[L-I] Mine Mill and the Steel union [re Herbert Hill]

NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR:  8/21/04

I was glad to see Louis Proyect's repost of his nicely done statement of =
a
few years ago on Herbert Hill and Steel and Mine Mill and closely related
matters.  When his post initially appeared, I posted a purely complementa=
ry
piece giving my perspective from several related tree tops.  I am, in
addition to Marxism Discussion, posting it on several lists.  Best - H


The Good Mine-Mill -- And The Vicious Role And Raids By Steel

From: Hunter Gray

Subject: The Good Mine-Mill -- And The Vicious Role And Raids By Steel

Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2001 19:25:01 -0800

The posting [ by the commendably provocative Louis]  from the quite recen=
t
Nelson book, Divided We Stand: American Workers and the Struggle for Blac=
k
Equality, and specifically  the excerpt discussing Herbert Hill and the
NAACP and Phillip Murray and United Steelworkers of America -- with a
substantial mention of the Mine-Mill union [IUMMSW] -- stirs deep waters =
in
me.

Herbert Hill's consistently dedicated work as Labor Secretary for the NAA=
CP
is obviously secure in History.  He was certainly one of the much better
people in the National Office, even as the organization became increasing=
ly
tied to the narrow, oft-legalistic and frequently red-baiting orientation=
 of
Roy Wilkins [Executive Director] and Gloster Current [Director of
Branches] -- who frequently undercut the grassroots efforts of such  staf=
f
as Mississippi's Medgar Evers, actively worked to sabotage our  massive a=
nd
militant Jackson Movement in 1962-63, and carried on warfare [often
conniving with J. Edgar Hoover et al.] against more pervasively activist =
and
militant civil rights organizations: SNCC, CORE, SCLC, and SCEF.

I am not an admirer of the United Steelworkers of America as it existed i=
n
the late 1940s [when I was still very much a kid in Arizona] or later in =
the
1950s and into the 1960s, when I had come of age and experience.  My
loyalties always were with the old International Union of Mine, Mill and
Smelter Workers  and they very much remain -- again, always -- with the
bright memory of  Mine-Mill:  pervasively democratic in the most basic
grassroots sense, courageous and militant, socially visionary, thoroughly
effective, and absolutely committed to  the fight for full racial equalit=
y.
[Much of the Mine-Mill membership was Mexican-American and a significant
dimension was Afro-American.  In addition, there were many Native people
very comfortably involved with Mine-Mill.] Conversely, the Steel union  i=
n
the aforementioned time period -- whether in the United States or Canada =
--
was bureaucratic, Anglo in ethos, right-wing, given to any scurrilous
red-baiting or race-baiting approach that would advance its imperialistic
agenda against Mine-Mill: even, as in 1948 and 1949, IUMMSW had not yet,
with the other left unions, been actually forced out of CIO and the
[Canadian]
CCL  by cold warriors such as Phillip Murray.  After the
"expulsion" of the left unions, raiding and destruction were pursued year
after year by the right-wing unions. Again, in the Arizona mountains, I w=
as
very well aware of the vigilante attacks which burned and destroyed the
union halls of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers of
America (one of the forced-out left unions) in the Salt River Valley; and
the mounting attacks by Steel,  the mining bosses, and thugs on Mine-Mill=
 in
the copper country.

When Mine-Mill withstood these unremitting attacks
against it in its basic hard-rock,  metal mining jurisdiction, the U.S. [=
and
Canadian] Federal forces openly entered the conflict on the side of the
mining corporations and the Steel union.  The U.S. government from the
mid-1950s well into the 1960s, levied a continual series of "legal" attac=
ks
against Mine-Mill [among them witch-hunting Congressional committees,
Taft-Hartley "anti-communist" charges, McCarran Act knives and hatchets s=
uch
as the so-called "Subversive Activities Control Board" -- whose spurious
"hearings" and other thrusts against Mine-Mill well into the 1960s were
endorsed by the Steel union and carried by the Kennedys. As time went on,=
 a
very few somewhat "better" faces entered Steel's leadership --  e.g., "Wa=
vy
Davy" McDonald [and his pretentious hair-do] was replaced as USWA preside=
nt
by I.W. Abel.  Ultimately vindicated by high Federal courts, and always v=
ery
much so by the grassroots and by History, but with its fiscal resources
totally exhausted,  Mine-Mill merged with Steel in 1967 [save for the
Falconbridge local -- 598 -- at Sudbury, Ontario.] As indicated by me in =
a
quite recent post in our Discussion, Local 598  very effectively carried =
on
a completely independent  Mine-Mill existence until it joined CAW in '93 =
--
but has certainly kept its Mine-Mill identity very much intact and at thi=
s
point is most effectively involved in the  prolonged and bitter strike
against Falconbridge  Nickel at Sudbury.

The Mine-Mill merger with Steel saw the old Mine-Mill locals fight hard
within Steel to maintain their uniquely democratic and vigorous identity =
--
and those that have survived still do so.  Not all have survived. Some of
the most historic -- e.g., Morenci (AZ) Miners Union Local 616 -- were
destroyed in the disastrous Steel-led copper strike of 1983-84 against
Phelps-Dodge. In that tragic debacle, with still continuing ramifications=
,
Steel's traditional top-down "decision-making" and then Arizona Governor
Bruce Babbitt's  ["Scabbitt"] betrayal of Labor [with  heavy use of
anti-strike state police] played pure hell for the copper workers.  This
was, among other things, in sharp contrast to the extraordinarily
hard-fought industry-wide copper strike of 1959-just into 1960 -- led and
effectively won by hard-pressed  and consistently democratic Mine-Mill wh=
ose
top leadership was also, concurrently, in a Federal court at Denver fight=
ing
the Federal Taft-Hartley  Non-Communist affidavit "Communist conspiracy"
charges. This case, initially started by the Federals and the mining
corporations in 1956, lay quiescent for three years until the great coppe=
r
strike, and was then deliberately brought to trial by the government in a=
n
obviously union-busting maneuver.  Mine-Mill won that strike [and, years
later, won the "conspiracy" case after appeals] -- but, in 1983-84, Steel
lost the PD copper strike.

Anything that Herbert Hill and others could do to help USWA develop a muc=
h
better racial attitude and practice [Steel used to call Mine-Mill the
"N____r union"], was and is certainly all to the good.  But if you're goi=
ng
to look at effective -- and, for a hell of a long time in the face of
hideous and often bloody attacks from many reactionary sides -- enduring =
and
visionary democratic unionism, then look to the example set by Internatio=
nal
Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (and others in the Sunlight of
radicalism) and not to United Steelworkers of America.

A final word at this point:  In the 1949 attack on Mine-Mill in Alabama
[Tennessee Coal and Iron], a key Mine-Mill spokesperson, Maurice Eugene
Travis, International Secretary-Treasurer, was brutally assaulted by Stee=
l
organizers and Klansmen in a Bessemer radio station -- losing the sight o=
f
one eye.  Brother Travis -- who thereafter wore a black eye patch -- was
later attacked, again and again, by the U.S. government [ultimately winni=
ng
consistently in the appellate courts] but died in relative obscurity in
Northern California in 1985.  Mine-Mill carried on the fight in Alabama l=
ong
after 1949, a major leader being pioneer Mine-Mill Black civil rights
activist [later International Vice-President] Asbury Howard  of Bessemer.
Very much personally indebted to Maurice Travis [ among many other Mine-M=
ill
activists], I have a page regarding him on my current website
http://www.hunterbear.org/travis.htm   and, more substantially, have in m=
y
personal possession considerable Travis material [some rare], including h=
is
extensive and characteristically frank oral history and a number of
accompanying letters -- and am presently engaged in a quite long article =
on
his life and times and very positive vision and career.   Hunter Gray
[Hunterbear]

HUNTER GRAY  [HUNTER BEAR]   Micmac /St. Francis Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
www.hunterbear.org
Protected by Na=B4shdo=B4i=B4ba=B4i=B4
and Ohkwari'

In our Gray Hole, the ghosts often dance in the junipers and sage, on the
game trails, in the tributary canyons with the thick red maples, and on t=
he
high windy ridges -- and they dance from within the very essence of our o=
wn
inner being. They do this especially when the bright night moon shines do=
wn
on the clean white snow that covers the valley and its surroundings.  The=
n
it is as bright as day -- but in an always soft and mysterious and
remembering way. [Hunter Bear]











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