The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-12-17
Misleaders in
the American
Labor Unions

Closely connected with the build !
ing trades corruptionists are the |
prafters in many other unions. The
Transfers Unions have rest of
them. I'm 1918 strike occurred
among the bitterly exploited girls of
the crit" soap works in Chicago.
]. W. tombstone and the writer, as
officials of the Stockyards Labor
Council, took charge Ct The strife.
A few days later big automobile,
loaded with ostentatiously armed
huskies, drew up to our union head
quarters. Two of them announced
themselves as stockholders in the
crit" company and also, to our sur
prise, as business agents of the Chi
cago Transfers. They demanded
brusquely how much we wanted for
calling off the strike. They were
astonished when we refused their
money and insisted that the only
way to end the strike was to grant
the workers demands.) A shining
example is "Con" Shea. This man,
at the time president Of the Interna-
tional Brotherhood of Transfers, led
the great Chicago Transfers strike
of 1905 in which 81 men were killed
and Ais wounded. Shea was then a
pal of the notorious labor CRATER,
j. C. Driscoll, man who had sold
out dozens of strikes and who adj
cd thot bn hoH
income of 100000 The teamsters'
strike was lost, charges being made
that Shea sold it out. In 1909 Shea,
then secretary of the New York
Transfers District Council, brutaily
stabbed his sweetheart, Alice Walsh
So times, almost killing her, for
which he was sent to Sing Sing
prison for six years. Released, Shea
returned to Chicago. Since then he
has been a member of the Building
Trades ring, with a reeking record
eff labor grating, automobile thiev-
cry, bootlegging, white slavery,
shady business deals, CORRUPT poll
tics, jury fixing, etc. He is a special
friend of Tim Murphy and he has
been arrested many times. Hutchins
Hapgood thus writes of this "repre-
sentative" of the trade union move
ment: (The Spirit of Labour, p.
1861
'I met Shea on several occasions.
He sat more or less like poisonous
toad in his rooms at the Briggs
House. He seemed a fitting COM
panion to Young and Driscoll."
One of the toughest" Chicago
unions is the Motion Picture Opera
tors Union. The boss of this strong
ly organized and strategically stu
ated organization is Tommy" NAL
10y, a pupil of "Mossie" Enright's.
The officials of this union have
grated huge sums of money, vari-
ously estimated up to several hum
bred thousands of dollars, from the
atre owners, not to mention what
they have taken from their own
rank and file. They have used many
schemes, including "strike insur-
ance," limitation fees" for opening
new theatres, "fines" for infractions,
real or imaginary, of union rules,
etc. A prolific source of graft was
the Peerless Advertising Co., or
ganized by the union officials. The
latter gave this company the sole
right to use the union label on adj
vertising slides, and then refused to
permit union operators to run the
slides of other, non-union companies.
Thus, with a practical monopoly,
the union officials were able to
charge exorbitant rates fol-. their adj
vertising slides and to reap large
sums of money. The leaders of this
union won the right to control the
motion picture operators in open
armed struggle against the Electro
cal Workers officials. Automobile
loads Of gunner from each union
met on the streets in the heart Of
the city, and fired into each other.
When the smoke of hattie cleared
away Mallov and his friends re-
manned the victors. That settled the
jurisdictional question.