Harold Roland Christoffel was born August 22, 1912, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the youngest of seven children of Swiss parents. Christoffel went to both public and Lutheran schools, including a year and a half in the electrical course at the Boys' Technical High School in Milwaukee. After his father's death, Christoffel left high school at the age of 14 to help support the family. From 1928 to 1935 he supplemented his education with evening courses from the Milwaukee Vocational School, including a six-year course in electrical engineering.
After working various short-term jobs for two years, Christoffel started an electrical apprenticeship at the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company in West Allis, Wisconsin, in April 1929. The apprenticeship lasted six years, after which time Christoffel worked as a journeyman in various sections of the electrical test floor.
While at Allis-Chalmers, Christoffel became involved in the Young Peoples' Socialist League and in 1934 he was a member of the Socialist Party. During that year he began his union activities at Allis-Chalmers, acting as a representative of electrical workers in the company-sponsored Works Council, as well as helping to organize the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 663, in which he held the office of Financial Secretary. In 1936 and early 1937 he became president of the Allis-Chalmers Federal Union, American Federation of Labor (AFL). That union affiliated with the United Automobile Workers, Council of Industrial Organizations (UAW-CIO), becoming Local 248 on March 14, 1937. Christoffel continued to serve as union president until 1945, at which time he was called into the Armed Services.
Prior to 1937, there had been no plant-wide union at the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company. Electrical workers, moulders, machinists, powerhouse workers, and other specialized groups were at one time or another organized by AFL craft unions. None of these groups was able to maintain union status for any meaningful period of time. The moulders and the machinists each went on strike, in 1906 and in 1916 respectively, but both were shut down by Allis-Chalmers officials, the men ordered back to work, and the unions dissolved. Other craft unions were weakened through Allis-Chalmers' policy of transferring workers between departments; because of this policy none of the small groups could maintain their member base. From 1933 to 1935 various craft unions again attempted to organize workers, but it soon became apparent that craft unions could not survive in an increasingly industrialized plant. In 1935 the craft union membership was amalgamated in the AFL federal union, a movement of which Harold Christoffel, then 22 years old, was leader.
Allis-Chalmers endured two strikes by Local 248 before Christoffel was drafted into the Army. The first, in 1939, centered on demands for a joint agreement for the three Allis-Chalmers plants, union security, vacations with pay, seniority, a workable grievance structure, and wage increases. When the company refused to meet union demands, workers staged a walkout in May of 1939. In retaliation, Allis-Chalmers fired five union leaders and refused to negotiate. The plant was closed for a month, during which time no further negotiations were made. The workers officially went on strike on June 17 and won their contract demands two days later, and the discharged union leaders were reinstated.
The second strike occurred in January of 1941, when it was discovered that two leading union disruptors who had been discharged by Allis-Chalmers were in fact paid for their anti-union activities. When faced with the demand that the company end its anti-union activities, company officials remained silent on the issue, so the workers went on strike January 22. Repeated attempts at negotiations were rebuffed by Allis-Chalmers, who ran a national smear campaign against the union and red-baited union leaders. The strike culminated in riots on March 31 and April 1 as police and sheriff's deputies fired tear gas and trained fire hoses on demonstrating picketers. Wisconsin Governor Julius Heil deemed the situation “out of hand” and ordered the plant closed. By April 8, union members had ratified a contract that won a union security clause and the right to appeal grievances to a referee. With union security firmly in place after three years of struggle, there were no work stoppages or strikes between 1941 and 1946.
Christoffel served in the Army from February 6, 1945 until October 26, 1946, spending the bulk of his time in the Pacific Theatre. He received an honorable discharge and returned to Milwaukee to resume his union duties at Allis-Chalmers. He was given the title of Honorary President and became Chairman of the Bargaining Committee of Local 248, which was then in the midst of a 329-day strike.
On April 30, 1946, Allis-Chalmers workers had voted to strike in response to Allis-Chalmers' unwillingness to negotiate a new contract. With post-war profits and tax breaks at an all-time high and defense production no longer a priority, the company was able to focus its resources on breaking Local 248. Throughout the strike, Allis-Chalmers and the press vigorously attacked Local 248 with claims of pro-Communist leanings and dealings. In October violence again broke out, but by the beginning of January 1947 the resolve of the striking workers was beginning to wane. The press charges of Communism, the failure of union supporters in recent elections, and internal UAW divisiveness weakened the workers in their struggle for higher wages, grievance resolution, and union security.
In February and March of 1947, the Milwaukee drama moved to the national stage. Three congressional committees, the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee, the House Education and Labor Committee (HELC), and the House Un-American Activities Committee heard testimony and investigated the Allis-Chalmers strike and Local 248. Two freshmen congressmen, John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, sat on the HELC and interrogated union leaders about their alleged Communist activities. During a three-day foray into Milwaukee to uncover Communists, the HELC questioned Local 248 opposition leaders who identified Harold Christoffel as a Communist. Later the committee heard testimony from Louis Budenz, the former editor of the Daily Worker, who told the committee he knew Christoffel quite well and recalled seeing him at several Party meetings. The day after Budenz's testimony, Christoffel was fired. Shortly after returning to Washington, the HELC, acting on the recommendation of Representative Kennedy, asked the Department of Justice to indict Christoffel for perjury, for stating that he was not a member of the Communist Party when questioned by the committee.
Local 248, with contributions from other unions around the country, funded Harold Christoffel's defense all the way to the Supreme Court. Christoffel was indicted for perjury, convicted, and sentenced to two to six years in prison in 1948, but the conviction was reversed in 1949 by the Supreme Court. Christoffel claimed that his conviction was based on a statement made in front of the HELC in which a quorum of congressmen was not present; the Supreme Court agreed and overturned the conviction. Representative Kennedy lashed out against the ruling; as a result the case was retried and Christoffel was again convicted. Thus Harold Christoffel became the first union leader jailed in the Cold War “red scare.” He served three years at Terre Haute Penitentiary and was released in 1956.
After his release from prison, Christoffel worked as an electrical contractor and though he didn't return to Allis-Chalmers, kept his eye on the activities of Local 248, which had never fully regained its momentum after the strike of 1946-1947. Later in life Christoffel and the Local 248 would become the subject of many articles and books on labor history; he also became active in labor history groups and participated in the Wisconsin Historical Society's Wisconsin Labor Oral History Project.
Harold Christoffel died on March 23, 1991, in Oconomowoc.
