New name, same mission: Employer’s Association continues the anti-union work of its predecessor, the Citizen’s Alliance

By mid-November, company president Bill Rowe announced that the plant was up to pre-strike strength. Union steward Cliff Schwanke, with 26 years at Quality Tool, realized that the company knew "that if we can\’t get our jobs back, they could just let us wither away." When the permanent replacements began the process of decertifying the union, Local 1140 finally acknowledged its defeat. On June 1, l990, the union pulled their picket lines. In the end, all 28 strikers had permanently lost their jobs.

Backed by Employers Association
Although Rowe and Quality Tool board chair Betsy Cole appeared to be directing this attack on union labor, they were not acting alone. Through its membership in Employer\’s Association, Inc., Quality Tool combined its union fighting resources with Twin Cities corporate giants 3M, General Mills, Norwest Corp., Honeywell and Dayton Hudson. In St. Paul many of the city\’s leading firms like West Publishing, Deluxe Corp., Brown & Bigelow and Waldorf Paper joined cultural and educational institutions like the Science Museum of Minnesota and Macalester College in supporting the EA\’s anti-union mission. Those with labor relations memberships, like Hamline University, KTCA-TV and Kowalski\’s Markets, received assistance in combating union organization campaigns, negotiating contracts, and defeating strikes. The EA\’s most effective leverage for combating unions was the threat of permanent replacements.

Following President Reagan\’s firing of the nation\’s air traffic controllers in 1981, employers across the country initiated a widespread campaign to undermine labor unions. By 1985 permanent replacements were hired in 17 percent of the nation\’s strikes and threatened in 35 percent.

The EA eagerly followed the new trend. In a bitter 1983 strike, EA members Viking Press, Bureau of Engraving, Meyer Printing and John Roberts Co. hired permanent replacements and a year later decertified the printer\’s union. Four years later at another EA member, Waldorf Paper, a strike lasted only one day when the company threatened to hire permanent replacements. Under similar circumstances a 1990 strike at Brown & Bigelow was cut short after only four days.

Successor to Citizen\’s Alliance
The EA\’s anti-union activities were not, of course, a new phenomena. The roots of today\’s policies can be traced directly back to "Crape Hanger" Davidson\’s formation of the Citizen\’s Alliance in 1920. In November l937 the CA changed its name to the St. Paul Committee on Industrial Relations and changed its purpose "to make St. Paul a city of industrial peace where business and labor and the consumer can work together in harmony for the mutual benefit of all." Behind the friendly rhetoric, Executive Secretary MacMahon, "the daddy of St. Paul labor relations," promoted the open shop and lobbied tirelessly against mass picketing and the secondary boycott.

In 1948 it was MacMahon who brought the influence of St. Paul industry to bear on Governor Youngdahl to send the National Guard into the streets of South St. Paul to crush the supposed "anarchy" of the meat packer\’s union.

Ten years after MacMahon\’s death in 1957, the renamed St. Paul Employer\’s Association advertised itself as "Managements\’ Counselor on Industrial Relations," providing businesses full labor relations services, including contract negotiations. Its Board of Directors still represented American Hoist & Derrick Co., Union Brass & Metal Mfg. Co., the St. Paul Dispatch – Pioneer Press, 3M, First National Bank and Northwest Bank.

Although most of its 400 members were small or medium sized firms, most of St. Paul\’s industrial giants recognized the value of cultivating a city wide anti-union climate. By 1985, the St. Paul Employer\’s association had expanded to represent employers in Wisconsin, Southern Minnesota and Iowa. With Minneapolis facing the same pressures, it became clear to St. Paul Employer\’s Association president Kenneth Kixmoellar that a merger of the two cities\’ employer\’s associations would unite businesses across the metro area and strengthen their efforts to combat the threat of union expansion. Working closely with Employer\’s Association of Greater Minneapolis president Bertram Locke, Kixmoellar helped form the Employer\’s Association, Inc.

Same goals

Following in the footsteps of its predecessors, the EA\’s labor relations program seeks to maintain the open shop wherever possible. The permanent replacement of employees, however, is a last resort when other strategies fail. The EA\’s labor relations division, headed by Tom Rinne, counsels its members that "the best time to head off a union campaign is long before the union organizers show up." A list of "signs" of union activity is utilized to warn employers. Employees hanging around before or after work, having secretive conversations or an interest in higher wages are a clear tip-off that organizers are active.

A two-day workshop, "Managing in a Union-Free Environment" will help the company stay union free. If a union organization campaign is already underway, the EA approaches employees with carefully veiled threats. In an eight-week program that a union organizer characterized as "brutal," employees are warned against signing union cards or allowing organizers in their homes. Union corruption, control over workers, and the loss of income that will follow from union dues and strikes are exaggerated in an effort to "scare the hell out of the employees." If these issues don\’t sway enough employees, they are reminded that all strikers will be permanently replaced.

The EA backed up its philosophy by pouring money and staff time into a successful challenge of a Minnesota law that would have banned permanent replacements during strikes.

Closely echoing the anti-union campaign of the early 1920s and the Great Depression, the same St. Paul employers are still united through the offices of the Employer\’s Association, Inc. and are still fighting to suppress the union of St. Paul\’s working men and women.

Bill Millikan is a working man who has researched and written extensively on the Citizen\’s Alliance, its predecessors and its modern-day incarnation, the Employer\’s Association. He is the author of A Union Against Unions, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2001.