Emil Rieve
Encyclopedia
Polish American
A Polish American , is a citizen of the United States of Polish descent. There are an estimated 10 million Polish Americans, representing about 3.2% of the population of the United States...
labor
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
leader. He was president of the Textile Workers Union of America
Textile Workers Union of America
The Textile Workers Union of America was an industrial union of textile workers established through the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1939 and merged with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America to become the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union in 1976. It waged a...
(TWUA) from 1939 to 1956, a vice president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
(CIO) from 1939 to 1955, and a vice president of the AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...
from 1955 to 1960.
Emil Rieve was born in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and moved to Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
as a child. He left school early and first became a union member at age fifteen, quickly rising within the union hierarchy. He organized his first strike in 1930 in Reading, Pennsylvania
Reading, Pennsylvania
Reading is a city in southeastern Pennsylvania, USA, and seat of Berks County. Reading is the principal city of the Greater Reading Area and had a population of 88,082 as of the 2010 census, making it the fifth most populated city in the state after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown and Erie,...
. His aggressive drives to unionize the region's textile workers and achieve union recognition led to the Reading Formula of 1933 in negotiatin with the National Labor Board
National Labor Board
The National Labor Board was an independent agency of the United States Government established on August 5, 1933 to handle labor disputes arising under the National Industrial Recovery Act .-Establishment, structure and procedures:...
, a precedent which resolved large numbers of other labor disputes. Rieve was a major figure in the unsuccessful textile workers strike of 1934
Textile workers strike (1934)
The textile workers' strike of 1934 was the largest strike in the labor history of the United States at the time, involving 400,000 textile workers from New England, the Mid-Atlantic states and the U.S. Southern states, lasting twenty-two days...
. When the Congress of Industrial Organizations
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
formed the following year, Rieve received international recognition for his efforts to avoid a rift with the American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
.
In 1937 Rieve pioneered a successful sit-down strike of 50,000 textile workers that resulted in wage increases. He became acting chairman of the Textile Workers Organizing Committee in 1938 and organized the Textile Workers Union of America in 1939. The union was quite strong under Rieve's stewardship and he played a role in the merger of the AFL with the CIO in 1952.
Early life
Rieve was born in Żyrardów CountyZyrardów County
Żyrardów County is a unit of territorial administration and local government in Masovian Voivodeship, east-central Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998. Its administrative seat and largest town is Żyrardów, which lies ...
in Congress Poland
Congress Poland
The Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...
in 1892 to Fred and Pauline (née Lange) Rieve. The family was Lutheran, and Fred Rieve was a machinist who tended textile machines.
Rieve attended a local elementary school. But the family emigrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1904, interrupting Rieve's education. The Rieves settled in central Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, and Emil found work in a hosiery
Hosiery
Hosiery, also referred to as legwear, describes garments worn directly on the feet and legs. The term originated as the collective term for products of which a maker or seller is termed a hosier; and those products are also known generically as hose...
mill. He married Laura Wosnack in July 1916. They had a son, Harold.
Early union career
In 1907, at the age of 15, Rieve joined the American Federation of Hosiery Workers (AFHW), a semi-autonomous division of the United Textile Workers of America (UTW), an affiliate of the American Federation of LaborAmerican Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
. His rise in the union was meteoric: At the age of 22, he was elected a vice president of the AFHW, became the division's president in 1929 at the age of 35, and joined the national UTW executive board in 1934.
Organizing and the Reading Formula
Rieve was committed to organizing new members in the hosiery industry. In November 1930, Rieve authorized a strike among hosiery workers in the mills around Reading, PennsylvaniaReading, Pennsylvania
Reading is a city in southeastern Pennsylvania, USA, and seat of Berks County. Reading is the principal city of the Greater Reading Area and had a population of 88,082 as of the 2010 census, making it the fifth most populated city in the state after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown and Erie,...
. The strike collapsed after heavy employer opposition. Rieve then tried a new tactic: The union agreed to a 30 percent wage cut in the expectation that non-union mills would lower their wages below the new union level. This would trigger a massive strike, enabling the AFHW to move in and organize the workers. Roughly 3,000 workers, or about a third of the total number in the industry, struck. Rieve purposefully withheld strike aid to the workers in an attempt to increase the radicalism of the workers and raise the demand for a union. But employers were content to idle plants in the depths of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, and the strike lingered for nearly a year. Admitting defeat, Rieve signed a new contract in September 1932.
Just three months later, Rieve led his division in approving yet another large organizing drive. Again aimed at workers in the Reading area, Rieve declared war "against industrial slavery
National Labor Board
The National Labor Board was an independent agency of the United States Government established on August 5, 1933 to handle labor disputes arising under the National Industrial Recovery Act .-Establishment, structure and procedures:...
mediated a settlement which established the "Reading formula." The "Reading formula" was a major step forward in the conceptualization of American labor law, for it established the principle of secret-ballot elections as a means of determining union support among workers at a plant.
1934 national textile strike
By 1934, despite Rieve's organizing drive and conditions favorable to union organizing created by the depression, the UTW still had only 80,000 paying members (making it one of the smaller unions in the AFL).The National Industrial Recovery Act
National Industrial Recovery Act
The National Industrial Recovery Act , officially known as the Act of June 16, 1933 The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), officially known as the Act of June 16, 1933 The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), officially known as the Act of June 16, 1933 (Ch. 90, 48 Stat. 195, formerly...
(NIRA) of 1933 had authorized the establishment of "industry codes" to regulate wages, hours and working conditions in every industry in the United States. But employers not only heavily influenced the writing of the code, they also dominated the board adjudicating alleged violations of the code. The code led to few improvements in the textile industry. For example, when workers won shorter hours, employers made an end-run around the restriction by speeding up work.
Newly elected to the UTW executive board, Rieve was one of several national union leaders who pressed for the union to threaten a nationwide strike in order to win improvements in the NIRA code. The strike was a mere threat, as UTW had no resources to undertake a nationwide strike. Nevertheless, the National Recovery Administration
National Recovery Administration
The National Recovery Administration was the primary New Deal agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. The goal was to eliminate "cut-throat competition" by bringing industry, labor and government together to create codes of "fair practices" and set prices...
agreed to provide UTW leaders with a voice on the code adjudicatory board. UTW agreed to cancel the strike.
Local UTW leaders, however, refused to called off the strike. Locals in northern Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
struck on July 18, and the strike swept through the Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...
. UTW was forced to call a special convention on August 13 to address the crisis. The UTW drew up a list of demands, which mill owners ignored. Nevertheless, the strike enjoyed initial success. In many counties, 80 percent of workers walked out. Nationwide, almost 400,000 textile workers left their jobs, an astonishing number in the middle of the depression.
Mill owners and state and local government officials worked together to put down the strike. State and local officials hired hundreds of "special deputies" to guard plants, prevent strikers from closing plants, protect replacement workers from harassment and intimidation, and (in some cases) to beat strikers and break up picket lines. The governors of Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
and South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
ordered out the National Guard
United States National Guard
The National Guard of the United States is a reserve military force composed of state National Guard militia members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force service for the United States. Militia members are citizen soldiers, meaning they work part time for the National...
. The governors of Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
and Rhode Island also declared martial law. In Georgia, the governor ordered the arrest of all picketers and held hundreds in a former World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
prisoner of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
camp.
Violence also broke out. Three picketers and mill guard were shot to death in Georgia. Six picketers were killed and more than 20 wounded in South Carolina. A picketer was murdered in Rhode Island when National Guardsmen fired into a crowd attempting to storm a rayon knitting mill.
After a mere 22 days, the strike was over. President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
had established a mediation board in the first week of the strike. The board recommended further study, that workers return to work, and that employers rehire workers without discriminating against strikers. With the UTW able to provide staff, financial resources and strike benefits in only a few places and for a small number of workers, the strike collapsed. Employees attempted to return to work, but mill owners refused to rehire the strikers. Although the 1934 textile strike was a major defeat for Rieve and the UTW, the union did sign up thousands of new members and declared victory nonetheless.
Other activities
Rieve was also active in politics. In 1932, he led a successful push to get the UTW to call for the establishment of a new political party beholden solely to the labor movement. A socialistSocialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, Rieve resigned his membership in the Socialist Party of America
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
and supported the new American Labor Party
American Labor Party
The American Labor Party was a political party in the United States established in 1936 which was active almost exclusively in the state of New York. The organization was founded by labor leaders and former members of the Socialist Party who had established themselves as the Social Democratic...
.
Rieve also was a committed industrial unionist. The UTW itself was an amalgamated union, a form of industrial union. Rieve's experiences in attempting to organize new members had convinced him that industrial unionism was the key to building the labor movement. In 1934, Rieve convinced UTW delegates to approve a resolution supporting industrial unionism. This philosophical commitment would prove to be pivotal in Rieve's life.
Textile Workers Organizing Committee
In 1935, the American labor movement split over the question of craftCraft unionism
Craft unionism refers to organizing a union in a manner that seeks to unify workers in a particular industry along the lines of the particular craft or trade that they work in by class or skill level...
versus industrial unionism. The Committee for Industrial Organization
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
(CIO) formed on November 9, 1935, and UTW president Thomas McMahon
Thomas McMahon
Thomas McMahon is a former volunteer in the South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army , and was one of the IRA's most experienced bomb-makers....
was one of the Committee's charter members.
Rieve and McMahon refused to surrender their principles. The two leaders secured passage in December 1935 of a UTW executive council resolution supporting the CIO. In July 1936, Rieve and McMahon gained additional support when the UTW convention approved the formation of the CIO and the UTW's membership in the organization. The AFL executive council "tried" the members of the CIO from July 8 to July 15, 1936, and expelled the UTW and the other CIO member unions on September 5.
Rieve, however, continued to hold out an olive branch to the AFL. In September 1936, he won AFHW support for a resolution asking the AFL to reconsider the expulsion of the CIO unions. Rieve was unable to organize many new members. Despite meetings with John Brophy
John Brophy (labor)
John Brophy was an important figure in the United Mine Workers of America in the 1920s and the Congress of Industrial Organizations in the 1930s and 1940s. He was the last major challenger to John L...
, the CIO's organizing director, the CIO did not consider any major organizing effort in textiles. The UTW's finances were in such poor shape that the union actually cut the number of staff organizers by 20 percent. And despite conditions conducive to organizing, the union established only nine new locals between September 1936 and February 1937. Nevertheless, Rieve became known internationally for his efforts, and was appointed to the national committee of the International Labor Organization.
Collective bargaining
For most of the next three years, Rieve attempted to fend off a series of attacks on the division's collective bargaining agreements. About a third of the UTW's membership came from the hosiery division in early 1937, and Rieve was in many ways the UTW's true leader. In the spring of 1937, Rieve led 15,000 Pennsylvania hosiery workers out on strike for a new contract. Pioneering use of the sit-down strike, the strikers successfully closed the mills. The strike's success spread until more than 50,000 union workers were on strike. Rieve eventually signed an agreement giving workers wage increases of 8 to 10 percent.In early 1938, however, Rieve was forced to act against his own union members. The recession of 1937
Recession of 1937
The Recession of 1937–1938 was a temporary reversal of the pre-war 1933 to 1941 economic recovery from the Great Depression in the United States.-Background:...
had led to a significant worsening of economic conditions. Union members in Philadelphia demanded a pay increase. Rieve argued that the union had only managed to stop a wage giveback; there was no possibility of securing a wage increase. Nevertheless, workers at more than 50 hosiery plants in the Philadelphia area struck on March 1, 1938. Rieve declared the strike to be "illegal" and actively supported employer and government efforts to end the job action. When the new union contract was signed in mid-July, Rieve and the AFHW had successfully resisted employer demands to cut wages but were forced to agree to a contract clause barring strikes and lockouts for the term of the three-year agreement. Rieve rose to national prominence through his astute leadership of the AFHW. After passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act
Fair Labor Standards Act
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 is a federal statute of the United States. The FLSA established a national minimum wage, guaranteed 'time-and-a-half' for overtime in certain jobs, and prohibited most employment of minors in "oppressive child labor," a term that is defined in the statute...
in June 1938, Rieve was appointed to a federal committee to determine minimum wages in the textile industry.
Formation and leadership of TWOC
In February 1937, McMahon resigned the presidency of UTW to take a state government job in Rhode Island. He was succeeded by Francis J. Gorman. Meanwhile, the CIO had achieved sudden and large organizing victories in steel, automobile manufacturing and the rubber industry. The organizing victory in steel had come after the CIO had co-opted the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel WorkersAmalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers
Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers was an American labor union formed in 1876 and which represented iron and steel workers. It partnered with the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, CIO, in November, 1935...
(the AA), using the long-established but moribund union as a means of legitimizing the CIO's efforts in organizing the steel industry. CIO leaders had forced the AA to become part of a new, centrally-run, and efficient organizing project, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee
Steel Workers Organizing Committee
The Steel Workers Organizing Committee was one of two precursor labor organizations to the United Steelworkers. It was formed by the CIO in 1936. It disbanded in 1942 to become the United Steel Workers of America....
(SWOC).
CIO leaders had little confidence in Gorman or the UTW. Gorman had overseen the ill-fated 1934 textile strike. The UTW staff was considered incompetent, and politically behold to McMahon's relatively conservative policies. Rieve coveted the presidency of UTW, and worked to undercut Gorman at every turn—even when that meant disagreeing with actions he himself would otherwise support. Worst of all, UTW was practically bankrupt. Only the hosiery and dyers divisions were self-supporting, and Gorman was actually seeking a $5,000 loan from the CIO to keep the national union afloat.
From a strategic perspective, UTW was ill-equipped to organize in textiles. Although there were more than 1 million workers in the industry, "textiles" was actually more than 10 distinct industries. Each had its own markets, technology, and labor force. Workers rarely moved between segments of the industry, for their skills were not normally transferable. More than 6,000 textile firms existed, almost none of them strategic. The geographic spread of the industry encompassed 29 states, with nearly 75 percent of all textile employment in the virulently anti-union Deep South.
But Sidney Hillman
Sidney Hillman
Sidney Hillman was an American labor leader. Head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, he was a key figure in the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and in marshaling labor's support for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democratic Party.-Early years:Sidney Hillman was...
, president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America
The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America was a United States labor union known for its support for "social unionism" and progressive political causes. Led by Sidney Hillman for its first thirty years, it helped found the Congress of Industrial Organizations...
and a CIO vice president, was adamant that the CIO undertake a comprehensive organizing drive in textiles. Now, two years after the victories in steel and automobiles, Hillman pressured CIO leaders to force the UTW into an agreement similar to that which had created SWOC. On May 9, 1937, the Textile Workers Organizing Committee (TWOC) was formed. Hillman was named the chairman, and Thomas Kennedy
Thomas Kennedy (unionist)
Thomas Kennedy was a miner and president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1960 to 1963....
of the United Mine Workers
United Mine Workers
The United Mine Workers of America is a North American labor union best known for representing coal miners and coal technicians. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing workers and public employees in the United States and Canada...
its secretary-treasurer. The committee's other five members included Gorman and Rieve.
TWOC organized impressive numbers of workers in its first six months. By September 1937, TWOC had organized 215,000 workers, most of them in the Northeast
Northeastern United States
The Northeastern United States is a region of the United States as defined by the United States Census Bureau.-Composition:The region comprises nine states: the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont; and the Mid-Atlantic states of New...
. But the recession of 1937 led to layoffs and sharp drops in TWOC membership. Additionally, Hillman fell critically ill in October 1937. He did not return to the committee's leadership until April 1938, and Rieve (not Thomas) was named the committee's acting chairman. Meanwhile, TWOC opened its organizing drive in the Deep South, but its efforts against the "fortress of southern cotton" proved fruitless. By the spring of 1939, after 18 months of work, TWOC could count only 27,000 Southern members—less than 7 percent of the region's textile workers.
Formation of TWUA
Rieve's tenure as acting chairman saw the beginning of events which would seriously affect the union in the 1950s. The first was Rieve's ejection of the New Bedford Textile Council. The council, a federation of seven textile unions in New Bedford, MassachusettsNew Bedford, Massachusetts
New Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, located south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and about east of Fall River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 95,072, making it the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts...
, had been confronted by an employer demand in January 1938 to cut wages by 12.5 percent. Rather than stay silent and acquiesce in the wage cut, the council formally approved the wage reduction. The action not only angered other New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
locals, but undercut TWOC organizing efforts in the region. Determined to uphold the authority of TWOC and concerned that the council's action might spark a revolt by other New England local unions, Rieve revoked the charters of the seven locals.
In late 1938, TWOC also saw a revolt from within. Hillman distrusted Gorman, and clearly favored Rieve as the leader of the union which would emerge once TWOC's organizing drives concluded. Gorman and other disgruntled UTW leaders filed suit against TWOC, claiming that UTW funds had been illegally appropriated by TWOC. A Rhode Island superior court
Superior court
In common law systems, a superior court is a court of general competence which typically has unlimited jurisdiction with regard to civil and criminal legal cases...
ruled on November 30, 1938, that the TWOC-UTW agreement of March 9 was invalid. Gorman then denounced TWOC and Hillman, and sought to re-affiliate UTW with the AFL. On December 28, 1938, Gorman led a convention of 21 delegates in voting for affiliation with the AFL. The AFL executive council approve the affiliation on February 3, 1939.
Hillman and the TWOC leadership branded Gorman a traitor and replaced him with George Baldanzi, president of the UTW's dyers division.
Realizing that the March 9 agreement might not survive court scrutiny, Hillman, Rieve and Baldanzi called a convention of UTW and TWOC locals for May 15, 1939. The convention voted to merge the two organizations into a new union, the Textile Workers Union of America (TWUA). Rieve was elected president, and Baldanzi vice president. Both were elections were unanimous.
TWUA presidency
Emil Rieve's tenure as president of the TWUA saw the union's prestige and importance soar during World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and falter in the 1950s. The union's decline in the 1960s finally led Rieve to retire. Rieve was elected a vice president of the CIO in 1939 after his election as TWUA president.
In 1940, Rieve established a Southern organizing committee and pushed the union deeper into politics. With himself as the head of the organizing project, the union organized Marshall Field's
Marshall Field's
Marshall Field & Company was a department store in Chicago, Illinois that grew to become a major chain before being acquired by Macy's Inc...
, Lane Cotton and the Erwin Cotton Mills—the latter the first of the "big four" North Carolina cotton mills to be organized. Rieve also kept the union politically active, making the TWUA one of the first labor organizations to endorse Franklin D. Roosevelt for president for reelection in 1940.
But in May 1941, the New Bedford Textile Council affiliated with the AFL's UTW, providing the rump union with a significant boost. Soon the UTW had defeated the TWUA in elections in Massachusetts and Tennessee, and was beginning to challenge the TWUA in the Northeast.
In March 1941, President Roosevelt created the National Defense Mediation Board, and appointed Rieve as an alternative labor representative. The board had been created to help resolve collective bargaining disputes in defense production, transportation and raw materials industries. The United Mine Workers
United Mine Workers
The United Mine Workers of America is a North American labor union best known for representing coal miners and coal technicians. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing workers and public employees in the United States and Canada...
were fighting for the closed shop
Closed shop
A closed shop is a form of union security agreement under which the employer agrees to hire union members only, and employees must remain members of the union at all times in order to remain employed....
when the board's public and employer representatives voted that the issue should be submitted to binding arbitration. Angry that the board would not order the mine owners to submit to the closed shop, Rieve and the other CIO members of the board resigned. After the attack on Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
, however, the president established the War Labor Board
National War Labor Board
The National War Labor Board was a federal agency created in April 1918 by President Woodrow Wilson. It was composed of twelve representatives from business and labor, and co-chaired by Former President William Howard Taft. Its purpose was to arbitrate disputes between workers and employers in...
on December 14, 1941, to arbitrate labor disputes and wage settlements. Rieve was appointed as an alternate to the board and served throughout the war. But Rieve and other labor representatives left the body in early 1945 after the public and employer members of the board refused to approve sizeable post-war wage increases for union members. Rieve released the TWUA from its wartime no-strike pledge shortly thereafter.
Although Rieve had purged his union of communists
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
in the mid-1930s, he found himself accused of communist dictatorship in 1944. American Labor Party (ALP) leader Sidney Hillman felt that the 1944 presidential election would be a close one in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
state. Hillman proposed that communists be permitted to play a role in the party, hoping to tip the state toward Roosevelt. ALP leader David Dubinsky
David Dubinsky
David Dubinsky was an American labor leader...
felt the communists should be expelled from the ALP. Rieve supported Hillman. Rieve was labeled a communist, and Samuel Baron (the general manager of the TWUA) resigned in protest from the union. Nevertheless, Hillman's proposal won the approval of ALP delegates, and Roosevelt easily carried New York in the general election.
In 1945, Rieve was a member of a CIO delegation to the Soviet Union. He was an ardent anti-communist, however, and strongly criticized the Soviet Union afterward. Two years later, Rieve became one of the first CIO leaders to sign the non-communist oath required by the Taft-Hartley Act
Taft-Hartley Act
The Labor–Management Relations Act is a United States federal law that monitors the activities and power of labor unions. The act, still effective, was sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr. and became law by overriding U.S. President Harry S...
.
Secession movement
In 1948, Rieve expelled his old division, the American Federation of Hosiery Workers, from the TWUA. The division, which had 20,000 members, was a major backer of TWUA executive vice-president George Baldanzi. Baldanzi was strongly critical of Rieve's leadership of the union, and argued that Rieve was not doing enough to organize new members or win contract improvements. When the Hosiery Workers withheld dues in protest of the Rieve administration's policies, Rieve pulled the division's charter.The tension between Rieve and Baldanzi worsened over the next two years. In May 1950, Rieve attempted to unseat Baldanzi as executive vice-president. Baldanzi, however, beat back the attempt and retained his seat. Rieve then tried to amend the TWUA constitution to remove the executive vice-president from the line of succession if the president should fall ill or die. This attempt, too, was defeated.
Rieve fired Samuel Baron, a Baldanzi supporter and the regional director of the TWUA in Canada, in March 1951. Baron retained his elected position as a TWUA vice president, however. For the next four months, the TWUA was roiled by the firing, with the Baldanzi faction attempting to overturn Baron's dismissal and drive Rieve from office. In early June, the TWUA executive council upheld Rieve's action, albeit by a slim majority. Six weeks later, the Baldanzi faction announced a "democracy movement" within the TWUA and submitted a full slate of candidates to challenge Rieve for leadership of the union.
In August 1951, the AFHWA re-affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. On April 30, 1952, TWUA delegates re-elected Rieve as president of the union. The vote was 1,223 to 720, although most observers claimed this was a startlingly close election given Rieve's near-total control over the union. The convention was a contentious one. Delegates engaged in heated debate, with many exchanges devolving into shouting matches. Rieve was forced to alter a number of his policy decisions in order to win delegate support. On the last day of the convention, Rieve fulfilled one such pledge by announcing that he was resigning from the Wage Stabilization Board
Wage Stabilization Board
The Wage Stabilization Board was set up by President Harry Truman within the United States Department of Labor, in December 1945, to take over the work of the National War Labor Board...
in the midst of a major dispute over steelworker wages in order to devote more time to union business and less to government and other duties.
Baldanzi, no longer an office-holder in the TWUA, announced he had been hired as an organizer with the American Federation of Labor and would be working with the TWUA's arch-rival, the United Textile Workers. He called for disaffected TWUA locals to follow him into the AFL. A number of local TWUA union presidents and leaders followed him into the UTW as organizers.
Over the next several months, nearly 40 TWUA locals representing 20,000 members—about 2 percent of the union's membership—attempted to disaffiliate from the national union and join the AFL. The secession movement was a national one, involving locals in Canada, Maine, the Carolinas and mid-Atlantic states. Rieve accused Baldanzi and the dissident locals of dual unionism
Dual unionism
Dual unionism is the development of a union or political organization parallel to and within an existing labor union. In some cases, the term may refer to the situation where two unions claim the right to organize the same workers....
. Rieve induced CIO president Philip Murray
Philip Murray
Philip Murray was a Scottish born steelworker and an American labor leader. He was the first president of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee , the first president of the United Steelworkers of America , and the longest-serving president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations .-Early...
to threaten wholesale raiding of AFL unions if the UTW accepted the breakaway locals into that union. Rieve suspended local officials, trusteed local unions, impounded local union funds and padlocked local union offices, and sent national staff into wavering locals to shore up support for the TWUA. By August, more than 50,000 TWUA members had left the union for the UTW. But Rieve's actions blunted the secession movement. High-level talks between AFL and CIO leaders eventually put a stop to the raids.
The crisis severely weakened Rieve's political position within the union, and led to collective bargaining difficulties. Membership losses were particularly high in the South and Canada. Although most of Rieve's political opponents had left the TWUA for the UTW, the secession movement led many of the remaining members to question Rieve's leadership of the union. The union's finances were significant affected by the disaffiliations, forcing members to raise dues to cover a budget shortfall. Rieve claimed that only 12,500 members had disaffiliated, but admitted that the union's membership had fallen by 400,000 as it defended itself from raids rather than organized new members.
The secession movement in the TWUA in 1952 aided in the merger between the AFL and CIO in 1955. Both Philip Murray and William Green had died in November 1952. The sudden outbreak of raiding deeply alarmed their successors, Walter Reuther
Walter Reuther
Walter Philip Reuther was an American labor union leader, who made the United Automobile Workers a major force not only in the auto industry but also in the Democratic Party in the mid 20th century...
and George Meany
George Meany
William George Meany led labor union federations in the United States. As an officer of the American Federation of Labor, he represented the AFL on the National War Labor Board during World War II....
. The dissension within the TWUA led to a series of "no-raid" pacts between the AFL and CIO, agreements which helped pave the way for eventual merger of the two labor federations. Rieve played an important role in the AFL-CIO merger talks, pushing for merger as a solution to raiding and serving on various merger committees.
Other activities
After the merger of the AFL and CIO, Rieve was elected a vice president of the merged labor federation. As Rieve's position within the TWUA deteriorated, however, he became nationally-known for a pushing a variety of causes. He stridently attacked the Taft-Hartley Act, and declared that the law had permitted Southern textile executives to engage in a "widespread conspiracy" to destroy the union's Southern locals. He was a vocal and extremely critical opponent of President Dwight Eisenhower, and acted as the AFL-CIO's point man against the president while Meany and other leaders muted their criticism. Despite public disavowals of his extreme attacks on the administration, AFL-CIO leaders privately supported his actions and in 1955 he was named to an AFL-CIO committee on economic policy.Rieve continued to play a role in international affairs as well. When Soviet Premier
Premier of the Soviet Union
The office of Premier of the Soviet Union was synonymous with head of government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . Twelve individuals have been premier...
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
visited the U.S. for 13 days in September 1959, Rieve was a member of an AFL-CIO delegation which met with Khrushchev for three and a half hours in a closed-door session. He excoriated Soviet labor union officials for being puppets of the Communist regime and attacked Khrushchev as a dictator and war-monger.
Retirement and death
Faced with rapidly declining membership, the 63-year-old Rieve retired as TWUA president at the union's ninth biennial convention in 1956. However, he continued to serve on the union's executive board as chairman until 1960. He was named "president emeritus" and given a lifetime annuity of $15,000 a year.Rieve was forced to retire from the TWUA executive board in 1964. During a speech at the union's biennial convention, Rieve blasted the union's leadership for allowing the membership to fall to a mere 127,000 and for failing to organize non-union plants. Rieve retired as a vice president of the AFL-CIO after losing his TWUA office. Although Rieve had pushed for his successor, William Pollock, to be elected to the AFL-CIO executive council, Reuther supported Ralph Helstein
Ralph Helstein
Ralph Helstein was an American labour union official.Born in Duluth, Minnesota, he graduated from the University of Minnesota with a law degree in 1934. He practised law from 1936, but became increasingly involved in labour union activities, culminating in his tenure as president of the United...
, the president of the United Packinghouse, Food and Allied Workers
United Packinghouse Workers of America
The United Packinghouse Workers of America , later the United Packinghouse, Food and Allied Workers, was a labor union that represented workers in the meatpacking industry....
.
After his forced retirement, Rieve retired to Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, where he lived quietly. Emil Rieve died of heart failure
Cardiac arrest
Cardiac arrest, is the cessation of normal circulation of the blood due to failure of the heart to contract effectively...
at his home in Lauderhill, Florida
Lauderhill, Florida
Lauderhill is a city in Broward County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 66,887. It is part of the Miami–Fort Lauderdale–Pompano Beach Metropolitan Statistical Area, which was home to 5,564,635 people at the 2010 census....
, on January 24, 1975.