This week is Veterans' Day, so I just want to briefly express my appreciation for all the members of our Armed Forces, past and present! Thank you for your service and courage.
This week's quest is brought to us thanks to another contribution from my distant cousin, Ron Bauerle, who kindly sent me the marker we're examining. Thanks once again, Ron! We're going to take a look at a union struggle in the McCarthy era and the way it impacted one man in particular.
 |
| The marker stands in front of the Local 506 chapter offices at 3923 Main Street, Lawrence Park (Erie). Image courtesy of Ron Bauerle. |
However, one important thing to understand is that in the 1930s, unions were beginning to gain prominence in various industries; I talked a little about the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America when I wrote about Min Matheson a few months ago. In 1938, the charter was granted for a new union called United Electric, and they signed their first contract with General Electric that same year. UE, as it's called, grew exponentially and, by the end of World War II, became one of the largest unions in the United States. Like many GE workers, John Nelson joined the union, and eventually came to serve as the steward, and later president, of his local chapter.
During the course of the war, UE encouraged its members not to strike and to increase productivity as their part in the war effort, with the logic being that the war was against fascism and therefore deserving of their support. After the war, however, workers began to strike again, because wages had been frozen during the war but industrial profits were on the rise. The Cold War with Russia, which was in its earliest stages, did not help matters. Neither did the very conservative Congress which resulted from the elections of 1946; one of their creations was something called the Taft-Hartley Act, which negatively impacted the unions' ability to negotiate on behalf of their members. Among its details was a requirement that all union officers had to sign annual affidavits which stated that they were not members of the Communist Party.
In 1947, Joseph McCarthy was elected a Senator of Wisconsin, and the era known as McCarthyism soon began. I won't go into a lot of detail about that, but for a quick primer, McCarthyism (or "the red scare") was a period in United States history when there was basically a hunt for Communists. He was convinced, and was able to convince many others, that Communism was taking root in the country and would destroy it from the inside. McCarthy was, in general, not a terribly nice person, but that's neither here nor there; what matters for our purposes in this post is that one of the places where he and other members of Congress were persuaded Communism was a real threat was in the various labor unions.
One of the unions being most relentlessly targeted, both by the government and by the companies in which it had chapters, was the UE. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and McCarthy's Subcommittee on Investigations created what basically amounted to an American Inquisition. No one expected the American Inquisition. They'd essentially back UE workers into a corner on the points of a Morton's Fork - they were to hand over the names of other workers who were or at least might be Communists; if they refused, it obviously meant that they themselves were Communists and they would be fired for it. And the first union president to be fired by GE in this manner was John Nelson.
It was 1953. Nelson was the president of Local 506, the large chapter of UE located in Erie, and had been for fifteen years. He was popular and good at his job, but GE fired him when he refused to give names. He was subpoenaed by the HUAC to testify about the matter in 1954, and his testimony was frustrating to them because his answers to their questions, though technically complete and accurate, gave them absolutely no useful data; he was finally dismissed from the witness box because they couldn't get anything out of him. It's almost certain that he had nothing to give them even if he'd wished it.
For six years, UE continued to be targeted by the HUAC in this manner. During those same six years, the UE defended John Nelson and fought to get his job back; his local union chapter retained him as their president, despite him no longer working for GE, and actually made his role as president a full-time job so that he could continue to draw a salary and support his family. Meanwhile, the HUAC continued to harass him, pulling him again for testimony and attacking his character. McCarthy's efforts against the UE were also assisted by a rival union, the International Union of Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (IUE). The divisiveness caused by the existence of two unions created tensions which added to the fire of the era.
Finally, in March 1959, after repeatedly failing to prove any existence of a Communist threat in the union's ranks, the Justice Department was forced to stop going after the UE on such grounds. The UE continued to fight the IUE for many more years, butting heads on topics such as equality for women and African-American workers; the UE was in favor of them, while the IUE was initially against them but later changed their stance. Both unions continue to represent workers today, although the IUE has merged with other unions and is now the IUE-CWA.
Unfortunately, the Congressional cease-fire against the UE came too late for John Nelson. His health was ravaged by the stress of being fired and then persecuted for years, and he died in December 1959, one day before his 42nd birthday. His historical marker stands just outside the headquarters for the Local 506, which still remembers his work and his loss. They even have pictures of him speaking to union members on their website - like this one.
Sources and Further Reading:
Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment
I would love to hear from you!