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From Labor Action, Vol. 13 No. 48, 28 November 1949, pp. 1 & 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
NEW YORK, Nov. 21. – At the present time the Port of New York membership of the National Maritime Union is in possession of the NMU hiring hall and New York Port offices. Arrayed against them and attempting to wrest control of the memberships’ property from the rank and file, are Curran and his supporters among the officialdom of the union, assisted by the New York police force. The methods being used by Curran against the solid phalanx of the New York membership are almost unheard-of in recent times in the labor movement. They will go down in the history of the American labor movement as being identical with the methods used by strikebreaking agencies in their attempt to smash the trade unions in the past.
What has brought about this situation? How explain the positively passionate hatred the thousands of NMU members have toward their once popular leader? What has brought forth such wrath from a rank and file that is primarily anti-CP and which supported overwhelmingly the anti-CP slate in the last union election, voting every last Communist Party official out of office?
The majority of the officials elected in the 1948 union election went back on their program to the membership after the election. The program of the Rank and File Caucus pledged more democracy within the union and an increased struggle for better conditions aboard ship. The constitution was changed by the membership so that every policy, expenditure, removal from office, charges against members, all had to come before the membership for approval before it was effectuated. This meant either submitting these questions to a membership referendum or a vote by the New York Port membership. (New York is called “headquarters port” as it is larger than the membership of all other ports combined.)
Soon after these officials were elected they replaced the program of the Rank and File Caucus with a purge of all CPers. All that the officials ever talked about in The Pilot (the union’s newspaper) and to the men aboard ships was: “Get the hacks.” At first the membership was silent but when conditions aboard ship began to deteriorate and grievances were ignored, etc., they began to grumble. Those who grumbled were immediately labeled “Communist.” In the Southern ports union books were simply taken away from Critics, who either were asked to appear at a so-called trial or were summarily told to “get moving.” The membership in the outports was intimidated by all this.
However, in New York at the beginning of 1949, a sizable group of officials led by Jack Lawrenson, vice-president in charge of The Pilot, and David Drummond, the New York Port agent, spoke out against a proposed amendment to the union constitution which would bar all “subversives” from membership in the union. The referendum was thrown out by the Honest Ballot Association because of “irregularities.” In spite of the “irregularities” in the Southern ports, the unofficial count showed the proposal to have been defeated.
The membership knew this amendment was directed not alone at “subversives” but at all critics of Curran. They were tired of the witchhunt. Unemployment was growing, conditions deteriorating and this was no satisfying substitute.
The Curran machine’s next move was to prepare for the fall 1949 convention of the union. With unemployment and dissatisfaction growing in the NMU, time was against him. If the so-called “subversives” could be removed and the constitution changed so that it would be less democratic, more “efficient,” more “flexible,” he could consolidate his power against any future opposition, now that the CP was out of the way.
It should be pointed out that at this stage the CP forces were completely demoralized. While the membership was sick of the expulsions, no one was ready to battle for the CP as such. The fight against the “anti-Communist” amendments was led by leading member of the Rank and File Caucus who themselves had ousted the Stalinist machine. The CP caucus in the union, “the Voice of the Membership,” was small and ineffectual. Its leadership consisted of both legitimately and illegitimately expelled NMU members. The members looked to Lawrenson, Drummond, Charles Keith and the other oppositionist officials for leadership.
The convention was a fiasco. Undemocratically ruled by Curran, whose years of CP schooling were not wasted, the delegates were not allowed to think or discuss in a proper atmosphere. Under the guise of “loyalty to the country” and “anti-Communism,” the Curran machine attempted to push through wholesale changes in the union’s democratic institutions and in union policy. In previous issues of Labor Action we have fully analyzed the proposed changes.
Suffice it to say that while failing to jam all the proposals through, those that were able to get the two-thirds vote of the delegates are now before the membership for acceptance or rejection. If carried, they will go a long way toward hamstringing ANY kind of opposition – right, left or center.
A special National Council meeting on September 30 adopted Curran’s proposal to put an administrator over the port of New York. This action, taken without explanation or attempt at justification, was voted down at New York membership meetings. But Curran, aiming at machine control over New York to ensure a majority in the coming referendum, went ahead at full steam, violating the NMU constitution, which provides for membership ratification of all major decisions of the council. This act was the first big provocation directed against the New York membership.
The proposed amendments to the constitution were put before the membership on November 1. The balloting goes on for 60 days. The heaviest voting takes place in the first few weeks. The only way the opposition has of presenting its point of view to the members in the outports is through the pages of The Pilot. Immediately prior to the balloting, Lawrenson was unconstitutionally removed from his responsibility for The Pilot. The editor appointed was not approved by the headquarters port, as per constitution.
The new editor, now taking orders from Curran, refused to publish any critical or questionable material. (Even in their balmiest days the Stalinist machine in the NMU never attempted this.) The four-page letters to the editor section, a tradition in The Pilot, stopped carrying any critical letters from the men on the ships and ashore.
The New York membership, aroused by this development, voted almost unanimously, after much discussion at a regular New York meeting of 3,000 men, to condemn the action of the Curran machine and demanded that the reports of the New York membership meetings and its agent’s report be printed. This was completely ignored by Curran’s machine. The men, now really aroused, elected a committee of 100 at a special meeting in the hiring hall to go up and see Curran on the sixth floor, which is the national office of the NMU.
Confronted with this committee. Currant threatened to call the police if the men did not vacate the floor. The committee then elected from its midst a smaller committee of 15. In the presence of this group Curran , took full responsibility for the policies of The Pilot. The committee of 100 reported back to the special meeting waiting in the hiring hall which consisted of about 1.000 men. The meeting instructed the port agent to prefer charges against those national officers who were ignoring the will of the membership and violating the constitution.
It was apparent that a serious fight was in the offing. The national office majority immediately decided to get Vice-President Lawrenson out of the way. They assigned him to the Great Lakes to negotiate contracts with various companies, a task not normally performed by him. The charges were preferred against Curran and Treasurer Stone. Curran left for the Gulf and Stone was dispatched to Europe to attend a labor conference.
On Monday, November 14, Vice-President Warner, obviously according to plan, walked into the New York Port agent’s office and informed Port Agent Drummond that he was “resigned.” According to the NMU constitution, still in effect, an official can be removed only after charges have been preferred against him and the charges tried by a trial committee and if the verdict is guilty, it must be voted on by the port membership. The latter is what Curran’s machine was trying to avoid, since he knew that the New York ranks were supporting Drummond and all the other elected officials obviously threatened by this flagrant move. A special meeting was immediately called by the agent and he was instructed by an enraged, unanimous membership to get a court order immediately against the national officers perpetrating this outrage, build a defense guard to protect the challenged officials and do everything possible to keep them in office in the port.
Next morning the New York members occupied the New York offices to make sure that only the elected officials would work out of them. That Tuesday afternoon, the thirteen NMU patrolmen who opposed the Curran machine received notification that they too, were finished. Thousands of -members, seething by now, met once again in special meeting and decided to come to the hiring hall early next morning to defend their hall and officers from the uninformed outport members who were arriving with suitcases and going to the sixth floor to shape up a goon squad.
On Wednesday morning, November 16, the ranks poured into the lobby of the NMU building when they heard that newly appointed patrolmen were being dispatched to cover the ships, from the sixth floor. (According to the NMU constitution, all appointments must be approved by the membership of the particular port.) The approximately 500 seamen in the lobby set up a security committee to keep order and check the union books of all people entering the building. The only approach to the sixth floor is through the lobby. Three of the appointed patrolmen, on attempting to leave the building, were given the choice of retracting their acceptance of their appointment or being faced with charges. They retracted.
The day went by in comparative calm until one Curran supporter denounced the crowd in the lobby by shouting that the whole thing was a “Jew plot” against Curran. The NMUers nearly tore him apart. The membership left the lobby at 6:30 that evening after the national officers and a handful of their supporters were taken out of the building by a large squad of police and plainclothesmen.
From that day until the present there has been no attempt to take the New York hall from the New York membership. The injunction which the men had asked Drummond to obtain was gotten. It temporarily-restrains the national office from interfering in New York Port affairs and ties up their funds. However, this injunction has been ignored by the Curranites. The most flagrant case, of course, was the Thursday regular New York meeting of the NMU at St. Nicholas Arena which is described elsewhere in this issue.
The “goons” whom Warner lined up on Tuesday – seamen who were deluded into coming here ‘to defend the sixth-floor officials – never showed up to do so. Many of them found out what the trouble was all about and went back to their original ports to tell the truth. The 500 men who were imported on Thursday for the meeting that night received an excellent education On how the Curran machine operates against the membership of the NMU. That device of Curran’s will also boomerang against him in. the next few weeks.
There is no question in the mind of anyone – anyone close to the situation – that this fight has rallied to its cause the entire membership in and around New York. There are now 7,000 men on the beach in New York and the turnover is anywhere from 1,500 to 2,000 a month. The Curran machine is doomed to failure because of its actions of the past few weeks. Every seaman in this area, agrees that Curran will never live down what he has done.
The struggle has been led by the Independent Caucus, whose leaders are Lawrenson, Drummond and Keith. The group was formed during the 1949 convention and has grown by leaps and bounds because of the events described above. If properly handled the future belongs to it and its supporters, the NMU membership.
The story of this outrage should be spread to the entire labor movement. These methods must be stopped in the trade unions before they engulf and submerge them completely. The CIO itself faces the duty of acting to stop Curran.
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