The Labor Rights Fight in Boston

Several attempts had been made to organize the employees of the Boston Elevated Company (referred to as the “L” as opposed to today’s “T”) prior to 1912.  There had been an unsuccessful strike over the right to organize in 1897. 1912 marked the first time that a Union organizing drive was backed by an International Labor Organization (The International Association of CAR MEN).

For several months in early 1912 the Union had unsuccessfully attempted to meet with the “L’s” Management.  Not only did “L” President General William Bancroft unequivocally refuse to meet with a committee elected by the Union, but he initiated a plan to obstruct the organizing drive.  282 employees with substantial service with the Company were fired for subterfuge or for “unsatisfactory service” which was cited in 149 cases.  The Union charged that these employees were fired as a result of their Union activities.  Management explained the firings “as needed in order to maintain discipline.”

The Union submitted a list of grievances to “L” Presidents Bancroft in May of 1912 asking that if he still refused to address the employees’ concerns that he submit them to arbitration.  Bancroft’s refusal of this request brought the Union members’ frustrations to the boiling point.  Early in the morning of June 7, 1912, the members of the Boston Elevated Carmen’s Union at a meeting, which had begun the previous evening, voted to strike the “L’s” Management by a vote of 1,389 to 8.

The strike opened with violence.  Within 15 minutes of the 4:15 a.m. strike vote the strikers began taking action.  Car windows were smashed, trolley ropes were cut, and controller box handles were stolen.

The strike grew uglier over the ensuing weeks as many strikers were arrested for attacks on vehicles and on so-called “Loyal Men” who crossed the picket lines.  Several Union members were arrested in Brighton and charged with plotting to blow up car tracks with dynamite.  Fueling the violence was the actions of the “L” Management who hired an Ohio company to bring in over 700 strike breakers from around the country.  These strikebreakers were brought into Boston and were provided living quarters by “L” Management.

Officials of the Elevated resorted to taking out large advertisements in all the local newspapers attempting to portray the “L” as a warm and generous employer whose foremost concern was the welfare of the riding public.  Their ads went as far as to list the name of the employees who took an oath of loyalty to the Company.  The Management also employed a surveillance and investigation unit, which they used to gather information on the Union members and their families.  To counter the employees’ desire to organize, the Management set up a Company controlled organization called, “The Boston Elevated Railway Company Fraternal Protection Association,” whose officers were appointed by Management.

The two sides made no progress over the first five weeks of the strike.  Even with the hundreds of imported strike breakers and the many “Loyal Men” (as the Company referred to them), “L” Management could not run anything close to normal service.  The strikers on the other hand after having their status as employees terminated by Management were no closer to an agreement than when they took to the streets.  Several events began to unfold, however, which began to turn the tide.

The Union received enormous support from the labor community who gave money and provided attorneys to defend arrested strikers.  The International paid all of the strikers a small weekly strike benefit.  Even the legendary Samuel Gompers came to Boston to show his support for the striking transit workers.  Parades of strikers and their supporters were organized and thousands marched in solidarity.

The major turning point in the strike, however, came as a result of charges filed with the State Board of Conciliation and Arbitration (which was created in 1909) by the Car Men’s Attorney James Vahey.  The Union claimed that the Boston Elevated Management caused the strike by interfering with the workers’ right to organize.  After a lengthy investigation, the Board released a report which upheld the Union’s charges and placed the blame for the strike on the “L” Management.  The Board found that the Management had discharged employees solely for their Union activities, had brought in strike breakers and convicted felons who were employed as strong-arm men, and had coerced employees against joining the Union.

Following the report, District Attorney Joseph C. Pelletier sought indictments against several members of the “L” Management for perjury, coercion, and conspiracy to incite riots.  The District Attorney also promised to intervene on behalf of the strikers who had received extreme sentences for their actions.  Pelletier chastised the Courts for acting “as if any striker charged with a crime should be sent to prison, guilty or not.”  Strikers had been sentenced to 3 to 6 months in prison for calling people “scabs,” others were given sentences of 1, 2, or 3 years for simple assault and many strikers who were questionably guilty of simple misdemeanors were charged with far more serious felonies.  In the course of the District Attorney’s probe, it was established that the “L” Management had even investigated the background of the members of the Grand Jury.

After the Board of Conciliation and Arbitration’s report, Governor Eugene Foss, and Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald (Mayor Fitzgerald, affectionately referred to as “Honey Fitz,” was the maternal grandfather of President John F. Kennedy and and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and great grandfather of Congressman Joe Kennedy) became actively involved in the resolution of the strike.

John Francis “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald

Governor Foss publicly scored the “L’s” Management and called for the punishment of the guilty officials.  To insure that the future officials would uphold both the spirit and the letter of the law, Governor Foss introduced legislation to create a Public Utilities Commission to insure that the right of the stockholders, the employees, and the public would be protected.

Mayor Fitzgerald went even further than the Governor in supporting the rights of the Union members.  He issued a public statement saying that, “if other Street Railway Companies were able to operate and return a dividend under the conditions which the striking employees were asking the Elevated to accept then the Boston Elevated Railway can do the same.”  The Mayor sat all the parties down and promised the “L” Management that unless they could reach an agreement with the striking workers, he would ask the Governor to call a special session of the Legislature to deal with the issue.

Further support came from the Cambridge and Malden City Councils who passed resolutions asking the “L” to reinstate all the strikers.  The Boston Central Labor Union also announced plans for a general strike by all local trade unionists if the strike was not quickly settled.

Finally on July 28, 1912, a settlement recognizing the Union and establishing an “Open Shop” was agreed to by the Boston Elevated’s Board of Directors.  The Union membership had unanimously ratified the terms the previous day.  Under the Agreement strikers were reinstated with full seniority (the so-called “loyal men” who crossed the picket lines had argued for seniority over the strikers but their organization, the Fraternal Protection Association, gave Management the right to decide the issue).

All other issues which could not be agreed to by the parties or settled by the Board of Conciliation and Arbitration would be submitted to a Board of Arbitration.  Labor and Management would each get to appoint a representative while the third member would be appointed by the Governor or Mayor of Boston.

Boston Police leave a meeting after voting to strike.

The Union’s first contract which came about the following year was a result of a three member Arbitration Board.  Judge James Storrow, the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court (after whom Storrow Drive was named), served as the neutral arbitrator.  The Carmen’s progress continued and their actions served as an inspiration for many others.  The going was far from easy as evidenced by such events as The Boston Police Strike of 1919.  That bloody strike and the subsequent firing of all the strikers by then Governor Calvin Coolidge was said to have been the issue which got Coolidge to the White House.

In the mid 1920’s the Carmen, who represented all the Elevated’s employees, allowed the different trade unions to represent the workers in their respective trades.  This saw the number of unions representing the Elevated’s employees grow to 13.  Today, over 30 different unions represent M.B.T.A. employees, but Local 589 still represents approximately two-thirds of the workforce.

Local 589 led the way in bargaining over wages, hours, and working conditions for all the El’s employees and for workers throughout the transit industry for the next 60+ years.  The Carmen’s Union survived a depression, its members fought in two World Wars as well as in Korea and Vietnam, while the Boston Elevated Railway Company underwent several reorganizations, becoming the Metropolitan Transit Authority in 1948, and finally becoming the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (The “T”), which serves Boston and the surrounding 79 cities and towns in 1968.

1980 saw a return to the attitude Management exhibited in 1912.  The M.B.T.A. was forced to close down in December of 1980 for the first time in its history for lack of funds.  The M.B.T.A. Management convinced the Massachusetts Legislature that the blame for the high deficit laid with the Authority’s employees. Legislation was enacted, which took away many of the gains made by the Union over the years.

As it has done with all the obstacles it has faced over the years, Local 589 will overcome.  The structure of the M.B.T.A. and its Management will most likely undergo several reorganizations and restricting in the years ahead, but the need for a Carmen’s Union will not only continue – it will grow.  Adversity has always strengthened that spirit which began in 1912 and will continue to do so in the future.  After all, if not for the abuse of power of the employer what need of Unions would we have?

*******************

Grandpa was a carman.   His brother-in-law Ned was a Wobbly and former IRA captain who spend three years in a British prison.

One night grandpa came home all beat up.   Ned dropped the word (we'd rather do this like civilized people, but if its violence you want, then then it is.  And none of you will be safe, Bancroft).  They never touched grandpa again. 

America's Defeated Race ... and the Most Influential American without a Biography

 As to its nature [Irish immigration], there needs here to be said only this, -- that the Irish emigration, as we see it, — the Celtic Exodus, as it has been called, — seems clearly to belong to the established, uninterrupted fortune of the Celtic race, as if it had been the immediate result of battle and bloody defeat. It will be remembered that within the scope of written history; this Celtic race, speaking, a language of kin to its language of today, marked with the same sign of physical conformation, held without intermixture of foreign races, all Western Europe, including parts even of Italy. Since that period of wide extent, its fortunes are dark in parts; but this much is clear, that the clans which composed it have been perpetually divided among themselves, and in contest against Gothic or other waves of population, pressing upon them from the East, that they 

have constantly lost ground. Whether it is defeat by Camillus or by Caesar, or by the Ostrogoths or the Danes, or the Saxons or Cromwell, defeat is their history, not, of course, in every battle, but certainly in the experience of each single generation. Such defeats have driven them further and further westward, and have absorbed more and more of their race, either to enrich the battle-fields, or to serve as the slaves or as the wives of the conquerors, until the last two centuries have seen it pure only in its western fastnesses.  Through those centuries it has stood at bay on the headlands of western England and France, and, I suppose, Spain; it has had full inhabitability, though not government, of most of Ireland and northern Scotland. Those points of the world are to be looked upon just like the "Indian Leap,’ or the Mount Kineo of our own Legends; they are the last resting places where a great gallant race has been driven in by its conquerors, before their last destructive attack upon it. 

 

This last attack the conquerors have now made; not intentionally, but because they did not know how to resist their destiny; not as Cromwell destroyed the Irish at Drogheda, or as Caesar attacked the Treviri, but in the more destructive, though more kindly meant, invasion, of modern systems of agriculture, manufactures and commerce. The untaught and wretched Irish Celt, of the pure blood, could no more stand the competition of the well-compacted English social system than could his progenitors or their kinsmen stand the close-knit discipline of Caesar’s legions. In the effort to stand it poor Ireland counts her millions of slain. They have died of deaths more terrible than battle, and the rest conscious of 

their last defeat have nothing left for it but to flee farther yet westward and leave their old homes to this invasion which will not end.... 

 

That inefficiency of the pure Celtic race furnishes the answer to the question.  How much use are the Irish to us in America. The Native American answer is, “None at all.”  And the Native American policy is to keep them away.... 

In fact, by every spade blow which foreign hands have driven, by every child which foreign mothers in their own homes have reared to this country, is the country richer forthe coming of the foreigner. By the worth of every spade blow, by the worth of every child would the country be poorer

if it debarred them from privilege of doing its meanest work .... 

We [the Anglo-Saxons] are here, well-organized and well trained masters of the soil, the very race before which they [the Celts] have yielded everywhere.  It must be that when they come in among us they come in to lift us up. As sure as water and oil each finds its level they will find theirs.  So far as they are mere hand-workers they must sustain the head-workers, or those who have any element of intellectual ability.  Their inferiority as a race compact them to go to the bottom; and the consequence is that we are all of us the higher lifted because they are here....

Excerpters from Letters on Irish Emigration, Edward E Hale, Harvard University, Unitarian Minister, Author Man Without a Country

*************

It is somewhat instructive regarding what constituted Hale's brand of New England liberalism that he chose as his Man Without a County anti-hero Irishman Philip Nolan, an American frontiersman who in real life died long before the Aaron Burr conspiracy took place. Hale with his parochial Harvard point of view got his boat lifting wrong.  In Hale's day when Harvard and Yale were little more than sectarian seminaries, "pure-blooded Celt" Dennis Hart Mahan was dean of faculty at West Point.  In his capacity as academic dean, professor of engineering and the art of war, Mahan educated scores of soldiers and engineers who build America's bridges, railroad and canals and go on to seed the engineering faculties and libraries at places like Dartmouth and Yale.

Nobody tips the nurses

One of the times my wife and I disagree is at the end of a romantic dinner at a nice restaurant (something we haven't done much of lately).   My wife "demurs" when she sees the tip I leave.

"Darling, I always liked it when I drove a taxi and the customer left a nice tip."

"Nobody tips the nurses!"  

In four words, reminding me that from the Bridgeport ghetto to the Arizona reservations, running one our state's largest Medicaid health plans, caring for hundreds of thousands of babies, nobody ever tipped her.  When she was a candy stripper at 16, working in a nursing home, demented old veterans tried to grope her and threw loaded bedpans at her, but nobody ever tipped her.  

That's the point in a disagreement when a smart husband wouldn't say another word.   Who said I was smart.  Smart aleck, maybe.   I played my trump card.

"Did you have a job description that included 'people will try to kill you on a daily basis' and the recruiter wasn't lying'"

Next time you're vexed and think you're underpaid.   Remember:

Nobody tips the nurses.

Do You Trust Your Wife?

My inimitable father got arrested in Suffolk County, NY, one day. He's taking my mom to lunch somewhere out east around Southhampton and gets into a shouting match with the guys in a garbage truck. Mom and dad park nearby and sit down for lunch. Not long after, in walks the garbageman and a cop. The garbageman is a reserve cop and they arrest Big Jim for disturbing the peace, much to the mortification of my mother, and take him away in handcuffs. As soon as he's out of jail, he's on the warpath and sues the cops … he has free legal representation, himself. The cops retaliate and their PBA representative sues Big Jim back. This is where Big Jim has the last laugh, because their suit has nowhere to go. Ha, ha! He chuckled. I'm lawsuit proof. Everything we own is in your mother's name. He lived for the hunt.

Good News and Bad News

Years ago during my career as a management consultant,  I liked to think of myself in baseball terms,  a relief pitch brought in to save the game in the late innings.  At least that was the way it seemed ... until ....

My boss called me into his office.   Wrap up your work in Pittsburgh.  They need a little help on the big IT project here in Arizona.  That sounded good to me.   Very high profile work and I wouldn't have to travel.   No more long plane rides and no more long hours spent in airports waiting for the long plane ride.

The first hint that the job was more than them needing a little help was when the overall project manager told me:  "We need you here ASAP."  Me:  "You mean after Christmas."  PM:  "No, I mean before Christmas.  You can take Christmas day and New Years day off."   So I went back to Pittsburgh for the weekend,  wrote to-do-notes on little yellow papers and pasted the to-do notes all over the remaining Pittsburgh project team's cubicles.  Sayonara troopers!

As soon as I arrived at the project site in Arizona, the project manager handed me her work plan.  She said:   "You're in charge of the programmers and systems analysts ... and the work plan.  Update the work plan before everyone gets back from Christmas vacation."

It wasn't my first rodeo, and it wasn't long before I realized there was a real probability I wasn't coming in as the closer.   I was the guy they bring in to eat up innings to save the bullpen so it could save another game, another day.   About the only kind thought I had for the boss who'd put me into the game was that he might not have known how bad things were ... but he must have had an inkling.

I reported back to the project manager.
"I have some good news and bad news.   First the good news.  It is possible to successfully finish the project.   The bad news.   You cannot finish it by the contractually promised due date.   You will not be able to complete the project for the fixed amount our firm will be paid.   It's just a matter of how much money the firm is gonna lose.   Before you blow your stack.  There's more bad news.   You've already said in the work plan that it will take more than 100 programmers and system analysts to complete the project.   You are far along in the project and are supposed to begin programming in a few weeks.   You only have 50 people on the project now and only 5 of them are programmers.  You need to hire at least 50 programmers who know the unique programming and database languages being used here (Datacom/Ideal).  Worse still,  you don't have any space or desks for the new programmers to work at.   Start looking.  The really bad news is that adding more programmers than you've already planned won't help you meet your promised delivery dates.   You simply won't be able to break the work into enough smaller and manageable pieces for you to do that:   you can't hire nine women to make a baby in one month.

They hired the programmers, literally bringing them in from all over the world.  After much grumbling we got the customer to find more work space and desks for the additional programmers.  The project didn't get completed on time, but it did get completed.   The firm lost more money than even I imagined.   The project manager who started the project was replaced not long after the bad news got out.  Lots of promises were made to those of us who came in to save the day.  None of them were kept.

Gilligan Solves a Hi-Tech, AI Problem

I'm very happy with my new car.   It has adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist, automatic emergency braking, front and back, and bunch of other stuff.   Stuff you really need if you day dream about the root cause of climate change and whether it's appropriate for hot college girls to wear skin-tight leggings to mass at Notre Dame University ... or are subject periodic flashbacks about tank battles and monitoring the emergency SAR channel when somebody screams "Shit" and then nothing but dead air.

Yesterday my son's buddy needed an emergency ride to Tucson for a meeting.   I figured it had something to do with the Army reserve or a girl.  Either way I was glad to help someone meet a commitment.  Turned out it was a girl.   He's off to Vietnam next Wednesday to meet her parents and had to fit the trip in between reserve training and going to an academy for a new job.   If you need a rush, rush passport you have to go to the Western Regional Office in Tucson to get it.   You can probably get a third party to do it for you, but it costs a lot more than the kid has.

Half way to Casa Grande all my AI dies:  cruise control, braking, lane-keeping assist.   No flashbacks or hot college girls in leggings, we made it to Tucson in one piece.   

I waited outside while the young lover got his passport.  While I waited, I decided to check the sensors on my fancy car.   Maybe one got busted by road debris.   They all looked intact, but one in the front had a tiny bug, about the size of a mosquito, plastered right in the middle of the sensor.   "That can't be it.   What the hell."    I licked my pinkie with my tongue and wiped the bug off the sensor.

After my exercise in post-preventive maintenance, I stayed entertained by watching a homeless guy play human yo-yo riding a bike up and down the incline in the passport office parking lot.

If you have a uniform wear it to your passport appointment.   By the rules, they'd have mailed the passport to the young lover and it might or might not have arrived in time for his flight.  The folks at the passport office took one look at young lover's uniform and said come back at 3 and you can take your passport home with you today.

As I backed out of our parking spot my butt got buzzed and the car jerked to a halt by itself,  emergency braking.   The homeless guy with the bike flew past the back of my car.

When we hit the highway all the AI was working again.   Gilligan had fixed the bug.

Sincerely,

Gilligan

Christian and Muslim Battle Grounds

I suppose if you want a history lesson on hate, you would go to the Balkins like the New Zealand nutjob did.

Some years ago, right here in Phoenix, I worked for a time with a Serbian immigrant.   We were chatting one day and he started talking about the old country and his time in the Serbian army.  

"You know you people were on the wrong side ... trying to stop us ... we know how to take care of them."   Then he pointed his finger at me, cocked his thumb like the hammer on a gun and said:  "Pow!"

He went on trying to impress me by telling how he helped shoot down a stealth fighter.   I observed that we (the good old US of A) were only trying to scare him and his fellow Serbians away from the Muslims, while trying to not actually hurt anyone.

"If they'd taken off the glove and sent in the big boys,  you wouldn't be here today,"  remembering, but not otherwise talking about, how we took the NVA apart in '72 when they finally let us take off the gloves.

Our relationship was never the same and we never chatted again about old times ... because ... you know ... I was pissed off.

Gilligan

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mosque-shooters-radical-views-fed-by-trips-to-christian-muslim-battlegrounds

Importing Tech Talent

Heaven forbid that we encourage bright young Americans by making American companies offer apprenticeship programs to bright young Americans, including young blacks and Hispanics stuck washing the floors at Pizza Hut.  My Uncle Joe never went to college.  He got a job at Pratt and Whitney just before the war and became a crack engine mechanic.  In his time he was responsible for testing the engines being developed for the F-15.   That isn't possible today … but it should be.  Uncle Joe earned a top salary and died a millionaire.

The Man Who Never Returned

"People in the West don't understand how easy it is to get around [without a car]."  

-- Transportation expert, quoted by Linda Valdez, AZ Republic, 12/21/18

I did my time on the LIRR going to graduate school and work, a mind-numbing experience.   My grandfather organized the Boston Carmen's Union (and picked Felix Frankfurter to arbitrate during the big strike).  It seems like every other person in my neighborhood is from New York ... some of the neighbors even have siblings born in the same hospital as me or who went to my high school.   My next door neighbor went to the same college as I did in Massachusetts.  It takes us as long to get to the T station near grandma's house near Boston as it does for me to drive to downtown Phoenix.   Lots of people in the West have a really good understanding of what it's like to get around without a car and how mind-numbing it can be now to travel in Boston and New York.

The rail systems in New York and Boston were built decades ago when there was no minimum wage and health care benefits, and bargaining for a five day work week was a big deal ....  Good luck to those who want to replicate those rail systems elsewhere in an era when the elves have to be paid a living wage.

Good luck to private private investors who want to build a railroad to Tucson from Phoenix ... but what travelers in the West really need is another lane on I-10 and/or a surtax on all the trucks headed to California that clog I-10's lanes (let's call it a carbon tax). 

BTW:  there was a time when a 10-year-old girl (ie, my mother) could be handed five dollars and be sent to downtown Boston via the MTA with her little sister to buy shoes (and the elves lived in triple-decker tenements).   "If you have a problem find a policeman."  Would anyone in their right mind do that today ... not in Boston and certainly not Phoenix ... when to find a policeman you dial 911 and have to wait 30 minutes to an hour for the cop to show up.  We're going to grandma's house for Christmas ... Uncle Paul's loaning us a car to get around when we get there.

Nollaig Shona!

Gilligan

Data Scientist

Linebacker Strike Group, Pocket Money Strike Group, Freedom Train, North SAR

Cook/Deckhand, MV Mugwump

*  *  *  *  *

These are the times that try men's souls
In the course of our nation's history the people of Boston have rallied bravely whenever the rights of men have been threatened
Today a new crisis has arisen
The Metropolitan Transit Authority, better known as the M.T.A.
Is attempting to levy a burdensome tax on the population in the form of a subway fare increase
Citizens, hear me out, this could happen to you!

Well, let me tell you of the story of a man named Charlie
On a tragic and fateful day
He put ten cents in his pocket, kissed his wife and family
Went to ride on the MTA

Well, did he ever return?
No he never returned and his fate is still unlearned (what a pity)
He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston
He's the man who never returned

Charlie handed in his dime at the Kendall Square station
And he changed for Jamaica Plain
When he got there the conductor told him, "one more nickel"
Charlie couldn't get off of that train!

But did he ever return?
No he never returned and his fate is still unlearned (poor old Charlie)
He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston
He's the man who never returned

Now, all night long Charlie rides through the station
Crying, "what will become of me?
How can I afford to see my sister in Chelsea
Or my cousin in Roxbury?"

But did he ever return?
No he never returned and his fate is still unlearned (shame and scandal)
He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston
He's the man who never returned

Charlie's wife goes down to the Scollay Square station
Every day at quarter past two
And through the open window she hands Charlie a sandwich
As the train comes rumbling through!

But did he ever return?
No he never returned and his fate is still unlearned (he may ride forever)
He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston
He's the man who never returned
Pick it Davey

Kinda hurts my figers

Now, you citizens of Boston, don't you think it's a scandal
How the people have to pay and pay?
Fight the fare increase, vote for George O'Brian
Get poor Charlie off the MTA!

Or else he'll never return
No he'll never return and his fate is still unlearned (just like Paul Revere)
He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston
He's the man who never returned

He's the man who never returned
He's the man who never returned
Et tu, Charlie?

Songwriters: Bess Hawes / Jacqueline Steiner