economic and political positions of African American and women workers. It also failed to cease its internecine battle with the Congress of Industrial Organizations. In addition, the AFL continued to be vigilant in its efforts to stop employers from destroying the advances made through New Deal labor relations. Nevertheless, despite the continuity, the AFL had changed fundamentally by the war’s end. It was committed to a Rooseveltian vision of security and citizenship that sought to transform the lives of all Americans. This break from the past happened quickly and represented a stark departure from the prewar AFL worldview.

A Glimpse of the AFL on the Eve of the Second World War

Initially, as dark and dreadful war clouds gathered in Europe, the AFL, especially its leadership, refused to make any major sacrifices for the sake of the impending crisis. In general, the AFL’s position reflected the nation’s isolationist mood. Simply put, the Federation challenged any policy or action that brought the United States closer to war. That said, AFL leaders strongly opposed fascism in Europe. They sternly rebuked Adolph Hitler’s and Benito Mussolini’s warmongering and antidemocratic public statements and actions. In fact, the Federation was among the earliest and staunchest critics of Hitler and the Nazi Party. As early as 1933, the AFL’s Executive Council expressed its “profound regret and indignation” at the violent suppression of the German labor movement, as well as the vicious attacks upon German Jews. “We abhor racial persecution and we protest vigorously against the persecution of the Jewish people of Germany,” the Council proclaimed shortly after Hitler took power.⁵ In a vain attempt to aid German trade unions, the AFL subsequently passed, at its 1933 annual convention, a resolution that sympathized with the downtrodden German unionists, called for the reestablishment of an independent German labor movement, and instituted a voluntary boycott of German imports. Throughout the 1930s, the AFL echoed these sentiments at its conventions. In 1935, the Federation voted to extend a boycott of German goods and services, urged American Olympians to forgo the 1936 Berlin games, and authorized funds to be sent to Hitler’s and Mussolini’s victims.

Yet, even when war finally broke out, in September 1939, the AFL clung to isolationism. Soon after Hitler unchained his armies, AFL president William Green released an official Federation pamphlet titled No European Entanglements, in which the AFL’s president detailed the labor organization’s isolationist stance. Green reminded his readers (who theoretically included President Roosevelt, who received a personal copy of the pamphlet) that it was unlawful to “enlist with the belligerents, taking any part in activity to aid or abet” them. That was the letter of the law, and Green voiced some concern that the May 1939 revisions to American neutrality laws, which created the so-called cash-and-carry provisions, failed to live up to the spirit of George Washington’s famous diplomatic dictum. As Green stated bluntly:

William Green (1870–1952), courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt President Library, image NPx66-323-38.

Labor firmly believes that we should have no part in this European War. We have no part in its causes, and can have no responsible part in its adjustments. We want policies best calculated to keep us free of European entanglements.⁶

Green did condemn Hitler’s invasion of Poland: “We denounce it. We abhor it.” Moreover, he believed that the German people, particularly the working class, did not favor the war. “Their bodies and their lives will be sacrificed on the field of battle. They will be called upon to kill other workers whose interests are common. … And what for?” Green’s misguided notion that average Germans were unwilling to make any sacrifices for their Führer greatly underestimated the situation. Regardless, he and the Federation were not prepared to sacrifice their beliefs and mobilize for war. This put the Federation at odds with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was beginning to put the United States on a war footing with the creation, in 1939, of the War Resources Board, whose name rankled many isolationists across the country.⁷ Green maintained that American working people did not desire an agency to ready the nation for battle. Rather, he called on the president to use any means in his power for “mediation efforts” and to make “use of all moral interference at our command in the interest of peace.”⁸ During the “phony war” period, between October 1939 and March 1940, when it seemed that the German cannons had rested, the AFL stuck to its ideological guns and renewed its call for FDR to pursue a foreign policy based upon “strict neutrality and peace” while at the same time reaffirming its condemnation of Germany and the Soviet Union for their imperialist actions.⁹

Despite the AFL’s strong public support for isolationism, when the Nazis moved again, in the spring of 1940, President Green and the Federation quickly changed their position on the European conflict. On April 9, 1940, Hitler ordered his armies to invade Norway and Denmark. Success encouraged the Germans to broaden the war still further, using their blitzkrieg on France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium on May 10, 1940. Less than a week later, President Roosevelt requested that Congress appropriate more money for defense. The Federation’s leadership watched these events carefully, and the Executive Council passed a confidential memorandum committing the AFL to Roosevelt’s defense efforts in the event that the United States became a belligerent. The resolution also stated that the Federation expected equal representation on civilian wartime agencies.¹⁰ Moreover the AFL expected that the Federation’s representatives “be consulted in connection with all questions affecting civilians and civilian activities during a period of national emergency.”¹¹ Publicly outspoken support for the defense preparations came shortly thereafter. The final straw was the fall of France four weeks later. William Green jumped to action. He again called the Executive Council together, and it issued this statement to the press:

In the present emergency caused by the necessity for a rapid development of the nation’s national defense, the American Federation of Labor again pledges its active and cooperative support with industry and with every appropriate governmental agency having to do with the production and construction of material for national defense, or any other national requirement to that end.¹²

Following that public announcement, several influential members of the AFL wrote to President Roosevelt to indicate their “willingness to cooperate in every possible way to do everything in our power to further the National Defense Program.” And yet, the AFL’s director of organization, Frank P. Fenton; its International representative, Robert J. Watt; and Harvey W. Brown, the International president of the International Association of Machinists, wanted to make clear that their full support had a price. In polite language, and echoing the sentiments of that confidential Executive Council memorandum, the three wrote that they recommended that, “in order to coordinate [defense activities] in a more realistic manner,” FDR “appoint a coordinating committee with equal representation of employers and representatives of labor.”¹³

The AFL leadership wanted to make certain that in the defense emergency, all stakeholders shared the burdens of making policy decisions. No unionist wanted a return to the situation of the First World War, during which employers and their government allies, no matter how progressive, basically ran the show. In theory, equal representation of labor (meaning in this instance the AFL) and business would guarantee that the Roosevelt administration would not call on workers to give more to the defense effort than their employers. Here, then, was the essence of “the equality of sacrifice,” a phrase popularized by the leaders of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Both houses of labor demanded that the work of the war must be shared and that no one group unduly profit from the circumstances. Fears that businessmen were already gaining an upper hand prompted public protest from both the CIO and the AFL. As the Federation president noted in a speech in the spring of 1940, “already selfish business interests are calling for the repeal of the Walsh-Healey Act [which obliged the federal government to respect prevailing minimum wages in manufacturing and service contracts] and demanding that the Wage and Hour Act be scrapped.” Green declared firmly that “the American Federation of Labor will oppose such moves.” “If the day ever comes when all of us must tighten our belts and pitch in to defend our country, there will be no slackers in the American Federation of Labor,” he promised. But he also warned that such sacrifices for defense preparedness must be accompanied by guarantees that “workers’ gains [over the previous decade would] not vanish.”¹⁴

These concerns grew as the United States inched toward involvement in the conflicts in Europe and Asia. One year into the defense mobilization, it was clear that, instead of sacrificing, employers were profiting greatly from the defense emergency. In the first quarter of 1941, 295 leading manufacturing companies earned profits of 12.5 percent. In airplane factories alone, profits were up by about 33 percent compared to 1940 profit levels. Put another way, airplane manufacturers were making a profit of $544 per worker. In summary, as the Federation editorialized in its magazine, “Industry has been protected from loss due to plant expansion; profit averages earned before defense are exempted from excess-profits taxes; profits of leading companies are tremendous, and throughout industry profits are running well above average.” Employers did not seem to be suffering that much. “How’s business?” the AFL mused in the summer of 1941. “Business, brother, is just fine.”¹⁵

Long before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt tried to ensure that the burdens of war fell as equally as they could. In May 1940, he scuttled the War Resources Board and established a new, less aggressive, and less militaristic-sounding agency, the National Defense Advisory Commission (NDAC). To lead the NDAC, he chose one leader from industry and one from labor. Perhaps not surprisingly, FDR tapped the head of General Motors, William S. Knudsen, to represent the employer side of the defense mobilization. Roosevelt’s choice for the labor representative, however, stunned the American Federation of Labor. The president chose Sidney Hillman, head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and one of the original founders of the CIO.

The selection of Hillman illustrates in dramatic fashion the transformed nature of ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 The Politics of “Equality of Sacrifice”: The AFL and Wartime Labor Relations
• 2 Putting the Shackles on Labor: The AFL and the Fight Against the Open Shop
• 3 Building Ships for Democracy: The AFL, the Boilermakers, and Wartime Racial Justice in Portland and Providence
• 4 “Under the Stress of Necessity”: Women and the AFL
• 5 Union Against Union: The AFL and CIO Rivalry
• 6 Death in the Factories: Worker Safety and the AFL
• 7 Planning America’s Future: The AFL and Postwar Planning
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Sources
• Index
• About the Author