Thread by @ErikLoomis

This Day in Labor History: July 19, 1972. The AFL-CIO, led by its Vietnam War loving president George Meany, refuses to endorse George McGovern for president. Let's talk about this terrible moment and what it means and doesn't mean for today.

For George Meany, George McGovern and his supporters were offensive on a number of levels. First, McGovern represented the Democratic Party in revolt, the hippies who protested inside the disastrous ’68 Chicago DNC.

In the aftermath, with rules changes to the Democratic Party structure to make it more democratic, the power of the AFL-CIO leadership within the Party was challenged, even as there was room for more rank and file participation.

George Meany was the Democratic Party establishment in 1968. So he was furious about all the changes that had taken place that took the party outside of the smoky back room and toward real democratic participation.

But worse for Meany, McGovern didn’t support the Vietnam War. George Meany was a cold warrior’s cold warrior. Meany hated McGovern for this. Meany was more concerned with the Cold War than he was class war in the U.S. Killing communists mattered more than fighting capitalists.

Meany used his power as head of the federation to undermine socialism around the world and promote CIA activities, including, at the beginning of his tenure as AFL chief, supporting the overthrow of Guatemalan leader Jacobo Arbenz. The left didn't call it the AFL-CIA for nothing.

Meany thought the Vietnam War was a righteous war. And that would make him hate McGovern.

There was another issue at play–the endless rivalry between Meany and the old CIO unions. Walter Reuther was dead by this time, but Meany and Reuther hated each other and what each stood for.

Meany was highly concerned that the new social liberalism of the Democratic Party grassroots would empower the Reutherites both in the labor movement and in society. So undermining the social democratic unions in a new grassroots oriented Democratic Party was also on his mind.

George McGovern had a reasonably strong background in labor. He wrote his first book on the Colorado coal wars that culminated in the Ludlow Massacre. But McGovern’s record was not perfect, and that included on some of the most important labor legislation of his term.

First, while in Congress, he voted for the Landrum-Griffin Act. Second, in 1966, he voted against the repeal of Section 14(b) the Taft-Hartley Act. The latter especially is pretty bad. That’s the provision that allows states to enact right to work legislation.

Yet in the end, COPE, which was the AFL-CIO political arm, noted that McGovern voted with labor 93.5% of the time, about the same as Ed Muskie, if less than Hubert Humphrey, who was an outstanding supporter of unions.

In any case, it wasn’t a record that should have lead to the AFL-CIO ditching him once he had won the domination. One can argue, as Jefferson Cowie has in Staying Alive, that the vote to overturn 14(b) would have hurt him in South Dakota where such a vote would have no support.

South Dakota was one of many states unions had completely failed to organize, which is something people on the left constantly miss when they complain about Democrats. If unions want obedient Democrats, they have to organize workers in those states to elect them.

But, to his credit, McGovern openly said that if elected, he would fight to overturn 14(b). Also, Meany’s good friend Lyndon Johnson had voted for Taft-Hartley in the first place so this was all a frame job against McGovern, a fair enough charge.

And in any case, McGovern’s labor record was a hell of a lot better than Richard Nixon’s.

So Meany went to work on the AFL-CIO to not endorse McGovern. That wasn’t all that hard, really. First, Meany himself supported Nixon. Second, a lot of the building trades also supported Nixon. That didn’t mean that the federation was going to endorse Nixon; far from it.

But it did mean neutrality, which was a huge and very public blow to McGovern. At the AFL-CIO convention a week before the announcement, Meany worked openly to achieve this result.

Even before it was made official on July 19, the newspapers were filled with articles that this was going to happen. And in fact, Meany ruled the day, with the neutrality vote passing 27-3 in the AFL-CIO executive council.

Interestingly, McGovern’s second choice for the vice-presidential candidate, after Ted Kennedy, was United Auto Workers president Leonard Woodcock. By this time, the UAW had withdrawn from the AFL-CIO, taken out by Reuther in 1968 over Vietnam and a variety of other policies.

Second choice after the Tom Eagleton debacle anyway

So it’s far from clear that had Woodcock accepted whether this would have done anything more than infuriate Meany. But while Woodcock was interested, there was a lot of feeling within the UAW that this was inappropriate for a union head and he declined.

There was significant discontent within the labor movement over Meany’s tactics. A lot of unions, especially the industrial unions, were furious with him over it. They thought McGovern would be great and fully supported him.

The United Auto Workers, the International Association of Machinists, AFSCME, and a lot of less powerful unions like the International Woodworkers of America fought hard for McGovern.

Thirty-three unions, representing a majority of unionized workers in the United States, ultimately officially endorsed McGovern. This fact is almost always lost in discussions of McGovern--lots of unions supported him! The union movement didn't abandon McGovern--only some did.

McGovern also visited that site of 1972 rebellion against both corporations and staid union leaders, Lordstown, Ohio, where his genial rebellion was received positively with the young UAW members rebelling against the boredom of their jobs and staid union leadership.

Unfortunately, this complexity within the labor movement over the McGovern decision gets lost in a narrative that between Meany’s support for Vietnam, his hatred of McGovern, and a couple of isolated incidents where “hardhats beat hippies,” labor can't be trusted by the left.

In fact, there was plenty about the left that was pretty hostile to unions anyway, especially given the class makeup of the white 60s left, the focus on extreme individualism in the counterculture, etc.

I will also note that for all that other progressive movements complain about unions, I don't exactly see them out on the picket line in solidarity during strikes.

My point here is not to slag on the left or on unions, but to note that this whole modern relationship between unions and the rest of the left is really complicated.

One place we saw this was at Occupy Wall Street, when the Occupiers were scared that the unions would "co-opt" their movement. My thought--when have unions ever had the power or ability to do that? Never!

Even if unions had wanted to co-opt Occupy, how are they remotely competent enough or capable of doing so?

But that Occupy relationship with unions demonstrated the still strong strain of individualism and mistrust of institutions on the American left. Maybe that's changed a bit in the last 7 years.

Unfortunately, McGovern moved to the right on labor issues after 1972. He invested in some property that failed and blamed regulations. His last public act? Writing Wall Street Journal editorials to oppose the Employee Free Choice Act!!!

wsj.com/articles/SB124…

The last point I will make is that it drives me crazy when people talk about 1972 or the hard-hat riots against hippies in 1970 to talk about unions today. What other social movements are defined by what a few jerks did a half-century ago?

Back tomorrow to talk about a little known part of our history--the Coal Creek War in Tennessee when workers went to war with the state in 1891 to keep prison labor out of the coal mines.

Oh yeah, I'm also supposed to mention that if you like this thread, my new book A History of America in Ten Strikes is being published by @thenewpress in October and it's pretty much all this. You can preorder now!

amazon.com/History-Americ…