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Weir, Stan (audio interview #5 of 6)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This fourth of six interview sessions with Stan Weir was conducted some three months after the previous session. The interview was recorded in Weir's home in San Pedro. 3/3/1991
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- 2020-09-21
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- *** File: lhsweir16.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-2:07)... After losing his longshore job, Weir took a job as truck driver for a medical equipment company. He had hurt his back his last day on the waterfront, and it went out when he lifted a heavy oxygen tank, almost hitting his coworker. He quit immediately and through a friend got a job at Eichler Homes in Palo Alto, buying heavy construction equipment and studying when to amortize and sell it off. He didn't file a workman's comp claim with the ILWU because he was sick of those people and didn't want to deal with them on anything but the lawsuit. (2:07-4:32)... As a result of an article he wrote for New Politics, "The ILWU: A Case Study in Bureaucracy," Weir became affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley. After reading the article, Ned Eichler, CEO of Eichler Homes, asked Weir to run a Ford Foundation funded project to build medium density, low cost housing for auto workers in Fremont, Weir's old local. Eichler couldn't administer the fund, it needed a university affiliation, and Weir was on the faculty of UC as a Research Associate, step 3, doing research at Fremont. (4:32-7:12)... Weir was affiliated with UCB in1964-65, when the Free Speech Movement (FSM) was gaining strength. He claims that he was an advisor to Mario Savio and to Jack Weinberg. Attending the American Sociology Association (ASA) convention in San Francisco, Weir encountered an old acquaintance, who was a professor from Northern Illinois University. His friend recruited him for a study comparing British and American unions to see what factors in their constitutions did or did not create competition for top offices. Weir worked out of Washington DC, interviewing 58 presidents of international unions and reporting to a computer at University of Illinois. As the work wound down, he was recruited for another project (7:12-10:50)... At the University of Illinois Weir taught eight week courses on grievance and collective bargaining skills to union people; those taking the class included Local and regional union heads. Weir wasn't even required to fill out an application to get the job at the University of Illinois, noting that he was a friend of faculty member, Archie Green, labor lore scholar. Periodically he had to fill out papers and list his degrees. He put down HSG, and when someone finally asked him, he said that was "high school graduate." He refused to go back to college, but they worked out a graduate school program that would take him about three years to get a master's and allow him to continue to teach. Weir contends that the "Blacks got him into graduate school" because of similar education concessions for people of color in the 1960's. (10:50-15:44)... At the University of Illinois Weir taught and learned. About 75 percent of his work was eight-week not-for-credit courses, in the field. He would teach at least 16 different locals in the course of the school year; and in the summer, unions would send men to the campus in groups of thirty for a five day session. Grievance procedure was the main subject, but that meant weaving in a course in leadership, teaching them how to get out of grievance and into direct action. Weir began to develop materials on Informal Working Groups and on rights in the workplace. Although many locals negotiated their own contracts, because of factionalism in the union, none of them could teach the course. They needed an outsider who would handle everyone without prejudice, so Weir's people handled a lot of the unions most in conflict. (15:44-21:14)... In his teaching, Weir constrained himself to avoid arguments with international reps. He stayed down state, away from the Chicago bureaucrats. The students listened, but demanded something they could take back for the next day. They knew how to talk about bureaucrats without naming names. The only bad times for Weir were summers and weekend conferences because bureaucrats were hanging around. The new AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) rebels had knocked out the old leaders and knew what Weir could do. They set up a special course and he taught every AFSCME local in the state about informal work groups and the constitution bill of rights. The staff listened and formed their own union. (21:14-28:02)... Weir describes a clash with the IAM, which he describes as one of the most conservative bureaucracies. The Education Director, a 1930's Trotskyite, asked for a letter describing the course. The Institute Director had Weir add a paragraph, which the IAM man said was subversive. Weir would have nothing to do with teaching IAM and another Institute member did it. During the same period, a lot of Black union men and women came from Chicago. Weir personally encountered strife and gunfire at times. In one town the union leader suggested starting early because there had been gunfire earlier and he didn't think anyone would show up. However, and no one will show. About thirty showed but cleared out fast when the class was over. In Cairo, Illinois, a semi-Confederate, segregated town, he encountered double-antenna cars and FBI agents peering out of windows. [Editor's note: This was during the Civil Rights movement and Blacks were boycotting businesses in Cairo at this time.] (28:02-30:53)... Weir stayed in touch with a half-dozen students - presidents of locals, shop chairmen, and chief stewards - who would call him several times a year to discuss a problem. He lived in Urbana, and the office building was in Champaign. His wife, Mary, who had earned her Ph.D., was teaching a course in early childhood education to graduate students. Their younger daughter enjoyed small town life. She was in theater, and the whole cast would come over. Kim, the older daughter, wasn't adjusting and felt like an outsider in Illinois. End of tape. [Note: this discussion continued on the next side of the tape.] *** File: lhsweir17.mp3 (0:00-1:24)... Weir comments that every family move was good for their youngest daughter, but at the wrong time for the older one. She moved out and went to University of Iowa, but was lonely there. Transferring to one of the Claremont colleges, she found the students there upper middle class or richer and politically adrift. (1:24-4:32)... Weir's teaching was helped by his familiarity with the life conditions of the students in their unions and their jobs. He made a point of learning more about them, starting a class by touring the plant and meeting the stewards. For them it was rare to have this personal relationship. With one exception, every local he taught was straitjacketed by their International. They couldn't defend themselves against the employer unless they could dodge the union bureaucracy. Danville was the exception, and in 1968 they threw out the company union and Weir helped them get what they wanted. The new contract defined grievance as any unfair act, practice, or condition that management had the power to correct. The company hired a Ford vice president to take over grievance machinery from the company side. (4:32-6:50)... The Hyster union benefited by staying local and remaining independent although it had a solidarity agreement with three other Hyster plants. When union arbitrators finished an arbitration, they didn't disappear back to the International; they went back to work in the plant, and if the workers weren't happy, they told the arbitrators. It was a self-correcting machinery and reduced rank and file tension. The UAW wanted badly to bring Hyster in, but after listening to their rejected the offer. (6:50-18:00)... Weir provides lengthy details about teaching in Danville. After viewing the film, The Inheritance, which began with the 1936 UAW sit-down, Terry Payne, the president of Hyster local, told Weir that they wanted to organize a sit-down. Terry Payne, how to handle a sit-down strike. Weir guided them in their efforts and suggested that they do it at lunchtime and not go off the job. The workers sat at lunch for 32 hours until a marshal served an injunction. They went before a federal judge and told him that they were anxious to return to work as soon as the company gave back the take-backs. The judge slapped their wrists but then told the company that it should either give the conditions back or arbitrate. Five of the six conditions were settled immediately and the sixth was won by arbitration. (18:00-20:06)... Reflecting on the sit-down strike, Weir notes that an International rep would never have had the kind of meeting Weir had with the union. They would have met with management and undermined the workers. By being independent, the workers managed to conduct the first successful sit-down in a major industrial plant since the '30s. (20:06-24:15)... In the eight years he taught, Weir notes that he never taught one Teamster local. He stopped teaching for several reasons. The campus climate was changing, and he and Archie Green were the remaining faculty of the multi-diversity group on the quad. The University began to think about taking money from the Nixon productivity commission to fund labor education. He refused to teach any class using that money, but another man took a class. Weir's sabbatical was due at seven years, but if he took it, he'd have to stay two additional years. And he and Mary were bored and wanted out. (24:15-26:23)... Weir had heard about Department of Labor grants and got funded to study the effects of automation on the lives of longshoremen at the ports of San Francisco and San Pedro. He was made an associate professor by the university but resigned. He had made his point, that a non-college man without tenure could come in and make it. He got a second grant for two more years on the longshore project as a result of a speech he made in Washington, which was heard by sociologist, Elliot Liebow. Weir's 400 page report was never published. (He notes that he re-read the report preparing for these interviews and felt it had stood the test of time.) (26:23-30:47)... The manuscript Weir prepared on the effects of automation in the longshore industry was never published. He recounts the various difficulties in getting it published, and notes that he was not the kind of person who can hawk things; so didn't go out and solicit a publisher. A few parts were published as articles. End of tape. *** File: lhsweir18.mp3 (0:00-4:24)... Weir became a publisher following his return to Los Angeles in l975 after he discovered his former "B man" acquaintance, George Benet, dying in a detox center. With another longshoreman, he decided to publish Benet's book, A Place in Colusa, a book of poetry and short stories. They formed a small press book club and printed a thousand copies under Singlejack Publishers. They gave Benet enough copies to distribute to librarians; and they sent 250 copies to reviewers. Reviews started to appear and they started getting orders. It revived Benet, who gave up drinking for seven years. This was one of very few fiction books they published, and it was probably the best: poetry and short stories, composites of Benet's experiences. (4:24-13:20)... Weir explains the origin of the name Singlejack Publishers, noting that in labor organizing you found one indigenous leader and went one on one. When he was ready, the two of you worked on two, then the four on four. Weir called that singlejacking. He believed that this same process represented the relationship between book and reader. They published almost exclusively nonfiction, including, among others, Staughton Lynd's Labor Law for the Rank and Filer and a book by a woman radical Weir knew, Women's Unrecognized Art: Quilting, which was still selling well. Weir didn't publish anything of his own, not wanting it to have the reputation of a vanity press. He wanted to make the point that workers' writing was good quality and could sustain a publishing house. He did write a frontispiece for most works: "We are all starved for images of ourselves-for our lives and what we do and what's good in them." (13:20-19:00)... Singlejack put out little pocket books aimed at the rank and file, including Reg Theriault's Longshoring on the San Francisco Waterfront, Tom Murray's Waterfront Supercargo, and Steve Turner's Night Shift in the Pickle Factory. They knew they'd sell more to intellectuals, but wrote them in language workers would know and explained any words not in common use. They sold 40 percent to academia and sold books both Australia, Germany, and Denmark as well as the US. Bob Miles retired after 34 years on the waterfront and bought the book company with the idea of bringing a librarian son in with him. He contracted with Weir to submit two manuscripts a year under the Singlejack imprint. (19:00-27:15)... Weir unexpectedly returned to the waterfront in Los Angeles after the local established a Casual Hall. At that time there were 4300 casuals, including 400 women. He worked one day a week, because Singlejack was taking his time, but at best he could have gotten two days. They'd start assigning at 6:30 and if you weren't sent out by 8:00, you could go home and not lose your place in line. The regulars treated casuals pretty well although he wasn't too happy about the men running the hall. He recalls an A man, Dave Arian, calling out his name on the speaker. Names weren't usually called, so he knew it was his way of telling Weir he was under surveillance. The work was physically difficult for women, and although they weren't hazed by male casuals, they had to put up with bad remarks from A and B men. On one occasion,while working containers, when Weir got back from a break, there was a sign, written large in fresh chalk: "Boys who say nasty things about girls have tiny weenies. "There were no women around at the time, so it must have been a prank by the two A men who relieved them for break. (27:15-29:53)... Dave Arian became sergeant-at-arms at the casual hall and then ran against Harry Bridges for International president. When he asked Weir for dirt on Bridges, Weir told him to take a hike; he had his own fight with Bridges but didn't know Arian from Adam although he knew his longshoreman dad. Weir reflects saying he didn't think automation would have been so complete by 1984. He had one breakbulk job and took his Japanese hook with him. His fellow casuals had never seen one before and asked, what's that? End of tape. *** File: lhsweir19.mp3 (0:00-7:02)... Weir discusses nepotism in job assignments and reclassifications to B until some casuals sued. The locals up and down the coast had considerable autonomy and except for the San Francisco headquarter, Local 10, none of them were automatic aye sayers. That local was 55 percent Black and Bridges had bough their loyalty in the '50s. By 1961-62, however, that began to change. Firings in the '60s were to intimidate and stop defections. Bridges had employer powers, not like John L. Lewis, but like starving San Pedro out. But by 1971-72 they struck up and down the coast. Although they lost and resented it, they laid back and waited for the next time history presented an opportunity. (7:02-11:00)... Weir believes that the younger workers became disillusioned after initially being ecstatic about getting jobs as casuals and wanting to make friends with the older men. He believes that the casual hall had reduced the union's power to control hiring and those who were hired and had thrown away the chance to reach out to the community. There was no education about the union at all; no leaflets telling them about their jobs. A lot of the men felt bitter about their treatment. (11:00-13:27)... Weir discusses the formation of class consciousness among the workers who went through the 1930s experience and had been exposed to radicals, and among those like him who had been involved in sit-downs, etc. He felt that the changes in work structure made this kind of process less likely, noting that the container yards will become the bulk of the employment. The "steady men", who work entirely for one company will be so pressured that they won't be able to exercise solidarity as they did when working out of the hiring hall. (13:27-17:09)... Weir believes that the longshore industry is headed for skeleton crews because of automation, as well as security fences and armed guards and fences, because hijacking has become a big concern. He claims the most important single segment of the working class in this multinational period is in transportation, particularly longshoremen and seamen, and that the garment workers' most important ally is the men who unload garments from overseas. He believes that the job keeps working class consciousness going but that if longshore force decreases too much, captivity will be likely. The workers will be behind security fences with armed guards and be unreachable. He claims that the Teamsters around them already are non-union Salvadorans. The Teamsters gave the driving jobs away to the corporation and retained non-driving work. (17:09-20:19)... Weir refused to retire. He worked on the waterfront 1984-1986 and then withdrew from activities because he felt that he could learn more by looking back in his memory. He planned to write two to three books a year. He was involved in the LA Labor Networking Committee. They were talking about the kind of organization needed in the modern world for longshoremen: horizontal, rank and file to rank and file. For example, two canneries across the street from each other on Terminal Island were to be phased out. Both belonged to the same union, the SIU. They had to go vertically, to Washington and back, to communicate. By walking across the street to talk to each other, they could have achieved more solidarity. (20:19-24:10)... Weir believes that bureaucracies fail the workers, noting that of ninety major International unions not one president has been a champion of the people. For example, none have called press conferences on homelessness, poverty, loss of rights. It works better without them, as in Hyster, although it doesn't mean that workers don't need communication on a national and international basis. What holds the workers back is the national orientation of the unions. To go overseas and organize is too radical for the leadership. The rank and file will have to make structural changes in the way American unions are led that will mean more local autonomy. Starting with the formation of the CIO, more power was given to the center in the belief that they needed all this power to strike at the corporations all at once. However, the result is just the opposite; an employer can pick out a local to victimize without fear that the center will strike at other plants of the same employer. And the arbitration-no strike-employer rights clauses mean you can't strike. (24:10-27:56)... Weir does not view the future of labor organizing as grim and points to the organizing of Solidarity in Poland. It was organized in three weeks because people crossed the street en masse without waiting for a rep with an expense account to come to a meeting with 2 percent attendance. It doesn't take a crisis. Two things are essential: (1) a knowledge of what needs to be done, and (2) an opening for people who know what needs to be done. There has been a step in the right direction, but a terrible has happened. The law will take away much ability to sue union leaders for failure of fair representation. The law favors union leaders against the rank and file and that's a consciousness that will be dumped on the workers. It's the reverse of Landrum-Griffin, when the rank and file were the good guys and the nasty ones were the leaders. End of tape.
- SUBJECT BIO - Stan Weir was a rank and file activist and organizer in the auto and longshore industries in California. Raised in Los Angeles, Weir attended UCLA briefly after graduating from high school in East Los Angeles. He joined the Merchant Marine when WWII began and his political education began on the first ship on which he sailed. His class consciousness and view of industrial unionism was heightened as he came into contact with the organized left through the Sailors Union of the Pacific. After the war, Weir worked in a variety of unionized jobs in both southern and northern California. He helped to foment a brief wildcat sit-down strike in the East Oakland Chevrolet plant. Beginning in the late 1950s, and for the next five years, his activism on behalf of other ILWU members who were classified as "B" workers eventually forced him out of the union. And despite the lawsuit against the ILWU that he filed along with other representatives of the "B" workers, he later resumed work on the docks in San Pedro. Weir remained an independent labor and socialist activist throughout the years, regardless of the particular jobs he held, and in the mid-1980s founded "Singlejack Books" in an effort to bring affordable "little books" to workers. Singlejack Solidarity, a collection of Weir's writing was published posthumously by University of Minnesota Press in 2004. The lengthy oral history with Stan Weir was conducted by Patrick McAuley while he was a graduate student at CSULB. A transcript prepared by Weir's wife, Mary, is on deposit at the Wayne State Labor Archive. The original recordings and accompanying summaries are on deposit in the Archive of California State University, Long Beach. TOPICS - employment at Eichler Homes; work injury; becoming Research Associate at UCB; Free Speech Movement; Berkeley Independent Socialist Club; study of unions; teaching labor studies at U of Illinois; obtaining graduate degree; and family life;family life; relationships with students; Danville Hyster plant; sit-down strike by Hyster local; returning to California; Department of Labor grants; automation study;return to Los Angeles; formation of Singlejack Publishers; return to longshore work; women in longshore industry; and ILWU internal politics and dynamics;favoritism in hiring; changes in longshore industry; class consciousness; retirement from longshore work; and reflections on the labor movement;
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