© 1996 Mike McCallister
Madison
The disappointment and anger was written in the voice of the "Road Warrior.""Me and my wife was arrested, pepper-gassed," Dick Schable said tearfully. "We chained ourselves to the gate. We should’ve kept them out of the gate."
The three-year contract struggle at corn-sweetener producer A. E. Staley in Decatur, Ill. ended Dec. 22 when members of United Paperworkers Local 7837 voted 286-226 to accept the company’s contract offer and return to work.
Under the new contract, however, fewer than half of the 762 union members locked out of their jobs in 1993 will have work to return to, and they get to work 12-hour rotating shifts under the tutelage of the scabs who permanently replaced them. By September 1997, the number drops to 250.
In a most unusual event, six leaders of the Staley union drove up to Madison to assess the lessons learned and pledge to stand firm.
A summary of the contract distributed at the meeting hits the "highlights" of the defeat: company can subcontract work to non-union shops at will, the joint health and safety committee can’t inspect the plant for safety violations, no limit on hiring "temporary" workers with no benefits, workers can be forced to work 16-hour days, while supervisors can do union work to prevent overtime. Local leaders said the offer was not substantially different from the company’s original offer in 1993.
The unionists’ anger was mostly directed at what they called "the top of the house," the leadership of the United Paperworkers International Union and the AFL-CIO.
Barrie Williams, who coordinated the local’s Adopt-a-Family program, said the international "union stood behind us — so far behind us we couldn’t see them."
Dave Watts, president of the local for six years before losing his bid for re-election in December, said the International and the AFL-CIO never supplied the resources needed for the local to win. "The company told us before the struggle even began that it was a war of attrition," he said. To beat multinational corporations, "it takes a national mobilization, a global mobilization."
Hopes were raised when the "New Voice" slate headed by John Sweeney swept to victory over Thomas Donohue, Lane Kirkland’s hand-picked successor, at August’s AFL-CIO convention. Sweeney pledged to bring a new fighting spirit to the labor movement, and Staley was slated to be the showcase for the changes. Staley worker Dan Lane spoke to the convention, and local leaders were paraded around the convention floor to receive the accolades of the assembled bureaucrats. Williams said he "knew how Custer felt. He thought he heard the cavalry coming, but it was just the sound of the wind."
Sweeney pledged to assign 40 full-time organizers to Staley support, but the aid never materialized. "We waited and waited and waited," Watts said, "but not a word from AFL-CIO, not even ‘we ain’t got our shit together.’"
Most of the venom was directed at the UPIU leadership, particularly President Wayne Glenn. "I have no more regard for Adolf Hitler than I have for Wayne Glenn," Mike Griffin said. Griffin coordinated the work of 87 Staley Support Groups across the country, producing a periodic "War Zone News" letter to fire up the troops and handling media inquiries. The lockout battle "was not won by A. E. Staley, nor was it lost by Local 7837. It was betrayed by Wayne Glenn and his staff," he said.
On paper, the UPIU did not recommend approval of the contract, but forced a membership vote on the "new" company offer. In a Decatur radio interview just before the vote (and replayed in Madison), Glenn’s executive assistant Gordon Brehm said that "We’ve grown used to 12-hour shifts in the paperworkers’ union. Our guys even like them now." The offer contained "substantial improvement for the members," Brehm said. Asked what would happen if the local rejected the offer, Brehm said "I hate to even think about (that). People are going to be told this is their last opportunity in the foreseeable future to get this matter resolved."
Since the new administration came into local office Jan. 7, those unionists who refused to accept the company’s terms have been barred from union meetings, with police called twice to escort them out. Williams said the fighters felt like "criminals in our own union hall."
Discussion focused on what might have been. Watts said that keeping scabs out of the plant was "at the top of our concerns," but there were never enough people to carry it out. Watts noted that at the height of the "War Zone" battle, there were strikes going on at both Caterpillar and Bridgestone/Firestone plants in the Decatur area besides the Staley lockout. "We couldn’t get 10,000 people out of 90,000 (residents) to shut the plant down." Responding to a suggestion from the audience that a plant occupation could have been organized at one of the rallies held to bring supporters out from around the country, Watts said "We thought about it. We never got those 10,000 people we needed." Griffin did not think even plant occupations would be effective, given the deep pockets of Staley parent company Tate & Lyle, while Williams thought occupying Wall Street with 100,000 union supporters would have worked better.
In hindsight, organizing mass civil disobedience against injunctions banning mass picketing might have turned things around, Watts said. "I almost wish we’d given it that one hellacious try."
The union leaders plan to organize a War Zone Labor Education Foundation to spread the word, support other union battles and otherwise educate people on the meaning of the three-year lockout. They also urged people to continue to boycott Pepsi, Staley’s largest customer. Unionists should challenge their leaders, whatever side they took in the AFL-CIO election. Watts said "If we don’t have a strategy to win, why do we pay dues?"
Though they are all jobless, they all pledged support to the union movement. Schable said "My heart will always be with the union."