blacksmiths and welders: comment

Blacksmiths and Welders: CommentAuthor(s): Herbert J. LahneSource: Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Jan., 1973), pp. 860-862Published by: Cornell University, School of Industrial & Labor RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2521689 .

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Blacksmiths and Welders

Comment

AN ARTICLE in the April 1972 issue of this Review by Bernard Mergen'

disputes my conclusion in an earlier article 2 that the decisions made by the AFL Railway Employees Department, the AFL convention, and the Wilson Board of Arbitration concerning jurisdiction over welders were "political decisions-made to keep the peace, to minimize conflict, and to confine whatever conflict arose to the fringe areas of union jurisdiction lest it engulf whole unions."3

Mergen proceeds to assert that my interpretation "illustrates the scientist's problem in trying to explain change in the real world without looking at the events from the perspective of the participants."4 He then goes on to contend that "rather than being purely practical and political judgments, the "hammer- and-saw" decision and the Wilson award were impelled by failure to foresee the growth of welding, contempt for welding as an unskilled and undesirable occupation, and fear that a union having exclusive jurisdiction over all welders would become an industrial rather than a craft organization.'

1Bernard Mergen, "Blacksmiths and Welders: Identity and Phenomenal Change," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 25, No. 3 (April 1972), pp. 354-362.

2Herbert J. Lahne, "The Welder's Search for Craft Recognition," Industrial and Labor Re- lations Review, Vol. 11, No. 4 (July 1958), pp. 591-607.

lbid., p. 601. Mergen neglects to note that I called this a political decision in the best sense.

4Mergen, "Blacksmiths and Welders," p. 358.

There are several difficulties with Mer- gen's interpretation of both the events and my article. A simple reading of my article refutes the contention that I did not look at events "from the perspective of the participants." The difference between Mergen and me is that he looks at events almost entirely from the view- point of the union he is interested in- namely, the Blacksmiths.

The TWVilson award was not "impelled by failure to foresee the growth of welding," although the board in all likelihood did not have this foresight. The Wilson Board of Arbitration was not set up to chart a new course for the settlement of jurisdictional disputes in the AFL. It was designed to decide unsettled disputes over welding and not to devise some entirely new concept of jurisdiction. In this context, it had to and did work within the whole framework of principles and past decisions of the AFL. All those who have studied the history of jurisdictional disputes in the AFL recognize the importance of the internal political power factor in the handling of these disputes. It is not necessary to go into detail here on this subject. My article covers the field and demonstrates that the decisions in regard to welders

5The characterization of the Wilson award as the "hammer-or-saw" decision comes from the original decision of the AFL that "'acetylene welding' is a process, and that 'acetylene welder' is a tool, which can no more come under the exclusive jurisdiction of any one trade or calling than the hammer or the saw." AFL, Proceedings, 1916, p. 278.

860



COMMUNICATIONS 861

were entirely in accord with established AFL practice and history.6

Did "contempt for welding as an unskilled and undesirable occupation" play any role in the Wilson award? One could not conclude this from reading the text of the Wilson award. As my article points out,7 the voluminous proceedings of the Railway Employees De- partment and the AFL show a surprising lack of discussion on whether or not welding was skilled work or the welder was a craftsman. The Wilson award makes only one brief and not very useful statement on this point-nowhere does it discuss training time, job require- ments, or the like. Mergen's own cita- tions in regard to the skill and desir- ability of welding as an occupation hard- ly support his position on this point as regards the Wilson award-in fact they contradict his position at one point.9 Finally, in this area, one might ask why, if welding was unskilled and undesirable, were the unions (including the Black- smiths) fighting about jurisdiction over welding? Again, anyone familiar with jurisdictional disputes within the AFL knows the answer. They were fighting over jobs-the control of the job has always been the basic element in these disputes.

The last point in Mergen's characterization of the Wilson award concerns the "fear that a union having exclusive jurisdiction over all welders would be-

6Mergen himself, perhaps inadvertently, recog- nizes the power factor. He writes that the Rail- way Employees Department, in the four years following 1912, usually gave jurisdiction over welders "to the strongest union in a particular shop." Mergen, "Blacksmiths and Welders," p. 357.

7Lahne, "The Welder's Search for Craft Rec- ognition," p. 604.

8Ibid. 9Mergen, "Blacksmiths and Welders," pp. 358-

359.

come an industrial rather than a craft organization." No evidence is offered in support of this contention. Unless my understanding of industrial unionism is faulty, an industrial union requires an industry. There is not now and never has been a welding indutstry.

To return now to the original point of whether my characterization of the Wilson award, as stated in my article, or Mergen's characterization, as stated above, is correct, one need only turn to the statement of William Green, presi- dent of the AFL. At the 1940 convention, he reviewed the history of the AFL atti- tude toward welders and summed it up as follows: We who have been living with this problem know much about it, and the facts are that we have endeavored to eliminate jurisdictional disputes in that field. We did that by pursuing this policy... that no one organization should have jurisdiction over welding, but that all metal trades ... would be accorded the right to do welding ...that was decided upon for the purpose of reducing or eliminating the bare possibility of a fight between these organizations as to which ones should do the welding.10 Even Mergen will admit that there was more than a "bare possibility of a fight."

One final note. The final seCtion of the Mergen article provides some information about independent unions of welders and their attempts to affiliate with the AFL. Unfortunately, whether in- tended or not, the reader is left with the impression that after 1945 there was nothing left of independent unions of welders. This is not so. The union direc- tories published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show the existence of an independent union each year from 1947 to 1969. Originally called the United Air- craft Welders of America and later the

10AFL, Proceedings, as quoted in Lahne, "The Welder's Search for Craft Recognition," p. 600. Italics added.



862 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW

United Weldors International Union, this union finally merged with the Oper- ating Engineers in 1969.1" Reports filed with the U.S. Department of Labor under the LMRDA indicate a member- ship of about 1,500 in 1960, rising to some 2,300 by 1969 in seventeen locals.12

11U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletins Nos. 901 (1947), 937 (1948), 980 (1950), 1127 (1953), 1185 (1955), 1222 (1957), 1267 (1959), 1320 (1962), 1395 (1964), 1493 (1966), 1596 (1968), 1665 (1970) (Washington, D.C.: G.P.O., dates listed).

12U.S. Department of Labor, Labor-Manage- ment Services Administration, Register of Re-

A 1952 directory of independent unions shows several independent welder unions, including the one mentioned above, and one (Associated Welders of Western New York) which is still in existence.13

HERBERT J. LAHNE Chief Division of Research Labor-Management Service Administration U.S. Department of Labor

IPorting Labor Organizations, 1968 and annual financial reports filed under the LMRDA.

"3Office of Independent Unions of the Wage Stabilization Board, Directory of Independent Unions (Washington, D.C., June 1952).

Reply ERBERT J. LAHNE'S quarrel with my

El.. interpretation of the AFL Execu- tive Council decision in 1916, and the Wilson award in 1918 regarding jurisdiction over acetylene welding appears to rest on his assertion that these decisions "were, in the best sense, political decisions-made to keep the peace, to minimize conflict, and to confine whatever conflict arose to the fringe areas of union jurisdiction lest it engulf whole unions."1 I readily confess that I do not know what a political decision in the "best sense" is, especially when the decisions in question helped to destroy one union and perpetually frustrated the attempts of independent welder unions to affiliate with the AFL. The fact that there are still independent welder unions only underscores the unsettled legacy of 1916.

Since certain assumptions about the nature of the evidence lie at the heart of our differences, I thank Lahne for an

lHerbert J. Lahne, "The Welder's Search for Craft Recognition," Industrial and Labor Rela- tions Review, Vol. 11, No. 4 (July 1958), p. 601.

opportunity to expand my original com- ments. "Practical political considera- tions"2 are made by men on the basis of their perceptions of issues at a specific moment, and the only way we can hope to understand why they act as they do is to try to reconstruct their concepts of reality and their definitions of problems. In his article, Lahne relies on two sources: definitions of craft and of welding made chiefly by government agencies twenty to forty years after the decisions in question and discussions of the jurisdictional disputes of 1912-1918 over welding drawn exclusively from the Pro- ceedings of the Railway Employees De- partment and the AFL Convention Pro- ceedings of 1916, 1919, 1940, and 1941. Certainly it does not increase one's con- fidence in Lahne as a historian to see him use William Green's explanation twenty-five years after the fact as the capstone of his argument.3 Nor can I accept his conclusion that "whatever words were used to rationalize this essen-

2Ibid., p. 605. 'Ibid., p. 600.



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