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“The charges against [Marrone] say the quality and quantity of his work is very poor. By what method of reasoning does a supervisor ask for both of these items when one is as foreign to the other as the sun to the moon.”
--Letter, from Martin Foster, president, Painters’ navy yard local union #543, to Manager, September 1937; RG181; NA-NY.
Labor Relations: The Painters
   Part I
    Part II
    Part III
    Conclusion
The BNY files show that various unions and other worker organizations took to filing their grievances publicly in the latter half of the 1930s. One of these groups was the painters, a relatively small group of workers at the Yard.
Part I
In August 1936, the president of the navy yard's painters' local #543, Martin Foster, handed over to the Manager a list of complaints. He charged that a recent “wholesale” reduction in grades in the shop had left only 9 of 85 painters at the first-class rank, which the local thought to be below legal limits. [See the section on efficiency ratings.] Eight painters had been warned of their alleged inefficiency only just before they were demoted, which did not give them the chance to be heard or to improve. The painters said these demotions were a violation of the Navy Department's principles and of the wishes of President Roosevelt. In addition, Foster charged that the Master Painter had recently assigned a helper to painting work (he had been a painter previously but had taken a helper position in lieu of being let go for lack of work), and that he had interfered in the most recent shop committee election, thereby forcing a second one, which too returned results he found unfavorable. And finally, there was the case of an apprentice, G.C., who had been discharged after 3 years and 9 months of his apprenticeship, on the pretext of having failed his final exam [Four years being the time for an apprenticeship]. It seemed that an ulterior motive was at work; the painters thought it to be anti-union discrimination. [It is not clear what legal limits Foster was referring to. The only regulation covering this matter was the civil-service rule that workers do the work appropriate for their title and grade.] [Letter, Martin Foster, President, Painters Navy Yard Local #543, to Captain Dunn, August 1936; RG181; NA-NY.]
The painters had much to be angry about. In April 1935 their shop had undergone a reorganization that had reduced the need for fully-trained painters. Citing the example of the Philadelphia Navy Yard where a similar change had already been made, the Production Officer announced that due to the excessive costs of using “high-priced” painters for preparatory work and to the ongoing practice of painting by brush rather than using spray guns, that from then on surfaces would be prepared by helpers and laborers and that painters would “confine their activities to the application of paint.” [Memo, from the Production Officer, to Hull Superintendent, April 1935; RG181; NA-NY.]
The Commandant had answers for each of the painters’ accusations. He denied that the force distribution violated any regulations; grade proportions in each shop varied over time and according to the number of qualified workers available. The distribution was not entirely under the Master's control and so it could not be used by him as a retaliatory device. He was skeptical about the supposed extent of the reductions and asked for names so that an investigation could be made. Yard management considered the Master Painter a competent judge and usually abided by his judgments. As to the alleged mis-assignment of the helper, although helpers did perform some of the rougher work needing no real skill this had not been the case for this helper and after consultation with the Master he was being restored to a painter's rating. It was the election tellers who had reported irregularities in the shop's voting and it was on their recommendation that the election was held a second time. And as for the expelled apprentice, since the Labor Board conducted the apprentice exams they were free of shop manipulation. The apprentice had failed on his own and besides, the shop would not have taken him on in any case due to his unsatisfactory conduct. So except for the helper none of the other charges held up; the Master knew that labor discrimination was against navy policy and the Yard's standing orders. [Letter, reply, from the Commandant, September 1936; RG181; NA-NY.]
Shortly thereafter, William Calvin, the MTD's secretary-treasurer, took the grievances directly to the Director of the Shore Establishments, and adding that many of the demoted workers had ten to twenty years experience. When asked for a response to Calvin's concerns, the Commandant told the Department that as of 17 September 1936 the Paint shop did have just 9 of 83 painters working at the maximum rate but that that was sufficient for the work at hand, mostly rough work on ships under construction, and that later when more expert work would be needed he expected the proportion of maximum-rated painters to rise. He side-stepped the seniority issue by stating that most of the painters had worked continuously for only the last four months and that fifty had been brought in on one call. Many of them had been placed earlier on indefinite leave and when asked back at a lower rating (given the work) or given the opportunity to remain on unpaid leave, had chosen the former. All painters who had once worked at a higher rating would be given close consideration for promotions when the nature of the work changed enough to justify it. [Letter, from W.A. Calvin, Secretary-Treasurer, MTD, to Captain Wyman, SED, September 1936; Letter, from the SN (SED), to the Commandant, September 1936; Letter, from the Commandant, to the ASN (SED), September 1936. Both in RG181; NA-NY.]
But the Commandant also took the opportunity to forward some of Master Painter James Romney's more specific complaints about his men to the Department. Romney called one intermediate painter a “habitual wanderer,” said another whose quantity and quality of work he thought poor had been found asleep on several occasions, and he accused yet another of being a “habitual duty shirker” who took 20 to 40 minutes off whenever he could and left work early. Three minimum-rate painters performed poor work and one of them had come to work “under the influence of liquor” several times and had been sent home. The released apprentice had not shown any real willingness to learn the job and did not take instruction well and was let go on 8 August. The Master listed numerous similar problems with four helpers and eight laborers who worked for the shop. The intermediate helpers had been warned on 9 July and then dropped to the minimum rating on 20 July; those at the minimum ratings had been warned at various times and one had been discharged for poor work on the 16th. [Letter, Commandant, to ASN (SED), September 1936, with enclosures of Memos, from the Master Painter, James Romney, to the Production Officer, July 1936, September 1936; RG181; NA-NY.]
At first, the Yard joint shop committee did not seem to share the painters' concerns over the layoffs and recalls at a lower rate, the chairman stating that Brooklyn's costs ran high and had to be reduced in order for the Yard to compete for work. But some resolution seems to have been worked out, for at the Shop committee meeting of 7 December 1936, the painters' representative thanked those present for their aid as the executive committee had recently met with the Shop Superintendent in a special session to discuss their concerns. [Notes, Shop committee meeting, October 1936; December 1936; RG181; NA-NY.]
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Part II
About a year after these grievances were initially filed, another round of labor difficulties with the painters began when the Master Painter accused one of them, Joseph Morrone, of poor quality and quantity in his work, as well as consistently being late. Martin Foster wrote the Manager in early September 1937 on behalf of his local and the BMTC to request that the charges be reconsidered. In one of the more forthright criticisms by a trade union leader on management's control of the work process (and one that echoed the welders' criticism on the same point) Foster questioned “by what method of reasoning does a supervisor ask for both of these items [quality and quantity of work] when one is as foreign to the other as the sun to the moon.” He dismissed the charges of lateness out of hand as painters had to line up twenty minutes early to get their brushes and paint in order to begin work the moment the shift actually begun. Foster laid much of the blame on one of Morrone's supervisors, whom he considered something of a hothead and incompetent as a leadingman. As far back as January 1937 he said that the supervisor, Arthur Rosenstein, had approached him at a local restaurant and told him that the “boss” whom Foster took to be Romney, had told Rosenstein to watch him and Morrone, but that as Foster was always on the job he himself should not worry. He had kept quiet about this confidence until 20 August when Romney told him that Rosenstein was about to file charges against Morrone. When Foster asked Romney if he had ordered the leadingman to watch Morrone the Master denied it. Foster felt that this episode to be an attempt to curtail his activities as local president and that as Rosenstein could supervise only through lying and intimidation he should be removed “for the better of the service of which we are so justly proud.” [Memo, from Martin Foster, President, Navy Yard Local Union 543, to the Manager, September 1937; RG181; NA-NY.]
On 20 August Romney pressed formal charges against Morrone, stating that he had repeatedly warned the painter about his habit of arriving late and quitting work early. The Master himself had investigated and on 10 August had seen Morrone come back from lunch 18 minutes late and then take his time starting his afternoon shift. When he confronted Morrone the painter argued with him and Romney warned him about insubordination. Afterward, Morrone asked for leave with pay for the rest of the day but Romney refused and marked him “out” instead. The Master said this was one of many such instances and that other leadingmen had also complained; and on top of that he was a poor painter as well. The Paint shop supervisors considered Morrone a demonstrative man, averse to accepting warnings, and who spoke constantly of his politics and ability as a boxer. [Memo, Foster, President, Navy Yard Local Union 543, to Manager, September 1937; RG181: NA-NY.]
As per the law, the Production officer gave Morrone a copy of this report along with statements from other leadingmen, including Rosenstein, charging him with incompetence, indifference, chattiness, and general insubordination when reprimanded, plus his recommendation to the commandant that he be dismissed for poor work and for his “rebellious ways.” In response, Morrone admitted to some problems with lateness but said they were minor infractions, related to a hearing disability suffered in the world war, which made it hard for him to hear the Yard's shift bells. As to his work performance, he stated that given his twenty-eight years of experience it was “inconceivable” that he did not know his job. He was as good as any other painter in the shop and had recently scored a 98.9 on the municipal civil service exam. This reply was considered unsatisfactory and on 27 September Morrone was suspended for ten days. Within two weeks of his return he was written up again for poor and insufficient work and given three days to respond to the charges. He declared the charges false and demanded a hearing. The Commandant discharged Morrone on 28 October 1937. [Memo, Production Officer, to Morrone, August 1937; Memo, Joseph Morrone, to Production Officer, August 1937; Memo, Commandant, to Morrone, September 1937; Memo, Production Officer, T.B. Richey, to Morrone, October 1937; Statement of Joseph Morrone, October 1937; Letter, Commandant Woodward, to Joseph Morrone, Painter, via the Master Painter; October 1937. All in RG181; NA-NY.]
The paint shop supervisory staff did receive some admonitions though. Yard management had heard accusations by other workers that supervisors, many of whom were new to the job, had made inappropriate personal comments outside of work and had harassed painters for their union membership. The Manager therefore instructed the Paint Shop Superintendent to order his staff to desist in their adverse comments. To balance matters out, in November 1937 he also issued copies to everone in the Paint Shop of the Department's 1920 memo warning against filing discrimination charges against management without adequate proof.
“The Department notes the increasing frequency with which charges of discrimination are made against a member or members of the navy yard organization by demoted and discharged individuals, practically all of which are allegations which investigations prove are without foundation in fact. . . . The Department realizes that is but natural for a demoted or discharged employee to arrive at the conclusion that he has been discriminated against and promptly drafts allegations[.] . . . With the purpose in view of reducing to a minimum the number of cases warranting investigation, it is directed that hereafter such charges must be submitted within a reasonable time of the alleged discrimination, be in every way definite and specific in form, with offer of proof, and sworn to before a notary public or any other official authorized to administer oaths for general purposes. If the charges are not in conformity with the foregoing, they will be returned and the author directed to draft same in accordance with these instructions before they will be given consideration.”
[Circular letter, from Franklin D. Roosevelt, ASN, to Chiefs of Bureaus, Boards and Officers, [et al.], May 1920. Copied in Notice, from the Manager, to All Concerned, April 1934; RG181; NA-NY; Memo, Manager, to Paint Shop Superintendent, November 1937; Memo, Captain Dunn, to All Concerned [in the Paint Shop], November 1937. All in RG181; NA-NY.]
This was far from the end of it. Within two weeks some of the demoted painters filed complaints that they had been assigned longer rotations inside closed spaces, such as tanks or inner bottoms, than had other painters, and the Shop Superintendent [a naval officer] launched a personal investigation. [Perhaps not surprisingly] After interviewing the painters individually he found that while most of the painters felt themselves due a higher rating, that most were unwilling to verify the charges. A few others, including a painter named Gluck, did complain of becoming ill due to the lack of proper ventilation. Leadingman Rosenstein, however, accused him of “always crying” about something and that if he wanted a blower he could have one. Gluck also said that some “favorites” boasted of never being given tank work. The superintendent concluded that the charges lacked merit. [Memo, Shop Superintendent, to Production Officer, November 1937; RG181; NA-NY.]
The Morrone case continued. On 3 December 1937, Calvin brought him and two other painters to the Shore Establishment Director's office to appeal the firing, claiming it was the result of his supervisors' anti-union prejudice. The Director passed on the charges to the New York Commandant for comment. In the letter submitted by the labor delegation Morrone answered in detail to some of the charges laid against him. He claimed that he had been set up upon his return from suspension by being given too little time to paint a stateroom. What the Master's report had failed to mention was that the room he had been ordered to paint was then being used as a storeroom and that he had to move the various items around on his own in order to paint, which delayed the work. Further, he was a known painters' delegate to the BMTC and he had spoken of their grievances at one of their meetings just one week before charges were first pressed upon him. He had not been given a hearing before his suspension and his request for a hearing before the Production Officer before being discharged had been denied as “not desired.” Morrone thought it odd that it took his supervisors so long to discover his poor work performance. He had worked for six months without incident and it was only after he became aggressive about pursuing a raise to the intermediate grade that action had been taken against him. It was clear that his discharge was “brought about because of Union activity.” The labor delegation wanted him reinstated, and the paint shop management investigated. To their evidence they added that the Yard had re-issued in November a recent Department memo against discrimination for affiliation, and that Romney had since hassled some of the men who had complained about work-rotation schedule. On 3 November the painters' local had submitted charges against Rosenstein specifically to Yard management and they now repeated the charge that Romney had ordered Rosenstein to watch Foster because he was the local's president. Morale in the shop was poor due to the malicious supervision. [Letter, ASN (SED), to Commandant, Navy Yard, New York, NY, December 1937; RG181; NA-NY.]

This is the anti-discrimination letter sent out by the Department in September:

“The Navy Department hereby reiterates its disapproval of discrimination or prejudice against its employees because of their union or non-union affiliation or activities. However, excessive loss of time due to union or other outside activities will continue to be treated the same as excessive loss of time due to any other cause.
“All civilian employees of the naval establishment are free to join this or that labor union or organization - or no union or organization at all - without influence or persuasion on the part of anyone in the Naval Service or the civilian supervisors.
“All Naval officers and all civilian supervisors are hereby enjoined from propaganda or persuasion of any kind in connection with labor matters of this nature. The Department will not tolerate such conduct, particularly by those in positions of authority.”

[Letter, Secretary of the Navy (Charles Edison), to All Yards and Stations, September 1937, posted on all bulletin boards as Commandant's Order no. 45-37, “Labor Discrimination and Propaganda,” from Harris Laning, Rear Admiral, Commandant, Third Naval District, and Navy Yard, NY, September 1937; RG181; NA-NY.
The Commandant replied that Morrone's allegation of a good work record was incorrect. He had almost not made it through probation and when the Master Painter informed him he was to be discharged he became “belligerent” but then turned recalcitrant and was therefore given another chance. No formal charges had been filed because this event had occurred during probation. Morrone had been given the chance to reply in writing to the charges recently filed against him and had been denied a hearing as the Commandant felt that it was not “necessary or desirable as [he] believed a full statement of each side should be a matter of record.” If the accused chose not to respond in full for whatever reason it was not management's concern. The stateroom assignment was not an atypical one; moving whatever items might be in a room was part of a painter’s duties. The man was undesirable and should not be returned to the Yard. Foster's charge of being watched was denied; shop managemers instead offered their opinion that his discontent came about because although he was not a member of the shop committee he believed that his rank as a painters'-local officer gave him similar privileges in that he could do union work on government time. The ill will in the shop actually stemmed from a desire for higher pay and a general disdain for any below-decks work, the latter of which was relatively small. As to the anti-discrimination memo, it had been re-issued not in response to BMTC charges of supervisory anti-union harassment, but because some painters had complained that other shop members belonging to the [CIO-] IUMSWA had been pressuring them to join the new union. [Letter, from Commandant, to the ASN(SED), December 1937; RG181; NA-NY.]
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Part III
On their side, the painters stepped up the pressure. In February 1938, Joseph Glass, a lawyer for the painter's union, contacted the Commandant on behalf of some former painters to request a meeting to discuss their grievances. In response to the Commandant's request that he submit a list of the items to be discussed the lawyer replied with a list of twenty-two charges, a virtual damnation of the entire paint shop management. Some of the charges: the Shop had discharged workers without proper notification; it laid off first-class painters and forced them to return at third-class rates; as a cost-saving device men with long years of service had been let go before those with little seniority; the Shop ignored or delayed its responses to charges filed against it by painters; it enforced overtime and gave only comp time instead of overtime pay; it used the efficiency rating system in a dicriminating method against veterans and long-time employees; discrimination existed in the rotation of work; “dangerous” spray guns were used; helpers and laborers did painters' work; the equipment was not safe enough and men were forced into dangerous situations even after an accident had occurred; the shop permitted both labor and racial discrimination; supervisors threatened workers for protesting, used their positions for personal gain, and had been drunk on duty, in which condition they had harassed workers; they had conspired to prevent complaints from being heard, and one supervisor had removed government property from the Yard; pension fund money was being used to pay claims for disabled workers; and workers were denied hearings and forced to submit their charges in writing. In addition they complained that the Navy Department failed to pay prevailing wages. [Letter, from Joseph G. Glass, Counsel for District Council #18 of the Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators and Paperhangers of America, to the Manager, February 1938; P8-1; RG181; NA-NY.]
Manager [Captain] Dunn’s reply was a slap in the face. To him, the charges were so “vague and indefinite” they precluded an investigation and did not meet the requirements of the 1920 policy for establishing the existence of discrimination. For such charges to be accepted they would need to be revised and accompanied by sworn affidavits with complete information. Dunn was conveniently omitting the sentence that the plaintiffs only had to be willing to “offer proof” to have their charges heard. At the end of March, Glass submitted affidavits from the men stating that their charges were indeed true, and he said that this was a sufficient basis to hold a meeting. In fact, Glass wrote, Dunn's answer was an example of one of the painter's grievances that the Yard refused to allow workers to present their charges in the “manner investigations usually take.” The painters would submit all the relevant information at their hearing. But the Commandant refused to allow the hearing stating that the painters had not yet submitted the necessary information mandated by the 1920 memo. Subscribing to his own interpretation of the memorandum he said a complete and specific set of charges had to be submitted with each separate charge signed off on, or sworn to by affidavit. The Commandant said he would refuse to begin an investigation until this was done. Then and only them if a formal investigation was found necessary would one be held by a board of naval officers using naval procedure. [Reply, Manager, February 1938; Letter, Glass, to Manager, March 1938; Letter, Commandant Woodward, to Glass, April 1938; Letter, Commandant, to the ASN (SED), enclosing all this correspondence, April 1938. All in RG181; NA-NY.]
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Conclusion
And that apparently was that, as the files on this case end. Much like with the welders there was a flurry of actions: grievances filed, charges and counter-charges made, and after a period of time, a petering out of the workers' attack with at most minor positive results for them. Here too, the painters appeared to have conducted their grievances openly and they took a sizable amount of the navy yard and Navy Department’s time in pursuing their concerns. Like the welders, they claimed that retribution for their actions was administered covertly, through manipulating of the efficiency ratings, and claim much time from the Department's officials in Washington. And clearly, in Morrone’s case we have two decidedly different set of stories, that are hard to evaluate as a forum for evaluating them was never made available by the BNY or the Navy Department. The Navy's pattern in dealing with these grievances was clear: not to accept charges or even prima facie evidence of a problem as a basis for calling a grievance meeting, but to instead to have the plaintiffs, so to speak, present their entire argument in writing ahead of time for evaluation by the Navy. The Department or local shore establishment then decided on the merits of the case without the workers and/or their representatives being able to offer rebuttal. This pattern held clear whether the grievance was over discipline or terminations or whether it concerned grievances being raised initially by the workers.
Shop committees had died out in navy yards for the most part by the mid-1930s and this left only the informal meetings with representatives from the trade unions and the MTCs. No files exist apparently on either side of these meetings and it is difficult to judge their effectiveness in this era. Even the BMTC faced management intransigence when they presented grievances openly, as has shown in the section about their history in the BNY in the Depression years.
So where does that leave us in evaluating labor relations in the BNY? What we can say is that a large part of the problem of labor relations in the shops and the reason we as readers are unable to determine the validity of workers’ grievances is due to the Yard management's intransigence in handling complaints in any form resembling a modern grievance procedure, in which each side sits down and systematically confronts the other with their charges and defenses, each side open to present and defend. Under a traditional grievance system complaints move up the power ladder until the highest level of the organization is reached. And if such forums prove inadequate then one side or the other has recourse to arbitration where there exists at least the possibility of a third party sorting through the evidence and presenting a conclusion, as well as presenting us the data we in turn could use to draw our own conclusions. Such a grievance system would also have relieved pressure on the Department to deal with personnel problems until they had come up through the channels and would have minimized the time they needed to meet with labor representatives. Of course, the situation was not all of the Navy’s making. It was the federal government that denied the right of formal recognition and refused to relinquished any sovereignty to an outside arbitrating agency. As it stood, navy yard management manipulated the existing grievance procedure to suit its own purposes, although at the cost of spending much time in internal “investigations” and paper work.

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