Dick Meister

Dick Meister: Celebrating the 4th with the enemy

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Celebrating the 4th in Canadian territory settled by pro-British “Loyalists” who fled the U.S. after the Revolutionary War

By Dick Meister

The Fourth of July, as we all know, is Independence Day. Hurray for George
Washington and the revolutionaries, down with King George and the British.
That sort of thing.

But have you ever wondered what it’s like on the other side? Have you ever
celebrated the Fourth across the border in Canada, in that territory settled
by pro-British “Loyalists” who fled the United States after the
Revolutionary War? It is a most peculiar experience for one accustomed to
the American way of viewing the events of 1776.

Meister: A Henning sampler

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(Dick Meister has covered labor and political issues in California for a half-century as a reporter, editor, author and commentator.)

Click here to read a recent Meister post, Jack Henning’s lifelong crusade

Jack Henning was a notably outspoken and forceful leader, as this sampling from his writings and speeches should make clear:

On the Role of Labor

Although labor is no longer acknowledged as the principal agent of social change in American society, it is the one progressive force with the capacity to build a new and nobler nation. Labor teachings must be honored if the nation is to enjoy liberal priorities, if the nation is to know full employment, racial amity, academic freedom, adequate housing, decent health and the social services of a contemporary state….

The labor movement must remain liberal if it is to survive. We can argue about the definition of liberalism, but we know it as a commitment to wages and hours and conditions of work that are worthy of the human person and as a commitment to the service of all humanity….

Dick Meister: Jack Henning’s lifelong crusade

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Jack Henning crusaded on behalf of those who do the work of the world and against those who exploit them

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister has covered labor and political issues in California for a half-century as a reporter, editor, author and commentator. To read a sampling from Jack Henning’s writings and speeches, click here)

California lost a remarkable public figure with the death of John F. Henning
on June 4 at age 93. Labor leader, government official, ambassador. Jack
Henning had been all of those – and more – during a career that spanned many
decades.

Eloquent, visionary, forceful, successful. He had been all of that, too, in
what was a lifelong crusade in behalf of those who do the work of the world
and against the wealthy and privileged who exploit them.

Few leaders of any kind have been as liberal and outspoken as Jack Henning,
a gifted orator who had the rare ability to sway people with words as well
as deeds, and few leaders have ever done more for ordinary people.

Dick Meister: Slavery and Segregation

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It was racism that in 1935 kept farm workers and domestics from being granted protection of U.S. labor law

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based journalist, has covered labor and political issues for a half-century as a print, broadcast and online reporter, editor and commentator.)

It’s been three-quarters of a century since enactment of the National Labor Relations Act that grants U.S. workers the basic legal right of unionization
– the right to bargain with employers on setting their wages, hours and working conditions.

But for all that time, two groups of our most highly exploited workers have been denied the law’s protections – farm workers, and housekeepers, nannies, and other domestic workers.

Dick Meister: Give workers what they need!

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GIVE WORKERS WHAT THEY NEED!

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based journalist, has covered labor and political issues for a half-century as a reporter, editor, author and commentator.)

A new study by one of the country’s most highly regarded labor experts makes clear beyond doubt that illegal employer actions and lax government oversight have denied great and growing numbers of workers the legal right
of unionization.

That’s had much to with the percentage of workers belonging to unions dropping to little more than 12 percent from a level almost double that three decades ago, says Kate Bronfenbrenner. She’s director of labor education research at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Dick Meister: Labor’s White House friend

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President Barack Obama brings new hope to America’s working families, says AFL-CIO president John Sweeney

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based journalist, has been covering labor and politics for more than half a century.)

Barack Obama the presidential candidate declared that the nation needed “a
president who doesn’t choke on the word ‘union.'” But now that Obama has
assumed the presidency – and good riddance to his virulently anti-union
predecessor — is he delivering on his promise to lead a pro-union
administration?

Absolutely, says the AFL-CIO, which played a major role in Obama’s victory.
The federation spent more than $450 million and put more than a
quarter-million volunteers to work in its campaigns for Obama and pro-labor
congressional candidates, and turned out millions of union voters.

“The political pendulum is swinging back toward sanity,” says AFL-CIO
President John Sweeney. “Barack Obama brings new hope to America’s working
families.”

It is clear, in any case, that Obama’s strong support for unions is genuine.
He really meant it when he said — not while campaigning for labor votes,
but after his election – that “I want to strengthen the union movement in
this country and put an end to the barriers and roadblocks that are in the
way of workers legitimately coming together in order to form a union and
bargain collectively.”

Imagine George Bush making such a statement. He would indeed have been very
likely to choke.

Obama already has done a lot to back up his words. For starters, he quickly
rescinded some of the most damaging of the anti-worker executive orders that
Bush had issued. One had allowed White House staffers to overturn, in behalf
of Bush’s employer allies, job safety regulations that the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration had promulgated. Obama ordered that those
regulations and some new ones go into effect immediately.

He also voided a Bush regulation that had allowed federal contractors to be
reimbursed for the costs of blocking unionizing drives. And Obama overturned
a regulation that had banned so-called Project Labor Agreements, which in
effect call for collective bargaining on federal and federally funded
projects.

Unions are especially pleased — and should be — with Obama’s appointment
of Congresswoman Hilda Solis to head the Labor Department. Bolstered by what
promises to be a substantial increase in funds and personnel for labor law
enforcement, Secretary of Labor Solis is certain to move forcefully to
protect and enhance workers’ rights. Under Bush, workers had little
protection from employer exploitation.

Workers didn’t get much help, either, from the Bush appointees who
controlled the National Labor Relations Board, which is supposed to protect
workers’ union rights. Bush’s NLRB did the opposite in many cases, siding
with employers to block workers from unionizing, particularly by failing to
act against such illegal employer tactics as firing or otherwise penalizing
pro-union workers.

Obama will soon be able to appoint a majority of board members who are
certain to protect workers’ rights. His appointee as NLRB chair, longtime
board member Wilma Liebman, is expected to put a high priority on reversing
board rulings that stripped union rights from thousands of workers.

Other important pro-labor steps taken by the new administration include:

*Creating a cabinet-level “task force” headed by Vice President Joe Biden to
give working people a direct voice in developing and coordinating policies
to improve the status of poor and middle class Americans.

*Obama’s signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Act, which Bush had threatened to
veto. It overturns a Supreme Court decision that made it virtually
impossible for women to sue for wage discrimination.

*The signing of a bill, vetoed twice by Bush, that reauthorizes a health
insurance program for more than 10 million children of low-income workers.

Additionally, Obama’s budget and stimulus programs call for major
infrastructure projects that would provide as many as 3.5 million
well-paying construction jobs. The programs also would give tax relief to
working people, create job training programs to help low-wage workers and
ex-offenders learn marketable skills and, among other changes, update the
unemployment insurance system to provide more help to the jobless.

Several other promised reforms await White House action, including
strengthening the union rights and job security of federal employees. What
organized labor wants most is passage of the highly controversial Employee
Free Choice Act that would remove the legal obstacles that have limited
union expansion. Obama supports the act, but he’s been giving signals that
he would back a compromise version because of heavy pressure from opponents
that threatens to block congressional approval.

Although some unionists are demanding that Obama take a stronger stand on
the proposed act and otherwise show even more support for labor, most
unionists seem to be highly pleased with his actions so far. The AFL-CIO
praises him for taking “big, concrete steps” to lay the foundation for
important change.

The federation’s organizing director, Stewart Acuff, says Obama is “doing
extremely well in very difficult circumstances. He continues to have our
unwavering support and appreciation …. There is much to be done and we
intend to do all we can to help him succeed.”

Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based journalist, has covered labor and
political issues for a half-century. Contact him through his website,
www.dickmeister.com.

Dick Meister: The Big Strike

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Harry Bridges said of The Big Strike, “We showed the world that united working people could stand against guns and tear gas, against the press and the courts, against whatever they threw at us”

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister, formerly labor editor for the Chronicle and labor reporter for KQED’s “Newsroom,” has covered labor issues for half a century.)

It’s the 75th anniversary of what’s known in labor lore as “The Big Strike” — the remarkable event that brought open warfare to San Francisco’s waterfront, led to one of the very few general strikes in U.S. history and played a key role in spreading unionization nationwide.

It began in May of the dark Depression year of 1934 when longshoremen finally rebelled against their wretched working conditions in San Francisco, then one of the world’s busiest ports, and in the West Coast’s other port cities.

Longshoremen were not even guaranteed jobs, no matter how skilled or experienced they might be. They had to report to the docks every morning and hope a hiring boss would pick them from among the thousands of desperate job-seekers who jammed the waterfront for the daily “shapeup.” Hiring bosses rarely chose those who raised serious complaints about pay and working conditions or otherwise challenged them, but were quite partial to those who slipped them bribes or bought them drinks at nearby bars.

Meister: Visit a grand stadium of the past

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Seaks Stadium was a magnificent, jewel-box of a stadium that nobody will ever forget who saw a game there


By Dick Meister

AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, is without doubt one of the grandest baseball stadiums ever erected anywhere. But once upon a time, another grand ballpark graced San Francisco, one that also was hailed as among the very best of its time. I highly recommend that you visit it. It’s been gone for a half-century, but that shouldn’t stop you. Come along with me and I’ll show it to you.

Seals Stadium, it was called. Like AT&T Park, it was an urban park. It stood deep inside the city, unlike that chill, windswept blot of concrete, Candlestick Park, where the San Francisco Giants played for 40 uncomfortable seasons.

Meister: Let’s truly honor Cesar Chavez

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By Dick Meister

Dick Meister, a veteran San Francisco journalist, is co-author of “A Long
Time Coming: The Struggle to Unionize America’s Farm Workers.”

It’s way past time that Congress declared the March 31 birthdate of Cesar
Chavez a national holiday. President Obama agrees. So do the millions of
people who are expected to sign petitions being circulated by the United
Farm Workers, the union founded by Chavez.

California, seven other states and dozens of cities already observe Chavez’
birthdate as an official holiday – and for very good reason. As the UFW
notes, “He inspired farm workers and millions of people who never worked on
a farm to commit themselves to social, economic and civil rights activism.
Cesar’s legacy continues to educate, inspire and empower people from all
walks of life.”

Meister: A new deal for american workers

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By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based journalist, has covered labor and political issues for more than a half-century.)

The preliminaries are over and what’s certain to be one of the fiercest political fights in many years is finally underway. It pits the nation’s labor unions and their Democratic allies against the pillars of corporate America and their Republican allies.

The stakes are huge. A union victory would give U.S. workers the unfettered right to unionization that would raise their economic and political status substantially. But that would come at the expense of employers, who have been able to block a large majority of them from exercising the union rights that the law has long promised all workers.

The union-employer fight began in earnest on March 10 with the re-introduction in Congress of the long-proposed Employee Free Choice Act. The bill would strengthen the National Labor Relations Act to make it easier for workers to form and join unions, the stated purpose of the NLRA.

Meister: The massacre at Ludlow

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By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based journalist, has covered labor and political issues for more than a half-century)

It began at 10 o¹clock on a cold morning 95 years ago this month, on April 20, 1914 in the southern Colorado town of Ludlow. National guardsmen, professional gunmen and others high on a hillside unleashed a deadly stream of machine-gun and rifle fire into a tent colony below that housed some 1000 striking coal miners and their families.

Strikers grabbed their hunting rifles and fired back. Two men and a boy on their side were killed. One Guardsman died.

The battle raged throughout the day. Finally, as night fell, Guardsmen wielding torches dashed down the hill, doused the tents with coal oil and set them aflame. They shot to death 10 of those who fled — men, women and children alike ­ as well as three strike leaders they had captured. Thirteen others, two women and 11 infants and children, were burned alive or suffocated as they huddled in a pit under a tent where they had sought refuge.

Dick Meister: Hearst: Six down, one to go

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Don’t be surprised if Hearst kills its seventh daily newspaper in San Francisco

By Dick Meister

Dick Meister is a former labor reporter for the Chronicle and has covered labor and politics for more than 50 years. He explains in this piece how he covered the 1968 Chronicle/Examiner strike in the Guardian under the byline “by our correspondent.” Four of his Guardian pieces are run below as links. His big scoop: the obscure 23-page document, filed secretly in Reno, Nevada, that laid out how the Chronicle family and Hearst set up the San Francisco Printing Company/JOA on a 50-50 basis. Our front page head: “Secret Merger Deal–Now, proof that the booming Chronicle went into equal partnership with the ailing Examiner in the touchy 1965 deal.” Our illustration was a dagger impaled in the heart of a Chronicle front page. B3

Don’t be surprised if the Hearst Corporation closes the Chronicle, despite its importance to the community and the men and women who produce it. Hearst, after all, has already killed six other San Francisco newspapers.

It began in 1913, when William Randolph Hearst, who had been operating the then-morning Examiner, bought the San Francisco Call and merged it into Hearst’s Evening Post. Sixteen years later, he bought the San Francisco Bulletin and merged it with the Call to create the afternoon Call-Bulletin.

Meister: Baseball – more than a man’s game

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By Dick Meister

Another season of professional baseball is upon us, another season of a sport that’s billed as the “National Pastime,” yet bars half the population
– the female half – from the playing field.

Major and minor league teams, as well as most amateur and semi-professional clubs, have kept the game largely what it has been since its beginnings: a chewing, spitting, macho game reserved for men. Women are allowed to watch, but only rarely have they been allowed to come out of the stands and play.

Major League Baseball made it official in 1952, when teams were banned from signing major or minor league contracts with women.

Dick Meister: Sit Down! Sit Down!

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Once, autoworkers overcame even greater hardships than they face today

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based journalist, has covered labor and political issues for more than a half-century.)

This is not a happy time for American autoworkers. Their employers are cutting thousands of jobs, closing plants, and demanding ­ and getting ­ major pay and benefit concessions from their union.

Normally, February would be a time of celebration for the union, the United Auto Workers ­ a time to mark the anniversary of a UAW victory in a sit-down strike in 1937 that led to making its members the world’s most secure and most highly compensated production workers.

Dick Meister: Jobs may decline, unions won’t

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The percentage of workers belonging to unions grew last year for the second straight year

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based journalist, has covered labor and political issues for a half century.)

After nearly a half-century of steady decline, American unions are showing unmistakable signs that they’re finally reversing direction.

Dick Meister: Less God-talk, please

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Shouldn’t freedom of religion be coupled with freedom FROM religion for non-believing citizens?

By Dick Meister

The polls say the odds against me are about nine to one, that being the
ratio between believers and non-believers in this supposedly secular
republic. But even so, let me ask that our politicians quit pushing the
views of the 90 percent who hold religious beliefs on me and the rest of the
10 percent of the population who simply do not share those beliefs.

If they won’t ease up on the constant public references to God and
similar matters for the sake of tolerance, how about doing it for the sake
of that legal business about the separation of church and state.

Or at least do it for the sake of religion. It surely is cheapened by the
ritualistic and hypocritical references to the Almighty by the politicians
and others in public life seeking to curry majority favor the easy way.

Meister: A porter who dared to protest

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How C. L. Dellums of Oakland organized the first union founded by black workers

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based journalist, has covered labor and political issues for more than half a century.)

Affluent white train passengers snapping out orders. Broadly smiling black porters rushing to carry them out, fetching drinks, shining shoes, making beds, emptying cuspidors, rarely daring to protest.

That’s how it was aboard the Pullman sleeping coaches that were the height of luxurious travel for more than a quarter- century. Nothing better epitomized the huge distance between black and white in this society. And nothing better epitomized the struggle that has finally narrowed the
distance than the long life of C.L. Dellums, a porter who did dare to protest, and who continued to do so as a major labor and civil rights leader for six decades.

Dick Meister: Bolsheviks? In Seattle?

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Dick Meister is a distinguished labor reporter who has spent more than 50 years covering labor and issues of workers on their jobs. There are very few real labor reporters in the mainstream press these days, so I asked Meister to put his regular Guardian column in context. B3

Dick Meister explains his labor coverage:

There’s a vibrant labor movement in this country, a source of important information that is ­ or should be ­ of great interest to most people. Most people, after all, spend at least half their lives working and, in fact, define themselves by their jobs. Yet the labor movement that has so much to do with their working lives, be they union members or not, is largely ignored by the mainstream media.

I’ve spent most of my professional life covering the labor movement as a reporter and commentator, for the Chronicle, KQED-TV and other mainstream outlets as well as a wide variety of non-mainstream outlets, including the Bay Guardian. I’ve recently begun a series of columns for the Guardian that deal with labor issues that have received but slight attention, if any, in the mainstream media.

Among other matters, they covered the extraordinary qualifications of Hilda Solis, President Obama’s nominee for secretary of labor, the extraordinary anti-labor acts of Bush’s secretary, Elaine Chao, and the legendary career of Franklin Roosevelt’s secretary, Frances Perkins.

The columns also concerned labor’s forceful anti-war demonstrations last May Day, labor’s major role in Obama’s election and its eight-year struggle with Bush, the most virulently anti-labor president in history. As another column noted, Bush was particularly harsh on the long-suffering air traffic controllers who Obama promised to help.

Other columns detailed the blatant job discrimination suffered by gay workers in Harvey Milk’s time ­ and now, the significant but ignored 40th anniversary of the faculty strike that was waged at San Francisco State at the same time as the widely celebrated student strike, and the 84-hour workweeks and 30-hour workdays that hospitals impose on young doctors-in-training.

My current column deals with a subject most mainstream outlets probably will also ignore, or at best treat very lightly. The column deals with one of the most important events in U.S. labor history, the Seattle general strike that began 90 years ago this month.

BOLSHEVIKS IN SEATTLE?

A bit of labor history the mainstream media will likely ignore: the general strike in Seattle 90 years ago this month

By Dick Meister

It’s the 90th anniversary this month of the general strike that brought the city of Seattle to a virtual standstill — one of the very few general strikes in U.S. history and certainly one of the most dramatic and disruptive.

Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson described it this way: “Street car gongs ceased their clamor. Newsboys cast their unsold papers into the streets. From the doors of mill and factory, store and workshop, streamed 65,000 working men. School children with fear in their hearts hurried homeward. The life stream of a great city stopped.”

Meister: Labor to Bush: Good Riddance!

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Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based journalist, has covered labor and political issues for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com.

Labor to Bush: Good Riddance!

By Dick Meister

With the departure of George Bush from the White House, working people and their unions have finally ended one of their toughest fights ever ­ an eight-year struggle with the most virulently anti-labor president in American history.

Of all those bidding Bush good riddance, none have more reason than organized labor and the workers it champions. The record of Bush’s antipathy to them is truly staggering.

Consider, for starters, Bush’s appointment of a notoriously anti-union secretary of labor , Elaine Chao, and an anti-union majority to control the National Labor Relations Board.

The Bush appointees have played a major role in stripping union and civil service rights from more than a million federal employees, cutting back raises that had been due them and most others on the government payroll, and shifting thousands of unionized federal jobs to private non-union contractors.

They’ve increased the staff and budgets for investigating and auditing unions, while decreasing those for enforcing employer violations of labor standards, including those covering child labor and pay discrimination and violence against women.

Help at last for air traffic controllers

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The bosses who run the FAA have been mistreating the controllers since at least 1981

By Dick Meister

Few government employees have more important responsibilities than the federal air traffic controllers whose primary job is to protect the safety of the ever-growing number of air travelers. Yet few federal employees are more badly treated by their government bosses.

The bosses, who run the Federal Aviation Administration ­ the FAA ­ have been mistreating the controllers since at least 1981. That’s when President Ronald Reagan fired more than 11,500 controllers who, seeking to improve their onerous working conditions, struck in violation of the law that prohibits strikes by federal employees.

Meister: Imagine, a pro-labor Secretary of Labor

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OBAMA’S PRO-LABOR SECRETARY OF LABOR

By Dick Meister

Rarely has a nominee for any cabinet post drawn such widespread praise as
President-elect Obama’s choice for secretary of labor ­ and for good reason:
Hilda Solis has the potential of returning the Labor Department to its
mission of defending and strengthening the status of American workers.

Solis, daughter of immigrants from Mexico and Nicaragua, has the skill,
experience, determination ­ and firm presidential backing ­ to shift the
department from what’s been the opposite direction under President Bush’s
secretary of labor, Elaine Chao.

Meister: 84-hour workweeks! 30-hour workdays!

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By Dick Meister

It’s way past time for Congress to come to the aid of the medical residents who are among our most important providers of hospital care. The young doctors-in-training are being forced to work 80 hours a week, often as long as 30 hours in a single shift.

Congress has ample proof of the urgent need for legislative action to lessen the incredible workload of the highly exploited trainees, in part to protect patients from the possible errors of sleep-deprived residents. The proof came in a recent report Congress had requested from the widely respected Institute of Medicine because of concern over the treatment of residents and its possibly dangerous effects on patient care.

Barry Bonds’ grand adventure

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By Dick Meister

Barry Bonds is excited. “Really excited!” he exclaims. “It’s awesome really gets your blood pumpin”

Ah, he must mean how it felt blasting those record-breaking 762 homeruns during his quarter-century as a Major League Baseball superstar. No, his baseball career apparently behind him, Barry is finding his excitement elsewhere these days. He keeps the adrenalin flowing by shooting and killing animals for fun and profit as a spokesman for Christensen Arms, a Utah company specializing in high-powered hunting rifles.

You can see Barry at work in a new seven-minute online video, shot for his employer in the woods of Saskatchewan. He seems to be enjoying himself immensely, laughing, shouting gleefully, seemingly breathless with excitement, as dramatic background music pulses loudly.

Meister: ‘Homosexuals need not apply’

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By Dick Meister

The media coverage of the anniversary of the Milk/Moscone killings and hoopla over the new movie “Milk” reminded me of a TV news report I did from Milk’s Castro Street camera shop 0n Sept. 17, 1974. It was part of one of the nightly half-hour TV newscasts on “Newsroom of the Streets” that we reporters on “Newsroom” did on a public access channel from various Bay Area locations during our strike against KQED from September ’74 through January ’75. As often was the case with “Newsroom” stories, it was on an issue generally ignored by the commercial media — in this instance, employment discrimination against gays.

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