Staley; The Fight
for A New American Labor Movement
By Steven K. Ashby and C.J. Hawking
Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, $25 paper.
STALEY RECOUNTS THE epic struggle of workers in a corn-processing
plant in Decatur, Illinois in the 1990s and provides insight into
how a pivotal struggle ended in defeat. That ending was not
inevitable.
Steven K. Ashby and C.J. Hawking outline the step-by-step process
by which the workers confronted management and built solidarity at
the workplace and within their community. In the process they
educated themselves, their families and friends and developed
innovative tactics to sustain that struggle over several years.
The authors tell the history of a struggle in which they were
heavily involved as supporters.* This gives them knowledge of
several key discussions that it would be difficult for most
“outsiders” to obtain.
Ashby and Hawking preface their story with the 1990 death
of Jim Beals at Staley’s corn-processing plant. Once a
family-owned corporation, the company had been bought up by
London-based multinational sugar conglomerate Tate & Lyle two
years beforehand. As management pushed to get things done the
cheapest way possible, safety training, testing or having equipment
maintained and ready were placed on the back burner.
When OSHA settled with Tate & Lyle over Beals’
death, it fined the company a mere $4,000. Stunned, Allied
Industrial Workers Local 837 officers then wrote to management
denouncing the lack of safety standards and refused to participate
in any further training or record keeping because these tasks were
only “a company dog-and-pony show.” Workers realized they were
under attack; “Remember Jim Beals” became their rally cry.
Well before the 1992 contract negotiations opened, management
announced a draconian attendance policy, informed the union of a
long list of offenses it considered grounds for immediate dismissal
and replaced union contractors with nonunion ones. Clearly the
company strategy was to prepare for the next contract, in which it
wanted to defeat the union.
Management announced construction of a 3.5 mile pipeline between
the plant and the Archer Daniels Midland corn-processing plant,
workers were ordered to write up procedure manuals, outsiders were
assigned to watch production processes, the company began mandatory
“state of the plant” meetings to lecture workers on how work
rules would have to be changed so the plant would remain
competitive, and the Chicago-based union-busting law firm Seyfarth,
Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson were retained as the company’s
bargaining team.
Staley’s first two chapters sketch the buildup to the 1992
contract negotiations. The following three detail how the workers
prepared to defend their lives, their working conditions and the
benefits won over decades. They began by voting to increase their
dues from $18 to $34, and later to $100 a month. They invited labor
educators to help them understand the state of the industry and
talked with other trade unionists who had faced similar battles —
most particularly Larry Solomon, president of UAW Local 751,
representing Caterpillar workers in Decatur.
Early in 1992 the Cat workers ended their strike when the UAW
International ordered members to return to work without a contract.
The Staley workers wanted to analyze that defeat.
Preparing for Battle
Dave Watts, the newly installed Local 837 president explained his
basic principle, “the inverted triangle.”
“In corporate America everything comes down from the top. With
the union, it’s the other way around. It’s the bottom up.” In
Local 837, said Watts, “all the direction comes from the floor [as
the Staley workers called the union membership]. Not the
international, not the president, not the union leadership. The
floor governs.” (36)
As a result of having a local leadership interested in building a
grassroots campaign, it seemed natural to involve family and friends
in their deliberations. If the work force was going to have to take
on an aggressive corporation, everyone had to know the issues and
everyone was being asked to contribute one way or another.
Union meetings were not “for members only” but for family
members and close friends as well. By the time the company
eliminated union dues checkoff, union members and their families
were so well organized and involved that 97% voluntarily paid their
dues.
Local 837 decided to bring in two important resources. The first was
Ray Rogers, whose corporate campaign was designed to publicly attack
the corporation from every angle until it concedes. “Crisis in
Decatur,” a four-page brochure he first produced for the local,
explained that the Staley workers’ fight was about dignity,
respect and safety on the job. Further, it was a fight to protect
the Decatur community against a multinational corporation and
detailed the corporations, including Archer Daniels Midland, which
was collaborating with Tate & Lyle’s union-busting strategy.
Through a campaign that began with a press conference and massive
door-to-door leafleting and mailings, the union was able to get
their side of the story out. Later on Rogers researched the
corporation’s connections with banks and targeted two for boycott.
The second was Jerry Tucker, who taught union members how to
confront management with a “work-to-rule” campaign. Tucker
adopted this tactic from the Industrial Workers of World, who
perfected “the conscious withdrawal of efficiency,” by
instructing members that they should follow company rules to the
letter, take no initiative, work at a normal rate of speed, and give
no advice or help to supervisors. They should show management that
the membership is unified and determined by wearing union T-shirts
on designated days, holding plant gate rallies and demanding group
grievance hearings. (47)
Of course management retaliated. They instituted rotating 12-hour
shifts, harassed workers at mandatory meetings and fired union
activists. The workers attempted to take control of the meetings by
trying out a number of different approaches, by remaining silent or,
conversely, creating a din by suddenly shouting out questions. My
personal favorite was when the workers at a departmental meeting put
on Groucho Marx masks. (67)
Staley was prepared to bring in scabs, but they were caught off
guard by the work-to-rule campaign that energized Local 837 members.
Even the firings didn’t seem to demoralize them — the union had
set up a Casualty Fund so that any members suspended or fired for
union activity were still paid their salary. Meanwhile the company
admitted production was down more than one-third; Local 837
calculated it was halved.
The War Erupts
After eight months of an escalating in-plant campaign, a small
incident — changing a burned-out light bulb — led to a safety
stand down, where the majority of the day shift walked off the job
and over to the union hall for a mass safety meeting. The union
voted to return the next morning, June 17, 1993, following a
one-hour rally in front of the plant gates. But management then
demanded each worker sign a statement agreeing to the contract the
union had collectively rejected, and all but two returned to the
union hall.
Of course the National Labor Relations Act prohibits employers from
bargaining directly with individuals rather than with the union, so
the company was forced to relent. After being out 32 hours, workers
triumphantly marched into the plant singing “Solidarity
Forever.”
Local 837, in coordination with UAW 751, had been planning a human
chain linking their two plants for June 26. Joined by a 50-car
caravan of Caterpillar workers from Peoria and workers from Chicago,
Milwaukee and St. Paul, 4,000 people covered the 2.6 mile distance.
It was to be the first of many solidarity caravans to Decatur.
The following morning Staley management launched their plan: at 3am
night shift workers were escorted to the gates and locked out. Some
were strip searched. The day shift was turned back at the gate.
Ashby and Hawking remark that from that moment forward “the
union hall became the anchor, the rallying place where workers would
come together to strategize, to support one another, to hold
debates, and to make decisions.” (77)
Seven hundred and fifty workers were on the street, many having
worked at the plant for more than 20 years. Within a week the local
transformed the creative energy and rank-and-file initiative of the
work-to-rule campaign outward into organizing support beyond
Decatur.
Sixty-two members signed up to be “Road Warriors.” Jerry
Tucker gave them some basic training in how to talk in front of an
audience and (whether they signed up for a day trip or longer) off
they went.
Within five weeks the AFL-CIO Executive Board, which declared its
solidarity with the locked-out workers and called upon its member
affiliates to provide assistance. In addition to fundraising, the
warriors asked their audiences to come to Decatur for rallies, to
form “Solidarity with Staley Committees,” to adopt a striker and
to support their corporate campaign against Tate & Lyle.
The authors document many of the additional programs the local
initiated — organizing demonstrations, setting up a food bank and
the adopt a striker program, running local labor candidates,
organizing a city-wide labor coalition, challenging the company’s
tax breaks (and wining), encouraging the development of the
Women’s Support Group and welcoming clergy support.
One unique chapter details the difficult road the local’s
African-American workers traveled in order to overcome
discrimination from both management and fellow workers. While the
plant opened in the 1930s, Black men were not hired at Staley until
the late 1960s and Black women nearly a decade later — as a result
of the civil rights and feminist movements. At the time of the
lockout 15% of Decatur’s population was African American, but in
the plant it was only half that.
Discrimination existed in job assignments, promotion, overtime,
and even whether the union would vote to take a Black member’s
case to arbitration. Sexual harassment was a problem for white
women, but an even greater issue for Black women. When Lyle &
Tate began to impose harsh working conditions, many African-American
workers felt that suddenly whites were being forced to endure
situations they had always faced.
Even those few African Americans who attended union meetings over
the spring and summer of 1992 sat in a group, silently, at the back
of the hall. Despite this profound alienation, as the authors
recount, “Many of the African American activists, then, worked to
rule not so much in solidarity with the union but as a stand against
the company in spite of the union.” (169)
Two longtime African-American women workers who were consistently
active and outspoken — as they had been for equality inside the
plant — were Jeanette Hawkins and Lorell Patterson. But even the
lockout did not alter the sense of alienation for the majority.
After observing racial dynamics at union meetings, C.J. Hawking
suggested to Dave Watts that Black workers might want to have their
own meetings. Sixteen came together in November 1993 to talk about
the lockout and what that meant within Decatur’s Black community.
Hawking describes the process whereby these workers decided to
build a Black Community Awareness Committee. It is a remarkable
story and one of the few times in which racial issues within the
union are concretely laid out. Although the formation of the BCAC
was a positive step and enabled African-American workers to have
their own voice and become a force in the union, the authors are
careful not to claim a total transformation of the local. This
chapter alone is worth the price of the book!
Subsequent chapters outline important elements in the solidarity
campaigns members carried out during the long lockout. Many of these
— such as the ”Road Warriors” trips — were launched early on
and continued to expand. Chapters take up both the internal union
discussions and the work the campaigns carried out. These include
the use of civil disobedience, seeking solidarity from unions and
communities across the country, confronting management at
shareholders meetings in London and exposing the close ties
Decatur’s city government maintained with the corporations.
Solidarity Threatens Bureaucracy
By 1994 two other unions in Decatur were walking their own picket
lines — UAW workers at Caterpillar and rubber workers at
Bridgestone/Firestone. Twenty-five percent of the city’s
industrial workforce was on strike or locked out and ties,
particularly between the Staley and Cat locals, were close. However,
this grassroots solidarity disturbed their Internationals caused
tension within the local labor council. Each official body thought
the locals should be interacting only through their channels.
For those of us who attended various support rallies or made the
trek to Decatur for one of the mass demonstrations, the most
important aspect of Staley is the authors’ ability to explain the
divisions within the local and the labor movement over the course of
the lockout. This includes problems that developed with the
corporate campaign strategy after its initial victories in forcing
two banks to sever their ties, the failure of the AFL-CIO to bring
its resources to the embattled local, and the tensions within the
local as conservatives challenged the more radical leaders.
This last battle took place over re-voting on basically the same
contract they had rejected in October 1992. In June 1995 members
voted 57% against it, giving conservatives a hope that if they
persisted they could win a majority.
At the end of 1993, during the course of the lockout, the Allied
Industrial Workers, with a dwindling membership of 48,000, merged
into the United Paperworkers International Union (UPIU); Local 837
became Local 7837.
Before the merger UPIU had been helpful in turning out its
members and carrying articles on their struggle in their monthly
newspaper. But once the merger went through, the International’s
leaders explained to Dave Watts and the local’s Executive Board
that they would have to accept concessions just as other UPIU locals
had been forced to do. They felt that if the International took over
negotiations and made compromises, the membership could get back to
work. (See Chapter 14.)
Within a year, UPIU ordered Local 7837 to sever their
relationship with Ray Rogers and remove Jerry Tucker from the
bargaining table. Chapter 18 then recounts the gory details by which
the conservatives in Local 7837 appealed to the International to
take over bargaining. Throughout 1995 they campaigned against the
most consistent activists, the “Road Warriors,” implying that
they loved the limelight and were probably living high off the hog
— so why would they want to settle?
Led by Jim Shinall, the conservatives spent time with workers who
had found other jobs. They could vote yes, knowing they would not
have to work under a draconian contract but could take a severance
package and be done with Staley.
The authors quote Dave Watts as seeing the membership by at this
stage as “being chewed” up. (263) Yet the corporate campaign
against Miller brewery resulted in not renewing their contract with
Staley and the next target, Pepsi, was feeling the heat and had
announced that if the labor dispute was not settled by the end of
the year, it would not renew its contract.
In October 1995 the new AFL-CIO president, John Sweeney, elected
on the hopes of a renewed labor movement, promised to make the
Staley fight “the top of our priority list” with 40 AFL-CIO
organizers. (260) But with the UPIU not behind it, the task
force didn’t happen.
Analyzing the Defeat
Early December, the day before the Caterpillar workers were to vote
on their contract, the UAW International called off the strike.
Although 80% voted the contract down, Cat workers returned to work a
second time without a contract.
Local 7837’s elections were scheduled for December 11 and UPIU
officials, who felt that the union “had no leadership,” were
advising the conservatives, who were running Shinall for president.
(216) Feeling more and more isolated, members voted him in and
before Christmas members voted 286-226 to accept the concessionary
contract.
The book’s final two chapters recount the aftermath and analyze
why the authors agree with the Staley militants and supporters that
the workers had been within striking distance of a victory. Having
lost Miller, a major customer, and about to lose Pepsi, Lyle &
Tate was risking a corporate campaign targeting Coke, its third
large customer. I’m less convinced of this because I think they
are correct in pinpointing the role of UPIU leaders in subverting
any victory.
Ashby and Hawking realize that the local made crucial mistakes,
particularly on questions of prioritization and timing. They feel
strongly that the decision to target Staley’s corporate connection
to State Farm was “obscure and difficult to explain to
supporters.” They see it as a poor target that took a great deal
of energy at a crucial moment. I know I found it a puzzling campaign
at the time, particularly given the very energetic campaigns that
were later mounted around Millers and Pepsi.
The second criticism is that the local was unable to stop
production through massive civil disobedience. However, as the
authors note, it is difficult for one local to mount such an effort
when the International opposes such an action.
Their final criticism is that the local was unable to sustain its
high level of membership organization over the 908 days of the
lockout. It seems to me that this, as the authors note in softening
their second criticism, would have been difficult to accomplish
without the backing of both the International and the AFL-CIO. But I
think it does strengthen their first criticism of how essential it
would have been to launch a well-targeted corporate campaign during
the earliest phases of the struggle.
Staley — whether one was a supporter of the locked-out workers
at the time and followed this struggle closely, or is just
discovering this important moment of recent labor history — is
important to read. It looks at not only what did happen but the
possibilities of what could have happened. It illustrates how a
labor struggle in one local can become a social movement. It shows
the courage of ordinary people who are transformed by their
experiences, and hopefully it will also inspire a new generation to
take up the fight to transform unions into institutions that are run
by workers in their own interests.
*A number of articles by one or both of the authors appeared in
ATC at the time. See “Decatur Labor Fights On” in ATC 53, “The
June 25th Rally in Decatur” in ATC 58 and “Staley Workers End
Lockout“ in ATC 61.
ATC 149, November-December 2010
