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“[The union’s] principles are American in every respect and composed of level-headed, conscientious, sincere American workmen, who are working  only for true representation and are willing to to fight unfair practices, even to the extent of placing their job in jeopardy.”
--Letter, from George Murphy, Business Representative, International Association of Mechanic Welders, to Charles Edison, Acting Secretary of the Navy, March 1937; RG181; NA-NY.

 
Labor Relations in Action: The Welders
   Background
    Part I
    Part II
    Part III
    Conclusion

As has been mentioned in another section, the volume of official grievances filed in the Brooklyn Navy Yard markedly increased in the second half of the 1930s.  Some grievants were AFL-affiliated unions, like the painters or electricians.  Other, independent organizations such as the welders or drillers, seeking to carve out recognition for themselves, also filed various complaints.  In this section, we will analyze one such group, the welders, who instigated a flurry of grievances in the latter half of the 1930s.  Their set of grievances and the manner in which BNY treated them gives us a good sense of labor relations and politics in the BNY and they will be presented in some detail.

Background
The question of whether welding constituted a separate trade or was an auxiliary of other, established trades was an issue of great contention in the naval establishment, between unions, and among the welders themselves.  In the newly AFL-unionized shipyards of the early 1940s for instance, most shipbuilding welders, as the heirs of the riveters, fell under the jurisdiction of the Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders union.  But blacksmiths, electricians, operating engineers, iron workers, machinists, molders, plumbers, steamfitters, and sheet metal workers also used welders, leading some of those who worked in the shipyards to complain that they needed to hold as many as six union cards. [Machinists' Monthly Journal, December 1941; [IUMSWA] The Shipyard Worker, November 1941.]

But in the non-union shipyards that dominated shipbuilding in the inter-war years until the rise of the IUMSWA, welders lacked organizational patrons, welcomed or not, and in response had created their own craft organizations, and fought to get recognition from the Navy and shipyard owners.  While  the boilermakers technically held jurisdiction over structural welding and other structural shipbuilding trades such as shipfitting and drilling, in practice they could only manifest their claim to speak for all shipfitting trades in the navy yards, in those few private yards where they had contracts, and in the commercial emergency shipyards set up on the West Coast after 1939, where the owners clearly preferred them to their more militant rival.  An officer of the Boilermakers' noticed such a independent group of welders in the Boston Navy Yard in 1929 and laid blame on his union's members for not organizing them properly, and for not “discouraging” those welders not part of their union. [“Report,” by Inter. V.P. Davis, Boilermakers Journal, February 1929.]

The AFL unions had become so annoyed with “non-union” welders that at the Metal Trades Department convention in 1934 the delegates passed a resolution calling for unions lacking enough welders of their own to procure them from other unions in preference to hiring non-union ones.  A year later, the MTD even called for the abolition of welding schools in navy yards and shipyards, as in their opinion they weakened the economic power of organized welders and other classifications through over-supplying the market.  Enough capable welders existed already, they claimed and the independents' “dual” organizations destroyed the effectiveness of local metal trade councils in navy yards. [“Report on Metal Trades Convention,” by J.A. Franklin, President; BJ, November 1934; “Report on Metal Trades Department convention,” by Franklin, BJ, December 1935.]

In their attempts to make headways into the navy yards the IUMSWA took advantage of welders' dissatisfaction.  The union's newspaper mentions an organizing meeting in April 1937 at the BNY where some welders including one Robert McFeaney, head of the Independent Welders, spoke against the AFL and MTD.  The paper also mentions the unhappiness of the Mechanic Welders in the Boston yard with the AFL and that the group shared similar grievances with other yards.  They had apparently approached the CIO for admittance but the IUMSWA had intervened, arguing that the welders could only join their union and only as individuals as their industrial mandate refused recognition to craft organizations. [TheShipyard Worker, for organizing at the BNY, April 1937. It would appear that the two groups mentioned were actually locals of the same welders' organization (see below). On welder activity in the Boston yard and the approach to the CIO, see SW, May 1937.]

Independent welder organizations created problems for shipyards into the early 1940s.  Beginning in October 1941, an independent welders' group, the Independent United Welders began a strike in the Puget Sound area to gain recognition as a separate craft.  By 1 November, 5500 were reported out on strike in California, and on 4 November the organization seceded from the AFL.   In response, the OPM called for a meeting of representatives of the welders' groups and the heads of AFL unions containing welders to hear their complaints.  The MTD said that the welders' goal was to force the AFL to charter a welders' union.  The welders' representatives did not show up to the meeting, but by this time the metal unions had conceded the point that welders need hold only one union card, and they hoped that dissatisfied workers would make more use of their unions' internal grievance policies or those provided in contracts.  The strike continued haphazardly until by February 1942 the entry of the U.S. into the war made it untenable.  The IUMSWA, who laid the blame for the labor dissatisfaction on the collusion between the AFL and the owners of five newly-created emergency shipyards on the west coast, both desperate to keep the CIO union out, cited the strike as an example of the outmoded structure of craft unions in general and expressed dismay that such segmentation of the shipbuilding trade allowed for one small part of the whole to disturb production at such a critical time. [“Official Statement,” issued by international unions representing welders; MMJ, December 1941; SW, November 1941; Frederic C. Lane, Ships for Victory: A History of Shipbuilding under the U.S. Maritime Commission in World War II (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1951).]
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Welders in the Brooklyn Navy Yard
Part I
In the Brooklyn Navy Yard and in other shipyards on the East Coast welders banded together in the International Association of Mechanic Welders, a small group but one that noisily protested its grievances in the inter-war years. As David Palmer has noted, welders were a strong and cohesive group.  Often young, electric welders recognized their status as the up-and-coming shipbuilding craft, replacing the older craft of riveting, and welding was more equalitarian than the rivet gang, with its hierarchical structure of riveter, holder-on, and heater.  Even if others did not consider them a trade, as one of the primary groups that actually put a ship together, many welders considered having their own labor organization a simple request. [Palmer, Organizing the Shipyards: Union Strategy in Three Northeast Ports, 1933-1945  (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998).] [The welders were perhaps the most prominent of the independent groups. Another independent group in the BNY was the Navy Yard Drillers Association, a group of workers also ostensibly under Boilermaker jurisdiction.  See their lengthy protest over the 1940 wage schedule: Letter, Commandant, NYNY, to SN, December 1940, enclosing a letter from Delegates Tenk, McCarthy, Lloyd, of Navy Yard Drillers Association, to Secretary Knox, via channels, December 1940; RG181; NA-NY.]

Some welders in the BNY had formed an independent organization in the 1920s and filed grievances from time to time throughout the Depression years.  [For instance, a 1929 memo list a host of complaints. Letter, Scanlon et al., [Welders'] Grievance Committee, to Management of Navy Yard via official channels, April 1929; and in 1934 they grieved not having their own shop committee. Letter, Goldman, IAMW, to Manager of the Yard, via Master Shipfitter, January 1934. Both in RG181; NA-NY.]  However, it will the flurry of grievances tha the IAMW launched in the Brooklyn Navy Yard beginning in 1936 that will be the focus of this section.  They present an excellent example of the workings of the naval grievance procedure, or perhaps of how it did not work, at least from the point of view of the civilian workers.  The welders' various complaints were representative of those of most of the trades, such as the struggle against what they perceived as disguised time studies, problems with efficiency ratings and promotions, and anti-union discrimination in layoffs and promotions as retaliation for their having the nerve to challenge management.

It all started in mid-June 1936 when Louis Sudhop, the secretary of the BNY's IAMW executive lodge, filed a complaint directly with the ASN over the Yard's use of what the IAMW called piece-work cards or daily work reports, arguing that this was being done in order to pit one worker against the other, as was common practice in the private shipyards.  For good measure, they also said that many of the supervisors in the shop lacked competence and that worthy candidates for promotion had been passed over.  Commandant Laning defended the counting of the welders' work as necessary for determining the performance and qualifications of the individual welders and that all work in the Yard was counted when practicable.  The choices for shop leadership were equally justified.  Acting Secretary Edison sent the commandant's answers back to Sudhop adding that counting was essential to establishing efficiency ratings.  He would not comment on the other charges as the IAMW had failed to provide any names.  [Letter, Sudhop, Gen Secy, Exec Lodge, IAMW, to ASN, June 1936; Letter, Commandant, to SN (SED), June 1936; Letter, ASN, to Sudhop, June 1936; Letter, Sudhop to Acting SN Bowen, June 1936. All in  RG181; NA-NY.]

Sudhop promised to get back with names as soon as he could--theirs was a voluntary organization with no paid staff--and a few days later he submitted the names of three supposedly unqualified snappers [temporary supervisors] who they claimed had been appointed over able candidates, and reiterated that a supervisor need not count the daily feet of weld laid in order to grade a welder efficiently.  In fact, he argued, counting actually encouraged inferior work as the less capable worker would be tempted to produce a greater amount of inferior (and not immediately noticeable) work, thereby threatening the integrity of the ship he was working upon.  “We have always found that the methods of pitting one man against another always produced inferior quality.”  He further stated that counting was a kind of piecework or time study and as such was outlawed as being as aspect of scientific management.  He also asked for comment on their proposal made the previous winter to establish welding as a separate trade with its own shop and apprenticeship.  Edison replied that the counting issue had been rehashed many times before and each time it had been ruled that keeping work records did not violate the clause in the appropriation bills against time studies.  As to their shop proposal, the Department had decided against it as there was yet no general agreement among private and public yards as to how welding should be organized within the industry.  As to the charges of supervisory incompetence the Commandant told the Department that two of the complainees had been temporary appointments of only a few days and that the third, an acting leadingman for two months now would eventually be replaced with a properly rated man. [Letter, Sudhop, to Bowen, Acting SN, June 1936; Letter, Andrews, Acting SN, to Sudhop, June 1936. Both in RG181; NA-NY. Letter, Commandant, to SN (SED), July 1936; RG181; NA-NY.  It is not clear if the SN passed the supervisory comments on to the IAMW.]

The IAMW continued to press its case throughout the summer of 1936.  It claimed that permitting counting was the first step in the introduction of private-yard sweating methods into the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  They also wanted the quarterly efficiency marks posted publicly as a counter against arbitrariness in the ranking, and they claimed that welders were not rotated through night work and dirty/closed compartment in a timely fashion.  Further, the lodge asked that the medical office assess its charge of being poisoned by zinc-oxide from welding fumes.  And, they stated, supervisors assigned welders to poor jobs as retaliation for complaining.  The Acting Secretary passed the list on to BNY management for comment. [Letter,  Sudhop, for Exec. Lodge, IAMW, to Acting SN Standley; August 1936; Letter, H.G. Bowen, to IAMW, August 1936. Both in RG181; NA-NY.]

The Commandant repeated that counting was not equivalent to piecework and that although no time studies had been made, that if they were, it would most likely show the welders' efficiency to be lower than most of the shipbuildng trades.  He said some evidence existed that suggested that the welders were making a concerted effort to restrict production and disciplinary action had been taken in certain instances when it proved to be the case.  As to posting efficiency ratings, the commandant said that doing so was damaging to morale; workers could find out their own marks and standing anytime.  They did not keep welders on night work past a reasonable limit (three months--the welders charged six and more) and to date supervisors had received no complaints directly from them about this.  The Yard was then using night shifts only because it lacked enough welding machines to work more people days.  He denied assigning undesirable work as punishment, and said that the Industrial Department had solicited the Yard's Medical Office for assistance in protecting workers against fumes through the use of masks and proper ventilation.  Continuing this round-about process the Secretary then forwarded the Commandant's replies back to Sudhop.  [Letter, SN (SED), to Commandant, Navy Yard, New York, August 1936; Letter, Commandant, to SN, August 1936; Letter, Acting SN, to Sudhop, August 1936. All in RG181; NA-NY.]

In October the welders tried a different tack by having a lawyer send Secretary Swanson an IAMW petition against counting and recording welding work and a request that Congress abolish the practice.  Swanson could only repeat the Department's assertion that determining quality and quantity was essential to management's ability to track its work and assign appropriate ratings as was prescribed by civil service regulations.  It was a practice to which no “honest” workman should object.  Counting a day's work did not fall into the long-time proscription against using stop watches or other time-measuring devices to do time studies of jobs; it was just counting, guaranteeing that taxpayers got the best return on their money.  [Letter, Swanson, to Evans, M.C., October 1936; RG181; NA-NY.]
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Part II
A new round of clashes between the welder organization and the Brooklyn Navy Yard began in November 1936 over the issue of down-ratings and layoffs.  The Yard had recently down-rated eight first-class acetylene welders, each with five to ten years service, and had transferred their particular work to gas cutters who were paid less.  The IAMW local's representative angrily filed a complaint, this time directly to the Commandant, who replied that the welders had been given a general test of their abilities and found lacking in the complete set of skills felt necessary for a first-class rating and so had been reduced in rank. [Letters, Murphy, Business Representative, IAMW, Local 2, NYC, to Captain Dunn, Production Manager, BNY, November 1936; Reply, November 1936; RG181; NA-NY.]

But even Secretary Swanson felt that the Commandant had gone too far in this instance and reminded Admiral Laning that the balanced force concept was a source of much controversy.  The technical inability to perform every possible welding task alone was an inadequate defense for down-rating.  If the men had worked satisfactorily over time at the maximum rate they were entitled to it. However, and here spoke the politician, if a worker was assigned to work and proved incapable of doing it satisfactorily then a reduction was appropriate.  As to the reassignment of work, the SN did award a victory to the welders.  Swanson thought the change ill-advised as there was some evidence that private yards paid the two groups similarly.  In order to maintain uniformity in the service BNY management should consult the Department about such matters in the future so as to avoid making “embarrassing” promulgations.  Therefore the Navy was denying the reassignment “as there is no evidence that it conforms to accepted commercial trade practice.”  Saving money was commendable but the emphasis should be on cooperative efforts to increase production instead of reducing pay.  [Letter, Commandant, to Murphy, copy to the ASN,  November 1936; Letter, SN Swanson, to Commandant, Navy Yard, New York,  November 1936. All in RG181; NA-NY. Italics are mine.]

Any joy on the IAMW's part was short-lived, for at the end of the month three first-class electric welders, including Louis Sudhop, were laid off for poor ratings and third-class shipfitter helpers given their work, so they claimed.  Sudhop accused Master Shipfitter Connors and Quarterman Dalton of discrimination, saying that the latter man had questioned known members of the IAMW, and had attempted to intimidate those of supervisory rank to drop their membership.  Shop management had then deliberately lowered the efficiency ratings of those who refused, leading to their being furloughed.  The organization sent resolutions of protest to the Commandant, to the Navy Department, to local Congressmen, and to the Civil Service.  George Murphy, an IAMW officer, noted that one of the welders, August Engesser, had worked five years in the Yard as a first-class welder without reprimand.  He had received an 84.1 in March 1936 and had then been reduced to 72.77 in June and to 72.45 in September.  A second man, William Migge, with two years seniority, was marked 93.17 in June 1936 but then dropped to 72.9 in September even though his immediate supervisors had praised his work.  Sudhop, too had received a good rating earlier, a 92.2, in December 1935 and had since fallen to 73.2.  Murphy could not help but notice that all three men belonged to the local's executive lodge. [Letter, Sudhop, Gen. Secretary, IAMW, Executive Lodge, Brooklyn, to Commandant, US Navy Yard, Brooklyn, November 1936; Letter, Murphy, to Captain Dunn, November 1936; Both in RG181; NA-NY.]

The following month, notching up the pressure on the Department, Brooklyn Representative Emanuel Celler inquired about the IAMW's charges that the Yard had assigned helpers the work of trades.  The Commandant told the Department that Dalton denied all of the charges.  Helpers did not do trades' work but did occasionally do some tack welding.  But he did concede the point that cognizance over tack welding and its designation as trade or skill had been a sticky issue for years.  He proposed for comment a definition that a tack weld be one of small extent made for the primary purpose of assisting in the assembly or erecting of work, to later be incorporated into the final product.  As such, they could be done by other than rated welders who had charge of the final weld. [Letter, SN (SED) to Commandant, Navy Yard, New York, NY, December 1936; Letter, Commandant, to SN, December 1936; Letter, Rep. Celler, to Rear Admiral Laning, December 1936; Letter, SN Swanson, to Cellar, December 1936. All in RG181; NA-NY.]

Now that the case had attracted outside attention the Commandant was requested to supply full details to the Secretary.  He defended his staff's actions and said that this rash of complaints had grown out of the consolidation of all welders into a single shop in April 1935, as had already been done in other navy yards.  Doing so allowed for better coordination of technical developments in the skill and of the training needed to meet the increasingly more exact specifications in the work itself.  It had also led to the re-evaluation of the combined workforce.  As to work flow, the Commandant submitted the following employment numbers:

The overall employment curve had fluctuated since the consolidation and supervisors had found that not all welders measured up equally to one another in terms of work quality.  It was important in the face of  upcoming layoffs--which would come if no further work was assigned to the Yard--that an accurate gauge of the now-combined shop be made.  Cutting costs was not a factor, maintaining a balanced shop force was.  As to the gas welders, he said that some shops had previously carried a number of them at the maximum grade though they were not deserving of it, and other workers had charged the supervisors with favoritism when they had assigned the mis-rated welders work easier than would be expected of a first-grade welder.  And while eight gas welders had been down-rated, eleven had been re-rated upward.  He admitted that some of those reduced in rank had worked at the Yard for a long time and perhaps through no fault of their own had missed opportunities to train in the various classes of work needed to achieve an appropriate skill level, and as a corrective measure the Yard would keep them at the second-class rating and allow them time to train for the maximum rate.  The Commandant's report then systematically outlined the reasons behind each of the gas welders' demotions.  For instance, H. H. had worked as an acetylene and torch operator from 1915 to 1922 and had returned to the Yard in 1935 as a gas welder in the boiler shop where he worked mostly on cutting.  After the consolidation he was assigned to pipe welding, at which he did poorly.  With a ratings of 72 he stood twentieth out of twenty in his sub-group and had been demoted from a gas welder, at $7.12 per day, to a gas cutter and burner at $6.32 per day [an 11% cut]. [Letter, Commandant Laning, to SN, December 1936; Memo, Production Officer, to Master Shipfitter, December 1936. Both in  RG181; NA-NY.]

In a second report the Commandant detailed the case against the laid-off electric welders.  Per policy, each of the three quartermen electric welders had met with their leadingmen to determine relative efficiency marks for their set of workers.  They in turn consolidated their lists and reviewed the one master list with the Master Shipfitter, who did the final marking for adaptability, based on any reports on conduct or poor workmanship he may had received for any worker in the previous quarter.  The supervisory force was strictly instructed against discrimination for affiliation in marking.  Sudhop and Migge had long been known as an IAMW members though the managers claimed no such knowledge about Engesser.  It was obvious that the ratings of the three had fluctuated suddenly but the commandant believed the supervisors' explanations adequate.  Sudhop had started in August 1935, after being dismissed from the Philadelphia Navy Yard for poor work, and had achieved a mark of 89.2 by the end of the year, ranking him eighth out of 72.  His mark dropped to 73.4 by June 1936, putting him 94th out of 98.  The earlier higher rating came from his being on a temporary appointment and therefore had been on a different ratings list.  But he did not fare so well in the ratings after his appointment to the permanent ranks in February 1937.  How his work could be judged so differently in the two conditions and how someone so poor in his performance could have received a permanent appointment was not explained.  The other two also had sustained sudden precipitous drops in their markings in mid-1936.  According to Master Shipfitter Connor, he knew only Migge and had had only two conversations with Sudhop, one of which was disciplinary concerning his interference with work-counting.  He denied that Dalton expressed anti-union prejudice.   Engessor had worked under several supervisors over the past few years, some of whom had good things to say, but one leadingman in January 1936 thought he did not work up to maximum standards and that he continually walked around and talked instead of working, for which he had been twice warned verbally by one of the quartermen in the first half of that year.  Connors did have one guess as to the ultimate source of the problem in the welding shop: rivalry and competition among the welders themselves.  Some belonged to the Boilermakers and others to the IAMW.  Each side filed complaints of favoritism against the other and each side's organizers promised raises or retentions in jobs in return for their membership.  But of course, he noted, that while union membership was irrelevant to him, it yet flamed the anger between the two groups.  [Letter, Commandant, to SN (SED), December 1936, with enclosures of two memos from the Master Shipfitter to the Manager, December 1936; RG181; NA-NY.]

Migge's case is a good example of how management could manipulative the efficiency ratings to suit its needs.  He was hired in March 1935 and in December assigned to overseeing the tranferral of welding machines among ships and to their general upkeep.  He had apparently impressed one of his leadingmen as an industrious young man and the supervisors kept his efficiency marks deliberately high through June of 1936 so that he could “grow up with the job.”  However, as early as January some quartermen had criticized his work as slow and claimed that work on two Coast Guard cutters the Yard was building had suffered as a result.  He was too gabby and spent an excessive amount of time repairing the welding machines.  After six months of such reports the Master Shipfitter took him off the position and at Migge's request put him into a shop welding job as he did not think himself capable of competing with ship welders.  But even his shop work was seen as below average and he earned a 72.7 for the quarter ending September 1936.  Connors said Migge's membership in the IAMW was known and had played no role in the proceedings. [Letter, Commandant, to SN (SED), December 1936, with enclosures of two memos from the Master Shipfitter to the Manager, December 1936; RG181; NA-NY.]
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Part III
Fears of anti-union discrimination among IAMW members in the BNY arose again in February 1937 when some other welders began a petition in the shop to form a welders' welfare league to represent themselves as a group.  The welders had elected their own shop committee representative in 1935, but did not do so again in 1936; yet they apparently wanted some type of recognition from the Yard.  Sudhop wrote to the Navy Department and to New York's congressional representatives to complain that the Yard was encouraging the formation of a company organization among the welders by permitting the petition to be circulated on work time, and that some welders had felt pressured to signed for fear of reprisals if they did not.  The Master Shipfitter called the charge false although he admitted that he had not been notified of the petition's circulation.  But in any case, the Master argued, as an independently-elected committee, the IAMW did not have the right to protest the petition's circulation.  The Master interviewed some of the men in the shop and said that it appeared that the petition originated because the welders felt disenfranchised in the large shipfitter shop and wanted their own voice.  Of 462 mechanics and helpers, 362 had signed, and if they were denied shop committee status they would designate their own representatives as an independent group. [Letter, ASN (SED), to Commandant, Navy Yard, NY, March 1937, with enclosure, letter, Sudhop, IAMW, to SN, February 1937; Letter, Commandant, to ASN (SED), March 1937. All in  RG181; NA-NY. There are no membership figures given in the documents for the IAMW.  If the welders had all signed voluntarily then IAMW would be at a maximum of twenty per cent of the welders.]

IAMW business representative Murphy replied that he had further proof of management's complicity in establishing the welders' league.  First, he had a sheet of the paper the petition was printed on and it was marked with a government water seal; such stationery could not be purchased outside the Yard.  Further, his organization had witnesses willing to verify that the petition had been circulated on work time.  And in addition, they had come across a memo from the Manager ordering supervisors to watch the welders more closely.  It was all obviously, Murphy claimed, part of a program of intimidation against the IAMW.  He said that the IAMW represented the largest group of welders in the region and that “its principles are American in every respect and [it is] composed of level-headed, conscientious, sincere American workmen, who are working only for true representation and are willing to fight unfair practices, even to the extent of placing their job in jeopardy.” [Letter, ASN Edison, to Commandant, Navy Yard, New York, March 1937, enclosing letter from G. Murphy, to Charles Edison, Acting SN, March 1937. Both in RG181; NA-NY.]

The Commandant backtracked a bit and admitted in his response to the Department that the petitioners could well have gotten the paper from any shop office but that this meant little as it was common for the workers to use Yard stationery for work-related matters.  But he continued to deny that the petition had gone around on work time and that the aforementioned memo had been sent to alert supervisors that they could not discriminate on the grounds of a worker's affiliation with a labor organization.  He also passed on to Washington some comments of the Master Shipfitter.  According to Connors, the IAMW filed discrimination grievances filled with “half-truths and falsehoods” as part of a definite program to either intimidate him or cause Yard management to lose confidence in him.  He thought that most of the welders in the Yard to be content and that their production and quality of work had increased in the previous year.  The Master insisted that a worker's ability and efficiency alone determined his standing on the efficiency ratings list.  He and his staff did not discriminate; on the contrary, it was the IAMW that did. [Letter, Commandant, to ASN, April 1937; Memorandum to Commander, T.B. Richey, from  Connors, Master Shipfitter, April 1937. Both in RG181; NA-NY.]

Simultaneously, to substantiate his claim that IAMW tactics were a cover for poor performance, the Master released disciplinary reports for some of the men.  Accompanying the above documentation was a statement from the previous October by Christopher Harris, a leadingman welder, that at about 5:20 am on 13 August 1936 while on his rounds aboard the two cutters then under construction he saw  welder and former IAMW steward, Leslie Lively, asleep on the job about 45 feet away from where he should have been working.  Harris [who Connors later said was a member of the IAMW] told another worker to wake him, and a week later he reprimanded him.   At first Lively denied the charge but then recanted and Harris decided to give him one last chance.  It had taken a week for Harris to talk to him because Lively had taken ill on the following night's shift after having been assigned to weld in the magazines, a closed but ventilated compartment and had left about 3am, allegedly sick from the fumes, although other welders had not complained.  He stayed out for the next two-and-one-half days and then had come the weekend.  When he returned, Harris told him he was being marked as “out” for the time off instead of having the absences charged to his vacation time.  As to why Harris did not confront Lively directly or early on during his next shift he did not say. [Copy of statement of Leadingman Welder Harris, October 1936, to Master Shipfitter, enclosed in Memorandum to Commander, Richey, from Connors, Master Shipfitter, April 1937; RG181; NA-NY.]

Lively asked for a hearing but was denied one.  He then submitted his own statement in which he claimed he was not sleeping but instead, was having lunch with some welders.  He had become ill the next morning from the smoke and had asked Harris to check him out at 2 am and had remained out until after the weekend.  Lively said that Harris had then confronted him about his complaining about him to his superiors and that because of that he would bring him up on the sleeping charge. [Copy of statement of Leslie Lively, October 1936, enclosed in Memorandum to Commander, Richey, from Connors, Master Shipfitter, April 1937; RG181; NA-NY.]

The IAMW sent a letter of protest to the ASN enclosing a petition signed by 111 workers in the shop describing the way in which Engessor and Migge had been let go as examples of “disguised intimidation, discrimination and coercion.”  The union also submitted affidavits on new charges: that former leadingmen had been demoted to welding positions for union affiliation. (The IAMW, like many AFL unions, permitted membership to supervisors.)  Charles Cardillo, a welder of six years, affirmed that he had served satisfactorily as a leadingman from July 1935 to February 1936 before he was put back into the mechanic ranks due to a reduction in the supervisory forces.  He had been asked to continue his supervisory duties as a snapper but had refused.  After a second promotion in June 1936 he was again dropped back to a welder slot after only two weeks in favor of others with lower ratings.  He believed this due to his IAMW membership.  Anthony Corsello, a member of the union since 1928 and a former vice-president of the local, had worked for the Yard for a total of eleven years and had an almost identical story, as did Francis Brechbiel, with eight years experience and who had been a past president of a local in New Jersey.  Two other IAMW welders gave similar accounts.  Making the story even more interesting was a second statement by Christopher Harris in which he elaborated that while he did find Lively asleep, that when he reported the incident to Connors later, the Master yelled that Lively was the man he wanted “to get” and that Harris had erred by not turning him in immediately.  He said Harris had further erred by sending another man to wake Lively, a worker who had reported back that Lively was awake when he found him.  Harris said that Connors told him he would recommend leniency for him as this was his first mistake. [Letter,  ASN Edison, to Murphy, Business Representative, IAMW, March 1937, enclosing his letter to the ASN of March 1937, including affidavits by: Charles Cardillo, January 1937; Anthony Corsello, January 1937; Francis Brechbiel, January 1937; Christopher Harris, January 1937; Charles Corsello, January 1937; Thomas Taylor, February 1937; RG181; NA-NY.]

Once again, the ASN forwarded the charges to the Commandant for his response.  In his answer he drew up a register of the leadingman as of 1 June 1936.  It showed that the six leadingmen who were reduced in mid-July 1936 had stood first, second, third, fifth, seventh, and eleventh on a list of fourteen in terms of their ratings.  In June 1936 the Yard had added night shifts for the cutters and management decided to appoint permanent and not acting leadingmen [snappers] to supervise the night work.  After the work had finished reductions were made, all in strict conformity with the men's ranking on the leadingmen efficiency lists.  These particular supervisors had failed to perform as well as the new leadingmen that had been brought on.  As to Harris's statement, Connors replied that he had received reports from other supervisors that Lively periodically left work supposedly to attend committee meetings and that in September Harris had reported Lively a second time, for interfering with production.  Allegedly, he had encouraged welders to limit their shift work to a specific number of feet of welding, about two-thirds the amount a  welder should easily complete in a shift.  That was why Connors had wanted to know if this was the same man.  The Master defended his managerial style saying that he had handled men for thirty years and was not the type to yell or swear or make threats of retaliation.  He believed that Harris, who had since resigned, was part of a smear campaign of a small number of men in the shop and had perhaps made his claims in an effort to get back into the good graces of his IAMW companions.  Lively was simply a “bad man working against the best interest of the job, . . . slippery and hard to pin anything on.”  Connors said he could prove that the welder was indeed attempting to intimidate other welders from putting in a full shift's work. [Letter, ASN (SED), to Commandant, Navy Yard, New York, March 1937; Letter, Commandant, to ASN (SED), April 1937, with enclosure of statement, by Master Shipfitter, April 1937; Memo from Labor Board [on efficiency ratings of the welding leadingmen], April 1937. Both in RG181; NA-NY.]

Meanwhile, as these files of correspondence made their way back and forth between Brooklyn and Washington, the Department rendered two decisions on the BNY welders.
First, the Department decided some room was needed between the Master Shipfitter and the welders and in February 1937 asked the Civil Service Commission to set up an exam for the new position of Foreman Welder at the New York Navy Yard.  It also instructed the naval half of Yard management to pay special attention to the welders and their civilian supervision so as to detect and prevent any form of discrimination for labor affiliation. [Letter, ASN to Murphy, April 1937; RG181; NA-NY.]

And second, in April 1937 it recognized the Welders' Welfare League as an independent voluntary organization, that could speak only for its members.  The Commandant passed a copy of the Navy's letter on to the petition signers.   So, at least in the BNY the welders achieved some small measure of self-recognition otherwise denied them by the  Boilermakers and the MTD.  [Letter, ASN (SED), to Commandant, Navy Yard, New York, April 1937; Memo, Commandant, to all signers of the petition for the Welders' Welfare League, April 1937. Both in RG181; NA-NY.]
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Conclusion
At this point the flow of archival documents about the IAMW in the New York Navy Yard slows to a trickle.  The union filed a health and safety complaint in June 1937 that too few blowers for removing fumes from closed compartments had led to various sicknesses among the men.  The Yard's safety engineer replied they were well aware of the health hazards attendant to welding and took every safety precaution possible, such as using blowers, rotating welding duty in closed spaces, and that Yard management was considering making the use of face masks compulsory.  In February 1938 the union accused the Shipfitter shop of bypassing civil service procedure for filling the new Foreman position by rejecting all candidates except one of their senior quartermen, hoping he would be confirmed after a six-month probation.  The Yard rejoined that only one eligible person had applied and that therefore management had recommended leaving the position open for the time being.  The person now in the position was an acting welding foreman who was filling in for the Foreman Shipfitter, who had generally supervised up to that point.  And that is it as to the BNY local of the IAMW.  [Letter, Murphy, Business Representative, IAMW, Local Lodge, no. 2, to Lt. Whitehead, Safety Engineer, BNY, June 1937; RG181, NA-NY; Letter, Fred Illingworth, Secretary, IAMW, local lodge no.2, to Edison, ASN, February 1938; Letter, ASN (SED), to Commandant, Navy Yard, NY, February 1938; letter, from the Commandant, to ASN (SED), February 1938. All in RG181; NA-NY.]

A few general points can be made here about labor relations in the Brooklyn Navy Yard in the era before the U.S.'s entry into World War II based on the examples of the welders and the painters.  One is that a rather convoluted grievance-handling procedure had developed over the years in which unions often took their gripes straight to the Navy Department instead of submitting them to their immediate supervisors.  This produced the round-about series of correspondences between labor and management that we have seen here with the Department acting as a middle person.  Another point is that the grievants did receive some measure of acceptance. Under the law a group of federal workers, with no official standing and of perhaps dubious size could exist openly without overt oppression and invoke a great deal of power, drawing the highest levels of the navy department into its struggles with the BNY over recognition, work loads, and promotion and demotion policies.  But these struggles also show up the difficulties encountered by government personnel policy.  Would it not have been better for both sides to have sat down in formal grievance meetings?  But then, the Navy Department would need defend its argument in person and in writing to the grievants, which it was loath to do.  As a result, the Department and the navy yards were stuck with a significant amount of paper work and maybe to some embarrassment if caught in too obvious a convenience, but when dealing with small and politically weak organizations, as long as they were willing to expend the effort they mostly got their way and in the end that is what counted from their point of view.

So far, we have seen that on the local level of the navy yard the shop committee system failed to provide legitimate representation to the navy yard workers, and that when unions and worker groups went public [in the sense of presenting grievances in writing] that they often went frustrated in attempting to resolve their grievances.  It seems that only the informal meetings between Yard management and representatives of the major unions allowed for resolution, but as informal meetings they left no paperwork behind for the official file cabinets.

As before, civilian workers for the Navy found their relief at the national level, in either the White House or in Congress.  The issue of representation was of great concern to all federal workers and in 1938 President Roosevelt decreed the creation of a national Council of Personnel Administration, outside of the Civil Service Commission, to coordinate federal personnel matters.  Each agency was instructed to organize its own personnel office and among its many directives, to formalize a grievance system for its employees.  Of what practical effect this had for labor relations is worth a study in itself, but for the navy yard workers, especially once the CIO entered the scene, it opened up a new front for workers to express their grievances.
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John R Stobo ©              March 2004