The Union Bug Ep 02: 'We Always Had a Union'

Much of the conversations we see cropping up in today’s online labor discourse center around the labor movement’s need to create a more militant organizing framework within the established unions in the United States. In the last decade, unions have experienced a resurgence in the popular conversation, particularly since 2021, but have struggled to increase membership and create new inroads toward organizing victories, particularly in the wake of successive anti-labor administrations. What does it mean to reintroduce militant organizing strategies to organize labor’s toolbox, and can we look to examples from our own labor history to give us a blueprint?

[For those viewing this post via email, listen to this episode here.]

In We Always Had a Union, Shaun Richman writes a meticulously researched history of the New York Hotel Workers’ Union, and the influence of their militant communist organizers on their organizing strategy from the 1910s through the 1950s. In his introduction to the book he writes,

“Indeed, the hotel workers of New York City had had a union–several of them–for decades before Local 6 and the Hotel Trades Council enrolled tens of thousands of members in some of the largest Communist-led affiliates of the American Federation of Labor. They had a union decades before their collective bargaining was protected by law, regulated by the state, and endorsed by leading politicians like New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Governor Thomas E. Dewey. They had their union long before AFL leaders embraced their radical local leadership during the Popular Front era, and continue to have a union decades after the international union attempted to purge the Communists during the Cold War…it is a rare example of how the Communist Party’s power and influence were so clearly and explicitly negotiated within an AFL union.”

With me today to discuss this history is Shaun Richman. Shaun teaches labor history at SUNY Empire State University and is the author of this and one another book, Tell the Bosses We’re Coming: A New Action Plan for Workers in the Twenty-First Century.

Editorial Note: This podcast was recorded in late December 2025. In a particular encouraging turn of events, the Minnesota AFL-CIO has endorsed a community stoppage action for TODAY Jan 23 in the wake of violent ICE raids in the Twin Cities area. We love militant organizing against repressive state forces, don't we folks?

Additional Links and Resources

Follow Shaun on Bluesky here.

Buy Shaun's Book here.

Episode Transcript

Below is a transcript of this episode. Please note that this is a rush transcript, and may contain errors.

MEL BUER: [00:00:00] [00:00:10] Welcome back everyone to the Union Bug, A podcast by Workers for Workers. I'm your host, Mel Buer. [00:00:20] The Union Bug is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and explores what it means to work for a living in the United States and beyond, and what it means to organize for better working [00:00:30] conditions at the shop floor and industry-wide.

MEL BUER: Much of the conversations we see cropping up in today's online labor discourse center around the labor movements need to [00:00:40] create a more militant organizing framework within the established unions in the United States. In the last decade, unions have experienced a resurgence in the popular [00:00:50] conversation, particularly since 2021, but have struggled to increase membership and create new inroads towards organizing victories, particularly in the wake of successive anti-labor [00:01:00] administrations.

MEL BUER: What does it mean to reintroduce militant organizing strategies to organized labor's toolbox? And how can we look to examples from our own labor history to give us [00:01:10] a blueprint? In his book, we always had a union. Sean Richmond writes a meticulously researched history of the New York Hotel Workers [00:01:20] Union and the influence of their militant communist organizers on their organizing strategy from the 1910s through the 1950s.

MEL BUER: In the introduction to his book, he writes, [00:01:30] indeed, the hotel workers of New York City had. A union, several of them for decades before Local Six, and the Hotel Trades Council enrolled tens of thousands [00:01:40] of members in some of the largest communist led affiliates of the American Federation of Labor. They had a union decades before their collective bargaining was protected by law, [00:01:50] regulated by the state, and endorsed by leading politicians like New York, mayor Fiorella LaGuardia, and Governor Thomas e Dewey.

MEL BUER: They had their union long before A [00:02:00] FL. Leaders embrace their radical local leadership during the popular front era and continue to have a union decades after the International Union attempted to purge the communists during the [00:02:10] Cold War. It is a rare example of how the Communist party's power and influence were so clearly and explicitly negotiated within an A FL Union.

MEL BUER: With me [00:02:20] today to discuss this history is Sean Richmond. Sean teaches labor history at SUNY Empire State University and is the author of this and one other book, tell the Bosses [00:02:30] We're Coming a new Action Plan for Workers in the 21st century. Thanks for coming on the show. Sean,

SHAUN RICHMAN: Thanks for having me.

MEL BUER: to start things off, let's get to know you a little bit more.

MEL BUER: Tell us a little [00:02:40] bit about your career in organizing and how you came to teach.

SHAUN RICHMAN: Yeah, I, um, I, I spent about a decade and a half as a, an organizer. I actually worked for [00:02:50] HERE Local six in New York, which is the union that, that, that this becomes in the book. I was at a FT, uh, the teacher's union for over a decade. By the end, I was, [00:03:00] uh, running the union's charter school organizing division where, uh, you know, we spent, uh, about $5 million a year to organize a thousand workers. Uh, so when I [00:03:10] left there, I started writing and publishing all of these sort of pent up thoughts I had about how rigged the system is and how unions had sort of gotten, sort of caught in a couple of [00:03:20] strategic cul-de-sacs in these times. And Jacobin and, and a lot of publications like that picked up my materials. Eventually it became that book that you mentioned, tell the Bosses Were [00:03:30] coming and eventually I just sort of transitioned entirely into higher ed. Um, I was lucky enough to get hired at the, uh, Harry Van Dale Junior School of Labor Studies at [00:03:40] SUNY Empire.

MEL BUER: So, um, let's dig into your book. The book is called, we Always Had a Union, the New York Hotel Workers Union, 1912 to 1950. Three. You've written a [00:03:50] pretty comprehensive history of New York's hotel workers unions beginning from the first hotel strikes in 1912 onwards through the first half of the 20th century.

MEL BUER: So [00:04:00] why this subject? Why this union?

SHAUN RICHMAN: Uh, well, anybody that's worked for Local Six just can't get over the experience of it. Um, and you, you come away thinking, wow, [00:04:10] that really. Was a special place, high union density and industry-wide, uh, collective bargaining agreement, militant defense of contract standards, [00:04:20] including basically going on strike in quickie strikes that we called, uh, lobby meetings, uh, during the life of the contract, targeting individual employers, basically their own [00:04:30] miniature system of socialized medicine in their healthcare clinics. There was a legend that we told ourselves about an early president of the union who was arrested [00:04:40] at the union office, uh, and deported from being a communist. And that was just unbelievable. Um, 'cause while we were militant, we were also, you know, we were campaigning for George Pataki's [00:04:50] reelection. The, the idea that, that they were communists in this union ever was, um, was, was, was a little hard to believe. And so when [00:05:00] I, uh, went to grad school for the first time at UMass, I was taking my, uh, labor history course and had to do a, a research paper. I decided to dig in on this and to find out about this, [00:05:10] this president, uh, Michael j Obermeyer. And I found a story that I thought was incredible and incredible that it, it was so un unknown and [00:05:20] un undercovered in, um, the existing literature at the time. Is going back to 2005. I knew then that I wanted to make a [00:05:30] book into this. Just took a long time for my life to get into a shape where I could challenge it. I could tackle it as a, as a project.

MEL BUER: I mean, you know, the, this is a [00:05:40] very deeply researched book, so you know, even if you had really started in. In 2005 when you had the idea, I mean, you're pouring through [00:05:50] archives, reading letters. I mean, tell me a little bit about the sort of research process.

SHAUN RICHMAN: Yeah. FBI foer requests do not come quickly.

SHAUN RICHMAN: Uh, so the [00:06:00] time helped in, in that regard. Yeah. In terms of, uh, archives that I, that I checked into the FBI files enormously helpful. Although there's this frustrating [00:06:10] thing that they're getting shipped off to the National Archives and then the National Archives, um, being under-resourced is, is it takes, um, years longer than the FBI to respond [00:06:20] to a FO year request.

SHAUN RICHMAN: So I sort of, I got the early files that I was lucky enough to get and then my source got cut off. Um, but each of these unions. That was formed starting in 1912. Each of them [00:06:30] published a newspaper, and those newspapers have fortunately survived. They're, um, archived at the, the New York Public Library at, uh, at NYU. So that was a very [00:06:40] useful source. And then because this became a, a communist led union, the Communist archives themselves were enormously helpful. And this is for people that don't know. [00:06:50] After the end of the Cold War, the new Russian government created a, a Center for the Study of recent history. Opened up the commentary archives to researchers and a couple of [00:07:00] researchers from America Microfilmed the entire American section's files. And so that exists and, and is available, uh, from the [00:07:10] Library of Congress. NYU has a copy as well. So that was, um, a very, a helpful source. And the union. It gets noted in some people's memoirs. It turns [00:07:20] up in unexpected places. Hubert Harrison, the Harlem Radical, he spent six months, uh, organizing for, uh, a union that called itself the International Federation of Hotel [00:07:30] Workers, shipped down to Baltimore.

SHAUN RICHMAN: That was an interesting tidbit to, to come up with. And then there there's also, there's commentary archives that did not. Get Microfilmed 'cause they were the [00:07:40] commenters itself. Uh, the most interesting thing in there is the personnel, uh, records that basically anybody who traveled internationally on [00:07:50] communist international business has a file on them. They're very slim files. Most of them just contain a questionnaire that the member had to fill out about when they joined [00:08:00] and, and why they joined. Really gold as a researcher, but in one instance, uh, there, there's a little bit more in there that, that told me that a leader of the union was in [00:08:10] Moscow at a time that, uh, he was presenting himself as being in New York and negotiating a union merger in 1935, uh, which just was, was mind blowing[00:08:20]

SHAUN RICHMAN: and completely threw a, a chapter that I was working on.

MEL BUER: Yeah. Well, you know, something that I found interesting in your discussions of the early organizing [00:08:30] that is happening in this particular trade is that there are a number of key players in the early days who attempted to take the organizing in different directions, and there are [00:08:40] also. Contingents of rank and file workers who felt that, for example, the Wobblies were better suited to organize hotel workers.

MEL BUER: Others felt that there, you know, there were independent [00:08:50] associations that didn't have any sort of quote outside influence were appropriate. Can you kind of take a moment to discuss these sort of differing viewpoints and [00:09:00] conversations that are happening as the hotel trades are beginning to organize themselves?

SHAUN RICHMAN: Yeah, it's, it's very much, um, the traditional, uh. Story [00:09:10] story, uh, at the turn of the 20th century craft unions versus industrial unions. And I have to say, when I started drafting this, I sort of intended to, to give the, the [00:09:20] hotel and restaurant employees union, which is the AFL's, uh, uh, craft union. Uh, in the trade.

SHAUN RICHMAN: I sort of give it narratively, uh, short shrift until the [00:09:30] communists wind up joining it. In the 1930s, I became much more impressed with the union, a a, as I researched it. For instance, the majority of bartenders in the country, the majority of working [00:09:40] bartenders in the country were members of the union. Uh, in 1905. That's pretty impressive. But it really owes to the, the union's organizing strategy, [00:09:50] which was a very top down sort of emphasis on, on the union fair list. Basically, uh, uh, you approach the tavern owner and say, look, if you hang this union bar [00:10:00] shingle, uh, outside of your bar, uh, then good union men will come to get good and drunk in your bar. Um, and that was a pretty good deal. And, and then, you know, the, the, in terms of what the [00:10:10] union. It adjusted, you know, tip pooling and, uh, vacation days and things like that. It was a fairly limited form of unionism, but it was there and had less success [00:10:20] organizing in restaurants and even less in in hotels.

SHAUN RICHMAN: And the hotels in particular. This is a time when, in a 10 year period really, um, hotels went from being ins, [00:10:30] you know, with a couple of guest rooms and maybe, you know, a a, a breakfast in the morning. To the Waldorf Astoria, um, with 2,003,000 [00:10:40] employees, thousands of of guest rooms, hundreds of workers in the basement, keeping the hot water, running multiple restaurants and catering operations, and also a very [00:10:50] cosmopolitan workforce, uh, because the Mader D of the Waldorf Astoria, the famous Oscar church key. They insisted that his, his dining room workers speak, uh, [00:11:00] French, German and English at a minimum Spanish a plus, Italian a plus. Uh, and so, um, what he got were workers who not only were cosmopolitan, but were also, because many of them [00:11:10] were refugees there, people were pretty fed up with capitalism in the capitalist system, and it really put them at odds with the leadership of HERE, which was very nativist.

SHAUN RICHMAN: It was very [00:11:20] Irish at the time. The HERE Constitution had a citizenship, uh, obligation. You had to be a citizen or at least profess your desire to become a citizen. And [00:11:30] this of course, when it was much easier to become a citizen in, in, in, in 1905 among workers in the hotels in New York. It was developing a bad reputation.

SHAUN RICHMAN: There's a lot of people that joined. [00:11:40] Tried to organize, were frustrated, insulted, and came to say, you know, the hell with the a FL, the hell with craft unionism, uh, it's just not gonna work. Um, and started [00:11:50] forming, um, independent associations of of their own. There's some of them that have been lost to history 'cause they didn't publish newspapers, but the cooks tried to organize something Around 19 0 7, 19 [00:12:00] 0 8, the I ww was agitating in, in the, the hotels around 19 0 7, 19 0 8. There were a couple of work stoppages at the Waldorf [00:12:10] Astoria. Uh, one of the funniest stories is, uh, at one point Oscar made the men, uh, shave their mustaches, which was terrible affront to their masculinity as you could imagine, [00:12:20] and it prompted a walkout. Um, but he found enough scabs to, uh, to replace the, the men who, who, who walked. And so the independent union that winds up, um, running the first [00:12:30] citywide hotel strike in 1912 is technically independent. Um, it's not the I ww they call themselves the International Hotel Workers Union. [00:12:40] And their material is really fascinating. 'cause you can see the debates that they had with themselves about the efficacy of striking.

SHAUN RICHMAN: Even they weren't sure it would [00:12:50] work, they weren't sure they could turn out enough workers. They were debating more of a, of a legislative lobbying. Strategy going to Albany and getting a law that bans tipping and [00:13:00] requires, uh, a wage increase to, to make up for that. But their strike in 1912 was not a success, largely because they had, it wasn't very well thought out. It starts [00:13:10] around May 1st when hotel employers start firing union activists because they part. Participated in the Mayday parade. So it's something of a spontaneous [00:13:20] protest. It's a cause celeb in the city. But hotels then, and now in in catering operations, um, the summer is the slack season. So when July, after July [00:13:30] 4th rolls around, um. The employers didn't really care that the workers were on strike anymore. They didn't have work for them. That's when the workers start to regroup and start to debate what comes next. And [00:13:40] that's also when, uh, some of the workers, the Italians in particular say, we need real leadership. We need, we need the IWW.

MEL BUER: Can you take a moment to really [00:13:50] kind of. We're gonna fast forward just a little bit in, in the period of history, but, um, I'm really fascinated by, you know, sort of the role that the communists take in [00:14:00] organizing, particularly this union, but in, in joining sort of the popular front at this time, moving into the thirties with the influence of the depression.

MEL BUER: So what kind of role do [00:14:10] you see the communists taking in organizing this particular union as we move forward into the 20th century?

SHAUN RICHMAN: Well, the, the workers in this, in this union, um, again [00:14:20] being immigrants, um, they wind up being day one joiners of the Communist Party, which is a very, uh, surprising thing. Uh, the traditional literature on the history of the Communist Party [00:14:30] says not much interesting was happening in the 1920s. The party was made up of a lot of Russian immigrants who refused to learn English and some cosmopolitan [00:14:40] bohemians based mainly in, in New York City. And it's not the latter part of the decade with a couple of garment strikes that, that there's any sort of labor or activism. And this turns out to be not [00:14:50] true. The pride of the Communist Party was the Amalgamated Food Workers Union in New York, um, where the party can't take credit for forming the A FW. Um, it's that the [00:15:00] a FW members, um, were attracted to the Communist Party, attracted really to, um, the promise of the Russian Revolution. And, and [00:15:10] their desire for a revolution of their own in America, but they retain that loyalty, which I think is a really interesting thing. They retain that loyalty through the 1920s into the [00:15:20] 1930s even as they experience all of what we call the twists and turns of the changing common term line.

SHAUN RICHMAN: They experience Trotsky getting expelled [00:15:30] in very per. Personal terms, because there are members of that union who fought with Trotsky in 1905 and were in America because they couldn't be in Russia. Members of that union were, [00:15:40] were personal friends of Trotsky. And it split the union and, and, and caused some, some problems that turned into, um, organized crime later on, not to get too, uh, uh, far ahead of ourselves. [00:15:50] So the union experienced the changing. Uh, party line in ways that, um, really it would've been very frustrating, would have driven out, I think a lot of people, and did drive [00:16:00] a lot of people out of the party itself during that era, but not for the most part, the leaders of, of this union. And I think it's, it's because of the underlying loyalty [00:16:10] to the Soviet Union and the promise of the revolution that it gave these workers a sort of a stick to itness. That a lot of other union organizers, um, might lack [00:16:20] that. You know, union organizing is incredibly frustrating under the best of circumstances. In the 1920s, in the face of a major open shop drive, tons of union organizers came and went and just [00:16:30] retired from the trade. These guys stuck to it. So the popular front, um, irony of ironies is that the unions in the hotels were [00:16:40] split.

SHAUN RICHMAN: There were at least three major unions in, in the New York City hotels, um, when the popular front begins. And it's entirely the communist party's fault that, um, [00:16:50] over the sort of the Trotsky stuff in 1920. The group of workers split away. They, they wind up, um, appealing to HERE and they get themselves a union charter. Um, [00:17:00] so HRE Local 16 is a competitor to the Amalgamated Food Workers Union that survives on into the 1930s. The communists themselves. In 1929, tried to get the [00:17:10] a FW to become one of their pure red unions of the Trade Union Unity League, um, which was a non-starter for the anarchists in the union. Um, the union had [00:17:20] more ideological diversity, and so it's the, the communists wind up splitting from the A FW and forming a food workers industrial union. They tried to organize more [00:17:30] in working class eateries at the National Biscuit Company factory. Um, but nevertheless, these are three competing unions. When the party line becomes unity, they have a real [00:17:40] deficit of credibility and appealing to their former comrades and trying to get into one big union in the industry.

MEL BUER: It certainly seems like this [00:17:50] opens the door for turf wars amongst organizing drives and such, right?

SHAUN RICHMAN: Yes. Um, and, and so there's, um, there is another industry wide strike in [00:18:00] 1934. That's a fascinating one. I I, and I point to it a lot because, you know, in, in, in my other book in, in my writing on what unions should do today. I've, I've often taken the [00:18:10] position of we should be more open to minority unionism and to competitive unionism. The preferred number of unions by any employer is zero, but their second favorite number [00:18:20] is one 'cause it's exclusive representation and union contracts that guarantee labor peace or a degree of labor peace. And the employers have forgotten [00:18:30] that that's in their interest more than it is in in union's Interests. And so the 34 strike is, is a great example of what happens when there isn't one set of union leaders that can decisively [00:18:40] claim leadership over, over the strike. And, you know, it starts around New Year's Day in 1934. It starts with, um, what was happening a lot in the country. Uh. That in [00:18:50] the early New Deal with the na, with National Recovery Administration, which was encouraging and not collective bargaining that led to a union contract, but these sort of industry standards and code hearings [00:19:00] and, and negotiations where, uh, the employers would be compelled to negotiate with any union that had a credible claim to a group of workers in an industry, [00:19:10] many industries said, well, we're just gonna form our own union, um, and we'll negotiate with them exclusively. So, um, there is a period of time where the hotels were meeting with [00:19:20] representatives of the Food Workers Industrial Union and the A FW and HERE, the entire diversity of the left at the time, everybody's taking an interest in this. Norman Thomas [00:19:30] is, is, is offering advice. AJ Musty is offering advice. All of that's going on. But after the code gets negotiated, the Waldorf Pretoria, for example, takes the position of this [00:19:40] society that had existed forever. The Geneva Society didn't ever claim to be a union or anything like a union. It was just a place where cooks could get together and trade, uh, in industry secrets and, and trade [00:19:50] recipes. Um, the Waldorf Astoria says, that's your union. Join it, or you're fired. And they wind up firing a shop floor leader of the Amalgamated food workers Union. [00:20:00] And that triggers the A FW going on strike, which triggers the the FWIU going on strike, which triggers the HERE Local 16 suing and trying to get an [00:20:10] injunction to prevent the strike from spreading to properties where, where they had members and the National Recovery Administration, which was sort of learning what would [00:20:20] become the National Labor Relations Board, but doing it really poorly. Is sending all these like blue blood, silver spoon in their mouth, uh, government representatives to try to negotiate a [00:20:30] settlement. And all they wanna settle is you have to rehire the guys that you fired. Meanwhile, the unions are saying, no, we want some kind of union recognition, et cetera. And they're negotiating [00:20:40] primarily with the, with the, the leader of the A FW who's doing a poor job and, and winds up conceding a lot. Um, but even when he concedes and he gets a deal. The strike [00:20:50] continues because the, the food workers is industrial union saying not good enough. And even though they're striking with fewer numbers, they start ratcheting up the violence of the picket lines and start smashing windows at the Waldorf [00:21:00] Astoria and the Mount Albin Hotel and a bunch of other places. And it was driving the New Deal, government representatives nuts. They, you know, and to the point where they, the only person that you could talk to is [00:21:10] BJ Field. the the leader of the Amalgamated Food Workers Union, they're berating him. They're like, we think that you're playing games here. We made a deal with you.

SHAUN RICHMAN: Why can't you live up to the terms? He doesn't want to [00:21:20] admit that a huge segment of of the workers in the industry don't give a care in the world what he has to say. They're not loyal to his union. They're loyal to one of the other unions, and the strike [00:21:30] dragged on much longer than the settlement dragged on for another month and a half. Um, it actually wind up putting a lot of the hotels, which were already teetering on bankruptcy. Uh, uh, [00:21:40] foreclosure proceedings. The lesson that comes outta this, the very newly inaugurated mayor of New York Vire LaGuardia, took a personal interest in this, and when the employers were reneging [00:21:50] on any sort of verbal commitment to any degree of union recognition, at some point he sort of finagled like a nod in a wink towards union recognition, and the employers backed off of it.

SHAUN RICHMAN: [00:22:00] He wound up sicking his city health inspectors on the properties throughout the city. Closing down a lot of the hotels, the result of this is strikes a failure. There's no union recognition that comes out [00:22:10] of it, but the hotel association, sort of the industry group, is compelled by LaGuardia. There will be some form of union recognition and they begin [00:22:20] negotiating. Terms of neutrality, and it is very clear the employers, their position was, okay, fine, but if there's gonna be a union, there's gonna be one union. [00:22:30] So that's happening simultaneously. As, again, this is 1934. Uh, the popular front has not been declared, but it's almost like the employers of the Communist Party are agreeing that there should be [00:22:40] one union and, and it starts moving this political process that results ultimately in the Hotel Trades Council and Local six.

MEL BUER: Right. Well, and you know, I wanna fast forward just a little [00:22:50] bit, just to be mindful of time. You know, we have this period of communism. LED organizing that is happening into the forties and fifties, [00:23:00] you know, including, you know, forcing the A FL to really kind of negotiate with the communist led union, which is not common at the time.

MEL BUER: And, um, we get into the sort of [00:23:10] anti-communist crackdowns, the red scare in the late forties and the fifties. That led to a purge of its communist members, particularly from this union, but from across the [00:23:20] organizing, organized labor in general. Um, and pretty much every industry is touched by this. Can you kind of talk about the effect that this has on the union?

MEL BUER: Its [00:23:30] organizing, and what happens at that time?

SHAUN RICHMAN: Well, it plays out very differently than it does in in the CIO, although a lot of the same historical beats occur. [00:23:40] The Henry Wallace campaign winds up being a real flashpoint and in the CIO it's the communist led union support for this third party candidacy that the fear was, [00:23:50] would split the vote and, and let a Republican into the White House for the first time in, in however many.

SHAUN RICHMAN: You know, decades and potentially imperiling the National Labor Relations Act and that, um, [00:24:00] uh, CIO leaders seeing read, um, and, and the fact that the Communist led unions and the CIO represented a major voting block at the convention, [00:24:10] which made them a threat. So that there, it was much more formally a purge in 1949.

SHAUN RICHMAN: So after the election's over, um, the convention votes and it's now you [00:24:20] have to comply with the TAF Hartley Act. You have to sign an anti-communist affidavits, which federal government's making you do. If you don't quit the party or vote your party member leaders out, we'll kick you out and we [00:24:30] will charter a, a competing union and, and multi certify you through the NLRB process. That's the CIO story. And so that's largely what happened in the labor movement. In the A FL where [00:24:40] there's not as many, uh, communist led unions. There's just a handful in New York. It does play out differently. There is still, nevertheless, there's a fight at the HERE, uh, international [00:24:50] Convention in 1947 to put a anti-communist clause in the Constitution. Um, and then it sits there like a proverbial gun in a checkoff, uh, [00:25:00] play. That's the year 1947 that Michael j Obermeyer is arrested at the union offices. Uh, there's a Vice President of the Union who goes on the war path and, and tries to trustee Local [00:25:10] six and tries to, he does successfully trustee the New York Local Joint Board in, in New York. Um, the communists fight back, uh, with everything they've got legal [00:25:20] means, and, and organizing means, uh, uh, they have a very credible threat to disaffiliate, also significant here. The structure of the Hotel Trades [00:25:30] Council, which is an umbrella of all of the unions in the hotels, um, so that the electricians get to belong to the IBEW and the operating engineers get to belong to the operating [00:25:40] engineers.

SHAUN RICHMAN: The, the front desk employees belong to SEIU. The contract is with the New York Hotel Trades Council, which is not chartered by any union, is not subject to, uh, [00:25:50] potential trusteeship. And so if. HERE were to go nuclear and were to Trustee Local six that wouldn't give them control of, of the New York [00:26:00] Hotels.

SHAUN RICHMAN: Hotel trades could say, well, we're sticking with local six. You could kick them outta the union. We're sticking with them and they're sticking with us. So what happens is, um, the [00:26:10] leadership of HERE comes to an accommodation. Um, so partly it's because of just sort of real politic understanding of it's impossible to trustee the organization if the, if the leadership is gonna fight, if the local [00:26:20] leadership is gonna fight it. But partly also because the, the, the union president Hugo Ernst, is a good socialist, uh, actually a good democratic socialist, a civil libertarian, [00:26:30] personally, friends, uh, of the leaders in New York goes back 20 years with them. He doesn't have the stomach for a purge. He, he doesn't think it's appropriate and he doesn't wanna do it. [00:26:40] So he comes to a terms of peace. They end the trusteeship with the, with the local joint board. He pulls that, that district vice president out actually orders him that he can have nothing [00:26:50] to do with New York City anymore. He ends up spending the rest of his tenure in Philadelphia primarily, and you know, asks them basically.

SHAUN RICHMAN: Can you tone it [00:27:00] down a bit? Like, you

SHAUN RICHMAN: know, like we all, we know you're communist. Can you just tone it down a little bit? And what happens is, this is 1947. [00:27:10] Mind you, this is the year before the Henry Wallace campaign. It's like five weeks later, and there's this whole subterfuge of a Draft Wallace movement entirely set up by the [00:27:20] Communist party. One of its first moves is to get a petition going in, uh, unions in New York, imploring Henry Wallace to run as, [00:27:30] as a third party candidate. And you know, the petition says, you know, it's signed by, I don't know what 200 union leaders representing, you know, uh, half a [00:27:40] million members in the A FL and CIO. They get to say a FL end. Because of the Hotel Trades Council and, um, you know, a bunch of these leaders of, of [00:27:50] both the SEIU local and the HERE local in the hotel trades, um, sign onto it that really violated the, the, the spirit of the peace agreement from five weeks earlier [00:28:00] and it causes major problems within the union. So what ultimately happens to flash forward is it's less of a purge when the split finally happens in [00:28:10] 51 and it's more of a divorce. There's a faction of the communists who live up to their peace agreement with Hugo Ernst. They wind up [00:28:20] essentially downgrading themselves to fellow traveler status with the Communist Party. So they have to drop their formal membership so they're not bound by party discipline. They're still in alliance with the Communist Party, which [00:28:30] can still, um, organize within the hotels for CP membership. Um, can still use the union as a, as a patronage mill for for party activists, [00:28:40] but when. The CP and really it's William Z. Foster decide that they just don't trust, uh, the leadership of Jay Rubin, who, who the leader [00:28:50] became fellow traveler. And particularly this is after Michael j Obermeyer is, um, convicted. Um, and it's clear he is gonna go to jail on perjury charges related to the [00:29:00] government's, uh, attempts to, um, deport him. Obermeyer, they trusted Reuben, they did it. They run a communist party loyalist against the president of the Union. [00:29:10] Um, which you know, then, and now this is a golden rule of, of, of labor unions, right?

SHAUN RICHMAN: You, if you come at the king, you best not miss. And so Reuben called [00:29:20] up Hugo Ernst and said It's time to trustee local six. And so for now, for the trusteeship to happen with the encouragement and the open support of [00:29:30] the leadership of the Hotel Trades Council, now it's effective. It's split the union leadership right down the middle. Um, half the vice presidents on one side, half the vice presidents on the other, half the business agents on [00:29:40] one side, half on the other 13, uh, men and women. Um, wind up being, um, fired, expelled from the union, um, driven out after the [00:29:50] trusteeship, after, um, lawsuits and lots of legal appeals are exhausted, and that's the end of the CP within leadership of the Hotel Trades [00:30:00] Council.

SHAUN RICHMAN: Although it didn't change the politics of Jay Rubin and of the trades council leadership, so much so that the FBI is still investigating him in the 1960s, and they're asking themselves, [00:30:10] you know, did he pull a fast one on us? Did he just. Like pretend to leave the Communist party and sacrifice a couple of his lieutenants.

SHAUN RICHMAN: Um, because, you know, they're, they're doing all this stuff with the civil rights [00:30:20] movement. You know, they're, they're still agitating for, for universal healthcare. Um, they look like communists to us. Uh, we're just taking him on his word that he is not.

MEL BUER: Right. [00:30:30] I think it's kind of fascinating to see. The sort of primary role that the communists take in this union. And I, I kind of wanna speak a little bit more broadly about the [00:30:40] lessons that we can take from this particular history. And I wanna pull a quote from your introduction that kind of sums up what I think is a very important point underpinning much of the discussion in the book, [00:30:50] which is.

MEL BUER: The communist role within the labor movement has been mythologized, romanticized, and vilified. What's far more interesting is taking them on their own [00:31:00] terms and their own words. The story of New York's Hotel Workers Union shows an activist group navigating a changing political and legal context and adapting their [00:31:10] strategy, accepting or rejecting advice and assistance of potential allies and enemies, and always persevering to fight another day.

MEL BUER: As such, it retains lessons for trade unionists. Of [00:31:20] any generation. Um, I'm kind of big about kind of bringing labor history forward into the current moment. So when we look at the, in total in aggregate the history of [00:31:30] hotel trades and hotel workers unions in New York, you know, what does it mean to see that sort of flexibility and adaptability in union organizing?

MEL BUER: And can we talk a little bit about the importance of this [00:31:40] kind of experimentation fearlessly so. At the shop floor and you know, in the sort of creation of these unions and these [00:31:50] coalitions.

SHAUN RICHMAN: Yeah, I mean. There's a lot there. One of my greatest frustrations with labor is there's this tend tendency to, to to [00:32:00] say like, well that's, that's how we've always done it. It's almost like a oral history or, or an oral transmission of the rules of organizing. One generation of organizers learns from the people that got their [00:32:10] 10 years before them.

SHAUN RICHMAN: They learned from people that got 10 years before them, and we just assume that this goes back. You know, to the invention of fire and the person at the beginning like came, had a plan [00:32:20] and, and that this was all by design and it's not. It's a series of historical accidents. There are unions for whom it is working, right, and the current labor law regime is very good for the Hotel Trades [00:32:30] Council Today, it's not so good for all of the non-union standalone restaurants in the city.

SHAUN RICHMAN: It's not so good for hotel workers in Cleveland, Ohio, which I don't know if there's [00:32:40] any unionized property there. Because the rules of the system are, are so rigged. Maybe HRE is not the best example of it because I think unite here, uh, as an international [00:32:50] union is one of the most sophisticated organizing unions in the labor movement.

SHAUN RICHMAN: They have a model, uh, and it's very much based on the principles that we learned from [00:33:00] Kate, bro, from burners research or a representative organizing committee, escalating demands, escalating actions, et cetera, et cetera. And those organizing committee members, after they succeed in a campaign, they [00:33:10] become rank and file member active.

SHAUN RICHMAN: This, that can be, you know, activated at any time and, and can add to the army of organizers that the union can tap into. But this is a union that said [00:33:20] grows variably. Um, because, you know, you, you can't go to scale with that sort of intense, uh, form of organizing. You know, you can, you can maintain your 90% density in New [00:33:30] York.

SHAUN RICHMAN: You can, you can, you can have a plan to increase density in, in New Orleans, 1%, 2% a year and even, and eventually get it back to some, uh, critical mass. But [00:33:40] it doesn't, you know, there, there are hundreds of thousands of hotel workers that that plan and that strategy, uh, doesn't address. And that's again, highlighting perhaps the [00:33:50] best union at organizing, um, in America right now. You know, there's other unions where there's no, it doesn't feel like there's a plan at all. The idea then [00:34:00] of in a completely non-union industry, or at least in a, in a, in a non-union part of the country. Just try anything different right? Of of, of not going to an NLRB [00:34:10] election or not doing the, the sort of, the pressure campaign to, to, to get some sort of code of conduct election of not, of not organizing, you know, according to the manuals that came out [00:34:20] of the 1990s is anathema in so many places. It's become a sort of a, a conservatism among union organizing directors and union leaders of, you know, let's [00:34:30] follow the science and let's do it the way that we understand and hope that the, that the law changes to allow us to, um, to organize more widely than this. Even something [00:34:40] as, as minor as going for minority members only unionism, um, you know, it was a big idea that came out around, well, 2005, I think, when Charlie Morris [00:34:50] published his book on that, on that subject. You know, and rather than just do it, you know, a couple of labor unions asked the NLRB for an opinion about whether it was allowed. [00:35:00] The hell with that it, it's allowed, if you study the history of your are a Labor Australian, you look at the early labor board, there was no sense of exclusive representation and getting a [00:35:10] majority election.

SHAUN RICHMAN: There's nothing like that. The plain language of the law is. If a union says, Hey, we got some members here, you are compelled to bargain with that union over those members. [00:35:20] Do it. You know, do it to the point where it creates a little bit of chaos for the employers. Just be a union. Act like a union, and let the chips fall where they may. [00:35:30] That idea remains crazy and radical.

MEL BUER: Well, but at the same time, you know, you see. The sort of organizing that Workers United is doing in industries like [00:35:40] the coffee industry, Starbucks, and, and various other disparate shops that are coming together in these sort of critical mass moments. The Starbucks strike that has just [00:35:50] slowly sort of, um, coming to an end.

MEL BUER: We're recording this right at the end of the year in 2025. It'll come out late next month, but there are. A younger generation of militant [00:36:00] organizers that are at least attempting to experiment, uh, within the system and, and trying to find new inroads, would, would you agree?

SHAUN RICHMAN: I wouldn't agree about the Starbucks [00:36:10] campaign being experimental. Um, I think it's a great campaign. Mind you, um, I, I, I think what you have there is the union effort went viral in a way that. The workers began to [00:36:20] self-organize so that it could go to scale. But the organizing itself is very traditional. It is unite here style organizing.

SHAUN RICHMAN: The only key difference is that the [00:36:30] workers learned how to start doing it for themselves and were able to take it to scale. So in, in some respects, I mean, I think it's one of the most encouraging organizing campaigns of the last couple of years. [00:36:40] Don't get me wrong, but you know, I'm gonna be a downer anyway in some respects. It could potentially be backfiring because it gives the traditionalists [00:36:50] more ammunition for See, the handbook works,

SHAUN RICHMAN: you know,

MEL BUER: Right.

SHAUN RICHMAN: workers who have to catch up.

MEL BUER: Ugh. Right. [00:37:00] Well, what kind of experimentation would you like to see? Calling back to also your previous work, but, you know, we do live in an interesting time. Um, we do live at a time of like the [00:37:10] lowest union density. Since they've been calculating it, what are we at now? Like 7%.

SHAUN RICHMAN: Of private sector. Yeah.

MEL BUER: Yeah. And you know, I think there is [00:37:20] this sort of lopsided in the sense that unions are, these popular perception of unions are at its highest, it's been in in many, many years, but the actual organizing is [00:37:30] not really catching up.

MEL BUER: And I think you kind of hit the nail on the head there that this sort of traditional organizing models are. Not built to catch up. Right. To create these [00:37:40] spaces where if you got two people in a shop, you got a union. You know what I mean? And like what does that look like in this current moment?

MEL BUER: Especially as we're seeing AI [00:37:50] and automation crater industries all over the globe, not just in the United States. What are some of the, I don't know, more interesting [00:38:00] ideas that you have heard or that you're, you're hoping folks would be willing to experiment with?

SHAUN RICHMAN: I mean, I, I don't wanna be, um, overly prescriptive and actually I'll, I'll, I'll give you a very [00:38:10] confounding example of, of a thing that I have, you know, been trying to encourage privately since I, you know, have some years of people at A GRE that actually the conservatives in [00:38:20] the union in 1905, the craft unionists, the bartenders had a model that might have some relevance here in the 21st century. And you see this comes outta Starbucks. [00:38:30] Bartenders are like. Barristers, I think in, in very significant ways. I think the social aspect of the workplace is, is very similar, right? So there's something about, about [00:38:40] barristers as a profession, as a, as a craft identity that allowed the organizing to go viral and for there to be more rank and file leadership on these quickie, you know, elections. [00:38:50] Why not? Experiment with bartenders. Why not actually just like, give a group of bartenders in New York, a union charter, turn them [00:39:00] loose on their comrades and, and see what would, you know, you might wind up with a union that only has 200 members and they're all in DSA,

SHAUN RICHMAN: uh, and then, [00:39:10] and then, you know, that'll be a special, uh, headache to union leadership. But you know, the top down union label approach, you know, would you go and outta your way to drink at a bar [00:39:20] that had, uh, this is a union bar sign in the window?

SHAUN RICHMAN: I would,

MEL BUER: Yeah.

SHAUN RICHMAN: and is there a way maybe, you know, to stitch together these small workplaces [00:39:30] into a group healthcare plan where actually there, you know, it winds up offering the employers. Something in their interest, affordable health insurance for their workers and for themselves. Uh, [00:39:40] maybe dealing them in, in New York to the hotel trades, council's healthcare system. There's possibilities like that. There are large parts of this country where there's no pathway to collective bargaining for a, [00:39:50] for a school's district in Texas, for example, it's actually, it's against the, the Texas constitution. But there, there, there are chartered locals that go out [00:40:00] there and organize, uh, teachers. Found, you know, they've got reasons for the teachers to join. There are some benefits that come with the dues, but also the teachers act as an organization in the [00:40:10] district and they represent themselves at the school board meetings.

SHAUN RICHMAN: They represent themselves in meetings with the principal on a school site basis. That's sort of proudly continued. I, I think, largely [00:40:20] just 'cause the A FT. Got collective bargaining later than everybody else. And so they were using the older pre NLRB tools later into the 20th and 21st century. And like, [00:40:30] this still works.

SHAUN RICHMAN: This is, it's the best we're gonna get for Texas for right now. So let's, let's do it. So there are some examples out there. Like you said, you got two people together, that's a union, you're the [00:40:40] union now, how are you gonna get your point across to the boss?

MEL BUER: Right. Well, you know, it's funny you should mention bartenders unions and, and the bartending trade. I used to [00:40:50] work in the bar industry in the Midwest, in, in my hometown of Omaha. We made a very sadly. Unsuccessful attempt to unionize the bar that we worked at in [00:41:00] 2022. And there is something unique, particularly in the entertainment districts in the Midwest, like we could have a whole hours long conversation about how you would even [00:41:10] begin to organize this.

MEL BUER: But you know, these entertainment districts are full of, uh, establishments that are owned usually by a restaurant association that's. You know, [00:41:20] got five members. They each own three restaurants, right? So you've already got a shop floor that extends beyond one particular business into three other businesses on the [00:41:30] street.

MEL BUER: Those workers already talk to each other. They go to each other's industry nights. You know, they have these collective sort of conversations with one another. They look out for each [00:41:40] other. For example, when a tip jar is stolen off of one counter, the entire, you know, entertainment district is hoping to ban and bar the person who stole it, right?

MEL BUER: So there, you know, there's these [00:41:50] conversations that are already happening. So it's ripe for organizing. Right, and we can have a long conversation about why it's difficult to organize these small shops, because small business [00:42:00] owners really are the worst of the worst when it comes to organizing against a boss.

MEL BUER: Um, you know, but I, you see what I'm saying? Where there is. [00:42:10] There's an opening there. Right, and, and you know, I have my own thoughts about working in the bar industry. I think that something that union organizing could do is to improve [00:42:20] working conditions, not just in terms of hours pay, these types of things, but to address the rampant alcoholism and the unfortunate reality of eating disorders amongst [00:42:30] workers in those conditions.

MEL BUER: Right? All of these things can be addressed by union organizing and. My personal sort of hope and [00:42:40] dream is that we really begin to see these types of, like, why not organize unions within one entertainment district? It becomes its own sort of local, and then you have [00:42:50] other neighborhoods that have their locals.

MEL BUER: Right. And it's, it's exciting to me to think about it, right.

SHAUN RICHMAN: exactly what happened in in New York during that period, after the 1934 [00:43:00] strike before the neutrality agreement kicks in in, in 38. There was a couple years there where all the unions were getting together and there was like this exciting process of, of, of imagining what it would look [00:43:10] like and at one point it was, yeah, and the musicians can join and we'll do it this way and we'll do it that way.

SHAUN RICHMAN: Even to have a conversation like that. I wish our central labor council meetings looked more like that, [00:43:20] but you know, sort of a light has gone out where I, I think people are so beaten down and depressed that that sort of, you know, blue sky thinking, that sort of excited, like, why [00:43:30] can't we take on Times Square Attitude is missing.

MEL BUER: Yeah, well, you know, and it's my hope sincerely, that as the guidelines are being stripped away as the [00:43:40] NLRB. Continues to operate at half power with no quorum. You know what I mean? Um, as we see the NLRA challenged at the Supreme Court, perhaps maybe we [00:43:50] will see a return to these types of skyes, the limit sort of ideas, right?

MEL BUER: If they're gonna shred the, the, the guardrails, then, you know. Why not? Why [00:44:00] not have sympathy strikes and secondary strikes and all of these things, right? Why not begin to kind of rethink how labor organizing can reimagine itself [00:44:10] when the conditions reach the point that they, uh, seem to be inevitably heading towards?

MEL BUER: And it unfortunately. I'm sure you might share this, like a lot of the [00:44:20] industrial or the business unions that, that are the most successful or the most established, really haven't thought about that eventuality or that possibility. Um, have not begun [00:44:30] sort of organizing in that direction, or at least preparing membership for what that might look like.

MEL BUER: And we continue to fight this rear guard battle that I'm tired of [00:44:40] fighting.

SHAUN RICHMAN: I mean, I, I think that the day that the Supreme Court takes the case. It gets more real. And I, I hope that that's when these conversations start happening. But I think people are just sort of bogged [00:44:50] down in the day to day. I mean, it'd be terrible to lose the, the National Labor Relations Board, but it is sort of a Christ attunity should it come up.

SHAUN RICHMAN: And it speaks to these moments [00:45:00] where independent unions. Can play a role that the labor movement just might need outsiders to take advantage of the moment, because the most successful [00:45:10] unions are gonna be most focused on preserving what they've got and trying to keep it. In the realm of contract law, of trying to get state labor laws that look [00:45:20] like the NLRA passed, which are all possibilities. You know, in many respects, the most successful unions would weather the end of the NLRB quite [00:45:30] well that we do need, you know, workers in completely non-union industries or, you know, industry. The union got decimated saying, what about us? And just running with it. 'cause if you're in a moment where [00:45:40] you know nothing is legally protected. Well, then every potential strategy should be on the table.

MEL BUER: It's just a matter of whether folks have the courage to actually. [00:45:50] Pull that off, you know? And I think they will. I really do. I think that conditions continue to worsen for us in this country, um, whether we want them to or not. And even like some [00:46:00] impending AI bubble burst is going to have ripple down effects to the rest of the working class, whether or not you've invested in open AI or not.

MEL BUER: Right. So we will. [00:46:10] Find ourselves pushed in that place and I think that folks will rise to the occasion. I think that that's been borne out by even just recent eruptions in American history as recent as [00:46:20] 2020. Right. Um, and we're still seeing the effects of the sort of shredding. Of whatever social or civil contract that we had [00:46:30] in 2020 due to the pandemic and what workers have done to galvanize each other and to try and shore up protections for each other, is the reason I think that we've had, um, the [00:46:40] resurgence that we're seeing.

MEL BUER: You know, and hopefully that translates to more fruitful organizing in the future as well. Well, thanks for coming on the show, Sean. Really, [00:46:50] this has been a wonderful conversation and um, you know, I want to kick it to you and, you know, ask where can folks find your work and what's next for you? I think you had [00:47:00] mentioned that you're working on another book, if you wanna take a moment to talk about it.

SHAUN RICHMAN: Yeah, sure. I mean, the current book, we always had a union, please buy it. If you can't afford it, please ask your library to [00:47:10] get a copy. That always really, uh, helps. I've got, um, two books I'm working on. One is a little bit of a different direction. It's a collection, an anthology of, um, [00:47:20] essays about.

SHAUN RICHMAN: Depictions of unions and class struggle on scripted, episodic television, calling it so long. Dental plan should be coming out, but from SUNY Press [00:47:30] maybe next year, maybe early the year after that, it's in peer review at the moment. Um, but it's a lot of fun. I'm trying to wrap up the first draft of, uh, a [00:47:40] history of the dissident communists in America in the 1930s.

SHAUN RICHMAN: I'm calling, um, generals without a Union, so it's the Trotskyists and the Love [00:47:50] Stone Knights and a whole bunch of other, its that tried to reform the common turn and overthrow Stalin by remote control from the Bronx. A very interesting [00:48:00] period in the left and in labor. And I, I, I think that, um. That 1933 to 19 4 34 strike wave, um, only happened because of, of outsiders [00:48:10] like that.

SHAUN RICHMAN: The a FL craft unionists and the communists themselves were sort of stuck in strategies that would not have taken advantage of that little crack that, uh, that, that the new deal opened [00:48:20] up with the National Recovery Administration, but the, the, the dissident communists saw it and, and, and ran with it.

MEL BUER: Very cool. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Sean. I really appreciate it.[00:48:30]

SHAUN RICHMAN: Thanks again. It was fun.

MEL BUER: So that's it for us here at the Union Bug this week. Once again, I'm your host, Mel, er. [00:48:40] Thanks again for your continued support and solidarity as I've gotten this project off the ground, and I'm so grateful for your listenership. If you're interested in supporting the podcast, you [00:48:50] can head on over to Words about work.news and subscribe to the newsletter there.

MEL BUER: If you'd like to support this project financially, you can do so via the About tab on that website. [00:49:00] Otherwise you can find new episodes of the Union Bug wherever you get your podcasts dropping every Friday. Thanks again for listening, and I do hope you'll stick around. Until next [00:49:10] [00:49:20] time.