November 7, 1977 session

Introduction

Biographical Background - European Yiddish Socialist Upbringing
Scope and Content Note: Born in 1907 in New York, raised in Jewish community. Parents Jewish Russian Socialists (“Bund”); active in 1905 Revolution, fled post-revolution repression in 1906. Father a construction foreman. Yiddish spoken at home; supplementary weekend education in socialist, “Bundist,” Yiddish school; raised in highly intellectualized atmosphere. 1926-1927, correspondent for Yiddish Lithuanian newspaper. Taught in Bund schools on socialism, utopias, etc.

1920s Right Wing-Left Wing Socialist Battles in New York City
Scope and Content Note: Very involved as representative of right wing (Social-Democratic) bias. Left-right battles raged at City College during his attendance, 1924-28.

A Non-Dogmatic Socialist
Scope and Content Note: Voted Democratic. Later, more dogmatic socialists within the TWUA looked suspiciously upon him for this lack of dogmatism.

Higher Education and Early Teaching Experience
Scope and Content Note: CCNY. History and economics major. Taught at CCNY right after college. Neo-classical economics department at CCNY, so attended Columbia graduate school (1928-29; 1932-33). Discussion of the state of economic thought in New York at the time. Search for “a third way” (other than Russian Marxism or neo-classical). At Columbia, worked with Wesley Mitchell and Arthur Burns.

Job with New York State Commission on Old Age Security, 1929-1933
Scope and Content Note: Assistant director of research. Continued to teach and do graduate work. Drafted first old age assistance law in the U.S. in 1930. Wrote The Older Worker in Industry, a report for the Commission, which also served as his Ph.D. dissertation.

Went to Work for NIRA in July 1933
Scope and Content Note: Got job through Leo Wolman, who had been chairman of his dissertation committee. Barkin became assistant Executive Director of the Labor Advisory Board; in charge of the staff. In charge of construction industry and graphic arts labor provision codes.

Sidney Hillman - Barkin's First Contacts
Scope and Content Note: Hillman on Labor Advisory Board. Barkin felt needle trades competent to handle own codes. Hillman and Barkin at loggerheads because Hillman pushing interest of garment industry and Barkin more concerned with totality of American industry and those industries which did not have strong enough unions to properly participate. Became good friends with Hillman's secretary.

Continued Labor Advisory Board Work after NIRA Declared Unconstitutional
Scope and Content Note: Retained to pull together all the records, write final reports, etc., for nine months and then to write a report of his experience working for the Board, to be done for the Commission on Industrial Analysis (part of Department of Commerce). Secretary of Commerce wanted to get rid of him, but Frances Perkins, Isador Lubin, and Senator Robert Wagner prevented his being fired.

Invited by Hillman to Work for Textile Workers Organizing Committee (TWOC)
Scope and Content Note: Personally chose the title “Director of Research” and insisted on using that title no matter what role he was filling; and he filled several during TWOC days.

Introduction

Why Hillman Chose Barkin
Scope and Content Note: Barkin does not really know, though assumes it was because he had the courage to stand up to Hillman on the Labor Advisory Board. Did maintain personal relationship with Hillman through his secretary, despite preoccupation with Labor Advisory Board that involved 14-18 hours a day, seven days a week.

Other Job Possibilities Before Hillman's Offer
Scope and Content Note: Job with Iron Workers practically sewed up when Hillman offer came. Almost hired as research director for American Federation of Labor (AFL) Building Trades Department, but Electrical Workers Union refused to return to the Department if such additional expenses were to be incurred.

Struggle Between Wisconsin Idea and Eastern Idea over Federal Social Insurance Plans
Scope and Content Note: Wisconsin “experience rating” system versus Eastern system based on European concepts. John R. Commons theories versus those of I. M. Rubinow and Abraham Epstein.

Digression into How He Got Job with New York Commission on Old Age Security
Scope and Content Note: Wrote to chairman of the Commission after reading about its creation in the newspaper; was referred to the director, who had already been appointed; was hired and was the only one of initial employees to stick it out.

More on Wisconsin-Eastern Differences over Social Security Plan
Scope and Content Note: “Experience rating” versus uniform standards/benefits. Easterners more interested in old age security and Wisconsinites in unemployment insurance. Eastern group Frances Perkins, Alfred Smith, Franklin Roosevelt, Henry Street Settlement, Henry Morgenthau, Isador Lubin. Wisconsinites had greater influence in creation of the unemployment insurance program, as evidenced by the federal-state mixture. Wisconsin influence, however, had waned by end of 1930s and Easterners got their way with Old Age Security.

Critique of Commons School
Scope and Content Note: Selig Perlman unsympathetic to the Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO). Artificial prestige of Wisconsin school based on Commons myth. Perlman never understood Western European trade union movement, blinded by his prejudice against European socialist parties. Commons school influence peaked in 1932 and had some revival in 1950s and early 1960s when industrial relations became more business-oriented. Elitist, “no ideology” era of industrial relations in late 1950s, fostered in part by Ford Foundation, as were the early 1950s Cold War attitudes. Wisconsin school has no real philosophy or meaning for evaluation of American collective bargaining system.

More on Wisconsin-Eastern Social Insurance Theories
Scope and Content Note: Since Wisconsin won out on unemployment insurance and U.S. employment office, both systems have built in the unfortunate state-federal mixture; furthermore, the experience rating system has proven worthless. Based on Commons philosophy that law should be based on the most advanced practice of the time (which in this case was the Wisconsin unemployment law and the Commons-devised system in use by the Clothing Workers in Chicago) and not on a philosophy of forging ahead with new approaches. Old Age Security aspect tacked on only later because of the Townsend Movement and Easterners were in ascendency then.

Work for Hillman Just Prior to TWOC Formation
Scope and Content Note: Barkin hired with little instruction. Hired a few weeks before actual formation of TWOC. Barkin given task in meantime of investigating gangster influence in Newark, N.J., clothing industry. Discovered Mafia had thoroughly infiltrated the industry as dummy partners.

Digression into Favorable Characterization of Charles Howard of Typographical Union

Inauguration of TWOC
Scope and Content Note: No specific directions. Initial task was to set up the office.

Introduction

Inauguration of TWOC (Continued)
Scope and Content Note: Hillman threw the entire resources of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers (ACW) into the effort - structure, finances, personnel. Hence, the structure and the people were there and knew what to do. Headquarters job therefore relatively easy - sign checks, minimal direction. The Amalgamated “let loose to organize textile workers.”

Why Hillman Decided on Such a Large Commitment for His Organization
Scope and Content Note: Longtime dream of a union of both clothing and textile workers. Also, a dream of extending his “individual system of collective bargaining” to the textile industry cooperative, collaborative industrial relations system. A philosophy of industry-wide collective bargaining, stability, cooperation.

Characterization of Sidney Hillman
Scope and Content Note: Farsighted, broad-minded, skillful administrator, close infighter.

Hillman Dream of Using Clothing Manufacturers for Leverage on Textile Manufacturers
Scope and Content Note: Dream never fulfilled, except to some extent in the woolen industry and the silk industry where textile products were used extensively by the clothing industry.

Hillman Only One Amongst CIO Leaders Who Could Take on the Job
Scope and Content Note: David Dubinsky (International Ladies' Garment Workers) playing both sides (AFL and CIO) at the time. Hillman had the personal discipline and also the discipline within his Union to do the job, much like John L. Lewis and the Mine Workers had in the Steel organizing campaign.

Camaraderie and Loyalty of Clothing Workers Involved in TWOC
Scope and Content Note: Close personal family ties; most came up from the ranks and had fought the battles necessary to form the ACW. Sixty ACW organizers assigned, full or part time, to TWOC. “Fundamentally this was the Amalgamated taking over the organization work lock, stock, and barrel.”

TWOC in the South - Steve Nance
Scope and Content Note: Nance, southern director, was very respected and expected southern employers to fall into line and bargain contracts with him personally after TWOC won an election because of the personal prestige he had in the South. It did not work that way and “that was the great disappointment of the southern campaign.” Nance died and his successor, Roy Lawrence, could not deliver the South either; could not “duplicate a northern show.” Southern employers just not susceptible to arguments in favor of responsible collective bargaining; did not want union intrusion no matter how responsible.

TWOC's 650 Organizers
Scope and Content Note: Because of existing ACW structure, this great number did not present any administrative problems. Hence, Barkin could concentrate on research, on educating people about the textile industry, about which few people knew much. Organizers came largely from the ranks of ACW, from textile workers who exhibited leadership during the 1934 Textile Strike (like John Chupka), from the Dyers Federation (Sol Stetin and others), and from southerners Nance knew. Payroll handled through national office.

Future TWUA Leaders Not Prominent in TWOC
Scope and Content Note: Rieve began to play a larger role during the months immediately preceding the May 1939 TWUA founding convention. No future leaders were stationed in New York or visited New York headquarters very often. Rieve did not really take over until elected president at the Convention. During the TWOC period, Rieve, Baldanzi and Pollock were all of local significance only.

Introduction

Anecdote about First TWUA Staff Meeting
Scope and Content Note: Held immediately after first convention, Rieve announced that henceforth all correspondence and communication should be with him, the President, and no longer with Barkin.

Characterization of Emil Rieve
Scope and Content Note: A “wonderful guy to work with”; derided the “intellectuals,” but surrounded himself with very bright people and always incorporated their ideas after careful personal analysis. TWUA had best staff in the Union Movement. Rieve gave Barkin considerable leeway, never limited him.

Barkin and the TWUA Research Department
Scope and Content Note: Extremely busy; the authoritative voice on the textile industry. Produced numerous works on the industry.

Anecdote about Baldanzi Challenging Barkin's Authority
Scope and Content Note: In 1941, Baldanzi asked for a group of statistics: Barkin asked why he wanted them, being fearful of an improper use of the statistics. Baldanzi, insulted, went to Rieve who quieted things down. Rieve always able to make light of things when Barkin had run-ins with staff or officers.

Rieve Expressed Appreciation for Barkin in 1958, after Retirement

Doctrinaire Socialists on TWUA Staff Suspicious of Barkin's Pragmatism

TWOC Organization of American Woolen Company an Outgrowth of Hillman's Organizing from the Top Down, Through Contacts with Businessmen
Scope and Content Note: Reinforced Hillman's theory that ACW organizing/bargaining tactics could be extended to the textile industry.

Organizing by Strikes in the North, by Election Victories in the South

1937-1938 Recession: Destroys TWOC Momentum, Never to Be Regained

1938 Bigelow-Sanford Strike to Prevent Ten Percent Wage Cut
Scope and Content Note: Very dramatic; the sheer force of accidents and coincidents makes a mockery of historians who search for causes and effects. Two plants, one organized and one friendly, but unorganized. Barkin in charge. Never having engaged in bargaining or running a strike, called in United Textile Workers' (UTW's) Milton Rosenberg. This strike brought William DuChessi into the union. Broad publicity and appeal; had more money after the strike than before. Carpet layers stopped work at Virginia Governor's Mansion. Hillman finally came in and settled it at the top. The times were auspicious for gaining public sympathy.

1938 Cotton Wage Cuts Unavoidable
Scope and Content Note: Knew they could not hold the wage line in cotton; hence, expulsion of New Bedford Textile Council for agreeing to wage cut actually a scapegoat action.

More on Bigelow-Sanford Strike
Scope and Content Note: Since President Roosevelt prevented railroad wage cuts and thereby established an informal anti-wage cut policy for first time during a recession, the public was sympathetic to strikes for maintenance of wage levels.

Bigelow-Sanford Arbitration Led Barkin to Develop New Theories of Corporate Cost-Accounting for the Purposes of Collective Bargaining
Scope and Content Note: Attacked the company's inventory valuation policy; convinced arbitrator that low inventory valuations in mid-year were not valid reason for wage cuts. Later develops into theory that, for purposes of collective bargaining, corporate accounting should be like national income accounting which uses the concept of distributive shares, showing who is getting what from the corporation.

Introduction

Continuation of Discussion of His Theory of Using the Concept of “Distributive Share Principles” in Corporate Accounting for Collective Bargaining
Scope and Content Note: Referred to by John R. Commons in his analysis of public utility evaluation, but not picked up by others in collective bargaining in the U.S., although Europe is now providing Barkin with such an audience. Basically means “who's milking the corporation,” how are the income streams being distributed. Lack of such innovative approaches in the U.S. reflects poorly on both American trade unionists and American labor relations schools.

Further Explanation of This Theory and Its Possible Use
Scope and Content Note: Distributive shares comparable to “value added” or “working capital.” In other words, how much income is the corporation generating and who is getting what. Such statistics can be marshalled to be used as tools or ammunition in bargaining for higher wages.

Early TWOC Initiation Fees Were Lower Than Those for UTW Because TWOC Abolished Initiation Fees; Paid Only after Contract Signed

Advisory Council of TWOC
Scope and Content Note: Set up in November 1938 in lieu of an executive council for the purposes of consultation. Set up at this time perhaps as a method of introducing Rieve into the operation in a more active way and perhaps also as response to Gorman's movement toward a return to the AFL.

Frank Gorman
Scope and Content Note: NRA saved face for him in 1934 strike. Hillman had no use for Gorman because of his personal habits, his radical wife, and his conduct of the 1934 strike. One of the reasons Hillman moved into the textile situation was to move Gorman and Thomas McMahon aside. Gorman would have become Executive Vice-president of TWUA in place of Baldanzi if he had not returned to the AFL. Wooed by AFL, but also felt frustration and anger for having been displaced by Hillman.

How Pollock Became First Secretary-Treasurer
Scope and Content Note: Carl Holderman was favorite of many, but he was member of American Federation of Hosiery Workers which was Rieve's union and this would have unbalanced the top offices in favor of the AFHW. Also, Rieve probably preferred someone other than Holderman because Holderman might have been too independent, since he was inventive, bold, etc. James Starr was ill, cut no figure, and was not considered for secretary-treasurer of the new organization.

Formation of Textile Workers Union of America
Scope and Content Note: Primarily to relieve Hillman of the responsibility of running TWOC and probably also in response to Gorman's return to AFL.

Reasons for TWOC and TWUA Comparatively Infrequent Use of Strikes
Scope and Content Note: Hillman and ACW philosophy of responsible collective bargaining a much greater factor than the fact that past textile unions had suffered such great defeats. Also, by this time the NLRB, which was basically friendly to labor, provided an effective way to avoid strikes.

Employer Allegations That NLRB in Its Early Years Was Very Favorable to Unions Were Justified

Introduction

More on the Pro-Labor Bias of NLRB
Scope and Content Note: People went to work for NLRB because they wanted to implement unionization and collective bargaining. Pro-labor attitude began to change after World War II, as staff make-up reflected public opinion and Congressional attitudes; court decisions against labor were also reflected in NLRB staff. Taft-Hartley Act was just an incident in the process of opinions shifting against labor.

TWUA Research Department and Its Broad Functions
Scope and Content Note: During TWOC period, there was no publicity department or education department or finance department. Barkin, as Research Director, therefore had to assume all these functions. Only people in TWOC office were Barkin's staff, some finance people (part of administration), and an attorney.

TWOC Staff
Scope and Content Note: Attorney Alfred Udoff not really independent, always had to consult with ACW attorneys. John Abt, counsel of “Wage-Hour Bureau,” not really permanent, just helped on wage and hour cases; stationed in Washington, D.C.; served as political consultant to Hillman. “National Representatives” Thomas McMahon, Horace Riviere, and John White were not in New York; McMahon still had job as Rhode Island Commissioner of Labor; Riviere in New Hampshire; they were UTW people for whom a place had to be found. Herbert Payne, Director of Synthetic Yarn Division, was a hosiery worker; he was not in New York either; came in only after Rieve became active.

Failure of TWOC in the South: “The Great Tragedy”
Scope and Content Note: Roy Lawrence, Lower South Director, never conceived the problem “in the great strategic dimensions” which were required; did not have the potential of Steve Nance. Never any specific debates about what was required in the South which would differentiate it from the North. Nance brought an element of differentiation, but after his death the Union never gave any formal thinking to “a grandiose strategy” for the South. Barkin feels that if he had had 50,000 jobs for skilled males in the Carolinas, created by war work, the temper of the Carolinas could have been changed.

The Southern Worker
Scope and Content Note: Does not appreciate gains won for him by the Union through legislation, because union allegiance not deeply seeded, not a given. Basic culture of Southern worker is non-supportive of collective action.

Barkin Attempted to Find a Solution to the Problem of Organizing the Southern Textile Worker
Scope and Content Note: In 1950s Barkin spent much time grappling with this problem. Hired Duke University sociologist, Don Roy, to study mill villages the Union was trying to organize. Also brought in Lou Harris, the pollster, to study a community in order to find out what the attitudes were. Neither could provide any clues as to how to break through in the South; only able to provide more testimony of the social pressures. Union even supported publication of a University of North Carolina dissertation on textile communities. Seminars, training courses, organizers' questionnaires - all supported by the Union as part of Barkin's search for a key to organizing the South. Worked also with University of North Carolina out-patient psychiatric department; high incidence of neurotic textile mill employees; led to Barkin's article “The Personality Profile of a Textile Worker.” Constantly groping for new techniques.

Barkin's Proposed Solutions to the Problem of Organizing the Southern Textile Worker
Scope and Content Note: Finally concluded that the culture problem of the South precluded success in the South simply by improving on old methods. Determined that a new approach was needed: had to concentrate on converting an entire community and forego the old method of concentrating on one company at a time. Hence, when the Union dropped the Burlington campaign, Barkin discouraged taking up the J.P. Stevens campaign. By 1962 he urged a completely new Labor Relations Act specifically for southern textiles; no support within trade unions for such an extreme measure. Because of this backward attitude, the “bastions of union power” no longer have much power except for the Auto Workers and the Teamsters.

Introduction

Current Decline of the Labor Movement
Scope and Content Note: While employer anti-unionism is spreading, trade union response is largely formal and legalistic rather than direct responses which might encourage public support. Unwillingness to accept the fact that unionism cannot be sold easily.

The Basic Problem in Organizing the South
Scope and Content Note: Religious and cultural aversion to collective action. Barkin does not agree with the TWUA line that southern workers want to be organized, that it is the community and the employers who prevent organization. To change the attitude of the southern worker takes a great traumatic and psychological experience, such as happened in 1934. Also needed is a nucleus of southerners who have left the South, experienced other cultures, and returned; this type of person in the past often provided a base for organizing drives. American trade unions do not recognize this imbedded cultural characteristic and thus continue to think in terms of winning NLRB elections on a piecemeal basis rather than trying to change the patterns of thinking and then attempting to organize. South lacks a base of organized skilled workers to build upon.

1937 Recession and Steve Nance's Death Halted TWOC Southern Drive, Momentum Never to Be Regained
Scope and Content Note: Inroads made previous to the recession, but recession prevented signing of contracts in many mills that had been organized. Nance and Hillman were probably overly optimistic; but Nance's successor, Roy Lawrence, was incapable of duplicating even Nance's modest gains.

Failure of Union Leadership to Recognize That the South Is Different and Requires Different Approaches Has Precluded Success in the South
Scope and Content Note: Ultimately, must change the total climate.

Southern Blacks and the Labor Movement
Scope and Content Note: Blacks, because of their religious and cultural experience, are more inclined toward collective action and thus more readily join unions. Blacks still largely confined to garment industry, still not particularly significant in textile industry, though numbers increasing.

TWUA Leadership Did Not Really Have Much Confidence That They Could Break Through in the South
Scope and Content Note: Emphasis was on the North.

Victory in the South Will Require Acceptance by the Trade Union Movement of Entirely New Approaches
Scope and Content Note: Finally gave up the Burlington campaign in 1950s once they realized the extent to which the company would go to resist the Union. Then repeated the mistake by moving into the Stevens chain. Breakthrough in the South will come only after an acceptance of new theories of collective bargaining that use the law in a radical manner which will impose employee representation through the power of the government. Similar to European “Works Council”; a vehicle through which the trade union movement could operate. American trade union leadership not prepared to even consider such extreme methods. “The continued advocacy of the traditional American system of voluntary collective bargaining only means continued shrinkage of collective bargaining in this country.”

Hillman Retained Very Little Influence over Textiles after Formation of TWUA
Scope and Content Note: Had practically withdrawn from the situation by late 1938 because of physical condition. Role as Chairman of TWUA Executive Council was only honorary.

Concentration of Power in TWUA International Office
Scope and Content Note: Probably more concentrated than other unions; this concentration reflected Rieve's philosophy. Rieve, in effect, appointed almost all Joint Board managers; appointed all staff; and organizational decisions were largely in his hands. Off-setting that, however, was the fact that Rieve allowed staff considerable leeway once they had been appointed to their position.

Rieve Had Great Insistence on Keeping the Union Solvent

Introduction

More on the Concentration of Power in the TWUA International Office
Scope and Content Note: Lack of International power in the UTW was celebrated. Autonomy of Hosiery and Dyers Federations respected by TWUA. New locals looked to the International to solve everything. Does not see local dependence on International as a weakness because the local mills are dependent on the condition of the industry. The interrelationship of units, the close competitive conditions, the uniformity of wage movements, and the similarity of conditions made a strong International Union, which could coordinate all this, a necessity.

In North, Locals More and More Identified with Industry Division
Scope and Content Note: This reinforced by TWUA industry meetings. A natural outgrowth of the UTW federation set up. This built a comprehension of the interdependence of locals.

Barkin Felt Very Comfortable with the Strong International Set Up

In 1939 TWUA People Firmly Believed That the Industry Would Someday Be 100 Percent Organized
Scope and Content Note: Weeding out of weak plants during 1930s depression, followed by wartime prosperity, and postwar boom reinforced and perpetuated this belief by providing a feeling that the industry might no longer be prone to cyclical depressions which formerly had thwarted organizational drives. General optimistic feeling because of general upward trend of all unions.

As Early as Late 1930s Barkin Realized That TWUA Success Linked to General Attitude of the Total Society to Labor Unions
Scope and Content Note: Noticed that TWUA made progress only when the rest of the labor movement was making progress. Example, 1941 saw an upswing in union successes and TWUA able to benefit in that climate by organizing Alexander Smith Carpet in Yonkers, N.Y.

Rieve, Like Many American Trade Union Leaders, Was Not Strong for New Organization
Scope and Content Note: Baldanzi much more devoted to organizing, but he not profound enough to really understand it. Rieve did not have the feeling or sense for it. Like most trade union leaders, primarily interested in institutional operation and collective bargaining. New organization always set off to the side. George Meany a prime example. Skilled as administrators, not organizers.

World War II Provided Labor Many Leverages Which It Was Never to Enjoy Again
Scope and Content Note: War Labor Board (WLB) machinery could be manipulated to force recalcitrant employers to bargain. TWUA made much organizational progress during the War; the total American collective bargaining scene “was solidified, formalized...by the War Labor Board.”

Most American Industrial Relations Experts and Labor Economists Still Living with a Design Created by the War Labor Board
Scope and Content Note: Talk of “free collective bargaining, voluntary collective bargaining” is meaningless today. Very few fundamental changes have come about since the demise of the WLB. American system of collective bargaining has been stagnant since the end of WLB.

Barkin Would Propose a War Labor Board Type of Control in the South in Order to Give Labor an Opportunity to Break Through
Scope and Content Note: “That kind of imposition of government power” is needed to force employers to bargain with labor. Such a proposition looks strange to the Wisconsin school of labor economists, who live on the myths created by the WLB bargaining atmosphere.