The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-12-07
Misleaders in
the American
Labor Unions
BY WILLIAM z. FOSTER

While a policeman in 1901 he be-
came business agent of the Plumb
ers' Union. For several months he
drew salaries from both jobs. =
bold and INSCRIPTIONS type, ODon-
nell soon forced his way to the front.
He became president of the Building
Trades Council, where he remained
till 1920, when ne resigned after a
defeat by to l in his own union.
He died in Feb, 1927, and was
given spectacular funeral. Ills
coffin alone cost $4,000.
O'Donnell's regime was the golden
era of graft in the Chicago building
trades. The various unions were in
the hands of a clique of guam n
and crool:s, who freely roboed work
ers and employers and ruled tfcir
unions by sheer terrorism. It was
a period of labor shootings and labor
trials for graft, such as has never
been equalled in the American la
Dor movement.
Ordinarily tie Chicago employ
ers tolerated and encouraged the
building trades grafters, because
they helped them maintain their
monopoly control of the industry and
they stood guard against too radical
demands from the workers. But
often, either in a period of unrest in
the industry, when strikes threaten
ed, or when the graft demands be-
came too exorbitant, the employers
protested vigorously. Then would
follow exposures in the newspapers
and jailings of labor leaders for
grating. Many such exposures took
place. thus in 1916, to cite only
one, ii local building, trades officials
were convicted of extortion. OF these
6 were sentenced to Jail for from
l to years and 8 were assessed
fines of from $500 to $4,000. AS
usual these grafters were. played up
as martyrs in the unions and their
trial was made. the occasion for col
Letting huge defense funds, large
share of which found it's way into
the pockets of these same grafters
and their pals.
The nationwide postwar attack
against the building trades unions
brought about an exposure of O'Don-
nell's grating and produced a whole
series of extortion trials in 1921
%. This discrediting of the union
leaders was prelude to the great
building trades strikes of 1922, in
which the unions, attacked through
the Infamous Lands Arbitration
Award, fought to preserve their
cry existence. The most important
q the many labor trials in this pc
rid, which altogether totalled 21S
defendants in the state courts and
297 in the federal courts (including
many employers charged with con-
spiracy), was that of O'Donnell,
Green Artery, and others.
In this trial the employers for
days poured out stories of graft
paid to O'Donnell and his clique,
for insurance against strikes, for
calling off strikers, as fines for US
ing non-union material, and for
violating union rules and jurisdic-
lions, etc. In these shady deals the
workers were used as mere pawns.
They were often called on strike
without knowing what the griev-
ance was, and ordered back to work
without an mixing of the settlement.
One member of the Wrecking
Contractors Association stated that
his firm always added 20 per cent
to their contracts to cover labor
graft. He declared that they main
tanned a christmas box" where
money was placed for business
agents, in the shape of donations to
sick and death funds, Christmas
presents, etc. Other firms alleged
that they paid as high as 35 per cent
of their contracts for graft. The
Lubliner and TRIM people claimed
they had paid $25O,00O graft to
O,Donnell and others. Charges were
also made that the following items,
among others, had been paid as
graft to the O'Donnell clique: State
Lake Theatre, $4,000; Roosevelt
Theatre, $4,000; Woods Theatre,
$4,000 Brighton Theatre, $4,000;
Somerset Hotel, $4,000; Union
Station, $4,000, etc. The sums al
legged to have been paid to labor
leaders during the previous five
years ran to several million dol
lars.
The graft took many forms. In
one case the labor takers collected
from S1,00 to $500 per theatre seat
from the employers as penalty
for installing non-union-made seats.
In another, the Painters Union
agents fined the theatre owners rs
cents per seat for having painted
the seats before they were installed.
Large sums were also collected "to
fight Bolshevism in the unions" In
these and dozens of other ways vast
amounts of money were collected.
Much of it was supposed to go into
the union treasures, but it found
its way instead to the bank accounts
of the grafters. A typical sample
of corruption was where an en-
ployer was told that if he wanted
to avoid labor troubles on his ice
plant job he would have to give the