A Matter of Individual Rights

By 1956, despite a decade of campaigns designed to capture the hearts and minds of workers and their communities, despite the expendi­ture of millions of dollars on "economic education" and other pub­lic relations, despite a veritable flood of words and images extolling the benefits of American capitalism, some business leaders, particu­larly from the most conservative wing of the business community, remained uncertain of the loyalty of the workers. To be sure, a Re­publican sat in the White House, and the nation's political atmo­sphere seemed more conservative. Moreover, the passage of Taft-Hart­ley and the defeat of Operation Dixie had helped stem the labor movement's growth. But, union membership remained high and some employers still feared that the public had yet to view industry as "the symbol of progress and hope for the majority of people."¹

What particularly raised new concerns among these business con­servatives was the merger of the AFL and the CIO. Many saw in the merger the specter of a labor juggernaut. In January 1956, Kenneth R. Miller of the NAM proclaimed that "one of the gravest threats to management's right to manage is the vastly increased size and pow­er of organized labor." Unions, he continued, "possess a private power of unprecedented scope and influence. The potentials of this power are in themselves crucial and confront industry as well as the coun­try, with problems of far reaching significance."² It was against this background that conservative business leaders launched yet another major campaign to capture public opinion and redraw the laws gov­erning labor relations at both the state and federal levels. This cam­paign, and labor's response, marked the decade's final effort by both sides to shape the nation's understanding of the postwar social or­der. As such it reveals both the character and limits of America's post­war consensus.

* * *

There were opposing interpretations of the AFL and CIO merger's long-term implications. In December 1955 as the two organizations officially united, The Iron Age observed that "labor unity opens a chap­ter in the American labor movement which will frighten some in­dustrialists and encourage others." More moderate business leaders, who believed that unions had a legitimate and important role in so­ciety, predicted the merger would result in more responsible union­ism, in a decline in jurisdictional strikes, and in better informed and more creative collective bargaining. They felt that George Meany, the new head of the AFL-CIO, was much more conservative than the CIO's Walter Reuther. Meany, they hoped, would use methods "oth­er than strike and bombast to make gains for labor." All this would promote the moderates' primary industrial relations goal—stabiliz­ing labor-management affairs.³

While business moderates applauded the merger of the AFL-CIO as a step toward "responsible unionism," a much larger group of busi­ness conservatives viewed the merger as a threat demanding renewed mobilization by the business community. Labor unity, they felt, meant increased union strength and militancy. No longer could em­ployers play the AFL against the CIO. Conservatives foresaw a major organizing drive, the emergence of labor as the most powerful polit­ical force in the country, and greater leverage in collective bargain­ing. Employers' ever present fear of union power over the economy and politics was seemingly on the verge of becoming reality. In De­cember 1955, NAM Chairman Charles Sligh wondered if the AFL-CIO might not "become a ghost government, in which a handful of peo­ple not elected, not authorized by the American people would pull strings behind the scenes to direct the destinies of the nation."⁴

Much of the popular press reinforced this interpretation, empha­sizing the danger to the public posed by "big labor." U.S. News & World Report, for instance, predicted that the repercussions of a more powerful and richer labor movement would reverberate in a nega­tive way throughout society. Housewives would feel the effects in increased living costs. Taxpayers would "get the impact as the increas­ing political power of organized labor is translated into Government policies and tax rates." Finally, the nation's youth, would experience greater economic uncertainty as their work "more and more" con­formed to restrictive "union rules and practices."⁵

As the nation debated the implications of the merger, the conser­vative wing of the business community took action. The NAM embarked upon a public relations campaign to expose "the abuses and evils of organized labor" with the ultimate goal of arousing the pub­lic to demand legislation to curb labor. Employers wanted to weak­en labor through state "right to work" laws designed to destroy the union shop, and a national labor act that toughened Taft-Hartley on the issue of union monopoly. The NAM'S program focused on publi­cizing five areas of "abusive" labor practices—compulsory union membership; coercion of employees and employers through violence, racketeering, and other "illegal, unethical, and undemocratic activi­ties"; "monopolistic dictation" of labor relations through pattern bargaining, and restrictive practices; and the "misuse" of union or­ganizations and funds for political purposes. In outlining its new pro­gram, the NAM observed that only an aroused public opinion could assure protection against the continuation and expansion of these "evils." A public sympathetic to management would help strength­en politicians' resistance to labor coercion, assist management in deal­ing with "giant unions," and "oppose illegal and immoral political action of any labor group or leader."⁶

"Semantics" were an important part of the business community's new public relations campaign. Despite the publicity associated with the merger, the NAM believed that the public still tended to view labor as "the underdog." Employers thus needed to tread carefully for fear of inadvertently arousing sympathy for their opponents. To address this difficulty, the NAM clothed its assault on unions in a disclaimer that it was not antiunion and did not seek to destroy or­ganized labor. Instead, the NAM claimed that employers simply sought to protect the values associated with the "American Way of Life."⁷

Indeed, the business community's attack on labor consciously drew upon traditional themes embedded in American political culture, such as the danger of monopoly and the concept of individual rights. This was not a new strategy. From the origins of the labor movement, employers had attacked unions as monopolies. In fact, that had been the core of the NAM'S first open shop drive during the early twenti­eth century. So again, the NAM emphasized that unions had become a "labor monopoly" that evinced no concern for the public interest. It charged that the vast "uncontrolled" economic and political pow­er of labor, which made unions capable of "paralyzing a single plant, an entire industry, or the country as a whole," was evidence of this monopoly.⁸ "Today," declared NAM President Ernest G. Swigert in 1957, "the greatest concentrations of political and economic power in the United States of America are found not in the over-regulated, over-criticized, over-investigated, and over-taxed business corpora­tion. " Nor were they present in "their hag-ridden, brow-beaten, pub­licity-fearful managers/' Instead, monopoly power was to be "found in the under-regulated, under-criticized, under-investigated, tax-ex­empt and specially privileged labor organizations," and in "their bel­ligerent, aggressive, and far-too-often lawless and corrupt managers."⁹

Second, employers characterized their drive against labor as a cru­sade to protect the freedom and the rights of the individual, which they characterized as the "bulwark and foundation of the whole American system." According to business leaders, unions invariably ignored individuals. Experience had shown, claimed the NAM, "that as a labor organization and its officials increase in size and power, the freedom of individuals is correspondingly diminished." Employ­ers thus argued that their main concern was protecting the rank and file against exploitation by union leaders, an emphasis that flowed naturally from employers' use of personalized human relations in the factory.¹⁰

In its campaign to create an antilabor atmosphere, business lead­ers sought to activate the community leaders they had been target­ing for almost a decade. NAM departments drafted new literature on "the existing evils and potential threat of Big Labor," and sent it to employers, to leaders of women's organizations, farmers and farm groups, educators, politicians, and opinion leaders. One such flyer entitled "Monopoly Is Always Wrong!" showed two tiny workers and an even smaller employer facing a giant AFL-CIO. It observed that laws prevented business monopoly but exempted unions. This dou­ble standard was "directly contrary to the concept of equal justice under the law." Monopolies enabled a company or union to impose its will on the public and the flyer concluded: "We, as a nation, must be consistent. Every instance of monopoly, whatever its source, must be stopped in its undemocratic tracks!" The NAM also provided pat­tern speeches for employers to use at meetings and on radio or tele­vision and supplied material to news and broadcast journalists to ensure that the general public was "properly informed, alerted and active against the real and potential threat to the national welfare."¹¹ The NAM believed that one of the best ways to alarm the public about the "abuses of monopoly power by labor unions" was to throw the "cold light" of publicity on actual cases. It searched the press for material and also called upon employers to help provide a steady flow of reliable "human interest stories." By 1955, the Employers' Associ­ation of Chicago was already collecting "documented" case histories and publishing them in a series of folders headed "MR and MRS citizen: is this America?" for distribution to employees and opinion lead­ers. "The Heroic Story of Mrs. Esther Quigley" told of one family's experience in a strike called by "a handful of union biggies" to force "the company to knuckle." Mrs. Quigley, determined not to let "a handful of local union bosses lead 450 people around by the nose," organized a successful back-to-work movement. She reported that the experience taught her that "we working people have a job to do in ridding ourselves of bad union bosses" and getting "real responsible leaders."¹²

Into 1956, the NAM worried that there was not yet enough pub­lic understanding of the implications of union "monopolistic abus­es" to successfully implement a drive for national legislation.¹³ But, the business community did feel that it had enough support to pro­ceed at the state level on the issue of "compulsory unionism." In­deed, employers had enough confidence in the tenuousness of labor's hold on public opinion that they targeted union strongholds. Hence, the mid-1950s witnessed an aggressive business campaign to spread "right-to-work" legislation in heretofore union states.

* * *

Right-to-work laws prohibited contract provisions compelling union membership. Although the first two right-to-work laws were passed in 1944, it was really Section 14b of the Taft-Hartley Act that ceded to states jurisdiction over union security restrictions. Thus, as antiunion sentiment was on the upswing, states could prohibit the closed shop, the union shop, and maintenance of membership agree­ments. By 1947, fourteen states, mostly in the South and West, passed right-to-work laws. Between 1948 and 1954, six more states followed, but state labor movements helped repeal several of these statutes, including ones passed in the northern states of Delaware and New Hampshire. Unions opposed right-to-work because they believed that these laws were designed primarily to weaken the labor movement. Trade unionists argued that union security provisions provided a "sound basis for a collective-bargaining relationship that benefits both workers and employers." Moreover, they asserted, nonclosed shop relations bred suspicion and created constant conflict between the union and the employer and union members and nonunionists. Such conditions made it difficult for organized labor to grow and prosper.¹⁴

Before 1954, most of the activity surrounding right-to-work took place at the local level in states with weak labor movements; there was little national debate over the issue. However, interest increased in 1954 as local employer organizations helped enact legislation in three states. In 1955, impressed with their success but fearing a labor counterat­tack, the NAM, the Chamber of Commerce, and the newly formed National Right to Work Committee began coordinated national edu­cational campaigns to assist local employers in promoting or defend­ing right-to-work. In 1956, when Louisiana and Washington union­ists succeeded in "repealing and repelling union security provisions," these national organizations redoubled their efforts.¹⁵

Conservative national business organizations sought to shape the debate over right-to-work. Business leaders asserted that their primary concern was protecting the public interest and the moral right of the individual to choose. It was "an American tradition" asserted a Cham­ber of Commerce spokesman, "that no person should be forced to sup­port opinions and policies with which he disagrees." In 1957, NAM Vice President Charles R. Sligh put it even more bluntly: "compulsory unionism is a blight on the spirit of American justice; a skeleton in freedom's closet."¹⁶ Not only did union security clauses attack indi­vidual rights; but also "compulsory unionism" directly contributed to the concentration of undemocratic power in the hands of union offi­cials. Labor's "bigness" increased the chance of corruption since the membership was a captive audience. The NAM believed that empha­sizing corruption and the union boss's "domination over the individ­ual member," would turn the American public against labor.¹⁷

While the National Association of Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce, and the National Right to Work Committee did not di­rectly participate in state legislative battles, they provided financial support, advice, and educational materials to the companies and state affiliates involved in campaigns. As a way of providing more general­ized assistance, the NAM encouraged national organizations like the Bar Association, the American Legion, and the Daughters of the Amer­ican Revolution to take a public stand on right-to-work. It also attempt­ed to interest national magazines and newspaper chains in exploring the impact of the issue. Regional offices of the NAM encouraged com­pany communications to employees and the association sent right-to-work kits to schools throughout the country.¹⁸

Seeking support for their attacks on union security, employers fo­cused especially on the religious community. The clergy had assumed a particularly prominent role in the debate over right-to-work. The 1954 struggles on the issue touched off a discussion that continued for some years thereafter in the religious press. Numerous religious leaders from all three major faiths came out against the statutes, fewer in support. Stung by their stand, the NAM cited the "recent interest taken by the clergy" as an important reason for national business organizations to give "full-scale attention" to the right-to-work drive.¹⁹

Of the three major faiths, Catholic clergymen were loudest and most persistent in their opposition to laws banning union security. The church itself did not adopt an official position with regard to right-to-work legislation, but since the 1920s the Catholic church had forged strong ties to the labor movement.²⁰ Monsignor George C. Higgins and Father John F. Cronin, directors of the Social Action Department of the NCWC made clear their personal opposition to right-to-work on the grounds that such laws were contrary to the Christian principle of social justice. The "net effect of these laws would be very bad for the cause of peaceful and orderly industrial relations in the United States," they argued.²¹

A host of other priests joined in denouncing right-to-work. Arch­bishop Henry J. O'Brien of Hartford, Connecticut, flatly rejected the claim "that a fundamental right of the individual is invaded if he must join a union." He argued that "it is neither immoral nor un­ethical to require union membership for the greater common good of the group." According to Father William J. Smith in his La Crosse Register column, those advocating right-to-work only pretended to be concerned with protecting individual workers; their real aim was "to destroy unions, or at least to weaken them to a point tantamount to destruction." He and most other Catholic writers saw right-to-work as introducing chaos into "what should be an ordered economy" by creating strife and suspicion among workers and between labor and management.²²

The support of many Catholic clergy as well as other religious lead­ers gave union opposition to right-to-work a higher authority. In 1955, when Maryland was considering open-shop legislation, the International Association of Machinists sent each legislator a book­let containing moral studies of right-to-work laws by Father William J. Kelley, Rabbi Israel Goldstein, and the Reverend Dr. Walter G. Muelder. The Baltimore Federation of Labor also sponsored a rally featuring Father William J. Kelley and distributed recordings of his speech throughout the state. Unions paid close attention to the dis­cussion in the religious press and sought to quietly bolster their sup­porters. The Steelworkers, for instance, provided Father Jerome Ton­er, with information for his anti-right-to-work study, The Closed Shop, and later convinced Monsignor Higgins to engage a "competent theo­logian with a thorough social and economic background" for a de­bate to be published in The Homiletic and Pastoral Review.²*

The National Association of Manufacturers countered labor's in­fluence with the clergy on the question of right-to-work. It distrib­uted a pamphlet entitled "Ethics, Economics, and the Church/' which quoted an 1891 encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, but it brought a sharp rebuke from some it was supposed to influence. Monsignor Francis J. Lally, editor of the Pilot, a Boston Catholic weekly, called it "a to­tally absurd piece of propaganda." He went on to say, "it is almost unbelievable that serious business men can pay to have this kind of stuff peddled around the country." The pamphlet, he concluded, was a "dreadful insult to [the clergy's] intelligence."²⁴

Undaunted, the NAM and other business groups searched for cler­gy, particularly Catholic priests, who opposed the union shop. The NAM found an article in the Tablet, a Brooklyn Catholic paper, by Catholic layman Joseph A. Byrd, which NAM official Nathaniel Hicks characterized as one of the "most favorable and best documented pieces in support of right-to-work laws which has come to our no­tice so far from the religious press." The NAM then distributed the piece to Catholic publications, religious editors of the daily press, prominent Catholic churchgoers, and Catholic seminaries through­out the country.^2S

The NAM soon discovered other Catholic allies. In September 1956, Father Ferdinand Falque of Staple, Minnesota, appeared on the NAM'S radio program "It's your Business," where he defended right-to-work statutes on the basis of protecting "our American freedom and our traditions of democracy" from the domination of labor unions. Like other advocates, he cited the current pope, Pius XII, and the AFL's own Samuel Gompers as proponents of voluntarism. Father Edward A. Keller of Notre Dame University was perhaps the most well known representative of the Catholic clergy to defend right-to-work. In the summer of 1956, the Heritage Foundation of Chicago published Keller's The Case for Right-to-Work Laws—A Defense of Voluntary Union-ism, which sought "to correct the impression that American Catho­lics are unanimously opposed" to such legislation on moral grounds. Before publication, NAM manager Noel Sargent had met with Keller at Notre Dame to review "various economic questions in which in­dustry is interested, especially the Guaranteed Annual Wage and Right to Work."²⁶

Protestants tended to be somewhat more tentative than Catholics on right-to-work. Indeed, the liberal Protestant journal, Christian Cen­tury, repeatedly chided the National Council of Churches for failing to take a stand. Of course, this coincided with a period when con­servative business leaders carried more weight with Protestant organizations.²⁷ However, aware of the intense interest in right-to-work, the National Council's Department of Church and Economic Life undertook a study of the issue in 1957. Standard Oil's Board Chair­man Robert E. Wilson and the NAM'S Noel Sargent tried to block a statement opposing right-to-work in language similar to that of an earlier FCC statement. Wilson asserted that "instead of reaffirming the church's traditional position of protecting the rights of the indi­vidual against coercion whether by employer or union, and backing the state in affording such protection, the proposed statement says such protective laws are not in the public interest!" Labor representatives protested the delay of a statement that affected "so directly the ba­sic welfare of the whole labor movement," arguing that Protestant churches were "missing a very important and crucial opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of the real heart and soul of the la­bor movement."²⁹

Sympathetic to labor, the Department of Church and Economic Life eventually voted to forward the draft statement on "Union Mem­bership as a Condition of Employment" to the General Board of the NCC for adoption as official policy. Conservatives and liberals con­fronted each other at the June 5, 1956, meeting of the General Board. An impassioned five-hour debate ensued, the longest ever conduct­ed on any single subject. B. E. Hutchinson, a retired Detroit indus­trialist and former Pew ally, led the fight against the statement, while Tilford Dudley of the AFL-CIO gave a "fiery speech" denying that the object of right-to-work was to protect the "little man." Moderate busi­nessmen, like Irwin Miller and Charles Taft, also spoke on behalf of the statement. The debate eventually ended inconclusively when the General Board refused either to adopt or reject the statement disap­proving the right-to-work laws of eighteen states.³⁰

While disappointed that the statement was not entirely squashed, conservative business leaders were generally pleased with the Board's decision. They worked hard to ensure that distribution of the divi­sion's right-to-work statement was limited and that the National Council promptly corrected "misleading" articles, such as one pub­lished in the AFL-CIO News, implying that the NCC had taken an official stand against right-to-work. Noel Sargent reported to J. Howard Pew that the "Labor Union people who are on the General Board were very bitter about the failure to approve the report." To Sargent, it was clear that the "strong actions" taken by Pew and the National Lay Committee before its disbanding were responsible for the "substantial improvement" in the General Board's decisions in economic and social matters.³¹

One of the most dramatic expressions of the changing attitudes toward unions was the results of the 1957 legislative campaigns for right-to-work. While right-to-workers lost in Louisiana and failed by just a small margin in Idaho, they won a referendum ballot in Kan­sas for the 1958 elections and passed a statute in Indiana. The victo­ry in Indiana was of special significance, for it was the first highly industrialized, strong union state to enact legislation restricting union security. In 1956, a coalition of employer organizations that includ­ed the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, the Associated Employers of Indiana, and the Indiana Manufacturers Association formed the In­diana Right to Work Committee (IRWC), a state level counterpart to the National Right to Work Committee. The IRWC asserted that it was not an employers' organization but a nonpartisan independent citizens committee.³²

Several factors contributed to the IRWC success. The IRWC stim­ulated local business activity by holding legislative clinics in twen­ty-one Indiana communities, attended by twenty-five hundred em­ployers. Throughout 1956, right-to-work proponents conducted meetings, published pamphlets, purchased newspaper space and ra­dio time, met with workers on the job, and spoke before civic groups. Lobbyists cultivated legislators with a series of breakfast meetings and gained the public support of the Lieutenant Governor and Speaker of the House. Right-to-work advocates also played upon what Stephen C. Noland, president of the NRTW claimed was "a wave of revulsion" against union-inspired violence associated with the long 1955 Per­fect Circle strike over the closed shop. Meanwhile, labor was divid­ed; the state bodies of the AFL and CIO had yet to merge and per­sonal animosities and differing political perspectives hobbled the union defense. All this contributed to the employer victory, but state Chamber of Commerce leader William Book pointed specifically to the long corporate effort to reshape the political atmosphere. He ob­served that "business organizations here have worked long and hard to spread the gospel of conservatism. Our new right-to-work law could not have become a reality without such seed-planting."³¹

* * *

One of the reasons the IRWC's seeds fell onto such fertile ground was the growing public concern over corruption in organized labor. Unions had come under increasing scrutiny during the early fifties. In 1951, the New York State Crime Commission began hearings on the New York waterfront, uncovering evidence of money stolen from union locals, unsolved murders, bribes, kickbacks, shakedowns, and job selling. Other investigations and hearings followed. Eisenhow­er's attorney general, Herbert Brownell, made racketeering a primary focus of his department, beginning fifteen hundred investigations in his first two years in office. In 1953 and 1954, House and Senate com­mittees held public hearings on corruption on the waterfronts and in the building trades. Also in 1954, a Senate subcommittee began a two-year investigation of union mismanagement of welfare and pen­sion funds.³⁴

All this contributed to a growing public consciousness of union corruption, piqued by the 1954 release of the highly popular motion picture "On the Waterfront" and the acid-throwing assault in 1956 on a syndicated labor columnist shortly after he had broadcast de­tails of shady dealings in a construction union. But, it was the sen­sational televised hearings of the Senate's Select Committee on Im­proper Activities in the Labor Management Fields, popularly known as the McClellan Committee, that splattered the labor movement's dirty laundry across the front pages of the country's newspapers. The committee held hearings for two-and-one-half years, examining both legal and illegal practices. It discovered evidence of theft, embezzle­ment and misuse of funds, undemocratic procedures, infiltration by gangsters and racketeers, violence and threats against employers and recalcitrant union members, and labor-management collusion. At the behest of business, it also peered into union political practices, sec­ondary boycotts, and organizing tactics. Employer antiunion devic­es, however, received considerably less attention from the press than the labor abuses.³⁵

The business community exploited the revelations of the McClel­lan Committee in its campaign against labor. Here, at last, was proof of the impact of big labor. NAM Chairman Cola G. Parker charged that "monopoly power and compulsion are being used to maintain crooks, racketeers, gangsters and hoodlums... in the top positions in many unions." "With one hand," he continued, "they keep a tight grip on the working man's throat, so that he can neither move nor cry out in protest; with the other they reach into his pay envelope and into his welfare fund in order to enrich themselves." While pri­vately cheering the Committee, however, the NAM took care not to become closely associated with the Senate investigation. It quietly encouraged employers to provide evidence to the committee, but adroitly decided to "stay on the side-lines" to avoid the danger of tainting the hearings with the charge of being under the business community's control.¹⁶

The hearings provided the NAM with ammunition to promote the second part of its legislative campaign, the drive for a national labor reform act. In October 1957, NAM officials concluded that the time was right "to crystallize" the "public reaction against labor abuses into specific reform legislation."³⁷ To do this, employers had to reach the individual in the community, stimulate his identification of labor problems with his own economic well-being, "promote his idea to action individually in an attempt to correct these abuses by writing to his own congressman and senator, and through that procedure spark determination in Congress for corrective legislation" at the national level.³⁸

This self-consciously political effort meshed with the NAM'S more generalized antilabor public relations program. The employers' asso­ciation marshalled its supporters, publicizing, among other items, the National Council of Churches's resolution calling for legislation to correct the abuses revealed by the McClellan committee.³⁹

To arouse women, "who would have a lot to do with the kind of legislation that is passed," the NAM designed a new women's club program titled "Are You the Victim?" With the shape of a frightened woman splattered on the cover, the kit evoked the powerful image of rape. During 1958, five thousand clubs across the country used the kit, which exposed the "uncontrolled power, wealth and politi­cal influence of unions and union bosses" and explained how the activities of unions directly impinged on each individual. For in­stance, the NAM's kit charged that union monopoly power, used "to restrain trade, to restrict production and to fix prices" was behind the resurgence of inflation in the late fifties. The clubwoman lead­ing the program called upon her audience to mobilize to "make our club's strength felt in the fight for clean, democratic unions," by writ­ing to Washington and by carrying the message of the meeting home to husbands, friends, and relatives.⁴⁰

The NAM also produced a new film titled "Trouble, U.S.A.," which was widely distributed to professional groups, educators and frater­nal organizations. Like the club package, the film and accompany­ing discussion material drew on the McClellan committee evidence. NAM advised viewers that "this is not a pretty picture," but "a true one" depicting events that were "vitally affecting your own commu­nity." The documentary, it continued, "was disturbing, might pro­voke indignation, but it should encourage local constructive action to restore law and order in your own community and in the nation."⁴¹

The right-to-work campaigns, the series of union corruption hear­ings, and the NAM's activities fed a growing public criticism of organized labor's role in society. The adoption of right-to-work as the debate topic for the nation's colleges and universities during the 1957-58 academic year reflected the issue's growing significance, a significance that seeped into popular culture as well. In the comic strip, Orphan Annie, for instance, there was the suggestion of tyran­nical behavior on the part of a union boss.⁴²

Public opinion polls conducted in late 1957 provided tentative evidence that organized labor had lost many friends in the Ameri­can populace. An American Institute of Public Opinion survey showed a twelve-point drop in "pro-union" sentiment across the country, the greatest defection occurring in the highly industrialized East. Reflect­ing on the results of this poll, labor official Mark Starr observed that the public's former identification with the "little guy and the under­dog" had produced a "certain amount of sympathy for unions." Now, he worried that "all this goodwill was in danger of being alienated by the allegations about union monopoly and about the unethical behavior of the union bosses."⁴³

The passage of the Indiana Right-to-Work Law and the McClellan investigation goaded the AFL-CIO into addressing the "new and in­tensive anti-union campaign" of "reactionary forces and vested in­terest groups." In mid-1957, the AFL-CIO adopted a code of ethical practices for unions and then expelled three of the worst offenders— the bakers, the laundry workers, and the teamsters. Having publicly cleaned house, the AFL-CIO argued against the need for federal leg­islation. The Federation argued that the McClellan hearings were "one-sided and overdramatized," and that the committee ignored management corruption. It also contended that the press was using the committee's findings "to do a hatchet job on the trade union movement." Union leaders called for organized labor "to offset the efforts of its enemies." According to Steelworkers President David McDonald, unions had to reach a "badly misinformed" general pub­lic that had no "real understanding of what labor is actually seeking to achieve not only for its rank and file, but also for the betterment of the entire nation."⁴⁴

Despite dire business predictions of the impact of the AFL-CIO merger, the new federation had spent less, not more on public and media relations during 1955 and 1956. Indeed, national labor orga­nizations provided little support to the state central bodies fighting right-to-work. When Robert Lenaghen, president of the Idaho State Federation of Labor, sought AFL-CIO assistance, he was "frankly ap­palled at the lack of a coordinated program to counter-balance the serious attack which we were facing across the nation."^4S The scene changed in 1957, however. When the National Right to Work Com­mittee's campaign reached the UAW's home state of Michigan, the AFL-CIO embarked upon a program to "arouse and unify" the labor movement. The executive council set up a high level right-to-work subcommittee instructed to "monitor state right-to-work agitation, coordinate defense efforts, and aid repeal drives." The AFL-CIO be­gan to bring "the true facts of this 'Right-to-Work Question'" to the public's attention through a series of canned radio and television spots, a fifteen-minute documentary, a series of popular leaflets, and a handbook and speaker's manual, summarizing the principal argu­ments. Sensing the need to expand its base, the Federation also ini­tiated and funded an anti-right-to-work citizens group called the National Council on Industrial Peace. Led by such well known liber­als as Eleanor Roosevelt and New York Senator Herbert Lehman, the NCIP included employers, clergy, and professionals. To raise money for all this activity the AFL-CIO created a special fund "to combat the millions of dollars being poured" into right-to-work campaigns by employer groups.⁴⁶

During 1958, the AFL-CIO's anti-right-to-work drive meshed with a more broadly gauged public relations campaign. Upping its public relations budget by 58 percent to $1.2 million a year, the Federation's revamped program looked a lot like that of its arch-rival's, the NAM. The goal was to create a new image for labor that stressed unions' "day-by-day contributions to the whole of society." Commercials on the AFL-CIO's news programs, for instance, emphasized labor's com­munity services, using "words of positive emotional value," like "free­dom," "America," "democracy," and "neighbors." Similarly the AFL-CIO's new television program, "America at Work," portrayed workers' contribution to "America's industrial might." This fifteen-minute pro­gram, carried on sixty-seven stations, mirrored the NAM's "Industry on Parade." Indeed, its initial title was "Labor on Parade."⁴⁷

To gain positive publicity from the press, in June 1958, the Feder­ation began issuing one or two television news releases each week to a hundred stations throughout the country. The stories publicized a range of AFL-CIO political issues, including legislation for an in­creased minimum wage, school construction, and housing, as well as stressing labor's constructive community activities, such as blood bank drives, Christmas parties, and the community services program. Like employers, the AFL-CIO also reached out to opinion leaders. It initiated a direct mail campaign aimed at influential minority spokes­men, religious leaders, and intellectuals, and established a Speakers' Bureau that provided union officials to speak before religious, civic, fraternal, and school groups.⁴⁸

* * *

The 1958 election served as the first test of labor's new program. The election took place within the context of sharpening labor-man­agement conflict. Beginning in mid-1957, the economy dropped into a recession even as inflation surged. Segments of American industry, like steel, experienced their first serious wave of foreign competition. Many employers met this weakening economic climate with a deter­mination to reduce labor costs. Without totally abandoning human relations, managers shifted from the more subtle antiunionism of the earlier fifties to an outright attack on organized labor. The doubling of unfair labor practice cases in the late fifties reflected this new strat­egy. In addition, companies adopted a more aggressive position at the bargaining table, seeking to restore wage flexibility and to speed up production by abolishing restrictive work rules. To the AFL-CIO it was clear that employers were adopting "class war methods on the bargaining front."⁴⁹

The struggle between business conservatives and labor became one of the principal themes of the 1958 election. Before the election, business stepped up its political activity and set up workshops pro­moting employer political participation. In addition, Republican pol­iticians began an "experimental" program to teach "practical poli­tics" to junior executives from scores of companies in three dozen targeted congressional districts.⁵⁰ The conservative business commu­nity's primary goals were to promote right-to-work and to elect a Congress sympathetic to the enactment of a strict labor reform act, hoping to undercut labor's political power. According to Gulf Oil Se­nior Vice President Archie D. Gray, "If we are to survive, labor's po­litical power must be opposed by a matching force—among the cor­porations that make up American business." In a number of localities, industrialists financed dissemination of a "notorious" pamphlet smearing Walter Reuther, who employers tagged as the "phantom candidate" for a variety of offices in more than twenty states.⁵¹

The Republican party, which was the chief beneficiary of corpo­rate political activity, joined in the attack on labor. The Republican Policy Committee issued a monograph entitled, The Labor Bosses: America's Third Party, which asserted that the Democrats were "dom­inated by certain politico-labor bosses and left-wing extremists." The choice, it warned, was between the Republican party or going down "the left lane which leads to socialism." Vice President Richard Nix­on played up this theme in speeches across the country.⁵²

Some of the most intense battles between business and labor took place in those states voting on right-to-work. Right-to-work advocates had turned to the referendum as a means of placing the question on the ballot in California, Idaho, Washington, Colorado, Ohio, and Kansas. Business support for the campaigns was crucial. In Washing­ton, for instance, Boeing Aircraft revived a lagging drive for signa­tures for the ballot referendum. Three weeks before the deadline for filing petitions, Boeing Aircraft sent a letter to all supervisors enclos­ing copies of the petition and instructing them to get additional names. Some twenty other industries followed Boeing's lead. Wash­ington business leaders also formed an organization of "minute men" and built a war chest of $500,000. The General Electric Company at the Hanford Atomic Works in Washington aided the campaign by sending a letter to their nine thousand employees urging them to support the initiative. Similarly, in California, GE sponsored a news­paper advertising campaign, becoming the first major corporation in the state to endorse the right-to-work proposal.⁵³

Perhaps the most telling battle over right-to-work took place in Ohio. In early 1958, buoyed by the previous year's right-to-work vic­tory in Indiana, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce formed the Ohio-ans for Right-to-Work (ORW). The group began collecting signatures to place an amendment to the state constitution on the ballot in November. The Ohio Manufacturers' Association, some city chambers, and several companies backed the ORW, feeling that right-to-work laws in both Ohio and Indiana could start a major trend. Among the firms active in the drive were several that had been leaders in the business community's campaign to reshape the climate of opinion, including General Electric, Timken Roller Bearing, and Armco Steel. Timken blanketed their plant cities with the story of right-to-work, and all of their advertising carried the slogan, 'The Right-to-Work Shall Not Be Abridged or Made Impotent." The company also spear­headed the movement to get signatures on the petitions, circulating the first four hundred petitions issued. Business support for right-to-work, however, was not unanimous. Many large firms steered clear of the issue, and a few moderate business leaders like Charles P. Taft came out strongly against right-to-work.⁵⁴

Organized labor met the challenge by forming the United Organized Labor of Ohio (UOLO) in late March 1958. The UOLO argued that the real issue behind right-to-work was not the union shop or individual rights but whether unions had a right to exist. To defend against the antiunion drive, Ohio trade unionists followed a two-pronged strate­gy. First, they mounted a major effort to register union members and their families to ensure a high working-class turnout on election day. Second, labor looked to the community for defenders. Blacks, for instance, rallied to the side of unions; the Ohio State Association of Col­ored Women's Clubs and the NAACP condemned right-to-work and aided the union drive to mobilize the minority vote. City councils, fraternal orders, and civic organizations, among other organizations, also passed resolutions condemning the amendment.⁵⁵

Much of the religious community came out on labor's behalf. Cath­olic support was strongest. In March 1958, the six Catholic Bishops of Ohio issued a statement asserting that the proposed amendment "would not solve our problems but might lead to more intensified struggle." Catholic clergymen were active in the fight against right-to-work, often denouncing it from the pulpit. The Ohio Council of Churches also opposed the right-to-work proposal, but the UOLO felt that its story was not getting to the Protestant ministers. In a bid for their support, trade unionists contacted their own pastors and the UOLO distributed the Ohio Council's statement to clergy through­out the state. Others took more direct action; on Sundays after ser­vices, UAW Local 12 members in Toledo passed out the Bishops' state­ment in front of Catholic churches and the Ohio Council's statement at Protestant churches.⁵⁶

Both sides conducted intense public relations campaigns. The ORW and the UOLO deployed speakers throughout the state, distributed millions of pieces of literature, and ran ads in newspapers and on the radio and television. By late summer, however, the right-to-work proponents seemed to be prevailing. In August 1958, they filed the petitions to place the right-to-work issue on the ballot, having col­lected a hundred thousand more signatures than required. In forty-nine counties, they had twice as many signatures as needed. Feeling that victory was assured, the ORW slackened its public relations drive and placed more emphasis on recruiting political allies. Business lead­er Charles Hook of Armco, for one, worked hard to get the support of prominent Republican politicians and praised Republican guber­natorial candidate William O'Neill for endorsing the ORW and con­ducting "a marvelous campaign in face of opposition of the labor bosses."⁵⁷

In contrast, the labor movement redoubled its public relations ef­forts. The UOLO kicked off the "home-stretch drive" with a mass rally on September 7 in Columbus and the formation of a prolabor citi­zens committee, subsidized by the AFL-CIO national office. Campaign literature emphasized the dire economic consequences of right-to-work. Aware that forty percent of the electorate were "housewives," unions aimed a special appeal to them, holding "Kaffee Klatches" and distributing pamphlets like "Mrs. Ohio Homemaker: Beware the Quirk in 'Right-to-Work,'" which emphasized that right-to-work under­mined unions. Once that happened, wages invariably fell, weaken­ing family security. The Women's Activities Division of the state AFL-CIO did much of the volunteer work necessary in bringing labor's message to women and the rest of the public.

In late October, the right-to-work proponents made a tactical error. They shifted from arguing for the issue on the basis of protecting in­dividual freedom to a strident attack against unionism. In doing so, the ORW inadvertently provided proof of the labor movement's con­tention that the business community's primary goal was the destruc­tion of trade unionism.⁵⁸

On election day 1958, the Republican party and the conservative business community suffered a major defeat. Voters rejected right-to-work referendums in five of the six states where it was on the bal­lot. Only in Kansas, where business faced a small labor movement, did right-to-work prevail. Nationwide, Republican losses were mas­sive, with Democrats achieving their largest gains in congressional elections since 1936. The continuing economic slump certainly con­tributed to Republican losses. Crucial, too, was the attack on the la­bor movement. The labor movement at least temporarily became more united and politically active than it had been in years. It also created broad-based liberal coalitions, including community groups, minorities, and the clergy, all of which proved significant. One anal­ysis of the vote, for instance, found that the opposition of the Cath­olic bishops to right-to-work had a major impact on the way Catho­lics voted.⁵⁹

The election taught the business community that while there was certainly outrage over the abuses uncovered by the investigations, the public still accepted the legitimacy of unions and was uncomfortable with a blatant attack on organized labor as an institution. Future ef­forts to limit the power of labor needed to differentiate between unions as institutions and the abuses of labor leaders. Moreover, busi­ness leaders needed to cleave more closely to the idea that they sought not only to contain the "monopoly" power of unions but also desired to protect the democratic rights of individual workers.

* * *

In spite of the victories won by labor and the Democrats in the 1958 elections, business leaders renewed their campaign for restric­tive new labor legislation in the Eighty-sixth Congress. For the busi­ness community, the election was merely a temporary setback. They immediately applied the lessons learned from the 1958 right-to-work campaigns to the drive for national labor reform. One advantage for business was the much broader base of support within the country for labor reform than right-to-work. The McClellan hearings had con­vinced even the friends of labor that greater regulation of unions was necessary. The major question was what form such regulation would take. There was general agreement that reform should make the la­bor movement more democratic in its internal affairs. By early 1958, even the AFL-CIO had come around to accepting the need for legis­lation, but only a law aimed solely at the correction of the most flagrant abuses revealed by the McClellan investigation. Employers and their conservative allies in Congress wanted more. They hoped to move beyond internal regulation of unions to further restricting the powers of labor in collective bargaining. The NAM wanted to make all secondary boycotts and organizational picketing illegal.

During 1958, Congress first considered labor reform, and the Sen­ate passed a mild measure, the Kennedy-Ives Bill, that was acceptable to labor. This bill required publication of detailed financial reports by unions and regulated union trusteeships and elections. It faced stiff opposition. Arguing that the proposal, which did not address second­ary boycotts and organizational picketing, was too weak, the NAM and the Chamber of Commerce lobbied vigorously against it. At the same time, the Teamsters and Mine Workers fought the bill on the grounds that there was no need for any regulation. This unusual coalition helped defeat the measure in the House of Representatives.⁶⁰

In early 1959, labor reform was back on the nation's agenda. Al­though it had issued an interim report in March 1958, the McClel­lan Committee continued its hearing through 1959, keeping the is­sue of union corruption before the public's eyes. At the same time, the NAM, the Chamber of Commerce, and other business organiza­tions continued to do their part in raising public consciousness about labor abuses. It became clear that there was little chance of unions avoiding a labor reform law, as a commitment to doing something about labor-management problems became a litmus test of political responsibility. Nevertheless, the business community faced a tough political assignment. Republican party losses in the 1958 election had resulted in the seating of a Congress with seemingly liberal, prola-bor inclinations. As a result, the AFL-CIO approached the political battle confident that there was little chance of Congress passing a punitive law.⁶¹

During the spring and summer of 1959, several labor reform bills were introduced and debated in the House and Senate. The labor movement became divided over the issue and the unity that it had forged in the struggle against right to work quickly dissipated. The AFL-CIO supported "soft" legislation, while other segments of the labor movement pursued entirely different agendas. The Mine Work­ers continued to fight all legislation, while other individual unions within the Federation lobbied for their own interests. Almost to the end, the AFL-CIO believed that it had enough congressional support to render unnecessary a massive drive to mobilize the public in la­bor's defense. Unions relied instead on high level consultation be­tween congressional and labor leadership and on lobbying to influ­ence individual legislators. Throughout the struggle, however, labor tended to be disorganized, rigid, and so zealous in lobbying that it antagonized rather than won support. At one point, the teamsters had four hundred lobbyists on Capitol Hill lecturing and threaten­ing the legislators.⁶²

The forces advocating a strict labor reform bill that incorporated the demands of employers were much more united than labor. The Eisenhower administration provided vigorous and effective legisla­tive leadership, while maintaining close liaison with business groups. On cue from the administration, employer organizations mobilized their members to place steady but more subtle influence on legisla­tors. Management lobbyists stayed in the background and relied on somewhat less intimidating forms of communication—mail and tele­phone contacts. They emphasized repeatedly that "the people" want­ed a strong law. At a crucial moment, when the House began debate on labor legislation, President Eisenhower delivered a televised ad­dress in which he endorsed the promanagement Landrum-Griffin Bill and urged the public to demand "strong" labor reform legislation. In perhaps one of Eisenhower's most political speeches, he present­ed his appeal as a "non-partisan" one. As a lame duck president, he could easily claim to have "no political motivations" and to speak for the people. Eisenhower's request brought a tremendous volume of mail and gave "legitimacy to the fight for the Landrum-Griffin bill," making "it hard for its opponents to resist."⁶³

The White House also helped coordinate the public relations drive for labor reform. Outnumbered in Congress, the Republicans realized that they needed widespread public support to achieve their goals. The Eisenhower administration found friends in the press. Most newspa­pers editorially supported tough labor reform legislation and the press continued to provide extensive coverage of labor corruption. The em­ployer associations, however, were the foot soldiers in this campaign to arouse public opinion to demand a strict labor bill. The entire busi­ness community mobilized "to an unprecedented extent." Its goal was to flood Congress with mail demanding a tough bill. Trade associa­tions sponsored newspaper advertising and provided legislative kits to members that included posters, pamphlets, prepared speeches, adver­tisements and letters for distribution to employees. In one critical con­gressional district, a corporation sent its foremen out "to ring neigh­bor's doorbells." The company claimed that this tactic resulted in three thousand letters in one week, urging a stiff bill.⁶⁴

Radio and television were also important. In April, as Congress began consideration of labor reform legislation, Armstrong Cork Company's Circle Theatre ran an hour-long drama about labor rack­eteering entitled "The Sound of Violence." It concluded with an ap­peal from Senator John L. McClellan to "do something about the evils shown." The program was rerun in July, and employer associations ran advertisements and sent out over 4 million letters urging the public to watch and write to their legislators. Beginning in August, spot ads featuring Congressmen Landrum and Griffin and Senator McClellan ran frequently in thirty-five crucial congressional districts. McClellan had played a key role in the shift in Congress from a mild to a much stronger bill when he presented in an "impassioned speech" a "bill of rights" for the laboring man. It was this theme that business promoted. One administration spokesman recalled, "We wanted this to look like the people against the labor bosses and not Big Labor against Big Business." Thus, conservatives did not again make the mistake of an outright attack on unions but emphasized defending the rights of the individual.⁶⁵

The public responded with a tremendous deluge of mail. Congress­men reported receiving more mail on labor reform than on any oth­er previous issue. During one week in August 1959, 1 million letters inundated the Capitol. Most of the letters advocated a tough labor law. Alarmed, the AFL-CIO began distributing a leaflet entitled "Get Crooks—Not Unions" and urged union members to write to their leg­islators. Still, there was little prolabor mail. In early September 1959, Congress passed the Landrum-Griffin Act.

Substantially reflecting the interests of business, it was the "worst defeat for organized labor" since the passage of Taft-Hartley twelve years earlier. It prohibited all secondary boycotts, severely restricted organizational picketing, and "imposed stiff requirements of disclo­sure and standards of conduct that tightened the web of legalistic complexity already choking the labor movement."⁶⁶

To Mark Starr of the ILGWU, the adoption of the Landrum-Grif­fin Act showed how the image of labor had been successfully smeared in the public mind. He believed that as a result of the business cam­paign in the schools, churches, and communities a "large segment of the general public" accepted the fallacy that "labor unions were a monopoly run by union bosses" and that "labor bosses not only had too much power but were also corrupt." The AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Action also concluded that unions had "sat passively in the galleries while the structure was set up to give labor a public smearing." Labor then came into the struggle "unprepared and un­organized and was out-smarted and out-maneuvered by Business and Industry who operated in a more skillful manner, with greater resourc­es, better teamwork, and better support and cooperation from Mem­bers of the House and Senate."⁶⁷

The business community agreed that the passage of the Landrum-Griffin Act was the political payoff of their efforts to forge a more favorable climate of public opinion. According to NAM Vice Presi­dent Charles R. Sligh, "a wave of overwhelming public opinion," com­bined with a determined president and an effective conservative co­alition of Republicans and Democrats "forced Congress to take labor reform seriously."⁶⁸

The struggles over right-to-work and labor reform demonstrated how far business had come in the years since the strike wave of 1946. Business had achieved solid results from its last campaign of the fifties to limit the power of labor. While most of the 1958 right-to-work initiatives were defeated, the fact that business was able to generate enough support to place the question on the ballot in north­ern, industrialized states reflected a considerable shift in attitudes about organized labor. Landrum-Griffin further proved, at least to business leaders, that they had decisively shaped public opinion. Pub­lic opinion had played a central role in the passage of legislation that placed further limitations on the power of labor. Although unions had won significant electoral victories in 1958, they found little po­litical support in the halls of Congress. Indeed, labor fought a rear­guard battle against the erosion of its status and power; its voice in public debate was weak and its ability to offer a compelling alternate vision was apparently absent. The business community had contained the threat a united labor movement posed to its agenda for the na­tion's political and economic future.

Notes

1. Edward Maher, "NAM Public Relations—Policies and Objectives," Feb. 1957, pamphlet, Neilson Library, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.

2. Kenneth Miller to Staff Operating Executives, Jan. 16, 1956, Accession 1411, NAM, Series I, Box 248, HML (hereafter Ace. 1411, NAM 1/248).

3. "How Labor Unity Affects You" (reprint of Iron Age article), MRev 45 (Jan. 1956): 32-33; "AFL-CIO is Born," America, Dec. 17, 1955, p. 325; Sid­ney Lens, "Will Merged Labor Set New Goals?," HBR, 37 (Mar.-Apr. 1956): 57-63.

4. "Charles Sligh Discusses Labor Issues," May 21, 1957, radio transcript, Box 63, George Meany Papers, GMA; "Super Union: Something Else for You to Worry About," FMM 113 (Mar. 1955): 84-89; "A New Era & Added Punch," BW, Dec. 19, 1955, p. 26.

5. "What the AFL-CIO Merger Means," U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 16, 1955, pp. 23-30; "Big Labor: The Aim Is to Make It Bigger," Newsweek, Feb. 21, 1955, pp. 71-72; "Is Big Labor Good or Bad?" Life, Dec. 1955, p. 28.

6. "1956 Public Relations Program for NAM—Campaign against Labor Monopoly Abuses," Feb. 1956, Ace. 1411, NAM, III/ 851.1.

7. Sybyl S. Patterson to Coordinating Committee, Jan. 5, 1956, Sybyl S. Patterson to Field Staff, Jan. 3, 1956, Box 19, both in Ace. 1412, Industrial Relations Department Papers, NAM.

8. Sarah Lyons Watts, Order against Chaos: Business Culture and Labor Ideol­ogy in America, 1880-1915 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991); "1956 Public Relations Program for NAM—Campaign against Labor Monopoly Abuses."

9. Ernest G. Swigert, "What Shall We Do about the Growing Shadow of Organized Labor" (Address before the Economic Club of Detroit, Detroit, Michigan, Sept. 30, 1957), Ace. 1412, NAM, Box 19.

10. "1956 Public Relations Program for NAM—Campaign against Labor Monopoly Abuses"; Paterson to Field Staff, Jan. 3, 1956; "It's Your Business," script, Jan. 28, 1956, Box 63, Meany Papers.

11. "1956 Public Relations Program for NAM—Campaign against Labor Mo­nopoly Abuses"; "Monopoly is Always Wrong!" flyer, Ace. 1412, NAM, Box 19.

12. D. L. Mewhinney to National Industrial Council (Dramatizing Abus­es of Union Power), Feb. 3, 1956, Ace. 1411, NAM 1/248; "MR AND MRS. CIT­IZEN," "IS THIS AMERICA?" pamphlets, Box 51, AOF I, LMDC.

13. "Outline of a Public Relations Program on Major Labor Issues for 1955," Feb. 28, 1955, Ace. 1411, NAM 1/13.

14. Gilbert J. Gall, The Politics of Right to Work: The Labor Federations as Special Interests, 1943-1979 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), chaps. 2 and 3; Michael Goldfield discusses the vast literature on the impact of right-to-work on union growth in The Decline of Organized Labor in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 184-87.

15. Gall, The Politics of Right to Work, chap. 3, esp. p. 81; National Indus­trial Council Supplement (NAM newsletter), June 29, 1956, National Right to Work Committee news release, Jan. 28, 1955, both in Ace. 1411, NAM 1/13; WSJ, July 25, 1956.

16. "Outline of a Public Relations Program on Major Labor Issues for 1955"; Arthur Erwin, "The Case for Right-to-Work Laws," P/ 36 (Oct. 1957): 167; Charles R. Sligh, "Will the McClellan Hearing End Abuses of Union Pow­er?" (Address before the Associated Industries of the Quad-Cities, Rock Island, 111., Oct. 10, 1957), Ace. 1412, NAM, Box 19.