Other
Weir, Stan (audio interview #6 of 6)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This sixth and final interview with Stan Weir was conducted in his Del Mar home after the interviewer and narrator body surfed in the ocean near Weir's house.
- Date
- 2020-09-21
- Resource Type
- Creator
- Campus
- Keywords
- Handle
- Language
- Notes
- 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 - lead investigator on comparative study of European and American unions; interviewing of labor leaders Tony Boyle, Joe Bierne and James B; Carey; demise of Carey;James B; Carey; Harry Lundeberg; National Longshoremen's Board; role of Trotskyites in forming Maritime Federation of the Pacific; and bureaucratization of the labor movement;automation; bureaucratization of the labor movement; reflection on the labor movement, capitalism, globalization;concluding personal reflection on international capitalism, globalization and the future of American workers;
- *** File: lhsweir20.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-3:28)... Weir was the major US investigator in an Anglo-American comparative study of competition for top union offices and the role of the union constitutions in eliminating competition. The findings were published by the National Science Foundation as Comparative Union Democracy. A UAW staffer attacked Weir's contribution in a review for the Universities and Colleges Labor Education Association. This organization was formed to create a conservative elite of labor educators, competing with Local 189 American Federation of Teachers but representing no bargaining unit. (3:28-11:19)... Weir continues to discuss his interviewing of union leaders in Washington, 1967-68. Sixty of 103 leaders were based there, in his view, to be as far from the rank and file as possible. He had a 93-page questionnaire that should have taken five to six hours to complete, but he seldom got more than two. He first interviewed Tony Boyle, president of UMW [United Mine Workers] the day District 50 disaffiliated and the press and other media were there. He was so inept he could hardly answer Weir's questions: Who would run against him in the next election? One of the three top officers? The leader of the district union? Weir wound up giving him multiple-choice questions and got out. A couple of Boyle's subordinates were openly critical of him and the whole structure. According to Weir, a couple of years later Boyle masterminded the murder of Yablonski. End of tape. (11:19-23:57)... Weir continued his discussion of interviewing union officers in his capacity of major investigator for an Anglo-European comparative study. The next person he was set to interview was Joe Bierne, the founder and "king" of the CWA from the 1930s. He first interviewed a vice-president of the union who was a nonentity. Because the interview with Bierne was frequently interrupted due to the upcoming 1968 convention, they agreed to postpone it. Bierne, charming and gracious, made him his guest at the convention, with meals, hotel, etc. There was a rebellion at the convention, mainly from Detroit area locals. They had difficulty getting the floor but expressed themselves indirectly. Bierne made a speech about the kind of person he was and how he would have been a multi-millionaire if he hadn't become president of CWA. He was getting nasty to those below, distancing him from the delegates. By the end of the second day, when the rebels were getting the floor and Bierne was supposed to answer questions, the lights went out and a spotlight shone on Bierne, who recited the Lord's Prayer and effectively ended the convention. After that, Bierne never found time to meet with Weir. (23:57-30:47)... Weir's second interview was with James B. Carey, who had been president of UE, the electrical workers, until he split from the pro-communist leadership and formed the IUE, patterning it like steel with districts, "dukedoms." He was ousted in 1964 for electoral fraud. His people bundled ballots in 100's and put 1 vote for Carey on top of 99 against and counted 100 for him. The Department of Labor intervened, impounded the ballots, and when they were recounted, Carey was out. Weir claims that the Department of Labor intervention was at George Meaney's request, as a result of their long time enmity. When Weir interviewed Carey, he was the head of the UN boyscouting group, isolated in an office with a secretary who spent the sixteen hours Weir was there polishing her nails and talking to her boyfriend. Carey got one phone call in all that time. End of tape. *** File: lhsweir21.mp3 (0:00-4:30)... Weir continues to discuss Carey, the ousted former president of the IUE, commenting how sad his life had become. He organized Philco in 1932 and was a major industrial union organizer. He was one of the most prestigious of labor men, and when he was caught and found guilty of election fraud, he had given labor a bad name. Weir refers to Carey as a rogue labor leader, who had taken labor down ten points in one day. Nevertheless, when Weir accompanied him to the IUD/CIO convention during the period he was interviewing him, he felt that it was sad to see how he was shunned by everyone. (4:30-9:49)... Weir reflects further on Carey, commenting that the people who were leaders of the new unions in the 1930s were largely the sons of immigrants cloaked in a shroud of conservatism. It was important to their parents that they make good in terms of that society's values and Weir illustrates this with a story about Carey's trial for doing something illegal in organizing RCA. Because the corporate attorney asked Carey if his father was a members of the Sons of Irish Freedom, the judge was compelled to grant Carey a mistrial. It turned out that the corporate attorney was also a member. Carey died early, probably of boredom and heartbreak. (9:49-15:54)... Weir views labor bureaucrats as non-democrats who live ten steps ahead of rebellion or scandal. He cites Harry Lundeberg in Seattle. He began to be heard of in 1932 as the man who would unseat Andrew Furuseth, head of the SUP. Furuseth had an immaculate reputation and spent his life speaking about seaman and their terrible working conditions and lobbying in Washington for them. By 1932 so much was heard about Lundeberg that he came to Headquarters Port to lead directly. Weir describes him as something out of central casting: marvelous physical shape, good sailor, skilled, tough, rolled when he walked, bright, who exuded a syndicalist-wobbly-rebellious character. He led great job actions before 1934. Seamen are more radical than longshoremen, because they live under a dictator at sea, and Lundeberg knew how to play it demagogically, with just enough of a Norwegian accent. Even as a bureaucrat he knew how to handle crowds, the only one who could lead in the Oakland general strike. He seemed willing to lead the rank and file on its own terms, by job actions. (15:54-21:35)... Weir talks about Roosevelt's National Longshoremen's Board, which changed the rules. The Board of three arbitrators came out of the 1934 strike. It gave 50 percent control of hiring and dispatching to longshoremen and set job rules: sling load limits etc. However, the phrase "work as directed", meant no strike, no direct job action, but a call to an arbitrator, who would show up immediately and arbitrate the case. So job action was effectively outlawed. The other change allowed management to introduce labor saving devices without negotiation. The fight against new technology was lost and jobs lost with no direct action. When the members did engage in wildcat strikes, Bridges and Lundeberg became disciplinarians of their own membership, negotiating back-to-work terms with management. In two years, the seamen, the marine firemen, marine tenders, and the Marine Cooks & Stewards got 100 percent control of their hiring halls. But when they struck for it in 1936, ILWU stood on the sidelines and didn't try for the same. (21:35-26:05)... Weir maintains that by 1936 the SWP and James B. Cannon provided Lundeberg with a brain trust - all bright and sophisticated young guys - and that the initiative for the formation of the Maritime Federation of the Pacific came from the SUP and the Trotskyists, not Bridges and the Stalinists. In the beginning Lundeberg seemed to be following Cannon to some degree. There is no evidence, however, that the SWP or the CP ever opposed any of the conservative contractual and then structural victories for management. They weren't thinking in those terms and instead saw more wins than losses from the '34 contract. Weir supports the notion presented in The Dynamics of Industrial Democracy that as soon as a contract is signed the organizers are trained to horse trade and make deals. If they didn't succeed in training them, they would send the organizers away or get them into management or get rid of them. Conservatism was cemented; and John L. Lewis's CIO was the bureaucratization of rank and file unionism. (26:05-30:48)... Bureaucracy increased by the time Weir got to Washington DC He believes that WII hastened the ossification of vertical growth by light years. Roosevelt told Lewis and the UAW that if they kept production rolling he wouldn't oppose them. The rank and file union men were either drafted into the service or war industries or away from their home ports for ten months out of a year, and their replacements saw the local leaders as big shots instead of former equal coworkers. By 1943 Lundeberg was using the Coast Guard as the Gestapo of American merchant seamen to keep down opposition to him, as did Joseph Curran. Weir maintains that the CP supporters were the ones who could be counted on the most. End of tape. *** File: lhsweir22.mp3 (0:00-4:15)... By the time he got to Washington, Weir notes that bureaucracy had not only built itself conservative bastions against the rank and file, but it had survived the biggest revolts of the 1960s and 1970s. He believes that these failed because there was no horizontal organization. Rather, it was individual workplace to workplace, local to local, not in touch with each other. No strike was a major factor. The first automation was mechanical and electrical. The second, coming in the '80s, was computerization of communication, allowing American manufacturing corporations to go to the cheap labor markets of the third world. Sitting in an office in La Jolla, one could control production in 24 factories overseas and even pinpoint to one work station and with satellites to take it anywhere in the world. (4:15-7:39)... In Weir's opinion the transformation in the 1980s weakened workers and their unions. The response to worker complaints about conditions was to threaten them with outsourcing overseas. Then came computer automation of marine cargo transportation. The labor bureaucracy is hardly needed by comparison. And it becomes a terror weapon: we can pronounce death on you and your job. It can be the death knell for a whole subculture, going into poverty and becoming marginal. American workers understand that and have shut up. Without leaders to fight this terrorism, employers are free to attack one workplace without fear that the union will retaliate in other workplaces making the same product of the same corporation. (7:39-12:08)... Vertical unions can't fight automation and computerization. To succeed you'd have to organize workers overseas, make them members, or affiliate with them. It requires leaving business unionism and embracing social-political unionism. Bureaucrats are not prepared to do that. They're old enough that they're thinking about their dying days and hanging on until their golden parachutes. Today getting control of a local is meaningless, and the new people with high ideals turn into bureaucrats. The top guys went along with AFL and Roosevelt administration structuring. To survive they resorted to conservative unionism. Although Weir believes that the John L. Lewis bunch were always cynical bureaucrats, the original leaders in auto, communications, and electrical industry were indigenous workers with high ideals, who were bureaucratized step by step. (12:08-18:09)... Weir continues to reflect on the state of the labor movement. Despite bureaucratization, he still believe in the rank and file and doesn't think that unionism is dead. (18:09-22:13)... Weir believe that alternatives will surface, restructuring unionism. He talks about the closure of the GE electric plant in Fontana, with the work sent to Brazil. The GE workers organized to buy the Fontana plant, but GE sent in a crew of arc welders and arced the molds. When those he describes as the aristocrats on the line in Fontana had unemployment benefits run out, and were chasing $8.00 an hour jobs in Texas, and putting the wives and kids to work, they felt betrayed. They were radicalized, but they had no leaders that would legitimate their feelings. (22:13-26:32)... Weir continues to reflect on the labor movement, and the state of the capitalism. He believes that we're entering a vacuum where former rules no longer are in force; that history has a way of providing rebellion a chance. For instance, under Stalin, the workers dragged their feet by becoming alcoholics, but the Soviet bureaucracy under Gorbachev had to go soft to get anything done. When he went hard again, the coal miners drove him back to soft and saved Yeltsin - "for now". The soft period gave the people at the bottom a ghost of a chance to rebel. (26:32-30:22)... Weir continues to reflect on capitalism and reflects back on earlier history, noting that when capitalism "fouls up" the solution is to impose democracy from the top. But , he observes, instead of a Roosevelt, we have the Clark Cliffords with their hands in the till up to the elbows. The capitalist leadership is not even trying to change because of multinationalism. They feel they can move from city to city and not have to satisfy a national constituency. End of tape. *** File: lhsweir23.mp3 (0:00-5:11)... Weir continues to reflect on American workers, arguing that today the logic is to find out where your work might go and reach and talk to those workers. HP and Apple, for example are making over half of their computers in Singapore. Logic says even though it's a dictatorship, try to talk to dissident workers. Do the same in Mexico with the maquiladoras. After more reflection on the state of international capitalism and democracy, Weir ends his oral history by noting that the American dream of a house is out of reach for many workers, and calls for the return to the spirit of the '30s. End of tape.
- Rights Note
- This repository item may be used for classroom presentations, unpublished papers, and other educational, research, or scholarly use. Other uses, especially publication in any form, such as in dissertations, theses, articles, or web pages are not permitted without the express written permission of the individual collection's copyright holder(s). Please contact the CSULB Library Administration should you require permission to publish or distribute any content from this collection or if you need additional information or assistance in using these materials: https://www.csulb.edu/university-library/form/questionssuggestions-the-digital-repository-group
Relationships
- In Collection:
Items
| Thumbnail | File information | Actions |
|---|---|---|
|
5893658489021808-lhsweir20.mp3 Public
|
Download |
|
|
5713985938115397-lhsweir21.mp3 Public
|
Download |
|
|
0703633534400248-lhsweir22.mp3 Public
|
Download |
|
|
5716575457210942-lhsweir23.mp3 Public
|
Download |
|
|
6901612194571697-labsweir.jpg Public
|
Download |
|
|
7521316194746517-labsweir1.jpg Public
|
Download |
|
|
9486679964069038-labsweir3.jpg Public
|
Download |
|
|
9637996550117846-labsweir2.jpg Public
|
Download |