Teamster Presidency, 1931-1952
When Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, William Green and other AFL officials attempted to have Tobin appointed Secretary of Labor. Tobin was an ardent New Dealer. Roosevelt appeared to express an interest in Tobin, but told close associates he was also considering John P. Frey and Edward McGrady. Roosevelt eventually chose Frances Perkins, angering Green.
Tobin proved to be an adept organizer. Teamster membership stood at just 82,000 in 1932. Tobin took advantage of the wave of pro-union sentiment engendered by the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act, and by 1935 union membership had nearly 65 percent to 135,000. By 1941, Tobin had a dues-paying membership of 530,000—making the Teamsters the fastest-growing labor union in the United States.
Under Tobin, the Teamsters first developed the "conference" system. The regional conference was first adopted by Dave Beck, president of the Seattle Joint Council, as a means of counteracting the conservative leadership of Joint Councils in San Francisco. In 1937, Beck persuaded Tobin that the Western Conference of Teamsters was no threat to the power and authority of the international union. Soon, conferences had sprung up across the U.S., providing stability, organizing strength and leadership to the international union.
But under Tobin, corruption became much more widespread in the Teamsters. By 1941, the union was considered the most corrupt in the United States, and the most abusive towards its own members. Tobin vigorously defended the union against such accusations, but also instituted many constitutional and organizational changes and practices which made it easier for union officials to engage in criminal offenses.
He was elected a vice president of the AFL in 1934, after the council expanded to 18. He was appointed chair of the Committee on Laws, which oversaw constitutional amendments to the AFL constitution. As chair of the committee, Tobin blocked proposals by John L. Lewis in 1935 to weaken craft unionism and permit industrial unionism.
Tobin was a very strong anti-communist and anti-fascist. He argued that holding radical ideas was not enough to warrant expulsion of a union from the AFL, but supporting the Communist Party was. His anti-fascist views were given less prominence in his actions. However, he was highly critical of Father Charles Coughlin. When President Green sent an observer to a meeting of Coughlin's National Union for Social Justice, Tobin excoriated Green for doing so (and for not consulting the Executive Council first).
Tobin's anti-communism led him to attempt to dismantle Local 574, which had led the successful Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934. The local (led by Carl Skoglund, Farrell Dobbs and the Dunne Brothers) was avowedly Trotskyist, but had successfully led the union through the general strike. Alarmed at the local leadership's political views, Tobin revoked Local 574's charter and set up a competing local (Local 500). But after Local 574 secured a jurisdictional agreement in early 1935 from the Minneapolis Central Labor Union, it undertook a wildly successful organizing campaign and thrived. The AFL and the Minnesota Federation of Labor were alarmed at the growth of the Trotskyist-led union, and demanded action. In October 1935, the Teamsters international union passed a resolution denying membership to communists. Tobin also agreed to let an AFL organizer attempt to raid Local 574. The AFL and Local 574 engaged in mutual acts of violence. But when it became clear that Local 574 could not be raided and that the CIO might offer membership to the renegade local, Tobin convinced Local 574 leader Victor Dunne to merge with Local 500. A year later, the newly formed Local 544 had organized 250,000 truckers in the Midwest and formed the Central Conference of Teamsters. But after several of Local 544's leaders left the organization, Tobin trusteed the local in 1941 and ejected the remaining Trotskyist leadership. When the CIO offered the ousted leaders a role in the newly formed United Construction Workers Organizing Committee, Tobin used his influence with the federal government to secure a federal indictment of sedition under the Smith Act. Several of the men were convicted (although most were acquitted or had charges dropped), and the local broken.
Tobin was a lukewarm supporter of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). He did not oppose its passage, but expressed deep concern that the Act did not expressly protect craft unionism and allow the creation of craft-based bargaining units. Tobin convinced the AFL to seek introduction of an amendment permitting bargaining units along craft lines. But although Senator Robert F. Wagner agreed to submit the amendment, he failed to do so. After the quick growth of the CIO under the NLRB, Tobin became disenchanted and suggested that the NLRA be repealed and the NLRB disbanded. In time, Tobin came to strongly support the Act.
Although Tobin supported the principle of craft unionism, he was tolerant of unions which advocated industrial unionism under certain limitations. In many ways, the Teamsters were already an industrial union, with wide diversity in membership, and Tobin advocated a moderate line toward industrial unionism in part to defend his own union. When the AFL Executive Council proposed in July 1935 suspending the unions which had formed the Committee for Industrial Organization, Tobin argued that the Executive Council lacked the authority to do so. But once the Executive Council's decision was made, Tobin enforced it and ordered Teamster local unions to cut off relations with CIO unions.
Tobin remained eager to heal the breach between AFL and CIO, however. Tobin had a strong relationship with John L. Lewis, and the AFL relied on this relationship in peace talks. Tobin was a member of the AFL committee involved in merger talks in 1936, 1937, and 1939, and helped negotiate the 1942 agreement which established a joint AFL-CIO jurisdictional disputes committee. In a front-page article which appeared in The New York Times on January 19, 1942, Lewis claimed that he and Tobin had agreed to merge the AFL and CIO on the condition that William Green retire, George Meany become president, and Philip Murray accept demotion to secretary-treasurer. He played an active role in the 1943 negotiations to get United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) back into AFL, and served on the Committee of Ten which negotiated the merger of the AFL and CIO in 1955. Tobin had long opposed UMWA reaffiliation except on the terms dictated by the 1935 AFL Executive Council's trial of the CIO unions. But the growing influence of the CIO in government councils and in the eyes of the media mitigated Tobin's arguments and led the Executive Council to readmit the union in 1946.
In June 1940, President Roosevelt appointed Tobin to be the official White House liaison to organized labor. But Tobin resigned on August 26, 1940. He accepted re-appointment as chair of the Labor Division of the Democratic National Committee as worries about Roosevelt's ability to win a third term mounted.
On September 23, 1944, Roosevelt gave his famous "Fala speech" while campaigning in the 1944 presidential election. Because of Roosevelt's strong relationship with Tobin, the President delivered his speech before the Teamster convention.
The first real challenge to Tobin's leadership of the Teamsters also came in 1940. The Teamsters paid Tobin a salary of $30,000 that year, when the large union had only 450,000 members. But despite the financial encomium, dissident members of the union accused him of being a dictator over the union's affairs. Tobin angrily denied the charges. Over the next year, however, Tobin cracked down on dissidents and trusteed several large locals led by his political opponents.
During World War II, Tobin strongly supported the labor movement's no-strike pledge. In early 1942, President Roosevelt asked the AFL and CIO to appoint members to a "Labor War Board" (also known as the "Labor Victory Board") to advise him on how labor could contribute to the war effort. Tobin and the other labor leaders agreed to cease raiding one another and to not strike for the duration of the national emergency. Nevertheless, Tobin sanctioned strikes involving Midwestern truckers in August 1942, Southern truckers in October 1943, and brewery workers and milk delivery drivers in January 1945. But he also demanded that other unions punish wildcat strikers, asked the public to punish those unions which went on strike, and ordered his own members to cross picket lines unless specifically told not to by the international union.
In 1942, President Roosevelt again asked Tobin to join the White House staff. This time, he appointed Tobin as a special representative to the United Kingdom and charged him with investigating the state of the labor movement there. After a month abroad, Tobin reported that although Great Britain suffered from a number of strikes, the labor unions were not communist-dominated nor unpatriotic and that the large number of strikes was justified.
He was considered three times for Secretary of Labor, and twice refused the post—in 1943 and 1947.
Tobin did not, however, permit the Teamsters to participate in the great post-war wave of labor strikes. In the two years following the cessation of hostilities, the Teamsters only struck three times: One unit of 10,000 truckers in New Jersey struck for two weeks. Workers at UPS struck nationwide for three weeks before Tobin ordered an end to the strike. And workers at Railway Express Agency struck for almost a month before Tobin ordered workers back to work.
Tobin strongly opposed the Taft-Hartley Act and repeatedly called for its repeal. Nonetheless, he was one of the first labor leaders to sign the non-communist affidavit required by the law.
In 1948, Tobin became disenchanted with the Democratic Party and President Harry S. Truman. For the first time since 1928, he refused to be a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, and refused to speak at the convention when invited to do so. In the 1948 presidential election, he refused to endorse Truman, refused to put the resources of the national Teamsters union behind Truman's re-election, and told local unions to vote their conscience.
Read more about this topic: Daniel J. Tobin