Working In These Times
UE Local 1111’s Demise: Sadness Mixed With Pride
Members of UE Local 1111 strike outside the Allen-Bradley factory in the 1940s.
Looming high over Milwaukee's near South Side is a tower with the world's
largest four-sided clocks, sitting atop the castle-like headquarters of Rockwell Automation.
When the gigantic clocks struck midnight and July 31 slid into August 1, it ended the last contract and the 73 -year history of one of Wisconsin's most storied unions, United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers Local 1111.
When the Rockwell operation was still controlled by the Allen-Bradley Corporation, turning out switches, relays, timers, starters, and other automation equipment, Local 1111 claimed about 7,000 members.
Throughout its history, the local had been a consistently progressive force in labor, launching coalitions with labor, civil rights and other community groups, sponsoring aggressive union organizing drives, and opposing the expansion of corporate america under the shield of U.S. military power.
RELOCATING JOBS OUT OF MILWAUKEE
While Allen-Bradley had begun shifting jobs to the South, Mexico, and rural
Wisconsin in the 1970s, the pace of relocations picked up sharply after Rockwell acqured the firm in 1985. Membership plummeted from 5,500 in 1980 to 550 by 2006. (Rockwell's purchase of Allen-Bradley also provided the funding for the ultra-right wing policies and genteel white supremacy of the Bradley Foundation).
"Rockwell made a decision a dozen years ago that they were going to shut down production in Milwaukee," Carl Rosen said in December 2008
While Rockwell increasingly shifted production to Mexico, China, the Dominican Republic, and other low-wage sites in the face of union protests, Local 1111 still managed to ensure that almost all the job losses occurred through retirement. That meant workers left with full pensions and healthcare benefits rather than being tossed out into an increasingly brutal job market.
"We were able to do this on the basis of our ability to take the fight to the
Milwaukee community, and the corporation understood that," said Rosen, reflecting on Local 1111's history of building broad support for its battles first with Allen-Bradley and then with Rockwell. He continued:
As a result, a couple generations of workers were able to get a secure retirement. About 100 of the 140 workers who were remaining at the end will get their full pension this year or next, and we've made sure that they all have a bridge of pay and healthcare until they get to their retirement date.
We held on to the jobs a lot longer than most of the industry. We had community support, and we had shop-floor power from our rank-and-file members.
At the same time, Rosen keenly feels what the loss of 6,500 jobs will do to the Milwaukee community that has lost 80 percent of its manufacturing jobs since 1977.
ROCKWELL'S RACE TO THE BOTTOM
"I feel sad for the next generation," said Bob Granum, the burly, mustached president of Local 1111 who has worked in the plant for more than 37 years. "The company has been involved in a race to the bottom, moving to wherever wages are low, Tecate and Juarez Mexico, Poland, China, the Dominican Republic.
"People like me will be OK, because we’ve bought homes and saved money," sighed Granum as he sorted through boxes of old newspaper clippings and union signs. "But its our kids who will pay because the good jobs won't be there."
Local 1111 was ahead of other area unions in recognizing the emerging trends toward de-industrialization and globalization of production, when Milwaukee firms quietly beginning to move jobs to the low-wage U.S. South in the late 1970s. In 1971, Local 1111 became the central force in Milwaukee's "Coalition to Save Jobs," working closely with unions at a variety of medium-sized employers.
But as much as Local 1111 tried to build the coalition, many major manufacturing unions declined to join with the UE, which still had something of a pariah-like status because of its leftist reputation dating back to the McCarthy Era.
Despite the increasingly clear threat of what was then called "runaway shops," local unions generally remained scattered in pursuing efforts to retain jobs in Milwaukee.
Thus, firms like Briggs and Stratton, Johnson Controls, and Master Lock extorted all the concessions they could from local unions before finally shifting nearly all their production to the South, Mexico, and China.
ROCKWELL RHETORIC: U.S. NEEDS MANUFACTURING
Ironically, Rockwell CEO Keith Nosbusch has been vocally promoting the
revitalization of manufacturing in the U.S. "U.S. manufacturers absolutely must have innovative energy-efficient and productivity-enhancing technology to be competitive," Nosbusch stated in 2009 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. But Rockwell's actual strategy has undermined both the U.S. productive base and domestic spending power, contends Rosen.
"It's because of the strong union movement that created increased spending power and demand to build the U.S. economy," countered Rosen. "Now we have a vicious circle in the other direction, where corporations are not sharing the benefits of productivity gains and workers can't afford to buy the stuff that they make."
Despite the CEO's rhetoric, Rockwell's clear direction in Milwaukee has been to relocate all the production. "The corporation is lecturing the nation that the U.S. needs manufacturing, yet here they are, closing down the flagship operation," Rosen says.
Long after its demise, Local 1111 will be remembered for its deep commitment to the voice of its rank and file, its eagerness to support other unions and community groups, and its ability to foresee and fight--but ultimately not prevail over--the tide of corporate globalization that would wash away so much of Milwaukee's productive base.
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Comments
This is another heartbreaking example of the destruction inherent in neoliberal globalization. The outsourcing of jobs and a high-wage economy for working class folks resulting from “free” trade is a cancer on not only this country, but all working people around the world. The race to the bottom is decimating any semblance of working class prosperity, security and opportunity.
Dear Peter:
You have very concisely expressed what’s going on at Rockwell and across the economy: the decimation of high-wage jobs, the US productive base, and the domestic buying power, the last now so feeble we can’t get out of the current Great Recession.
In its place, Corporate America has substituted production in repressive low-wage nations with miserable living standards and consumption by the richest 10% of Southern nations (China, Mexico, Brazil, India, South Africa, etc.) and the more broadly prosperous societies of Western Europe and Japan.
It is indeed an accelerating race to the bottom, with the US political and media elite enthusiastically cheering on the advances of “free trade.”
Best, Roger
Truly the end of an era. I was a UE organizer in 1978 who took a shot at the A-B runaway in Greensboro, NC, which opened in a temporary barn and hired many first-time industrial workers. The turning point of the campaign was a corporate guy firing the local plant manager in front of a captive audience meeting. The 1111 members were great and wrote letters but we couldn’t pull it off. Several of the 1111 officers came down so if anyone see Ted “The Pope” Krukowski, tell him I still owe him that beer.
Hi Roger,
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts on U.E. Local 1111. For those of us who had the privilege to serve in the leadership of the local it was a sad ending to a remarkable history of a proud progressive organization. It did all it could to protect and advance the interest of their members from their first day of existence to the last.
Several thousand women and men who were represented by Local 1111 enjoyed a dignified work life. Many thousands now are successfully retired. All achieved through the locals’ continued and tireless efforts over the past decades.
Ted Krukowski
I am saddened by this story on two fronts. First, it’s just heartbreaking to watch as we see more and more of industrial production outsourced, with jobs following. Second, it’s so frustrating to see good progressive unions in the industrial sector get broken apart by the neoliberal “free” trade globalization in the first point.
Dear Ted and Peter:
First, Ted, you did a lot to make Local 1111 what it was and ought to feel person pride in that. I recall one article where you talked about the need for “shaking things up on the shop floor” in advance of a contract fight. That shop-floor militancy is a source of power too many unions have forgotten about, and thus left their members feeling remote both from their source of power and their union.
Second, Peter, I share your anger over the ever-rising toll of lost jobs, lower wages, and weakened communities left in the wake of corporate globalization.
It is also interesting to contemplate what might have happened earlier had other unions followed the far-sighted lead of Local 1111 and began asserting the notion that workers and communities—not just corporations—are entitled to economic rights. Had local unions joined together and built a broad base of community allies, the contemporary picture might be less bleak.
But at this moment, the achievements of Local 1111—in contesting the undemocratic power of corporations and preserving the jobs as long as they did—are worthy of recognition and appreciation. Best, Roger.
I just watched Roger & Me again on DVD, because it happened to be sitting at our house from the Netflix subscription over which my wife and I battle. I like documentaries and political films, she likes stuff that doesn’t involve a strike (she claims she’s now seen every movie with a strike because of my tastes).
The economic violence being perpetrated against working people and our communities for three decades now is just stunning. But also disgusting, frustrating and heart-wrenching.
Ted, we haven’t met before, but it’s a pleasure to share a little space on the internet here with you. I have nothing but the utmost respect for 1111.
Roger, I think you bring up a fantastic utopian idea (I mean that in the best sense possible). Economic rights for workers and communities. This is the kind of transcendent idea that never gets a fair enough hearing. One broad-trend social problem we have in the U.S., if not globally, is the obsession with individualism. Individual rights, versus collective rights, being one of the things that gets me most riled up. Nelson Lichtenstein touched on this in his book State of the Union.
The destruction of working class security in the U.S. has been overdetermined—so it’s very interested to note the confluence of the rise of intellectual and political neoliberalism at the same time as the ostensibly liberal codification of individual rights aplenty, also at the same time as technology developed and the crisis of profitability both hit Western industrialized nations. It’s tough to pick it all apart and key in on one critical factor.
These are systemic issues, and the only response appropriate is one that operates on a systemic level—and that’s movement-building. Specifically, a trade union movement willing and (cap)able of fighting for working folks. I’ve never understood the alignment with workplace-based unionism so prevalent in the U.S., as opposed to the role of unions as systemic-level actors on behalf of the whole working class (even if you’re not a Marxist, which I’m not).
That harkens to what you note, Roger. Imagine if the 1111s of the world had fought back together, or if the union movement as a whole had fought back together on the systemic level during this period of overdetermined decimation of the working class in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Now, since that is foreclosed from possibility, imagine if we could do that today.
For anyone interested in this topic of plant closures (and who isn’t?) read the great book Sin Patron (Without a Boss), about how Argentine workers took over their factories in the face of proposed closings. Inspirational book. Too late for the A-B workers but not for the next group in line.
It’s too bad that the majority of the AFL-CIO leadership still shun the UE and other left/progressive labor organizations.
Their timidness and fright of their own shadow is reflective in the sorry condition that the U.S. labor force is currently in.
One day hopefully these guys will learn that capitalism doesn’t work for the working class. Never has and never will!
roger thank you for your comments on local 1111,not only a good piece but extremly accurate.i would like to point out among others officers that were at the lead of our progressive movement at local 1111.peoplel like bob clark(working at the hire center) jim lemke (retired) bill mollenhauer (now with afscme 48) bob rudek (retired) .these guys had a good vision on how to take the locals fight to the community.
thanks chet bialas (retired ue1111 board member for 27 years)
To Peter:
I wrote a response to you that did not appear here, but perhaps on Facebook?
‘Roger & Me.’ unfortunately, is a classic film of incredible lucidity and black humor that becomes relevant every day as Rockwell, GE, and all the rest keep off-shoring jobs while the Democratic establishment remains largely silent (except to start talking about new “free trade agreements.”
I highly recommend re-viewing Roger & Me because the hollow “solutions” being pitched to Flint are now being sold to de-industrialized communities across the nation (see my recent article ).
Also, if you recall, despite the rhetoric of UAW leaders, the union never so much as held a rally to protest the demolition of Flint and the relocation of many thousands of jobs to repressive low-wage Mexico.
As you suggest, if unions like the UAW in Flint had followed the lead of the UE in asserting the economic rights of Us workers and communities against the greed of transnational corporations, we might be fighting corporate globalization from a much stronger vantage point
Instead, the UE was often alone in its fight against the corporate race to the bottom. As a result, Rockwell has decimated another 7,000 jobs despite the UE’s best efforts and new autoworkers in the UAW are starting at a miserable $14.50 an hour for arduous, demanding assembly-line work..
Best, Roger .
To Bill Barry:
You’re right, it is crucial that the notion of worker control be re-introduced to the US working class. Most likely, it would arise from plant occupations to stop corporate relocations, as at Republic Doors and Windows. But at this point, the critical ingredient of hope—essential to any assertion of human rights and the expression of expectations for a genuinely fulfilling and democratic society, has been beaten out of Americans.
Thus, it is vital that progressives and the Left work together to drive home the point that another world is indeed possible, and that it is no accident of nature that the richest 1% prosper while the rest of the society sinks into misery.
Best, Roger.
To Chet:
Yes, Local 1111 was blessed with a number of outstanding leaders, whom the UE effectively recruited and groomed for providing direction to the anger and aspirations of the rank-and-file. Bob Clark and Jim Lemke—both of whom I have known for many years, Bill Mollenhauer, Bob Rudek, and countless others shaped a local in which all of labor could take pride and find inspiration. I’m sure that you, too, Chet, played a big part.
I have special memories of Local 1111—many of which I didn’t have room to include.in my article. First and foremost was hearing the late Jimmy Matles speak in the fall of 1971 to a group of stewards at Allen Bradley about what we then called “runaway shops.”
I recall Matles as very thin, wearing a pencil-thin mustache, dressed in gray with a quiet elegance. Matles spoke with his Romanian accent still quite distinct.
Yet he seemed like a slender, tensed greyhound
exuding power, pacing the floor of the Local 1111 hall, pounding his fist into his palm, transfixing the entire room, and conveying with his energy his belief
in the power of working people to build a society based on economic and social democracy. Truly a remarkable and inspiring working-class hero!
Best, Roger