R. Emmett Murray - The Lexicon of Labor: More Than 500 Key Terms, Biographical Sketches, and Historical Insights Concerning Labor in America

More Than 500 Key Terms, Biographical Sketches, and Historical Insights Concerning Labor in America

REVISED AND UPDATED

R. Emmett Murray

NEW YORK LONDON

1998, 2010 by R. Emmett Murray.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, without written permission from the publisher.

First published in the United States by The New Press, New York, 1998 This revised edition published in the United States by The New Press, 2010 Distributed by Perseus Distribution

Photographs courtesy of Archive Photos

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Murray, R. Emmett.

The lexicon of labor : more than 500 key terms, biographical sketches, and historical insights concerning labor in America / R. Emmett Murray. Rev. and updated ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-59558-226-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. LaborUnited StatesDictionaries. 2. Industrial relationsUnited StatesDictionaries. 3. Labor laws and legislationUnited States--Dictionaries. 4. Labor leadersUnited StatesBiographyDictionaries. I. Title.

HD8066.M87 2010

331.097303--dc22

2010008276

The New Press was established in 1990 as a not-for-profit alternative to the large, commercial publishing houses currently dominating the book publishing industry. The New Press operates in the public interest rather than for private gain, and is committed to publishing, in innovative ways, works of educational, cultural, and community value that are often deemed insufficiently profitable.

Book design by BAD

Introduction to the Revised Edition

ELAINE BERNAD

Have you ever felt like you wish you had a secret labor decoder so that you could figure out the meaning of all those references, names, and organizations with odd initials that sound like a random spill of letters from a bowl of alphabet soup? Since the overwhelming majority of us work for a living, why is there so little information about the world of labor? In particular, how about a reference that you can turn to quickly to get the basic information you need in a hurry? Well, here it is The Lexicon of Labor , an indispensable and entertaining cheat-sheet on the labor movement.

Distinguished journalist R. Emmett Murray first published a lexicon of labor two decades ago because friends were constantly asking him about labor terms, issues, and events. Word spread quickly about his fascinating collection of biographical sketches, historic events, famous disputes, and legislative landmarks. And naturally, everyone who saw it wanted a copy. Eventually, the lexicon grew beyond the scope of what could comfortably be printed and stapled at home. The New Press understood the value of this compilation and published the first book edition of The Lexicon of Labor in 1998. In short order it became a standard reference for journalists, students, researchers, unionists, and even managers. And, more than ten years later, its still going strong.

Emmetts career in journalism stretched back to the time when most reputable newspapers had labor journalists who reported on issues involving unions, working people, and labor struggles. These writers not only knew the labor movement, they knew its history and personalities and understood the web of rules and confusing crossroad of organizations, institutions, and agencies that characterize the North American workplace. With the declining fortunes of both the labor movement and newspapers weve seen the near disappearance of the labor beat at newspapers across the country. But the world of work and labor has not become any easier to decrypt, and while people may change employers and careers more times during a working life than they have in the past, the underlying character of the employment relationship, with its unequal power relation between capital and labor, remains unchanged.

Of course, unions have for some time been in decline, not because they are no longer needed but as a result of weak labor laws and employer resistance to union organizing. Today, only one in eight workers in the United States is a union member, compared to fifty years ago, when one in three workers carried a union card. Although these figures tell the story of a long decline, there are over 15 million union members in the Unites States, and the labor movement remains the largest multiracial, multi-issue, democratic membership organization in the country. Unions still matter, and they remain the premier vehicle for improving all aspects of peoples working lives. With The Lexicon of Labor in hand, one can get a complete education about the language and history of labor and the vital world of work and workers.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

November 2007

Foreword

THOMAS GEOGHEGAN

Lately people who know I am a labor lawyer often ask: What about this guy John Sweeney? Can he bring labor back?

Yes, I say. But also, no. Sure, it is crucial to have the best people. But what if the rules are drawn up so that even the best people cannot win? What if we do not even know what the rules are? It is possible to organize under existing law, sure. It happens all the time. But it is impossible, under existing law, to bring labor back in any meaningful sense. That is why it helps to start with a book like this. If you start with a little vocabularythe wordsyou can learn the grammar, go on to the rules. You can see that the words and stories that follow are like a lost language in America today.

Take the Wagner Act, as modified by Taft-Hartley in 1947. If business breaks the law, there are virtually no penalties; if labor breaks the law, there are. It is as if the referee in a game cannot call any fouls on the business side. What happens to the game after thirty or forty years? The players on one side learn they can go up and slug the opponents in the head, and nothing happens. They can pick out the pro-union workers and fire themdeliberately break the lawand nothing happens. They can turn every organizing drive into three or four years of litigation. Meanwhile the players on the other side, and their fans in the stands, shake their heads and wonder what is going on. It is true that sometimes labor wins, but labor cannot win enough times; it lacks the money, the lawyers, to win enough to come back.

What is so galling is that even people who are pro-labor and should know better talk as if, with the right people, with the right intent, labor can come back. Wishing well will make it so, they seem to think. Wishing well is, of course, very important. Indeed, it is important we all struggle to keep labor from disappearing. But wishing well alone cannot bring labor back.

It is equally mistaken to think there is a state of mind in our culture that keeps labor from coming back. If you read the lexicon, the words, the stories, you can see how false this is. You can almost begin to think that Americans invented labor unions. After all, even Tocqueville saw it in our nature to form associations. These are the same sort of people who crow endlessly about organized labor in Europe, how much stronger it is than here. But I am skeptical that the French, the Dutch, the Germans would have formed as many unions, had as many strikes, as people in this country, if they had faced the resistance and violence that American workers did. Indeed, at various times labor has disappeared in those countries. Poof. Gone out of existence. Remember fascist Europe? It never has done so here.