Trade union democracy

When we were first told that the state employee unions required an 80 percent yes vote to ratify a contract, a union official proudly proclaimed we were witnessing trade union democracy in action. But since then, the 80 percent rule was magically reduced to a simple majority, without the advice and consent of all those trade union democrats.In more authoritarian societies, this sort of thing is known as the dictatorship of the proletariat, the proletariat being the industrial working class that is theoretically endowed with all the political power, but not really. I was introduced to trade union democracy at an early age while spending my college summers at an A&P grocery warehouse in Newark, N.J. There were two warehouse buildings. The main warehouse, with about a100 employees, was used to store the groceries, and the other, where I worked, held the empty cardboard boxes, baskets and crates the red A&P trucks collected from the supermarkets for what was then not known as recycling. Unloading the wet and smelly fish crates was a special treat on humid summer afternoons. In the summer, the small warehouse employed three bleeping college kids, as my part-time colleagues and I were constantly — but affectionately — referred to by the dozen or so full-time workers, friendly guys with nicknames like Wild Willie and Rumnose. We were all paid the same, $73 a week.During the summer of ’54, my fourth and last in the warehouse, we were unionized by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers, an event that came as something of a surprise because our small warehouse did not vote in the union election. Only the workers in the big warehouse voted. I guess they didn’t bother with us since we couldn’t change the outcome. But Rumnose and the others were pleased, as the Teamsters contract included a small raise, eroded just a bit by monthly dues of $5, as I remember after more than 50 years.The bleeping college kids became part of the union but not part of the small raise. We were, however, required to pay dues, which left us with a weekly salary of $71.75 as opposed to the $73 we received before enjoying the protection of union membership.When a Teamsters official came by to welcome us into the brotherhood, I protested our loss of income. He didn’t seem particularly interested until I asked, “Would Dave Beck approve of this?”Dave Beck was the union’s national president and the subject of a Time magazine cover story I had read, so I was able to drop his name and get the attention of the local official.“You know Dave Beck?” he asked with a new interest in me and our complaint. “Only that he’s a great union man and wouldn’t like what’s happening to us,” I said. The union rep promised to see what he could do, and I believe we were excused from paying dues until the contract would be renegotiated the following year. By then, I had left the warehouse, finished college and become a professional journalist, at a pay cut of only $21.25 a week.But before my final summer as a warehouseman had ended, I received another visit from the local official and an associate. I was struck by their resemblance to the union bosses in “On the Waterfront,” a big movie that summer about crime and corruption among the longshoremen in nearby Hoboken.I don’t remember the details, but the conversation included the offer of a job, which I declined with thanks, saying I had other career interests.Dave Beck became a celebrity of sorts later by taking the Fifth Amendment a record 117 times while being questioned by young Bobby Kennedy at a Senate hearing into union corruption. He went to jail and was succeeded by the “reformer” Jimmy Hoffa.I have sometimes thought about my good fortune in choosing journalism over an association with the Teamsters and Hoffa, who some believe rests not far from that Newark warehouse, under the old Giants Stadium in the Jersey Meadows. Simsbury resident Dick Ahles is a retired journalist. Email him at dahles@hotmail.com.