Montana labor news., 1938-02-24
Labor Espionage Played

The widespread USE. Of labor espionage by
%anti-union employers and the hypocracy of
these subversive groups in their r~anting de-
signed to create a lack of confidence in IN
ions on the part Of the public were trenchant-
ly set forth by Senator Robert M. LaFollette,
Jr., of Wisconsin, chairman Of the Senate
Civil Liberties Committee, in a recent radio
address from Washington dealing specifically
with the use of private detectives hired by
employers to interfere with and destroy trade
unions.
Let us see what industry has done to
thwart labor's right to organize and bargain
collectively" Senator LaFollette told his
radio audience. ''The Senate Civil Liberties
Committee found that many employers, to
avoid dealing with free, undominated, bona
ide trade unions, encouraged the establish
ment of illicit, camouflaged company unions.
When this strategy was unsuccessful a large
number of employers resOrted to espionage.
When spies reported the names Of union
members they were fired or blacklisted and
their organizing plans %subverted. If a union
withstood these preliminary barrages and
engaged in strike, it often found itself pitted
against a small army of notorious strike
breakers, recruited from the gutter with
criminal records as their certificates of pro-
fciency. In many instances the employer
armed these strikebreakers, often Illegally,
with tear or vomiting gas, pistols and ma
chine guns.
"The most commonplace feature Of the
labor espionage business is the methodical
recruiting and %corrupting of honest workers
to act as labor spies. Any one Of a number
of seemingly legitimate reasons are en-
ployed to hook the future labor spy. For
instance, spy officials have even on occasions
impersonated Federal officers and pretended
that reports from the worker were to be
used for official governmental purposes. No
sooner has the unfortunate worker been mis-
led, written his first report, and signed a re-
ceipt for his meager pay, than the detective
agency official, under the threat of exposing
him as a stool pigeon, blackmails him into
acting as a tool for the spy agency. "
Pointing out that five detective agencies
examined by the Civil Liberties Committee
reported incomes in 1885 aggregating over
$4,000, 000," and that "a sample group Of Sc
lected clients of detective agencies were
found to have spent in the four years from
1888 to 1887 approximately $10,000,000 for
labor espionage, industrial munitioning,
strikebreaking and allied services" Senator
LaFollette declared: "In the face of the law,
employers have continued to commit their
labor policy to the tender care of detective
agencies, to spend thousands of dollars on
gas and guns and other hundreds Of thou
sands on union-wrecking through espionage"
Asserting that this labor espionage section
Of industry is now engaged in a nationwide
campaign ITO create public distrust of unions
and of democratic organizations of working
men," Senator LaFollette admonished the
detective hirers that the first thing for them
to do was to cease their illegal and utterly
ignoble practices.
"In view of their past record and their
stubborn hostility to labor" he concluded
at i'll behooves such industrialists and their
Spokesman to take the attitude of impartial
critics. Let them first clean their own house
Let them first give convincing evidence that
they will uproot and destroy the system anc
habit of industrial espionage. Let them show
that they are willing to meet in good faith
and enter into agreements with independent
organizations Of labor.
"In short, let them demonstrate that they
are willing to permit others to exercise those
rights which they claim for themselves. Their
and then only may they enter the arena O.
public discussion with clean hands. Only
after industrial management has demonstrat
ed that they themselves are responsible anC
honest in their dealings with labor, are thei
criticisms of labor entitled to serious atten
ton"