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Congress of Industrial Organizations - Political Action Committee (CIO-PAC)
FormationJuly 1943
Merger of1955
TypePolitical action committee
Chairman
Sidney Hillman (ACW)
Treasurer
R. J. Thomas (UAW)
Vann Bittner (UMW), Sherman Dalrymple (URW), Albert Fitzgerald (UE), David McDonald (USWA)
Key people
John Abt (co-counsel), Lee Pressman (co-counsel), Calvin Benham Baldwin
Parent organization
Congress of Industrial Organizations

The first-ever "political action committee" in the United States of America was the Congress of Industrial Organizations - Political Action Committee or CIO-PAC (1943-1955). What distinguished the CIO-PAC from previous political groups (including the AFL's political operations) was its "open, public operation, soliciting support from non-CIO unionists and from the progressive public... Moreover, CIO political operatives would actively participate in intraparty platform, policy, and candidate selection processes, pressing the broad agenda of the industrial union movement."[1]

Background

FBI mugshot of Eugene Dennis (1948)

In his 1993 memoir, John Abt, general counsel for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America under Sidney Hillman, claimed the leaders of the Communist Party of the USA had inspired the idea of the CIO-PAC:

In 1943, Gene Dennis came to me and Lee Pressman to first raise the idea of a political action committee to organize labor support for Roosevelt in the approaching 1944 election. Pressman approached Murray with the idea, as I did with Hillman. Both men seized upon the proposal with great enthusiasm.[2]

Abt and Pressman become the CIO-PAC's co-counsels.[3] Thus, in 1943, as American spy Elizabeth Bentley resurrected the Ware Group (of which Abt had been a member), could not risk involvement with her or the group. Instead, the group reformed under Victor Perlo as the Perlo Group.[4]

Momentum for the CIO-PAC came from the Smith–Connally Act[5] or War Labor Disputes Act[6] (50 U.S.C. App. 1501 et seq.) was an American law passed on June 25, 1943, over President Franklin D. Roosevelt's veto.[7][8] The legislation was hurriedly created after 400,000 coal miners, their wages significantly lowered because of high wartime inflation, struck for a $2-a-day wage increase.[6][9] The Act allowed the federal government to seize and operate industries threatened by or under strikes that would interfere with war production,[10] and prohibited unions from making contributions in federal elections.[11]

The war powers bestowed by the Act were first used in August 1944 when the Fair Employment Practices Commission ordered the Philadelphia Transportation Company to hire African-Americans as motormen. The 10,000 members of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Employees Union (PRTEU), a labor union unaffiliated with either the American Federation of Labor or the Congress of Industrial Organizations, led a sick-out strike, now known as the Philadelphia transit strike of 1944, for six days.[12][13] President Roosevelt sent 8,000 United States Army troops to the city to seize and operate the transit system, and threatened to draft any PRTEU member who did not return to the job within 48 hours.[13][14] Roosevelt's actions broke the strike.

Philip Murray, 2nd CIO president

In November 1946, prior to passage of the Smith-Connally Act, the CIO's second president, Philip Murray appointed John Brophy (a UMW leader, by then head of the CIO's director of Industrial Union Councils), Nathan Cowan (CIO legislative director), and J. Raymond Walsh (CIO research director) to report on CIO political operations. Their report of December 1946 included recommendation for a permanent CIO national political group and consideration for formation of an American Labor Party. During CIO Executive Board meetings in January and February 1943, the board approved most recommendations.[1]

Formation

FDR with Chiang Kai-shek and Winston Churchill at the Cairo Conference (December 1943)

Upon passage of the Smith-Connally Act on June 25, 1943, Murray called for a political action committee. The CIO-PAC formed in July 1943 to support the fourth candidacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt for U.S. President in 1944 toward the end of World War II. It also provided financial assistance to other CIO-endorsed political candidates and pro-labor legislation (e.g., continuation of the Wagner Act against the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947). CIO member unions funded it. Its first head was Sidney Hillman, founder and head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, from 1943 to 1946.[1][15][16]

Sidney Hillman, first CIO-PAC chairman and ACW president

First members of the CIO-PAC included the following:

John Abt and Lee Pressman became the CIO-PAC's co-counsels.[3] Calvin Benham Baldwin left government at that time to go work for the CIO-PAC.[17][18] (By August 1948, the Washington Post had dubbed Baldwin along with John Abt and Lee Pressman (the latter two members of the Soviet underground Ware Group involved in the Hiss-Chambers Case) as "influential insiders" and "stage managers" in the Wallace presidential campaign.[19][20][21])

20th Century

After 1944, Lucy Randolph Mason worked with the CIO-PAC in the South, helping to register union members, black and white, and working for the elimination of the poll tax. She also forged lasting links between labor and religious groups.[22]

On October 17, 1950, New York State Supreme Court Judge Ferdinand Pecora and US Senator Herbert H. Lehman (D-NY) gave radio addresses on behalf of the CIO-PAC during prime (10:30-11:15 P.M.).[23]

In 1955, when the CIO rejoined the American Federation of Labor to form the AFL-CIO, Jack Kroll became head of the CIO-PAC, which merged with the AFL's "League for Political Education" to form the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education.[15]

21st Century

PAC activities by AFL-CIO and its members continue into the 21st Century. In 2015, an AFL-CIO’s moratorium on federal PAC contributions by its member unions began to fall apart weeks after its announcement. Defiant unions included: United Food and Commercial Workers, the International Association of Machinists, and the Laborers’ International Union of North America–13% were non-compliant.[24]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Zieger, Robert H. (1997). The CIO, 1935-1955. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 181–182. ISBN 9780807846308. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
  2. ^ Abt, John; Myerson, Michael (1993). Advocate and Activist: Memoirs of an American Communist Lawyer. University of Illinois Press. p. 99. ISBN 9780252020308. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
  3. ^ a b Gall, Gilbert J. (1998). Pursuing Justice: Lee Pressman, the New Deal, and the CIO. SUNY Press. pp. 183–184.
  4. ^ Olmsted, Kathryn S. (2002). Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley. The University of North Carolina Press. p. 65. ISBN 9780807862179. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
  5. ^ The Act's correct title is "Smith-Connally," not "Smith-Connelly". See: Wagner, Kennedy, Osborne, and Reyburn, The Library of Congress World War II Companion, 2007, p. 196.
  6. ^ a b Malsberger, From Obstruction to Moderation: The Transformation of Senate Conservatism, 1938-1952, 2000, p. 104.
  7. ^ Peters, Gerhard; Woolley, John T. "Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Veto of the Smith-Connally Bill.," June 25, 1943". The American Presidency Project. University of California - Santa Barbara.
  8. ^ Karatnycky, Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties, 2000-2001, 2000, p. 115.
  9. ^ Karatnycky, Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties, 2000-2001, 2000, p. 114; Atleson, Labor and the Wartime State: Labor Relations and Law During World War II, 1998, p. 195.
  10. ^ Wagner, Kennedy, Osborne, and Reyburn, The Library of Congress World War II Companion, 2007, p. 196.
  11. ^ La Raja, Small Change: Money, Political Parties, and Campaign Finance Reform, 2008, p. 63; Sabato and Ernst, Encyclopedia of American Political Parties and Elections, 2006, p. 279.
  12. ^ Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II, 1995, p. 537; "Philadelphia Transit Strike (1944)," in Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working-Class History, 2007, p. 1087-1088; Winkler, "The Philadelphia Transit Strike of 1944," Journal of American History, June 1972.
  13. ^ a b "Trouble in Philadelphia," Time, August 14, 1944.
  14. ^ Klinkner and Smith, The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America, 2002, p. 191.
  15. ^ a b "CIO Political Action Committee (PAC) Collection" (PDF). Wayne State University - Reuther Library. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  16. ^ "Moyer's Report: Trade Secrets". PBS. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  17. ^ "Guide to the C.B. Baldwin Papers". University of Iowa. Retrieved 25 November 2016.
  18. ^ "C.B. Baldwin Dies; New Deal Official Shifted to Wallace". New York Times. 13 May 1975. Retrieved 25 November 2016.
  19. ^ Alsop, Joseph; Alsop, Stewart (25 July 1948). "Wallace Must Wonder Sometimes". Washington Post. p. B5.
  20. ^ Alsop, Joseph; Alsop, Stewart (28 July 1948). "Progressives Open Doors To Other Like-Minded Groups". Washington Post. p. B5.
  21. ^ Childs, Marquis (24 July 1948). "Calling Washington: Wallace's Stage Managers". Washington Post. p. 9.
  22. ^ Salmond, John A. (1988). Miss Lucy of the CIO: The Life and Times of Lucy Randolph Mason. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. pp. 106–109. ISBN 978-0-8203-0956-9.
  23. ^ "CIO Political Action Committee 1950-10-17 [sound recording]". Library of Congress. 17 October 1950. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
  24. ^ Mahoney, Brian; Levine, Marianne (23 April 2015). "Unions Defy AFL-CIO PAC Freeze". Political. Retrieved 4 September 2017.

External sources

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