University of Virginia Library

Tom Gardner

Strike Against Criminal Management

There are two kinds of employees
who are not protected by
national labor legislation. One kind
is the farm workers, domestic
workers and others who are specifically
excluded from National Labor
Relations legislation. The other
kind are General Electric employees;
although they are included in
the legislation, their company,
General Electric, is notorious for
constantly flaunting the law.

The record is clear on General
Electric's continual violations of
anti-price-fixing laws and anti-trust
laws. G.E. considers fines paid for
such violations to be mere "operating
expenses," well worth the
investment in terms of monopolistic
profits gained. The current
strike against General Electric by a
vast majority of its employees is
now making the public aware of
GE's criminal record in its labor
practices.

In 1946, mayors, merchants,
editors, and clergymen joined with
the United Electrical Workers
Union (UE) to force GE to grant a
small pay raise. After that defeat,
General Electric vowed to never
again give in to union demands.
They hired a union-busting specialist,
Lemuel Boulware, who became
Vice-President of GE developed
G.E.'s anti-labor policy known as
"Boulwarism."

"Boulwarism" is a complex
process of propaganda, red-baiting,
scare tactics, and a "take-it-or-leave-it"
bargaining policy all
designed to divide, discredit, and
destroy the union. Even though
Boulwarism has been declared illegal
and G.E. has been found
guilty of unfair labor practices by
the National Labor Relations
Board, G.E. continues to employ
the same tactics as they have in the
past.

Union strength continues to
grow among G.E. workers, however,
and the unions have announced
a battle to the death
against the illegal and unfair practices
of Boulwarism. The immediate
issue are wages, cost-of-living protection,
pensions, health insurance,
and equal pay for women and
southern workers. While G.E.
workers have lost 30 cents in real
wages over the last three years, G.E.
offers only a 20 cents raise for a
three year contract. The real issue,
however, is whether or not the G.E.
workers can hold out long enough
to force their company to deal with
their union in good faith and
abandon Boulwarism once and for
all.

Of course, as union strength
grows and wages increase in the
North, G.E., just as many other
companies have done, looks toward
to South for expansion and relocation.
G.E., like other industries,
comes South for three main reasons:
it can get labor at cheaper
wages, Southern states have "right-to-work"
laws and generally less
union strength, and it often receives
corporate tax concessions from the
pro-industry, anti-labor state and
local governments.

Let us draw examples of the
above from our own state. There is
often a full dollar-an-hour difference
between the same job
category in wages paid north and
south. On relocating, when G.E.
was finally forced by the NLRN
and the federal courts to recognize
U.E. local 124 in Waynesboro, G.E.
transferred parts of its components
production to new plants in Charlottesville
and Richmond, where it
could have a fresh start in preventing
the workers from unionizing.

On the importance of local
government cooperation, Virginia
was the only state in the country
where G.E. strikers were prevented
from peacefully picketing in front
of the entrance gates of the plant.
It took a federal court order to
enjoin Waynesboro officials and
police from denying the strikers
their constitutional right to picket
on public property. Coincidentally,
the mayor of Waynesboro is employed
in the management of the
Waynesboro General Electric plant.

Approximately two-thirds of the
workers at the G.E. plant i
Waynesboro are now out to stay.
But all indications are that it will be
a long strike. If the unions can
break Boulwarism and win the right
to bargain over the other strike
demands, an important victory will
have been won for all General
Electric employees. And if the U.E.
can force elimination of the North-South
wage differential, it would
have a tremendous impact on
raising the standard of living in
many communities all over the
South, including Waynesboro and
Charlottesville.

Since the success of the strike
will have positive effects for all of
us, it seems only fair to suggest that
we should all contribute toward the
success of the strike. The G.E.
workers in Waynesboro are putting
their job security and their entire
savings on the line; they are living
on $10 per week strike benefits and
daily walking a cold picket line in
order to help themselves and their
fellow workers gain both a living
wage and respect and dignity in the
bargaining process. The strikers
need money for their strike fund,
food for their commissary, and all
the moral support we can give,
Checks can be made out to U.E.
Local 124 and sent to Strike Fund
c/o Student Council. The least we
can do is to refuse to buy G.E.
products until the strike is settled.