George Meany | |
|---|---|
 Meanyc. 1950-56 | |
| 1st President of theAFL–CIO | |
| In office December 4, 1955 – November 19, 1979 | |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Lane Kirkland |
| 5th President of the American Federation of Labor | |
| In office November 25, 1952 – December 4, 1955 | |
| Preceded by | William Green |
| Succeeded by | Office abolished |
| 2nd Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of Labor | |
| In office October 12, 1939 – November 25, 1952 | |
| Preceded by | Frank Morrison |
| Succeeded by | William F. Schnitzler |
| President of the New York State Federation of Labor | |
| In office August 29, 1934 – October 12, 1939 | |
| Preceded by | Emanuel Koveleski |
| Succeeded by | Thomas J. Lyons |
| Personal details | |
| Born | William George Meany (1894-08-16)August 16, 1894 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | January 10, 1980(1980-01-10) (aged 85) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Resting place | Gate of Heaven Cemetery |
| Spouse | Eugenia McMahon Meany |
| Occupation | Labor leader |
William George Meany (August 16, 1894 – January 10, 1980) was an Americanlabor union administrator for 57 years. He was a vital figure in the creation of theAFL–CIO and served as its first president, from 1955 to 1979.
Meany, the son of a union plumber, became a plumber himself at a young age. Within a decade, he was a full-time union official. As an officer of theAmerican Federation of Labor, he represented the AFL on theNational War Labor Board duringWorld War II. He held the position of AFL president from 1952 to 1955.
In 1952, Meany proposed a merger of the AFL with theCongress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). He managed the negotiations until the merger was completed in 1955, creating the largest federation of unions in the United States. He wasAFL–CIO president for the next 24 years.
Meany had a reputation for integrity and consistent opposition to corruption in thelabor movement,[1] and stronganti-communism. He was one of the best-known union leaders in the U.S. during the mid-20th century.[2]
Meany was born into a Roman Catholic family inHarlem,[3]New York City on August 16, 1894, the second of 10 children.[4] His parents were Michael Meany and Anne Cullen Meany, who were both American-born and of Irish descent.[2] His ancestors had immigrated to the United States during the 1850s. His father was a plumber and served as president of his plumber's union local.[5] Michael Meany was also a precinct level activist in theDemocratic Party.[6]
Meany grew up in thePort Morris neighborhood ofThe Bronx, where his parents had relocated when he was five years old.[6] Always called "George", he learned that his real first name was William only when he got a work permit as a teenager.[6] Meany quit high school at age 16 to become a plumber like his father,[7] beginning work as a plumber's helper.[4] He then served a five-year apprenticeship as a plumber and got his journeyman's certificate[5] in 1917, with Local 463United Association of Plumbers and Steamfitters of the United States and Canada.[2]
His father died ofheart failure in 1916 after a bout ofpneumonia. When Meany's older brother joined theU.S. Army in 1917, George became the sole source of income for his mother and six younger siblings.[6] He supplemented his income for a while by playing as a semiprofessional baseball catcher.[6] In 1919, he married Eugenia McMahon, a garment worker and a member of theInternational Ladies Garment Workers Union.[2] They had three daughters.[4]
In 1920, Meany was elected to the executive board of Local 463 of the Plumber's Union. In 1922, he became a full-time business agent for the local, which had 3,600 members at that time.[6] Meany later stated that he had never walked apicket line during his plumber's union days,[6][8] explaining that his original plumber's union never needed to picket,because the employers never attempted to replace the workers.[9]
In 1923, he was elected secretary of the New York City Building Trades Council, the city federation of unions representing construction workers. He won a court injunction against anindustry lockout in 1927, which was then considered an innovative tactic for a union, and was opposed by many of the older union administrators.[6]
In 1934, he became president of the New York State Federation of Labor, the statewide coalition of trade unions. During his first year of lobbying inAlbany, the state capital, 72 bills that he promoted to the state legislature were enacted into law, and he developed a close working relationship with GovernorHerbert H. Lehman.[4]
He developed a reputation for honesty, diligence and the ability to testify effectively before legislative hearings and to speak well to the press.[6] In 1936, he cofounded theAmerican Labor Party, a pro-union political party active in New York, along withDavid Dubinsky andSidney Hillman, partly to organize support among union socialists for the re-election that year of PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt and mayorFiorello La Guardia .[8]
Three years later, he relocated to Washington, D.C., to become national secretary-treasurer of theAmerican Federation of Labor,[7] where he served AFL presidentWilliam Green.DuringWorld War II, Meany was one of the permanent representatives of the AFL to theNational War Labor Board.[6] During the war, he established close relationships with prominent anticommunists in the Americanlabor movement, includingDavid Dubinsky,Jay Lovestone andMatthew Woll.[6] In October 1945, he organized the AFL boycott of the founding conference of theWorld Federation of Trade Unions, which welcomed participation by labor unions from theUSSR[6] and was later called acommunist front.[10]
Thelabor strikes of 1945-1946, which were organized to a large extent by CIO unions, resulted in passage of theTaft Hartley Act in 1947, which was perceived widely as anti-union. One provision required union officials to sign loyalty oaths affirming that they were not communists; this had a major effect on the CIO unions. Meany, in opposition toJohn L. Lewis and other leftist union leaders,[11] replied that he would "go further and sign an affidavit that I was never a comrade to the comrades" since he had always ostracized communists.[4] Within a year, most U.S. union administrators unaffiliated with the Communist Party signed the affidavit, later upheld by the Supreme Court, which ruled in 1949 that the Communist Party was unique among American political parties in swearing allegiance to a foreign power.[12][13]
When Green's health began failing in 1951, Meany gradually assumed day-to-day operations of the AFL.[14] He became president of the American Federation of Labor in 1952 upon Green's death.[7]
Meany quickly took effective control of the AFL, and proposed to merge with the CIO.[15] It took longer forWalter Reuther to complete his control of the CIO,[8] but when he did he became a willing partner in the merger negotiations.[8]
It took Meany three years to negotiate the merger, and he had to overcome significant opposition.John L. Lewis of theUnited Mine Workers termed the merger a "rope of sand", and his union refused to join the AFL–CIO.[16]Jimmy Hoffa, second in command of the Teamster's Union, protested, "What's in it for us? Nothing!"[16] However, the Teamsters complied with the merger initially.Mike Quill, president of theTransport Workers Union of America also fought the merger,[16] saying that it amounted to a capitulation to the "racism, racketeering andraiding" of the AFL.[8]
Fearing a drawn-out negotiation process, Meany decided on a "short route" to reconciliation. This meant all AFL and CIO unions would be accepted into the new organization "as is", with all conflicts and overlaps to be sorted out after the merger.[17] Meany further relied on a small, select group of advisors to craft the necessary agreements. The draft constitution was written primarily by AFL Vice PresidentMatthew Woll and CIO General CounselArthur Goldberg, while the joint policy statements were written by Woll, CIO Secretary-Treasurer James Carey, CIO vice presidents David McDonald andJoseph Curran, Brotherhood of Railway Clerks PresidentGeorge McGregor Harrison, and Illinois AFL–CIO PresidentReuben Soderstrom.[18]
Meany's efforts came to fruition in December 1955 with a joint convention in New York City that merged the two federations, creating theAFL–CIO, with Meany elected as president.[19] Termed Meany's "greatest achievement" byTime magazine,[20] the new federation had 15 million members. Only two million US workers were members of unions remaining outside the AFL–CIO.[16]
In 1953, theInternational Longshoremen's Association, accused of racketeering, was expelled from the AFL, an early example of Meany's efforts against corruption and organized crime in unions. After internal reform, it was readmitted[4] to the now-merged AFL–CIO, in 1959.[citation needed]
Meany also fought corruption in the AFL affiliatedUnited Textile Workers of America from 1952. In 1957, he reported that the president of that union had been stealing more than $250,000. Meany also appointed an independent monitor to oversee reform of the union.[1]
Concerns about corruption and the influence of organized crime in theInternational Brotherhood of Teamsters, managed byDave Beck, caused Meany to begin a campaign to reform that union in 1956. In 1957, amidst a fight for control of the union withJimmy Hoffa, Beck was called before theUnited States Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management, commonly known as the "McClellan Committee" after its chairmanJohn Little McClellan, ofArkansas.[1]
Televised hearings during early 1957 exposed misconduct by both the Beck and the Hoffa factions of the Teamsters Union. Both Hoffa and Beck were indicted, but Hoffa won control of the Teamsters. In response, the AFL–CIO instituted a policy that no union official who had taken theFifth Amendment during a corruption investigation could continue in a leadership position. Meany told the Teamsters that they could continue as members of the AFL–CIO if Hoffa resigned as president. Hoffa refused, and the Teamsters were ousted from the AFL–CIO[1][7] on December 6, 1957. Meany endorsed the AFL–CIO's adoption of a code of ethics, after the scandal.[21]
Meany also organized campaigns against organized crime and corruption in theInternational Jewelry Workers Union, theLaundry Workers International Union, theAFL Distillery Workers, the AFLUnited Auto Workers, and theBakery and Confectionery Workers International Union.[1] He demanded the dismissal of corrupt union officials and internal reorganization of the unions. When some unions resisted, he organized their expulsion from the AFL and later from the AFL–CIO, and he even established rival unions.[1] He established an AFL–CIO Committee on Ethical Practices to investigate misconduct and insisted for unions being investigated to co-operate with its inquiries. According to John Hutchinson, a professor atUCLA, "few American union leaders have such a public record of repeated and explicit opposition to corruption".[1]
Meany consistently defended PresidentLyndon B. Johnson'sVietnam War policies. In 1966, Meany insisted that AFL–CIO unions give "unqualified support" to Johnson's war policy. Among the labor officials at the time who opposed Meany's position on the war wereRalph Helstein of theUnited Packinghouse Workers of America,George Burdon of theUnited Rubber Workers, andPatrick Gorman of theAmalgamated Meat Cutters.[22]
Charles Cogen, president of theAmerican Federation of Teachers, joined the opposition when the 1967 AFL–CIO convention adopted a resolution pledging support for the war. Reuther stated that he was busy with negotiations with General Motors in Detroit and could not attend the convention. In his speech to the convention, Meany said regarding Vietnam that the AFL–CIO was "neither hawk nor dove nor chicken",[23][24] but was supporting "brother trade unionists" struggling against Communism.[23]
As an anticommunist who identified with the working class, Meany expressed contempt for theNew Left. That philosophy had often criticized the labor activists for conservatism, racism, and anticommunism, and during the late 1960s and early 1970s, it included many promoters of Communism, such as theViet Cong.[25][26] In the aftermath of theviolence by antiwar demonstrators and police at the1968 Democratic National Convention, Meany sympathized with the police by terming the protesters a "dirtynecked and dirty-mouthed group of kooks".[20]
Meany opposed the antiwar presidential candidacy of U.S. SenatorGeorge McGovern in 1972 against incumbentRichard Nixon, despite McGovern's generally pro-labor voting record in Congress. However, Meany also refused to endorse Nixon. OnFace the Nation in September 1972, Meany criticized McGovern's foreign policy position—that the U.S. should respect other peoples' right to choose communism—by saying there had never been a country that had voted freely for communism. Meany accused McGovern of being "an apologist for the Communist world".[27]
After Nixon's landslide defeat of McGovern, Meany said the American people had "overwhelmingly repudiated neo-isolationism" in foreign policy. Meany added that American voters hadsplit their votes by endorsing the Democrats in Congress.[28]
Meany's support for the war effort continued up until the final days beforeSaigon was captured by theNorth Vietnamese in April 1975. He called for PresidentGerald Ford to provide aU.S. Navy "flotilla" if it was needed to ensure that hundreds of thousands of "friends of the United States" could escape before a communist regime could be established.[29]
He also appealed for the admission of the maximum possible number of Vietnamese refugees to the U.S. Meany blamed Congress for "washing its hands" of the war and for weakening South Vietnam's military, damaging its "will to fight".[29] In particular, Meany accused Congress of failing to provide adequate funding for American troops to stage an orderly withdrawal.[29]
Despite their co-operation during the AFL–CIO merger, Meany and Reuther had a contentious relationship for many years.[30] In 1963, Meany and Reuther disagreed about theMarch on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a major event in the history of the U.S.civil rights movement. Meany opposed AFL–CIO endorsement of the march. In an AFL–CIO executive council meeting on August 12, 1963, Reuther's motion for a strong endorsement of the march was supported by onlyA. Philip Randolph of theBrotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the titular leader of the march. As a compromise, the AFL–CIO backed a civil rights law and allowed individual unions to endorse the march.[8] When Meany heard Randolph's speech after the march, he was visibly moved.[citation needed] Thereafter, he supported the creation of theA. Philip Randolph Institute to strengthen labor unions among African Americans and to strengthen ties with the African-American community. Randolph said he was sure that Meany was morally opposed to racism.[4]
At the time of the 1967 AFL–CIO convention, Reuther demanded that Meany make the AFL–CIO more democratic.[31]
After years of disagreement with Meany, Reuther resigned from the AFL–CIO executive council in February 1967.[8] In 1968, Reuther's UAW withdrew from the AFL–CIO,[32] and the UAW did not re-affiliate with the AFL–CIO until 1981,[33] long after Reuther's death in a 1970 airplane crash.[34]
Amidst theGreat Society reforms advocated by President Johnson, Meany and the AFL–CIO in 1965 endorsed a resolution calling for "mandatory congressional price hearings for corporations, a technological clearinghouse, and a national planning agency".[35] American socialistMichael Harrington commented that the AFL–CIO had "initiated a programmatic redefinition that had much more in common with the defeated socialist proposal of 1894 than with the voluntarism ofGompers",[35] referring to the founder of the AFL, who had openly opposed socialism for decades. The 1965 resolution was part of the AFL–CIO's ongoing endorsement ofindustrial democracy. Despite Meany's support for reform policies that were sometimes termed "socialist", he also emphasized that "I very much agree with the free market system".[4] In the early 1970s, he spoke about the changes in union workers since the 1930s:
We no longer march on the streets, we no longer have thesitdown strikes, and labor to some extent has become middle class. In other words, when you have no property, you don't have anything, you have nothing to lose by these radical actions. But when you become a person who has a home and has property, to some extent you become conservative.[4]
As AFL–CIO president, Meany supported increasing the minimum wage, increasing public works spending, and protecting union organizing rights. He also endorsed universal health care. While he was president, the AFL–CIO lobbied vigorously for its goals.[11] He backed the two-party system, and believed in "supporting your friends and punishing your enemies".[4]
By the mid-1970s, Meany was past his 80th birthday and there were increasing calls for him to retire and pass the presidency of the AFL–CIO to a younger man.[36] During his final years, Meany adopted amateur photography and painting as hobbies.[5]
in June 1975 Meany as president of the AFL–CIO hostedAlexander Solzhenitsyn in his tour of the USA and had a dinner in Solzhenitsyn's honor where the Russian writer gave one of his most well known speeches. Meany himself gave the speech introducing Solzhenitsyn.[37]
Meany's wife of 59 years, Eugenia, died in March 1979, and he became depressed after losing her.[7] He injured his knee in a golfing mishap a few months before his death and was reliant on a wheelchair.[7] In November 1979, he retired from the AFL–CIO, after a 57-year career in organized labor. He was succeeded byLane Kirkland, who served as AFL–CIO president for the next 16 years.[38]
Meany died atGeorge Washington University Hospital on January 10, 1980, ofcardiac arrest.[4] The AFL–CIO had 14 million members at the time of his death. PresidentJimmy Carter termed him "an American institution" and "a patriot".[7] He was interred atGate of Heaven Cemetery inSilver Spring, Maryland.[39]
PresidentJohn F. Kennedy established thePresidential Medal of Freedom on February 22, 1963, but died before he could award it. Two weeks after Kennedy's assassination, PresidentLyndon Johnson awarded it to Meany and thirty others on December 6, 1963.[40] Johnson said the award was for Meany's service to unionism and for advancing freedom throughout the world.[41]
On November 6, 1974, Meany dedicated the George Meany Center for Labor Studies (founded 1969), which was renamed theNational Labor College in 1997.[42] From 1993 to 2013, the college housed the George Meany Memorial Archives. In 2013 the archival and library holdings were transferred to theUniversity of Maryland libraries, making the university the official repository.[43][44] The holdings date from the establishment of the AFL (1881), and offer almost complete records from the founding of the AFL–CIO (1955). Among the estimated 40 million documents are AFL–CIO Department records, trade department records, international union records, union programs, union organizations with allied or affiliate relationships with the AFL–CIO, and personal papers of union leaders. Extensive photo documentation of labor union activities from the 1940s to the present are in the photographic negative and digital collections. Additionally, collections of graphic images, over 10,000 audio tapes, several hundred movies and videotapes, and more than 2,000 artifacts are available for public research and study.[45]
The George Meany Award was established by theBoy Scouts of America in 1974.[46]
Books published about Meany includeMeany: The Unchallenged Strong Man of American Labor (1972)[47] andGeorge Meany and His Times: A Biography (1981).[48] Meany's entry in the biographical encyclopediaAmerican National Biography was published in 2000, authored by historianDavid Brody.[49]
Meany was known as a cigar smoker, and pictures of him often appeared in newspapers and magazines smoking a cigar.[8][50][51][52][53]
On the 100th anniversary of his birth in 1994,[54] Meany was pictured on a United Statescommemorative postage stamp.[55]
George Meany never walked a picket line.
George Meany Walter Reuther.
neither hawk nor dove nor chicken.
new left viet cong.
| Trade union offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Secretary-Treasurer of theAmerican Federation of Labor 1939–1952 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of theAmerican Federation of Labor 1952–1955 | Merged into AFL–CIO |
| New title AFL–CIO founded | President of theAFL–CIO 1955–1979 | Succeeded by |
