Privileged Americans may not be aware of the entire monster that operates each tentacle. We usually find only one tentacle. It might be anything:
WOMEN’S RIGHTS
AFRICAN AMERICANS RIGHTS
LATINO’S RIGHTS
GAY RIGHTS
ECONOMIC LOSS
POLITICAL PERSECUTION
This could go on and on. For me personally, my first tentacle was the mistreatment of children in schools. When I first became a teacher, I reacted strongly to the corporal punishment that was common in those days. I’m glad to say that the “good guys” largely won that battle, at least in major metropolitan schools.
I went so far as to start a private school dedicated to non-coercion. They were called “free schools” in those days. When I learned that Danish schools already eschewed corporal punishment, I named mine “Lille Skole.”
But even before I started the school, the Houston police murdered civil rights activist Carl Hampton. I was forced to learn a lot from that. Then there was the war in Vietnam, which I had been trying hard to ignore. I remember thinking that even if my idealistic notion of raising better children came true, America would have to stop me because they still needed young people to go to Vietnam and my students, obviously, wouldn’t do it.
Lille Skole nearly killed me. After nearly 3 years of constant hassle with parents, finances, and government rules, I was a wreck. But I didn’t quit. I found other ways, many of them just as ill-advised as Lille Skole, to go on trying to make a better world. I’m 85 now, and still trying.
That’s the Trick
Those who stay in the fight, even against their one tentacle, will eventually find the monster. It’s the same one. Only the tentacles are different.
A lot of people experience their one tentacle. Millions of young people, for example, opposed the war in Vietnam. But that was as far as many of them ever went. They didn’t inquire successfully into the causes of war, or of racism, or of homophobia, or of any of the other tentacles.
But people get distracted. They get burnt out. One way or another, they get discouraged. What is more pathetic than hearing some old dude say, “I used to be full of vinegar, but I learned.” What they learned was defeat.
I think it’s true that we’ll never argue our way into solidarity. At the same time, I think that history is teaching all of us. Those willing to stay in the fight will eventually recognize the monster and then embark on the greatest intellectual challenge of anybody’s life: how do we defeat the monster?
–Gene Lantz
You can hear me every Saturday at 9 on knon.org or 89.3FM in Dallas. I’ve put my more personal thoughts on http://lilleskole.us
If you have a lot of time, you might spend it nosing around my labor history web site. Start with the time line at https://lilleskole.us/labordallas/hist/histdate.htm. There are very few honest books about Texas labor, but Patricia Evridge Hill’s “Dallas, the Making of a Modern Industrial City” and Michael Phillips “White Metropolis” are worth your time if you have some.
If you are as short of time as I, read this.
Dallas labor was slave labor from the city’s inception in 1841 to well past 1865. Milestones were the execution of a slave woman in 1853 and the downtown fire of 1860, which was used as an excuse to get people to vote for secession. Three slaves were murdered for it and all slaves were given lashes. Not much more is known.
Dallas and Tarrant barely voted for secession, and the 8 counties northward voted against it.
Violent Texans ended the Reconstruction Era in 1868, long before the rest of the nation. Hardly anything is known about it in Dallas. The person who was supposed to head the Freedman’s Bureau in Dallas was murdered in East Texas and never arrived.
The Knights of Labor established several chapters here in 1882. Their great rise, and their downfall, were associated with our area. The big influx of members came about because of their successful fight against railroad baron Jay Gould in the Great Southwest Railway Strike. It originated at a convention in Sherman in 1885. A year later, Gould broke the contract and hired murderers to break the union.
The downfall of the Knights may have also come about because they failed to support the Haymarket Martyrs in Chicago during their show trial 1886-7. A new organization called American Federation of Labor was named in 1886. They nominally supported the Haymarket martyrs and found a way to outlast both of the previous national labor federations by organizing only the most skilled and highest paid of laborers. They also enthusiastically supported government foreign policy to the detriment of international solidarity, and that helped them avoid the punishment that destroyed the Industrial Workers of the World.
Just about the only AFL union that successfully organized everybody on a worksite instead of only the elite was the United Mineworkers of America. They had some great battles, including the Ludlow strike that included a massacre of women and children. In Thurman, Texas, West of Fort Worth, mineworkers put together a militia to send to Colorado.
The idea of organizing everybody, not just the elite, outlasted the Industrial Workers of the World. In the early days of the Great Depression, socialists and communists did their best to organize “industrially.” Often, it took the form of organizing the unemployed.
T.E. Barlow, a Communist organizer, was murdered in the Tarrant County Jail in 1933 for the crime of organizing unemployed workers. Carl Brannin, socialist organizer that turns up here and there all over labor history of the period, helped organize a sit-in at the Dallas City Hall that lasted a month. Brannin lived out his old age in Dallas and I had the honor of knowing him. I believe his last public action was to oppose the nuclear reactor being built at Commanche Peak.
In 1935, the Mineworkers were able to convince the AFL to form a Committee for Industrial Organizing. Immediately, the progressive union organizers went to work and reaped the reward of their previous decades. The Autoworkers union was put together in 1937. AFL leaders demanded that the new unions divide out their elite workers, but they refused and were kicked out of the AFL. They formed the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and started organizing everything that moved.
Inspired by the CIO, the old craft unions in the AFL also began adopting industrial organizing. Unions that had limited their membership to skilled machinists or electricians, for example, started organizing entire factories and entire industries.
In the 1930s, Wallace Reilly (yes, he owned the print shop now known as Reiley Echols) was state president of the AFL and resisted the coming of the CIO, as did also and most notably the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas police. I think that millinery workers were the first to try to penetrate the Dallas anti-union barricades. Textile workers were next. A lot of women suffered and a lot of them spent time in Dallas jail.
In 1939, major aerospace plants were built in Dallas and Fort Worth. Eventually, the Autoworkers got the one in Dallas and the Machinists won in Fort Worth. But the CIO still hadn’t had a successful breakthrough.
The giant Ford assembly plant in East Dallas was the CIO’s big target. But the Dallas Morning News, head of the Citizens Alliance then and now, and the Dallas police had other ideas. Ford also hired goons to beat up, tar&feather, and even assassinate union organizers. None of them were ever prosecuted.
In 1941, the CIO got a break. The new attorney of the new NLRB was visited by three former employees at Ford. They had been fired, possibly for stealing, and wanted the NLRB to help them get their jobs back. Their jobs, as they explained to the young lawyer, was to beat up union organizers and sympathizers. They provided detailed descriptions of their activities.
The NLRB used their written complaints in the lawsuit that eventually forced Ford to allow the UAW to organize them nationwide. I have the lawyer’s complete story as provided by his son, who was County Treasurer for some while. The lawyer, whose name I think was Nat young, was the first person to accept our “Hero of Labor Award” at a Labor Day Breakfast around 1990.
The successful UAW local in East Dallas looked around for someone to organize the giant North American Aviation plant at the far western edge. They came upon Jack Anderson, who personally told me how the African American trash haulers organized the plant. The rest of the history of unions at that plant is detailed on my web site, already mentioned.
The CIO was well established. By the early 1950s, it was headed by Roy Evans, a friend of mine. Evans became an officer of the AFL-CIO when they merged in 1955. In 1958, the UAW pulled out of the federation and Roy had to find another union, but he went on to serve a term as President of the combined federation in Texas.
Another outstanding “graduate” from my union in western Dallas (Grand Prairie) was Pancho Medrano, also a friend of Roy’s and mine. He was a boxer and was chosen to be Sergeant at Arms at the new union at North American. Later, he was chosen by UAW President Walter Reuther to head up Civil Rights work. If you hear of milestones of the civil rights movement, you may also hear that Pancho was there.
I believe it was 1962 when Pancho became the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against Texas Ranger violence against Farmworkers. The suit was won and the Texas Rangers, once the scourge of all working families, has not been known to use violence against strikers again.
By 1984, the old “North American” factory was known as LTV and the union as UAW Local 848. During a long contract fight 1984-5, I began to be known as an organizer of workers, and organizer of retirees, and, especially, a communications director. I’ve continued that work to the present.
Union militancy had more or less died with the 1955 merger and the AFL-CIO was suffering a long period of decline. From around 35% of the workforce organized, they fell to below 10%. In 1987, some of the most active unions from the CIO days organized Jobs with Justice to restore solidarity. In 1990, my wife and I established North Texas Jobs with Justice with a meeting at Local 848.
Our first action was to have a labor contingent in the Dallas MLK parade. After that, we carried out solidarity actions with unions, churches, civil rights organizations, and community groups regularly.
The AFL-CIO began to catch up nationally after a “palace coup” election in 1995. They made sweeping improvements, but they didn’t take effect in Dallas until 2013. After that, I gave up Jobs with Justice and devoted all my efforts to AFL-CIO. We did some amazing things.
The AFL-CIO took over an older retiree organization and established the Alliance for Retired Americans around 2001, the year before I retired early. They chartered Texas in 2006. I am a charter member and its longest-serving president. One of my first projects was to get national to hire Judy Bryant as state organizer. The Texas Alliance, TARA, allows everybody to join, union or not.
Allowing everybody to join was also a strength of the Young Active Labor Leaders when it was established by the Texas AFL-CIO around 2020. TARA and YALL are powerhouses of solidarity for the labor movement. YALL is unchartered and TARA is a 501c4. Both are considered “constituency groups” even though they are like no other.
In April, 2025, I learned that national AFL-CIO had a plan to merge Dallas and Tarrant into a new labor federation similar to the one in Houston. On January 1, the Dallas Central Labor Council was terminated. I was its final president.
I think I like “what did you expect?” better than all the political phrases being bandied around today.
Let me point out why these times we are in have promise that is far more important than the misery that is being put onto working families. The promise won’t be seen by any but those who are genuine change agents who are in it for the long haul, but that’s including more and more people as the veils fall from everybody’s eyes.
The thing that is wrong with the world, you probably have figured out, is the profit system. A small group of legal “owners” profits while everybody else is exploited more and more. When you realize the truth, you should see, almost immediately, that it can’t go on forever. Sooner or later capitalism must capsize just because of its own internal workings.
Long ago, capitalism was a good thing. It freed the slaves and the serfs. It lowered the price of commodities. It provided education to the masses so that they could work its machines. It did good things, but the price was high.
One of the main prices was world war. In 1914, by my own estimation, capitalism started to produce more misery than good. I think a lot of people caught on then, and that’s why we began to see a serious socialist movement worldwide. Another really good example is the degradation of our planet. Capitalism is making it unlivable and more and more people are realizing it.
Capitalism could kill or intimidate many socialists, but they could never extinguish its flame.
People continue to catch on, and new capitalist technology, especially personal smart phones, helped us tremendously. Here in the United States, we began to see the system, including the two-capitalist-party electoral system, for what it is. That caused us to cast about for some other approach, or some other system, or for some other leadership. Predictably, we tend to opt for what seems the easiest route. But what we want is a better world for ourselves and our offspring, and none of the easy ways will provide it.
So here we are. Fires and floods threaten everybody. More war is on the agenda. The entire world monetary system is being rocked. The American dollar, secure and reliable since the destruction of World War II, is being abandoned piecemeal. The owning class, now largely billionaires, is desperately trying to maintain their rule by turning to fascism. In other words, capitalist rule is shuddering toward its death agony.
It might be the end of the world, but it might be only the end of the profit system. Did you think it would be pretty? What did you expect?
This week’s developments, written up in the Washington Post and elsewhere, indicate new gains for fascism. Far-right politicians won their elections in The Netherlands and in Argentina. A new poll suggests that Donald Trump is 7 points ahead of Joe Biden. In order to assess the danger and its consequences, it is important to understand some history and some political science as they pertain to methods of government.
Jesus, Socialism, and Democracy
In the United States, confusion has been deliberately created to keep us from understanding. For example, our information sources regularly cross-mix economic systems, religious systems, and political systems. It is common to hear things like, “We prefer Jesus and democracy to socialism.” Thus, a religious symbol and a political system are counterposed to an economic system, to the confusion of all. I’m going to leave the discussion about what Jesus prefers for another time. I’m going to dispense with economic systems with only one sentence: socialism and capitalism are the only two economic systems worth worrying about today. And now, let us focus on political systems.
Three Systems of Governance
There are three systems of governance in world competition. They can be distinguished by their degree of self-governance. They are total democracy, partial democracy, and fascism.
If we had complete democracy, each of us would be able to affect decisions to the degree that those decisions affect us. In other words, you would have proportional say-so about everything that matters to you. That would include economic decisions and decisions on foreign policy. Such complete democracy may have sounded difficult to arrange in past centuries, but the internet now makes it relatively easy and close at hand. If we wanted, for example, we could cast a meaningful vote every day on our phones!
Currently in the United States, voters have practically no options concerning economic or foreign policy decisions. Did you ever vote to go to war or to stop a war? Did you ever have a vote on which factories would remain open and which would close? Voters in the U.S. have options on which of two political parties shall rule, on certain bond proposals or resolutions, and other matters; but not on the economics and foreign policies that affect them so greatly. We have partial democracy. From about 1776 to about 1980, our level of democracy seemed to grow. We overcame slavery. Poor men and, finally, women achieved suffrage. Poll taxes were ended. Some ballots were printed in various languages. The voting age was lowered. Some racial discrimination was overcome. As political obstacles were overcome, it was tempting to say that total democracy would eventually triumph, one success at a time. Those who gave in to that temptation overlooked an important fact: there is a class of very wealthy people who benefit from less democracy and have no intention of giving up their rule, especially over foreign and economic policies. This class of people continues to struggle to move democracy backward for their own benefit.
Partial democracy has a wonderful effect on production. After partial democracy leaped ahead in England centuries ago, their productive abilities soon outpaced the rest of the world. More-or-less willing workers are far more efficient than slaves or serfs, Soon, productive England dominated much of the world and would continue to dominate until less-democratic nations caught up or surpassed them. When productive powers became more equal between nations, their competition turned into the inferno named World War I. During that war and because of it, two controversial new possibilities emerged: total democracy and fascism.
In 1932 under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the United States improved democracy and seemed headed toward total democracy. In the same period, Germany started moving the other direction, toward the total absence of democracy.
Why and How?
People either love or hate the Soviet Union and I have no intention of debating it here. I will assert only that it offered the possibility of total democracy. It was their intention that the people would have control over everything, including foreign policy and economics. It is important to mention that their productivity shot upwards as they struggled toward total democracy.
The worldwide economic disaster that began in 1929 discredited older political systems. Millions flocked to the new possibility of total democracy. The reactionary class was horrified!
In the United States, the reactionary class agreed to restrained and temporary improvements in democracy, as long as they were still in charge. In Germany, they agreed to Nazi power — again, as long as they were still in charge. The reason that the reactionaries in the two nations took different courses had to do with their different economic situations. The United States had many options. The Germans had only one, war against the nations that contained them. The reactionary rulers were taking risks with both forms of governance. They had to, because the forces of total democracy were strong and getting stronger in all nations. In neither case, however, did the reactionaries intend to give up their rule, and neither of them did.
Fascism Is a Choice
The wealthiest Germans temporarily embraced Hitler. The wealthiest Americans temporarily backed FDR. The Spanish military, with the help of the Catholic Church and military forces from fascist countries, installed a dictator, Generalissimo Francisco Franco. It is especially important to examine the case of fascist Spain. Through such an examination, one can see clearly that fascism is a choice of reactionary rulers. German fascism ended in flames. America’s “New Deal” democracy was eroded, and is eroding, away. But Spain simply gave up fascism and returned to partial democracy. No war nor revolution ended fascism in Spain. Franco died, and the reactionary rulers decided that partial democracy would improve their productivity. As with England in the 16th century, partial democracy improves productivity. Fascism, with less-willing workers, retards productivity.
One can look further than Spain and see that a number of nations have embraced fascism when threatened by total democracy. After the threat passed, they resumed partial democracy to raise their productivity. Examples are Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, and Chile. It’s still going on. Fascism does not occur naturally. Natural social progress would suggest that partial democracy increases productivity, more democracy increases productivity more, and total democracy would increase productivity to its highest levels. Fascism retards that process and leads to less productivity. Fascism is unnatural and is a choice of the reactionary rulers, the wealthiest class.
There is Only One Way to Stop Fascism
As long as there is a reactionary ruling class, they will have the option of fascism and may choose it when they will. They have to be removed from power.
I’m on KNON.org’s “Workers Beat” radio talk show every Saturday at 9AM Central Time. My “Workers Beat Extra” podcasts are on knon.org and Soundcloud. If you are curious about what I really think, you might check out my personal web site
Would you help me write a futuristic novel about what happens after the revolution? Help me speculate about what Commissioner Leo Torres does after his election to the World Council chartered to develop a model for future living and human happiness.
Unlike most American Sci-Fi, there is no dystopian end-of-the-world in this one. Thinking people have managed to stop all the current trends toward certain annihilation. A coalition of the Progressive Party and the Green Party has wrested control from the old economic rulers. All the people who are still alive after the devastation caused by our current system have a chance to meet their basic needs.
Leo Torres was a very minor figure in the Progressive Party during the revolutionary days. By a fluke of time and place, he achieved great popularity, or possibly notoriety. In his first novel, the Progressive Party leaders asked him to take on the title of “Commissioner” and resolve a very minor problem in an obscure part of Oklahoma. In the second novel, he gets a somewhat more complicated assignment, but still minor, in the Texas Panhandle.
Because of his undeserved but considerable popularity, and because he has shown himself to be trustworthy, the Progressives decide to make him a candidate for World Council in the third novel. He learns a few things as he travels the country in his successful campaign. All the preceding novels are on-line at http://lilleskole.us.
Should he take his seat on the World Council?
What priorities should he have?
What assignments or committees will he be assigned?
What laws and legislation would YOU want enacted, if you were in Leo’s place?
Help me out by sending your ideas to genelantz19@gmail.com.
Taylor, Clarence “Reds at the Blackboard. Communism, Civil Rights, and the New York City Teachers Union,” Columbia University Press, 2013.
There once existed a powerful teacher organization that fought for every progressive aspect of education in New York City. The American Federation of Teachers today, which has advanced in social unionism far beyond the bad old days of President Albert Shankar, is still miles behind the Teachers Union of New York of 1935-1964.
They represented teachers with grievances, they fought for better pay and working conditions as unions do, but they also challenged the basic racism and corruption of education in their times. They fought hard, for example, to expose the explicit and implicit racism in textbooks. They did everything they could think of to improve school materials. They fought for integration of students and faculty. They fought just as hard for gender equality.
Their greatest accomplishment may have been to make the schools part of the communities they served. These were not nominal PTA’s holding fund drives, but honest hard-working community organizations working for community improvement — especially among the most downtrodden constituencies.
One important aspect of school racism was new to me. After Brown V Topeka in 1954, the main physical change in education was to shut down all the segregated Black schools and lay off their teachers! Most of those teachers stayed laid-off because they couldn’t get jobs in the so-called “integrated” schools. The Teachers Union of New York fought hard to get jobs for Black teachers! If anybody else did, I hadn’t heard of it.
While they were bringing social unionism to its heights, the Teachers Union had to fight off management’s attempts to undermine it. Male chauvinism and anti-semitism were useful tools for the bosses, but their big cudgel was anti-communism. Social unionism was the Communist Party’s program and a some of the Teachers Union leaders were reds.
Management, like bosses everywhere after 1947, were able to get a lot of people fired and a lot of careers destroyed. The American Federation of Labor kicked the Teachers Union out over anti-communism. They joined the Congress of Industrial Organizations and continued to thrive as social unionists. However, after 1947, the CIO joined the anti-communist wave and kicked the Teachers Union out again. The Board of Education managed to have the Teachers Union decertified as representatives of their members, so they could no longer settle grievances nor negotiate for job improvements.
Even then, they didn’t quit. The Teachers Union survived as an important voice for social unionism, especially for civil rights and community cooperation, until 1964. They need to be remembered.
**
I broadcast on “Workers Beat” on KNON.org at 9AM CT every Saturday. If you are curious as to what I really think, check out my personal web site
Two recent history books are shaking the United States to its political foundations. The truth has a way of doing that. Republicans are in such a fury that they are banning books on a scale not seen since Nazi book-burnings. The more they ban books, the higher they go on best-seller lists, and that is as it should be. My enthusiastic recommendation may not carry the weight of Republican Senator Ted Cruz’s raving condemnation, but I add it just the same.
“History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books—books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, ‘What is history, but a fable agreed upon? ‘” – attributed to Winston Churchill
“An Indigenous” recounts the same history we’ve always studied, but it adds a framework that makes sense of it all: Europeans came to an inhabited continent and took it over. Anybody who opposed them was enslaved, killed, or otherwise subjugated. If one were being kind, they might say abstractly that a superior economic system displaced an inferior one. If one were being truthful instead of kind, they would have to call it plain genocide.
“1619” simply recounts the history of slavery in North America. It is a collection of facts, essays, and poetry by various authors. It paints a picture rather than telling a single narrative. Instead of treating slavery as incidental to American history, it shows how fundamental and critical it really was. For example, the 1860 dollar “value” of American slaves was greater than all other capital investments in the nation! The legal structure of the United States evolved, not as high-minded ideology of far-thinking founding fathers, but as a series of compromises to placate enslavers!
That’s the explanation for the undemocratic Senate and the even more undemocratic Electoral College.
Some people may like to think that the enormous crimes of genocide and slavery occurred only in the past and that they are over now. But these two books show that the repression was and is an ingrained part of American life today. Every time that people of color began to recover, whites used every excuse to rob them again. One example occurred close to my home, in Sherman Texas in 1930.
The Texas State Historical Society has an account of a lynching of a young Black man who was accused of having raped an unnamed white woman. While Texas Rangers stood aside, the mob burned the courthouse to the ground. Just to show that the accused man was not really their target, they burned down the rest of the black-owned businesses in Sherman.
This is from their account, “More than 5,000 people filled the courthouse yard and lined an adjacent street. The militia had left. The lynched man’s body was dragged behind a car to the front of a drugstore in the Black business section, where it was hanged from a tree. The store furnishings were used to fuel a fire under the hanging corpse. The mob also burned down the drugstore and other businesses in the area and prevented firemen from saving the burning buildings. By daybreak of May 10, most of the town’s Black businesses, as well as a residence, lay in ashes. Among the businesses burned were the offices of a dentist, a doctor, and a civil rights lawyer, William J. Durham.”
In all of American history, the only serious attempt to allow freed slaves to get a foot on the first rung of the economic ladder came from General Sherman during the Civil War. He took over vast tracts of plantation land and allotted it, 40 acres at a time, to the families who had freed themselves and were following Sherman’s army. But President Andrew Johnson, as soon as Lincoln was assassinated, ordered all that land to be taken away and restored to the confederate traitors!
Native Americans only received land in a back-handed way. When their great lands in the East were stolen, they were given Oklahoma. When Oklahoma was taken away, individual families received parcels that, one way or another, they soon lost. The Osage once held Kansas and great swaths of the middle part of the United States, then were forced into a tiny, rocky reservation in Oklahoma.
There are a few examples of wealthy individuals or, under freakish circumstances, whole tribes. The Osage found oil under their reservation and were, for a few years in the 1920s, extremely wealthy. But the government appointed white people to manage their money. I’m presently reading “Killers of the Flower Moon” that tells how wealthy members of the tribe were systematically murdered.
How Are These Things Today?
You can get this from Google: African American households today have 10 cents for every dollar owned by whites. The average Native American household has 8 cents of wealth for every dollar of wealth for the average white American household. As of 2017, 22% of Native Americans were living in poverty compared with 8% of white Americans.
The great value of studying true history is that it explains the problems we have today in America and in most of the world. Brown and Black people continue to suffer as they did in the past, and descendants of Europeans continue to profit. Understanding problems helps point to solutions.
In 1985, I had a tiny role in a part of the revitalization of American labor. I’d like to get it written down.
After a wonderful upsurge that started around 1932, labor leaders lost their way in 1947 and became isolated. Fortunately the membership couldn’t be ignored for long.
The revitalization actually began well before my time, in the 1960s. It was an extension of the civil rights upsurge that began around 1954. African-American unionists carried the lessons and tactics of the civil rights movement into their unions. For the most part, they were rebuffed by their leaderships, but nothing is ever completely lost in the progressive movement. People learn. People remember.
The newest, possibly most important, twist in the labor reform movement happened in 2021 when over 60% of United Auto Workers members and retirees voted to do away with the old delegate system of electing top leadership and move to the more democratic “one member one vote” method.
It was a setback to the old Administrative Caucus that has dominated the UAW consistently since 1946. I think a look back at earlier reform efforts gives some perspective to today’s important developments.
REFORM IN THE MINERS AND STEELWORKERS UNION
Reform was strong in the Miner’s Union after Jock Yablonski and his family were murdered December 31, 1969. In the Steelworkers, reform was clearly on the agenda when Ed Sadlowski ran for president around 1975. I think Sadlowski might have been the first union candidate since 1947 to allow reds to help him campaign, and that was a very big deal. I campaigned for Sadlowski, but my real role in labor’s reform was a lot later and in my own union.
NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE UAW
For me, it was 1985-1992 and the New Directions Movement in the United Auto Workers. My part, and the origin of the New Directions Movement, started in the middle of a contract fight with LTV Corporation in Grand Prairie, Texas. The fight started in March, 1984. The first 9 months or so showed everything that was wrong in the UAW and in most of the labor movement.
Our union, Local 848, didn’t have a clue about carrying out a fight. The blame for that goes back to 1947 when the anti-union Taft Hartley law passed. It outlawed the most progressive unionists and left the opportunist “business unionists” in charge. Business unionists had no fight in them. They put their full confidence into working with management and gave up on informing and mobilizing their union members.
Local 848 members, like most Americans, had never fought for anything and certainly not for a contract. “Unionism” consisted of working with management for crumbs from their table, then working on a grievance procedure to keep them from stealing their crumbs back during the life of the contract.
But LTV was a profitable corporation when it offered giant takeaways in 1984 contract negotiations. The Assistant Director of UAW Region 5, Jerry Tucker, was experienced in plenty of fights – not necessarily in unions but in the civil rights movement. He pushed the Negotiating Committee to turn down the contract and design a new strategy for a fight.
Jerry Tucker
Tucker called the strategy “Running the Plant Backward” or “Work to Rule” and called it a new strategy. History-conscious workers, of whom there were hardly any, recognized it as an old-fashioned slowdown. Union members were asked to do exactly what they were required to do and nothing else. “No contract, no overtime!” was our big slogan starting out. On May 21, four workers and I were fired for refusing to work overtime. Tucker had previously arranged to call a walkout when/if anybody got fired. Later, a few dozen more were fired, mostly for participating in the walkout.
Initially, it didn’t work at all. Our local union leadership hadn’t the slightest idea of how to run a slowdown. The membership certainly didn’t know. I don’t even think Jerry Tucker had a clear idea. The big walkout and rally on the day after we were fired netted no more than 300 workers. I counted them carefully. That was about 6% of the bargaining unit! I knew then that we were in a lot more trouble than anybody was saying.
The company implemented their “last and final offer,” which included their takeaways. Then they stopped collecting our dues for us.
WE HAD NO IDEA HOW TO COLLECT UNION DUES!
American unions in 1984 did not have the first clue on how to collect their own dues. They had “dues checkoff” from companies since before World War II. In 1941, Mr Ford voluntarily GAVE dues checkoff to the UAW, because he wanted the union to depend on him financially. It worked.
Local 848 made its biggest, nearly fatal, mistake as soon as it was clear that we had to collect our own dues. Leadership assumed that people would voluntarily come to the union hall and pay their monthly dues.
Let me pause to brag: I told them that people are not accustomed to paying their bills in person. I asked them to send out a monthly bill, but the Financial Secretary told me, “If they won’t come over here and pay their dues, they don’t deserve this union!” I heard that over and over again for the rest of the year while my union went broke. By Christmas, fewer than 20% of our members were caught up on dues. Insiders said it was 10%.
Our financial disaster was hardly the worst part of the story. Our program of “No contract, no overtime” fell flat on its face on the day I was fired. Even though I organized pickets every Saturday morning through that winter, our members grabbed up the overtime. Our top officers did, too. I found out later that the Chairman himself was telling top officers to work overtime!
My part, up to the end of 1984, had been to organize the 65 fired workers and keep them in the struggle. I had zero leadership role in directing the struggle, but I made sure that the firees were not forgotten by getting a big bunch of us to every meeting, by picketing the plant when people went in to work overtime, by publicizing our events, and by helping a series of publicity stunts to keep people thinking about our fight.
Some of the “victors” (firees) at our first public action, June 1984
December was a miserable time for everybody, but especially for the 65 fired workers. Only about 30 of the 65 were doing anything to keep up the fight. News from the International Union was particularly depressing. Leadership told us that the International UAW wanted us to take the concessions and end the struggle, even if some of the firees were sacrificed. One “settlement,” we were told, was negotiated between our UAW International Financial Secretary and LTV management on a golf course!
President Carroll Butler and Assistant Regional Director Jerry Tucker weren’t giving up, but they were certainly ready for some new tactics.
President Butler, Int’l Rep Kinney, and Int’l Rep Medrano
THE LOCAL MAKES A TURN
Our local union leadership did a major turnaround in January. They decided to collect dues inside the plant. Elected union stewards were issued receipt books and every activist we could find was asked to help get the members to pay up.
Think about that!
It wasn’t just a financial decision, or a minor organizational change. It was a turn toward mobilizing the membership – exactly what the union movement hadn’t been doing since “business unionism” took over. It worked, too. Our “percent” of dues-paying members rose steadily from January until we won our victory in July.
As the receipts and cash dollars started pouring into the hall, we bogged down as accountants. Fortunately for the local, I had accountant training, computer training, and I could type. I rigged up a Commodore 64 – it had 64 kilobytes of memory – to two floppy disk readers and kept track of all dues. An extra benefit was being able to tattle on the elected leaders as to who was collecting their dues and who wasn’t. Every time Tucker visited, I could present him with graphs showing which departments and which job families were “on the program” and which weren’t.
By June, 1985, we still didn’t have an impressive “percent” in plain numbers, but my trusty little computer could show that we were pretty solid in certain critical units. For the first time in the entire struggle, we thought we might have the potential to shut LTV down. Leadership called a strike. Management asked for a settlement before we even went out, so the strike lasted only 11 hours!
On July 5, 1985, all the fired workers put on our union shirts and lined up at the LTV gate. We stayed in line while Chairman BJ Meeks took us, one by one, to our proper departments and let us go back to work. I posted a video of this. Our little battle was won!
I have a longer account of the 1984-85 struggle on http://lilleskole.us. On my “GeneLantz” youtube account, I have 52 videos about it. Each has “struggle” in the title.
Our victory was celebrated all through the union movement. I was given credit and a new nickname, “golden fingers” for my typing, accounting and computer work.
I guess that some of us thought we had really helped curve the union movement in a good direction, but we were disappointed in due time.
The most bitter part for me personally came almost immediately. When the 1985 contract was settled, I hoped to keep our super-active fired union members together. But we fell out over how to deal with demands from the International UAW. The new contract penalized the firees by withholding 3 months from our full back pay. We were told, though, that we would not have to pay back the strike pay that we had accepted while we were outside. It balanced out.
But the International UAW demanded that we pay back every cent, immediately! When I protested, a toady little International Rep called me a “freeloader!” I had been standing outside the plant and fighting for my union for one year, one month, one week, and one day; but he called me a “freeloader!”
The firees broke up over this demand. Some of them said they would never pay it because it was grossly unfair. Three of them even got out of the union and became scabs. Some of the better-off firees had the money and paid off right away. I circulated a petition to get a year’s delay while we paid it off in monthly installments, and that’s what I did. But I was not able to get the other firees on that program. We never pulled together again.
I resolved then and there to join a reform movement, if there was one. And there soon was. Riding on the success of Tucker’s “new” tactic at Local 848, he launched the New Directions Movement and ran for Regional Director.
He won that election, but the International was able to keep it all tied up in court, so that Tucker was only able to serve about 1 year of his 3-year term of office.
Meanwhile at Local 848, the International provided an even bigger problem. When we elected officers, we expected our top leaders who had worked with Jerry Tucker to win, to ride their popularity into re-election.
I remember that one of the people who was most against Jerry Tucker’s fightback program ran for local union president right after the 1985 contract was settled. His son was on the Election Committee. A particularly nasty cartoon was circulated against Carroll Butler, the President who carried us through the big 1984-85 fight. I called up the printer to see who had created such a nasty and underhanded attack. The printer told me candidly that it was an International Rep!
The good guys won the election, but, acting on a complaint from the losing candidate’s son on the Election Committee, the UAW International ruled the election illegal and made us hold it over. When a local is forced to hold an election over, the incumbents look bad. President Butler held his office barely, but Chairman BJ Meeks lost. We were furious! My notes at one meeting read, “BJ says int’l forced this local into another election… ‘you have not seen people as vicious as this International!’”
New Directions supporters started holding meetings around the country. At Local 848, we held our meetings after the official union membership meeting. I attended them and, compulsive note taker that I am, kept a lot of notes. I also attended several national NDM meetings.
We had some terrific supporters. Paul Shrader, a close assistant of Walter Reuther’s, supported us. Film maker Michael Moore, fresh from his success with the satirical movie about the UAW, “Roger and Me,” gave us $1,000 and a very nice endorsement speech. Our really big gun was Victor Reuther. The Reuther Brothers were associated with some of the UAW’s biggest historic successes. People told me that Victor was “the best of them.” He certainly stepped up to help Local 848 and was totally committed to New Directions.
Victor made speeches at fund raisers for us. I was pleased to serve as Master of Ceremonies at one of them. Victor also made cheeseboards that we auctioned off to raise money.
A related historic event occurred in the period. The Canadian section of the UAW, carrying some of the same reform program as New Directions, split off and formed the Canadian Autoworkers Union. Victor infuriated the International by speaking at their first convention.
Jerry Tucker always referred to New Directions as “the real Reutherites,” even though the Administrative Caucus (UAW leadership) we were trying to defeat had been set up by Walter Reuther. It was hard to argue with Jerry Tucker when he had the only surviving Reuther brother standing right there with him!
New Directions had a very clear program and solutions to the major issues in the union movement: outsourcing, runaway plants, whipsawing, ”team concept,” new technology, democracy in the union, and giveaway contracts. NDM especially hammered on the idea of “one member, one vote.” As everyone knows, we won that in 2021 in a government-supervised election. I’m glad to get it, but I’d rather that the members had chosen it by voting for New Directions 30 years earlier.
I can’t claim to have been a leader of New Directions. I certainly wasn’t, but I played a role. I tried to line up an obscure UAW Local in the Southern Part of Dallas. It was a battery plant with maybe 50-60 workers. I took the union president out to Steak and Ale at my own expense. I gave him a sales pitch for change, but he voted with the Administrative Caucus.
At Local 848, I wrote and distributed our own New Directions pamphlet called “The Arrow.” I still have a few copies. Jerry Tucker put out a 3-fold pamphlet with parts of the NDM program on it. I have a few copies, including one devoted entirely to “one member one vote.”
At one national meeting, we discussed going all-out to reform the UAW. The argument was over whether or not to run Jerry Tucker for International President. I remember speaking strongly in favor. In fact, I think I made the motion nominating him. Maybe I just motivated for the motion. I remember saying that if Jerry was willing to take all the chances for our cause, why would any of us want to stand in the way?
WHY THEY WERE/ARE AFRAID OF THE UAW INTERNATIONAL
Even though we like to think about the UAW’s great history in organizing and standing up for all workers, especially workers “of color,” the main business, practically the only business, of local UAW officers after 1947 was contract negotiations and enforcement. The International, with their expert reps, lawyers, and top researchers, usually dominated.
For example, take the problem of terminations. When companies terminate a UAW member, we grieve it. Usually, the company forces us to grieve it all the way to arbitration. The professional UAW International Reps and the legal staff, experts that they are, handle most of those arbitrations. Without them, local union officers would feel pretty helpless, and companies would soon be firing anybody they wanted to, especially union officers!
The International UAW sat on top of union democracy, too. I have been told that professional union business agents/reps are not allowed to attend union conventions, but in the UAW they sit right at your table and watch every move you make. Or, worse, they stand behind you. International Reps tell the members when to make a motion, when to make a second, and when and how to vote. Anybody who steps out of line is carefully noted, and they can expect trouble during their next elections, negotiations or arbitrations.
I attended my first convention during the New Directions period. Our International Rep sat at Local 848’s table through the entire convention. BJ Meeks and others bravely voted their own convictions, but the intimidation was heavy. Years later, I attended another national convention, and the International Reps orchestrated literally everything that happened.
Have you ever heard of the Praetorian Guard? They were crack soldiers who were charged with guarding the Roman Emperor after democracy had disappeared. They did a great job. That’s how I see the legions of International Reps in the UAW.
So, one may very well ask, how did UAW active and retired members work up the courage to defy the UAW International and vote for “one-member-one-vote” in 2021? Because the government ran the election and gave us a secret ballot. Secret ballot!
NDM LOST
At the convention, Jerry Tucker failed to win the presidency. Our vote counters had expected it, but they were sure that we would win the directorship of Region 1 (mostly California). In an excruciating evening of hand-counting the votes, we lost that one, too. I took an historic picture of Victor and Sophie Ruther, glassy-eyed in defeat, as UAW President Owen Bieber announced the result.
The UAW then disbanded Region 1, so New Directions lost its strongest foothold. Anybody who had supported New Directions braced for the wrath of the UAW International, from Victor Reuther to the smallest.
As I was never in the circle of leadership, I don’t know what discussions and decisions came about, but I had a personal experience that pointed downward for me. Here’s how I remember it:
UAW Local 848 President Carroll Butler, the stalwart of our 1984-85 contract fight, one of the strongest supporters of New Directions, and I were standing on a hotel veranda looking out over San Diego. Out of the blue, he handed me two $100 bills. He told me to donate it at the next New Directions meeting. He wouldn’t be attending, he said, and he didn’t want anybody to know where the $200 came from.
In other words, one of our bravest and strongest men was disassociating from New Directions. That’s when I knew it was over. I kept trying, but the rigor mortis was already setting in. I still have a copy of a letter I wrote to Jerry Tucker dated October 29, 1992: “Dear Jerry. ND activities at Local 848 have stopped altogether.… Wish I had better news. In solidarity, Gene.” I didn’t get a reply.
END
**
SOME NOTES IN MY FILES. Folder dated 12/19/92 and titled “New Directions.”
3 copies of “The arrow.” I scanned one in Pictures/arrow1192.jpg
I scanned 4 photos: tucker-jerry, tucker-mrsjerry, reuther-victor,
I found a photo of Butler with Roy Kinney & Pancho. Another with Silva. They are in “pictures” now.
Copy of “The Arrow,” January 1991 //I wonder if that’s an error and it was 1992?// “Don’t blame Local 276!” about the whipsawing battle where GM in Arlington beat out Willow Run, Michigan. //I had completely forgotten that I wrote and published “The Arrow” to build New Directions in North Texas. It was a 1 page, letter sized, newsletter. Looks like my printer was a dot-matrix.//
Handwritten notes from 7/21/91 NDM meeting starting at 15:15. “There are 18 folks here.” “Dot goes to St Louis meeting next Thursday. Dick proposes that our cake sale money go to Dot for her expenses. Passes.” “Urges New Directions meeting at 2 on 3rd Sunday of August. Passes” 23 people here.
Handwritten notes from 8/18/91 “Joe Silva says agents in Local 148 are circulating an anti-Tucker leaflet that says Tucker negotiated a contract here that cut out overtime. Butler sent back a a letter pointing out that 1) we still have overtime 2) tucket didn’t negotiate it.” “BJ [Meeks] gives history of NDM: fightback at 848 was origin. Int’l made deals, agreed to give up COLA. Afterward, we decided int’l should be accountable, just as a local is… Not just Jerry Tucker… “Really what NDM is all about is fightback” –BJ Meeks.
“Dot reports on national coordinating meeting. Ken Fout of TDU, Ray Rogers [subject of movie Norma Rae], Dan LaBotz, Jane Slaughter all there helping to formulate ideas and experiences.”
“ND campaign platform 1) internal democratization & reform 2) collateral bargaining 3) organizing 4) pol action and relations with other unions 5) internationalism” “Vote was 14-3 in favor of a national candidate. 3 felt the movement had not come far enough along.” “Glen Plankett of Local 148 reports that they want no less than 7 days to review contract.”
“Nov 2nd in Detroit will be national meeting of ND” “Ralph says we must stop automatically endorsing democrats. Says reactionary Republican Dick Armey is the best rep he ever had.” “BJ mentions possibility of getting Arrow out through interplant mail.” (never happened)
Copy of “The Arrow”: October 1991 “Local 848 getting ready to win” includes a short article “New Directions national conference. UAW members are invited to attend the 3rd Annual National Conference of the New Directions Movement in Detroit November 1-3. “The discussion going on in the New Directions Movement is designed to reverse the general downward trend in strength of our international union. NDM has proposed positive solutions to problems of outsourcing, runaway plants, whipsawing, team concept, new technology, democracy in the union, and giveaway contracts. Registration for the conference is $35 per person. Hotel reservations have been arranged for $39 per night. Air fares are cheaper when reservations are made as early as possible. For more information call (3140 531-2900 (NDM office).”
Copy of “The Arrow,” November 1991 Headlines: “The Race is On! New Directions will challenge International in 1992!” It advertises a ND meeting at 848 on Nov 17 “after the membership meeting.” “Checks should be made to ‘New Directions’ and sent to PO Box 6876, St Louis, Missouri, 63144” //I could scan this//
Copy of “The Arrow”: May 1992 Calls for a May 17 NDM meeting on May 17 “after the union meeting.” Includes a call from Jerry Tucker to support 13,000 Caterpillar workers who had struck through the winter.
Excerpt from “A Troublemakers Handbook” named “Inside Strategies” The story of contract victories the UAW leadership does not want told.” Reprinted by New Directions Educational Fund. There are some quotes from Jerry Tucker. There are a lot of quotes from Joe Silva, who was always carried away with his fantasy version of what was really happening. It paints a much rosier picture of the struggle. In this version, everything we did worked great. In reality, it was a lot harder.
Inside strategies, in this version, were first developed by Tucker at Moog, then at Schweitzer and Bell Helicopter before it was successful at LTV.
A NDM three-fold leaflet. UAW a “one-party state.” “Steelworkers, Mineworkers, Mailhandlers, and now even the Teamsters have one-person, one-vote elections for national officials. Why not the UAW?”
Another 3-fold leaflet. This one has a quote from Vic: “Our union is drifting aimlessly. No longer democratic. Trapped in the corporate agenda. Unwilling to fight for our members today. The UAW needs new policies and new leadership. Through the fight for true democratic voting rights at the rank and file level, and for a true vision of a new direction, we can fulfill our historic destiny and restore real accountability and solidarity.” Signed “Victor Reuther, UAW Co-Founder”
This leaflet is all about “one person one vote.”
Three lightly printed sheets showing contributions to NDM from Elaine and me. Includes our $5/month contributions and my record on button sales.
Very lightly printed letter dated 10/29/92 from me to Jerry Tucker. “Dear Jerry. ND activities at Local 848 have stopped altogether. …one page single spaced… Wish I had better news. In solidarity, Gene”
Every New Years, I’ve tried to get people to make predictions. Hardly any of them will. The best I have received so far is a stock broker who called KNON. After I prodded him, he responded, “The rich will get richer.” That’s about the safest prediction I ever heard.
My 2022 Predictions:
Massive evictions will put millions into the ‘homeless’ category.
Vigilantes and illegal militias will flourish.
Political violence will become commonplace.
Police will tend to allow the anti-worker outrages to flame, while suppressing any activity of pro-worker forces. This was the precedent set in Germany in the 1920s and has generally held.
Poverty and hunger will grow, especially among children.
The formal educational system will continue to deteriorate as Republicans undermine them with schemes like “charter” schools and assaults on officials. More and more parents will begin to seek out internet solutions.
Big corporations will try to privatize the internet and everything else, including all utilities and municipal services.
Persistent inflation will force the federal reserve to cut back on “quantitative easing” and near-zero interest rates. Stocks and bonds will crumble but the “real economy” won’t be hit so hard.
Little if anything will get done about the environmental crisis. Freak weather disasters will increase and worsen.
As world economies teeter, governments will advocate new wars.
Omicron will hit early and hard. After it peaks early in the year, a solid majority of Americans will have some immunity from vaccination or from having already suffered through COVID. By late summer, it will no longer be the top of every news story
The democratic party will continue unraveling while the Republican Party will grow more homogeneous and harder.
Independent movements, particularly the women’s movement, will grow. We will see a revival of unemployed and homeless advocacy groups similar to those of the 1930s.
These independent movements will be larger, better informed, and better integrated than anything we have ever seen in history. This is because people are better informed and have infinitely better communications.
Unions will not initially lead these powerful independent movements. Unions will be drawn into the larger movement. They will play an important role in guiding and financing the movement.
The 2022 elections will show people voting increasingly for 3rd or 4th parties, Greens, Working Family, Democrats, and Independents.
One thing that the strong progressive organizations will agree on is this: vote for no Republican!
Americans will begin to experiment with the kind of political strikes that have been known in other countries.
And slowly, the way forward will begin to show itself.
–-Gene Lantz
I’m on KNON’s “Workers Beat” talk show at 9AM Central Time every Saturday. The program and a supplemental “Workers Beat Extra” are podcast on Soundcloud.com every Wednesday. My January 5 podcast includes these predictions. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my personal web site
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