BIOGRAPHICAL BACKGROUND
Scope and Content Note: Born in Cleveland; high school dropout; a follower of Eugene Debs.

INVOLVEMENT WITH THE PROLETARIAN PARTY OF AMERICA
Scope and Content Note: Much like doctrinaire socialists in England, believing that the working class cannot accept socialism until it is educated to what socialism is. Thus, concentrated on teaching what socialism is. His study group would read Marxist publications, paragraph by paragraph and try to explain them to each other without benefit of much educational or historical background.

MEYERS ON ECONOMIST ADAM SMITH
Scope and Content Note: If living today, Smith would not be the hero of corporations and the bourgeoisie because he was extremely suspicious of the middle class. Smith advocated free trade because he lived in a period when such a theory was liberating. Smith today would be a liberal advocating government intervention in order to restrain exploitation.

MEYERS AND RETAIL CLERKS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION (RCIA) PRESIDENT JAMES SUFFRIDGE
Scope and Content Note: Never agreed philosophically, but Suffridge, a devout Christian, complimented Meyers by saying he was as good a Christan as he had ever met.

MEYERS' ROLE IN THE RCIA
Scope and Content Note: At the time Patrick Gorman was elected President of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen (AMC&BW), and in this type of union, one could be both a socialist and a trade union leader. However, in Meyers' time and in his type of union, one could be a radical on the side or could be braintrusting for a labor leader, but could not openly hold radical views as a leader. Hence, Meyers could be an asset to the union without being its top leader.

MEYERS' POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Scope and Content Note: Having sifted all the various Marxist and anarchist arguments and having observed all kinds of sectarian hairsplitting, Meyers was left with only one central belief - a loyalty to working people and a desire to serve them.

DEPARTMENT STORE STRIKES
Scope and Content Note: Meyers was always grateful to Suffridge because when the union was at its poorest, Suffridge opened the treasury to Meyers for a department store strike. Suffridge used to say any strike that lasted more than three months was a lost strike, but Meyers would counter that anyone who would not fight a department store for more than three months would never learn how to organize department stores. He had department store strikes of eight, thirteen and seventeen months.

SEVENTEEN-MONTH DEPARTMENT STORE STRIKE IN PITTSBURGH, 1953
Scope and Content Note: Management refused to negotiate until the Teamsters' strike was settled because the RCIA and other unions had respected Teamster picket lines the previous year. The Teamsters' strike lasted nine months, and they settled for only a nickel, giving up all their other demands. The Teamsters then told the eleven other unions involved that it was each for itself. Two hundred and fifty, mostly old ladies, were on the picket line, and strike breakers were going in. Meyers went to the Chairman of the Board of Gimbels in New York to plead the case of the strikers, most of whom had been long-time Gimbels employees. He responded that he could do nothing because the May Company in St. Louis was calling the shots for the strike in Pittsburgh. Meyers sent pickets to Gimbels in Milwaukee, where there were 6,000 unorganized employees, and also to Gimbels in New York, which was organized by the Congress of Industrial Organizations' (CI0) Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Workers (RWDSU). In Milwaukee, radio interviews led to press coverage which led to the Pittsburgh Gimbels management agreeing to return the strikers to work with seniority; just “take your show off the road.” Meanwhile, several of the smaller locals involved in this strike were destroyed. From that point on, the RCIA could do no wrong in Pittsburgh. Even the local AMC&BW, which had many clerks in Pittsburgh, negotiated privately (but unsuccessfully) with Meyers to come over to the RCIA.

TRAINING NEW ORGANIZERS AND LEADERS IN RCIA
Scope and Content Note: Meyers held many seminars at many universities and noticed that local union officers, busy with servicing, were often much like businessmen. Younger people gravitated to Meyers. He bought many copies of George Kirstein's Stores and Unions and gave them to young people who looked promising.

RACIAL PREJUDICE AND THE ORGANIZING OF THE KROGER COMPANY IN TEXAS
Scope and Content Note: Kroger was buying out other chains and growing rapidly in Texas. It had contracts with AMC&BW for butchers. Meyers went to organize the clerks, since most of Kroger in other parts of the country had been organized by RCIA. He found that about half the employees were black and were classified as janitors at a lower pay scale, even though they performed the duties of clerks.

CONTINUATION OF STORY ABOUT ORGANIZING KROGER IN TEXAS
Scope and Content Note: Black Kroger workers wanted Meyers to go on radio, and publicly speak on behalf of civil rights. Meyers told them he would if they insisted, but the whites in Kroger stores would vote against the union if he did. On the other hand, he told them, he could get them some immediate gains through organization if the whites were not alienated on the race issue and if all the blacks would vote for the union. The blacks agreed, and they went on to do “the Impossible” - organize Kroger in southern Texas and the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

ANECDOTE ABOUT THE KROGER CAMPAIGN IN TEXAS
Scope and Content Note: “Fascist” manager opened a female checker's purse, took out a union leaflet and tore it up in her face. RCIA organizer Peter Hall told the manager if he ever so much as spoke against the union after that, “I will filet you like a herring and feed you to the cat.”

MORE ON THE KROGER CAMPAIGN IN TEXAS
Scope and Content Note: One leaflet used a picture of Kroger's top leadership with RCIA's leadership, which had appeared in the Retail Clerks Advocate. Meyers captioned it, “management thinks they are good enough to meet with us, but they don't think you are good enough.” The president of Kroger complained to Suffridge about this “Bolshevik propaganda.”

RCIA SUCCESS DUE IN PART TO FACT IT SOUGHT OUT YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE STORES TO BECOME ORGANIZERS
Scope and Content Note: Main reason for RCIA growth was the advent of supermarkets because they “gave us these young people.”

HOW MEYERS CAME TO JOIN RCIA (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: Clarence Rust, Oakland socialist friend of Meyers, told the local union organizer to talk to Meyers, who was working at the large Montgomery Wards store. The organizer was getting a dollar a head for organizing and offered Meyers half of each dollar for each person he could sign up in Wards. Meyers said he would organize Wards' employees only if there were no initiation fee.

ORGANIZING MEYERS' WARDS STORE (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: Meyers signed up a few people and then management discovered what he was doing. He thought he would get fired, so during his lunch hour, he had a short letter typed up which claimed the store was 100 percent organized and called on management to negotiate a contract. He took the letter around to each employee, held it up for them to read and handed them a membership application. Two hours later, the whole store was lined up dropping application cards and two dollar bills into a pot. The store was a “jail,” and the employees wanted release. Meyers became an instant hero in the Oakland labor movement. Management did not fire him but tried instead to court him.

MEYERS UNDERMINED BY RCIA ORGANIZER IN OAKLAND AREA (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: “RCIA Secretary-Treasurer C.C. Coulter, “very short sighted, very stubborn, very courageous and quite honest,” put too much trust in people he did not know. Thus, upon the advice of his West Coast organizer, Kenneth Griffin, he expelled Meyers and about 100 others from the union. The telegram of expulsion was read to a large union meeting. When Meyers took the floor, the lights were turned off because Meyers and his wife had organized most of those present, and they supported him. The expulsion was based in part on a fictitious story that Meyers had spent time in jail. Meyers still had his job with Wards and stayed in the store urging people not to abandon the union. Griffin had been offered a deal by management that the workers would get a one dollar increase and if, after a year's trial period, management thought it was getting along with the union, it would consider giving a union shop. This was unpalatable, since the San Francisco clerks had just been given a seven dollar raise. Meyers hollered “sell out.” Apparently also one of the conditions of the deal was to get Meyers out of the union.

CONTINUATION OF STORY ABOUT MEYERS' EXPULSION FROM RCIA (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: Griffin, therefore, declared Meyers was an enemy of a peaceful settlement and this led to his expulsion. Coulter never responded to Meyers' many letters of appeal.

OFFER OF EMPLOYMENT BY THE CIO'S RWDSU (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: Meyers did not like the attitude and organizing methods of the RWDSU representative who offered the job.

THE UNORGANIZING OF OAKLAND DEPARTMENT STORE WORKERS (“Recollections “)
Scope and Content Note: After Meyers' expulsion, management immediately reneged on its promise to Griffin. In retaliation, Griffin called a strike of H.C. Capwell's (where Meyers' wife worked). After a week of the strike, Griffin told the strikers to go back to work. He then went to the Teamsters' Union.^[1]

MEYERS' RETURN TO THE RCIA (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: Coulter made an agreement with Dave Beck of the Teamsters to launch a massive West Coast organizing drive. The local officers in Oakland said Meyers would be needed for the Wards aspect of this drive, but they would not permit him back in the union unless he promised not to run for office. Since he had no ambitions for union office, he accepted the conditions.

REORGANIZATION OF WARDS AND THE 1941 STRIKE (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: Meyers managed to get a job with Wards as a traveling salesman, and became agricultural implement sales leader for Wards' western states. Meyers quickly reorganized the Oakland store even though he was rarely in the store. Anecdote about stool pigeon in the shipping department. Finally, on December 5, 1940, the union struck the big Wards store in Oakland and 60 smaller retail outlets throughout the state. Beck, however, did not hold up his end of the deal, and the strike was ineffective outside California. The strike lasted eight months. The Teamsters tired of the strike and began to cross RCIA picket lines. In Oakland, however, the Teamsters continued to honor the picket lines because of the widespread labor support there. Teamsters leaned on Meyers in an attempt to get him to call off the strike so they could go back to work. The union finally had to accept a poor settlement on an open shop basis.

RUNNING THE WARDS' STRIKE
Scope and Content Note: Committees, training, etc. Oakland unions assessed themselves to support the strike.

MEYERS' FIRST ASSIGNMENT AS RCIA ORGANIZER - MODESTO, CALIFORNIA (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: He was sent to Modesto to organize supermarkets but, upon his arrival in town, 83 Wards' employees approached him and signed union cards. Meyers tried to negotiate a 10 percent raise for them in order to avoid a strike, but Wards' policy would not allow it. This precipitated a strike, which failed. Meanwhile, despite the vicious gun-wielding opposition of the Associated Farmers, all the food stores in Modesto were organized.

ORGANIZING STORE WORKERS
Scope and Content Note: Meyers has long been interested in the educational process needed to bring store workers to the point of consciousness where they realize unified action is the best method of improving their lot. When he was assigned to the International headquarters in the mid-1950s, Meyers attempted to summarize for organizers some of the precepts and methods he used in organizing. (At this point, Meyers describes various pieces of literature which he compiled for organizers and which he has turned over to the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.) Anecdote about how Meyers' technique for tallying union support was proven successful in a campaign in Milwaukee.

WINNING THE WANAMAKER LOCAL (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: When the New York locals of the RWDSU were fighting amongst themselves for control of the RWDSU in the late 1940s, Meyers was sent to New York to try to organize these locals into RCIA. The Wanamaker local at first rejected Meyers' offer of affiliation because it was a right-wing local, and Meyers was concurrently dealing with the socialist head of the Macy's local. The Wanamaker local was negotiating with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers and the Teamsters for affiliation. At the last minute, it changed its mind and agreed to affiliate with the RCIA. Publicity of this affiliation appeared in the New York Times the day Meyers met with Suffridge and Dave Beck in an effort to patch up fraternal relations with the Teamsters. This news angered Beck and ended the discussions. The Wanamaker local, however, was not much of an asset because it was collaborating with anti-communist Catholic Action which cost RCIA votes in its Stearn's and Bloomingdale's elections, which were other RWDSU locals Meyers was trying to affiliate.

MEYERS' LIFE BEFORE JOINING RCIA
Scope and Content Note: His Proletarian Party group had an office and held classes in the Cleveland Central Labor Council building. Shortly before joining RCIA, he taught a class on Das Kapital on Sunday mornings in an empty store to University of California-Berkeley students. The students in return taught him about the “new English economics.”

MEYERS AND RCIA HISTORY
Scope and Content Note: Suffridge often asked Meyers to write a history of the RCIA, but Meyers always replied that it was being made faster than it could be written. The “Recollections” he wrote was “a house organ.” While everything he wrote could be documented, he refrained from criticism of the leadership because management would have used it against the union. He had learned that during his fights with the May Company. Furthermore, it would have been “gross ingratitude” to criticize Suffridge who gave him the opportunity “to put my ideas to work,” even though the two men frequently disagreed.

JIM HOUSEWRIGHT, RCIA PRESIDENT, 1968-1977
Scope and Content Note: Housewright was a good regional director, but Meyers did not like Housewright changing the union pension plan in order to take care of his new wife.

MEYERS ON KARL MARX
Scope and Content Note: Eugene Debs was “my saint,” Meyers is a Marxist scholar but, like Marx himself, “I am not a Marxist.” The difference between Marx and so-called Marxists.

ANECDOTE ABOUT A DEBS MEETING IN CLEVELAND
Scope and Content Note: By age 17, Meyers was arranging Debs meetings. At one particular overflow meeting, Debs showed up “almost dead drunk.” The first thing Debs did was go over and hug the captain of police. He gave a great speech, as he was wont to do. In the speech, he proclaimed he was a Bolshevik through and through, a statement which was emotional, not positional.

ANECDOTE ABOUT LABOR REPRESENTATIVES FROM SOCIALIST COUNTRIES TELLING MEYERS HIS ORGANIZING LITERATURE WAS T00 EXTREME FOR THEIR USE
Scope and Content Note: At an international gathering of clerk unionists from around the world, some delegates from socialist countries told him that they liked his organizing literature, but they could not use it because it was too extreme. Because of their competitive economies, they sometimes had to tell their members to take less than they needed or could get.

MORE ABOUT MEYERS ON MARXISM/SOCIALISM
Scope and Content Note: He and others in the Proletarian Party thought the American Communist Party was crazy and did not understand American workers when it called for armed insurrection in the United States. Meyers was very impressed with Lenin's Imperialism. A sympathizer of James Cannon and the Trotskyites because of their criticism of Stalin, Meyers, however, ended his relationship with the Trotskyites when Trotsky insisted the Soviet Union was still a workers' state. Meyers finally ended up as “just a trade union organizer,” who was called “a time-server of imperialism.”

PRE-CIA EMPLOYMENT
Scope and Content Note: At age 12, he helped a produce “huckster.” Attended school until his sophomore year and then worked on the Great Lakes carrying coal from Lake Erie ports to Lake Superior ports and iron ore on the return trip. Worked in machine shops. Wound up in Chicago because that was where the Proletarian Party had its headquarters. Worked four years for a printing company. Went to California when the Depression came on and “took part in the mass unemployed movements.” As a child, worked as a stock boy with the Bailey Company for fifty cents a day on Saturdays. Also while in school, sold typewriters, especially to his teachers, for $10 commission per machine. In order to do this, he skipped his last class - algebra - and wound up flunking it; later in life he taught himself algebra. Self-taught after quitting school. Former school mates who attended college would often have him write their class papers.

MEYERS' FAMILY
Scope and Content Note: Youngest of seven children, the four oldest having been born in the old country. Father was a “rabbi,” who taught Hebrew-Yiddish translation for fifty cents a lesson. Brother was a garment cutter and introduced Meyers to Debs. Sisters worked in garment shops. Brother active in early garment workers union and led a 13-week strike and lost his job because of it. Brother then started a small garment business.

MORE ON MEYERS' FAMILY
Scope and Content Note: Brother fairly successful in business, but the union still used to ask him for advice. Brother used to get all the old socialist literature, and “I was raised on it.”

MORE ON MEYERS' EARLY EMPLOYMENT
Scope and Content Note: Worked for a towel service. Would spend all week reading in the library and then panic on Friday and work real hard for a day. Anecdote about selling the towel service to a man who was building 33 gas stations in Cleveland. In exchange, Meyers' boss invested five thousand dollars in the venture and lost it all a few months later when the man went to jail. Worked for the May Company in Cleveland selling hardware for a year while a teenager. Later on, in 1958, “had the pleasure” of winning an election in the five Bailey Company stores in Cleveland, but the May Company there is still unorganized and “the home of the anti-union May Company mechanism.”

SEARS, ROEBUCK AND COMPANY
Scope and Content Note: RCIA's seven-year boycott. Sears was more pragmatic than the May Company and would deal with the union when it had to. Sears, when it did not want to sign a union shop contract, would get around it by agreeing to observe existing union conditions in the locality.

RCIA AND RWDSU
Scope and Content Note: In New York, there was a strong Communist Party cadre in the department stores. Food, men's clothing and furniture stores were non-communist. RCIA's New York leadership was corrupt, which later led to raids by the AMC&BW and the Teamsters. Nathan Wertheimer was chief RCIA organizer (and later vice-president) in the East. Coulter trusted him, but he “was a thief...a racketeer; he used to sell our membership not only to employers but....to independent unions.” He later saved his reputation by dying shortly before the International planned to dump him. If it had not been for Wertheimer's reputation, Meyer feels he could have organized the whole city during the period he was in New York. The RWDSU leadership was no better than Wertheimer, and Meyers feels they split from RCIA simply in order to “get their hands on an International.”

RCIA SENT MEYERS TO NEW YORK TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE RWDSU SPLIT
Scope and Content Note: At Macy's, Meyers sought unity with the local leader, Sam Kovenetsky. Meyers offered him RCIA leadership in the area and ran a friendly election against him, but Kovenetsky was hesitant to come into RCIA because of Wertheimer's reputation.

CLEANING UP RCIA IN NEW YORK, 1957
Scope and Content Note: Meyers had to bodily remove Wertheimer's successor, Paul LaFayette. Abe Raskin, at Meyers' request, wrote an editorial praising the RCIA for cleaning up New York. The clean-up did not come until 1957 because the RCIA had been a generally disunited group with strong local bosses. From the beginning, Suffridge attempted to clean up the union but, before that could be done, a centralized authority was needed. Once this was accomplished, “we could go ahead as we felt our oats.”

CORRUPT LOCAL RCIA OFFICIALS IN NEW YORK INTERFERED IN MEYERS' ATTEMPT TO ORGANIZE BONWIT TELLER (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: One of Wertheimer's locals was passing out leaflets against Meyers' organizing efforts. The local leaders had organized 11 window trimmers and told the store they would prevent organization of the rest of the employees. Furthermore, they were paying per capita tax on only half of their membership. Meyers successfully pressed charges.

MORE ON CLEANING UP NEW YORK CITY
Scope and Content Note: It was harder to deal with than Seattle, Cleveland, etc. because corruption in New York was much older and much more entrenched. Anecdote about Raskin's editorial, “Accolades to the Retail Clerks.”

JAMES SUFFRIDGE'S ELECTION AS SECRETARY-TREASURER, 1944
Scope and Content Note: Meyers ran his campaign. In exchange for the vote of Joe DeSilva's 5,000-member local in Los Angeles, Meyers offered him a general charter, rather than the food charter he held, and twenty thousand dollars to pay department store organizers. DeSilva agreed and turned out his local 100 percent for Suffridge. Anecdote about Joe DeSilva teaching members how to picket.

ORGANIZING SAN DIEGO (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: AMC&BW's Max Osslo ran RCIA organizers out of town. His excuse was that former RCIA President W.G. Desepte had given him permission to organize San Diego clerks in exchange for payment of the expenses involved, but he never organized anyone. About a year before Suffridge was elected secretary-treasurer, the RCIA sent an organizer from DeSilva's staff down to organize San Diego. He was paid sixty-five dollars a week, but never organized anyone, because Osslo had threatened him. Anecdote about John Fonner doing a “survey” as a method of getting a mailing list of San Diego clerks and testing their union sentiment. Meyers then set up office in San Diego and used four of DeSilva's men to sign up members based on the list compiled by Fonner. Osslo then filed for a National Labor Relations Board {NLRB) election. This resulted in a long delay. Because many of the clerks were married to servicemen stationed in San Diego who were continually being shipped out, Meyers had to keep organizing over and over in order to maintain his majority. In order to break the stalemate, Meyers invited Safeway management to a meeting of the California Council of Clerks and threatened to close every Safeway store in California if the company did not recognize the RCIA in San Diego. Whether it would have been legal to pull all the clerks out at this time was irrelevant, since Safeway knew the threat was real and signed the recognition agreement.

ANECDOTE ABOUT HOW LEGALITIES CAN BE OVERCOME IF THE UNION HAS PLENTY OF STRENGTH
Scope and Content Note: The clerks in southern Illinois were fully organized, but they were overly modest in their contract demands. Meyers arrived during one set of negotiations, and threatened a strike. The management representative said they could not strike because they had not given the proper notice.

CONTINUATION OF ANECDOTE ABOUT OVERCOMING LEGALITIES
Scope and Content Note: Meyers took a recess from negotiations and called the RCIA legal department. The attorney said if the strike could be won, go ahead and call it, and “we'll litigate for three years.” The strike was settled in a week.

CONTINUATION OF DESCRIPTION OF ORGANIZING SAN DIEGO (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: The recognition signed by Safeway was of little use because legally the company was prevented from signing a contract. Furthermore, since it was World War II, a strike would merely have brought in the government. Thus, the litigation continued. Finally, the Safeway election was held. Meyers knew the RCIA would win big, so he called in Suffridge to gain some publicity. AMC&BW's Pat Gorman, however, prevented the victorious balloting counting by getting an injunction to stall the count based on the claim that elections in other chains were pending, and the results of this election might prejudice the other elections. About a month later, all ballots were counted, and the AMC&BW received less than 10 percent. Meyers thought all was well now, but Osslo did not give up. When Meyers tried to organize some big independent supermarkets, Osslo had his meat cutters picket or refuse to cut meat. Meyers counter-attacked by picketing a meat market. Osslo sent a physical threat to Meyers, and Meyers called him on it. Eventually, Osslo gave in and even turned over to the RCIA the few clerks he had in exchange for what it had cost to organize them.

THE SECOND FIGHT WITH MAX OSSLO
Scope and Content Note: The issue was jurisdiction over frozen food. Osslo borrowed some goons from Harry Lundeberg, President of the Seafarers' International Union. The goons broke the back of one of RCIA's organizers, and the RCIA pressed charges against Osslo. He served six months of a five-year term and was released through RCIA intervention as a gesture toward unity with the AMC&BW. Osslo spent a lot of Meat Cutters' money in his unsuccessful fights with the Clerks and yet was made an AMC&BW vice-president. “It seems like some Internationals have a talent for rewarding their failures.” After Osslo's release from prison, the RCIA and the AMC&BW had a pretty good relationship in San Diego.^[2]

JOHN FONNER, WHO BEGAN IT ALL IN SAN DIEGO, WENT ON TO BECOME A GOOD BUSINESS AGENT F0R RCIA
Scope and Content Note: Meyers doubts an open campaign against Osslo would have been as successful an approach as the survey approach was as a means of entering San Diego.

MORE ON SAN DIEGO - THE TURNING POINT (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: At an American Federation of Labor (AFL) convention, President William Green appointed Reuben Soderstrum, President of the Illinois State Federation of Labor, to try to conciliate the RCIA and the AMC&BW. Meyers told Pat Gorman that the backbone of the Clerks in California had always been the store managers, but the NLRB now ruled that managers were ineligible in elections; thus, RCIA wanted to avoid elections, but Osslo was forcing one. Gorman responded that he would give Safeway all its managers if Safeway would give him all its clerks. Soderstrum told Meyers he was in the right, but the local labor paper in San Diego, virtually controlled by Osslo, reported that Soderstrum had ruled against the clerks. Meyers seized upon this and sent several copies of the paper to Soderstrum, encouraging him to respond to it. Soderstrum did respond with a blistering letter to Osslo which Meyers reproduced in large quantities. After that, the road through the elections was much easier.

RCIA - AMC&BW RELATIONS
Scope and Content Note: Outside of San Diego, the two unions had good relations in the West. In the East, however, relations were much worse.

RCIA - AMC&BW, PHILADELPHIA
Scope and Content Note: The Meat Cutters, led by Harry Poole, had signed up half the clerks in the area before Meyers, as Eastern Director, even heard about it. The local RCIA leader, who was lazy and possibly corrupt, told Meyers not to worry about it because he was a friend of Poole and would straighten it out. Meyers called Poole but was unable to get him to call off the raid. Meyers borrowed from Jim Housewright the people they had used in cleaning up Cleveland (see “Recollections” and Tape 6, Side 2, and Tape 7, Side 1). The RCIA had special blue envelopes for organizers' use in communicating with the International. Since the local membership had been neglected by the local leadership, Meyers had these blue envelopes distributed to the members and told them to send their grievances directly to the International. The avalanche of blue envelopes upset RCIA President Vernon Housewright, but the tactic was successful; the election was won by a substantial majority because Meyers had repudiated the local officers.

STRAIGHTENING OUT BALTIMORE (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: The local Food Fair management would offer only a dollar increase at each negotiation. If the local objected, management threatened to help the Meat Cutters sign up its members.

CONTINUATION OF THE BALTIMORE STORY (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: Organizer Tom Best, who had the trust of the workers, told Meyers about the situation, and Meyer told him to keep an eye on it and call when the Food Fair management again tried to play the Meat Cutters against the Clerks. When Best so reported, Meyers called a mass meeting and told the members the International would back them to the hilt in giving them their union back (from a leadership which was playing ball with management) and in helping them with negotiations. Murray Plopper was now Eastern Director, and the situation was left in his hands. He complained Meyers had promised more than could be delivered in one series of negotiations. Meyers had to come in and calm down the membership.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RCIA EAST AND WEST
Scope and Content Note: Fresh, enthusiastic and militant in the West with “no time to become corrupt.” When Meyers was assigned as Eastern Director, he was forced to engage in a complete renovation. Almost every local was forced to an election by the Meat Cutters.

WILKES-BARRE, PENNSYLVANIA: ORGANIZING FROM SCRATCH IN COMPETITION WITH THE AMC&BW
Scope and Content Note: Meyers filed for an NLRB election, covering clerks, but Harry Poole filed for a total unit of both clerks and meat cutters. Unfortunately, a man who had been a manager and good RCIA member in Oakland was now a manager in this area. Unbeknownst to Meyers, this man signed up his whole A & P store for the RCIA. This was a violation of NLRB rules, and the Meat Cutters preferred charges after the RCIA election victory. Meyers called nine mass meetings and blamed the Meat Cutters for delaying things; he created “almost a lynch spirit against the Meat Cutters.” Meyers decided not to contest the technicality but to go ahead and have another election. On the day for counting the ballots, he offered Poole a truce suggesting that the ballots not be counted but simply splitting up the unit with 400 butchers going to AMC&BW and 1,800 clerks going to RCIA. Poole refused, and the RCIA won the total unit and has kept it ever since.

AFL-CIO FOOD AND BEVERAGE TRADES DEPARTMENT
Scope and Content Note: Harry Poole was president of the department. Meyers complained that the RCIA was paying per capita to this department while its president was traveling the country raiding the RCIA. Meyers recruited delegates from all kinds of unions, brought them to department meetings and openly destroyed the department. When the department was revised later on, the two unions were talking merger, and Jim Housewright was made president of the department.

MEYERS BITTERLY RESENTED THE PERIOD OF AMC&BW RAIDS WHILE HE WAS EASTERN DIRECTOR
Scope and Content Note: His interest was in department stores, but he was unable to pursue their organization because his prime concern had to be defense of existing food store organization. AMC&BW raids also distracted from the organization of the new discount stores.

MACY'S STRIKE IN TOLEDO
Scope and Content Note: This was Hoffa's revenge on the RCIA for cleaning up Detroit. He enticed the local officers and Division Director Jim Housewright to go on strike and then deserted the situation two days later.

MORE ON MACY'S, TOLEDO STRIKE
Scope and Content Note: The Teamsters had encouraged the strike and had promised to support it, but then turned around and put out back-to-work literature. Suffridge assigned Meyers to work on the situation. The job of getting the people back to work with their seniority took 13 months.

AMALGAMATED CLOTHING WORKERS (ACW) SWEETHEART C0NTRACT WITH A DISCOUNT STORE IN TOLEDO
Scope and Content Note: An ACW Detroit local leader signed a contract with a proposed 250-employee discount store in Toledo, the Family Fair Discount Store. This was during the Macy's strike. Meyers told the store's representative, a Mr. Hughes, that he would never be able to open the store with an ACW sweetheart contract in a labor town like Toledo because the RCIA would picket. The alternative was to permit the RCIA to openly sign up the employees and to negotiate a contract with a committee of employees. RCIA proceeded to sign up a majority.

SUBSEQUENT RELATIONS WITH FAMILY FAIR DISCOUNT
Scope and Content Note: In negotiations a week after the store opened, the vice-president of the chain asked why these employees hired at minimum wage, should now be worth 25 to 75 cents an hour more. Meyers replied that it was simply a difference between telling people what they were worth and consulting with them on the matter. An agreement was signed, and Meyers went on to get friendly with Hughes. Hughes confessed he had been a radical earlier in life, and had had his head cracked on a picket line and had finally gotten smart and become an employers' representative. However, he was still sympathetic to labor. Hughes informed Meyers the chain was preparing to open 13 more stores on the East Coast. Eventually, the chain had 1OO stores, and the RCIA organized every one of them. That started RCIA in discount stores.

DIFFICULTIES ORGANIZING DISCOUNT STORES
Scope and Content Note: Zayre discount stores and others like them, either with underworld financing or other big capital, have resisted organization to this day. Many big department stores and dime stores began to adopt discount-store sales methods. RCIA was able to organize them only in towns where the union was already strong. Thus, the organization of the major department and discount stores is still in our future.

THE MAY COMPANY
Scope and Content Note: “The May Company remains today, in my opinion, our chief enemy.” It operates under different names in different places. The strike won against the May Company in Denver was liquidated when the store combined with another and also, because Colorado's requirement of a 75 percent vote of all employees in the unit in order to get a union shop is almost impossible to achieve.

THE STATE OF DISCOUNT-STORE ORGANIZATION TODAY
Scope and Content Note: A “minor percentage” are organized. Many of the stores Meyers organized have gone out of business. “Three Guys,” which was financed by underworld money, was organized by RCIA, but it went bankrupt.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DISCOUNT STORES AND SUPERMARKETS
Scope and Content Note: In terms of getting a contract, supermarkets' products are perishable and potential losses during a strike are great. In a discount store, the merchandise can be put on sale and the capital investment recouped. In terms of initial organizing, employees in discount stores are the least skilled who ordinarily would be working for the minimum wage in any case. Supermarket clerks, on the other hand, are generally much more skilled. “Checkers” are not just checkers; they are “clerks,” and are responsible for a wide variety of duties. Comparison of conditions between organized and unorganized stores. The personal relationship between clerks and customers. RCIA encourages this relationship in order to develop public support for strikes, and customer respect for picket lines.

ANECDOTE ABOUT ACME STRIKE IN WASHINGTON, D.C., IN LATE 1930s
Scope and Content Note: Management had a banquet for scabs and strikers broke into the banquet and ate the food. These strikers have since built a big, successful union.

MORE ON THE DIFFICULTY OF ORGANIZING DISCOUNT STORES
Scope and Content Note: By and large, the employees lack the ability and self-esteem to resist management's blandishments.

DENVER MAY COMPANY STRIKE, 1947
Scope and Content Note: A virtual civil war. Eight-month strike. At one point, all grocery clerks were on strike in addition to the May Company. Meyers spent the equivalent of the International treasury on this strike.

RCIA SPENT CLOSE TO TWO MILLION DOLLARS ORGANIZING WOODWARD AND LOTHROP DEPARTMENT STORES IN WASHINGTON, D.C. RECENTLY
Scope and Content Note: It was considered at one time to be an impossible job, but the International has grown to the point where it can match “big money.”

MANAGEMENT'S ADVANTAGES - THE NATHAN SHEFFERMAN AFFAIR
Scope and Content Note: Sears' anti-unionist, Nathan Shefferman, was denounced by the McClellan Committee; but when the Sears vice-president who hired and paid Shefferman admitted to the Committee it had been a mistake and Sears would never again do such a thing, the Committee gave him high praise. Sears, however, went right out and employed even more sophisticated anti-union tactics.

THE CHANGE IN NLRB WROUGHT BY THE EISENHOWER ADMINISTRATION
Scope and Content Note: Prior to Eisenhower's election, regional NLRB personnel had the authority to make decisions. When Eisenhower became President, however, these same people had to consult with the NLRB in Washington to get approval for their decisions.

ATTEMPTS TO ORGANIZE EASTERN MARYLAND
Scope and Content Note: A “fascist” Ku Klux Klan area. Meyers sent in good organizers to organize Acme Food Stores. Brutal management opposition; Acme's labor relations man was an ex-FBI agent. Organizers were beaten up. Meyers filed an extremely strong complaint with the NLRB which stated the union should be given the chain because the atmosphere had been so poisoned by Acme's anti-union tactics. An NLRB man was sent to investigate, and he was beaten up after taking evidence in an employee's home. Meyers thought he had an open and shut case. Meanwhile, Western Director John Philpott was sent to Washington to look for a building for International headquarters. Meyers had to leave for the AFL convention for two weeks. Upon his return, Philpott announced he had settled the situation by getting a gentleman's agreement that management would no longer interfere. “I could have cut my throat.” Out West, a gentleman's agreement was a firm agreement, but this was a different situation. On the day of the election, voting was done in the presence of supervisors while organizers were chased out of the stores, and the election was lost. Four or five years later, however, Al Akman of the Baltimore local threw a virtual army of organizers into the area and won bargaining rights in those stores.

WHY RCIA AND AMC&BW COULD NEVER GET A JURISDICTIONAL AGREEMENT THAT WORKED
Scope and Content Note: The main reason was the AMC&BW was not a unified organization. Gorman really could not tell his strong locals what to do. Thus, even if Gorman had wanted to maintain an agreement, he would not have been able to enforce it.

RCIA - AMC&BC MERGER
Scope and Content Note: Meyers feels one of the biggest inducements for merger was that many of AMC&BW's “old characters” liked the RCIA pension and were ready to retire. Despite the motives, however, the result was good.

MORE ON RCIA -AMC&BW JURISDICTIONAL PROBLEMS
Scope and Content Note: RCIA could make an agreement and keep it, but AMC&BW could not.

RCIA/AMC&BW - PITTSBURGH
Scope and Content Note: AMC&BW had more food clerks in Pittsburgh than RCIA did. The reason is the people who originally organized the A & P clerks had approached C.C. Coulter saying they could organize the clerks for one thousand dollars. He refused. When they approached Gorman, he gave them two thousand dollars. Poole raided RCIA for two independent chains in Pittsburgh. The raid brought Meyers' attention to the fact that there were many part-time employees in those stores who were not included in the contract. Thus, when RCIA won the election, it ended up with twice as many members as before the raid.

RCIA/AMC&BW - BUFFALO
Scope and Content Note: A week after Meyers was assigned to the Eastern Region, he learned Sam Talarico (recently retired United Food and Commercial Workers Union Secretary-Treasurer) was raiding an RCIA unit of 600 A & P employees. Meyers immediately brought in organizers and won the election. Talarico did not even show enough support to justify the election.

WITH THE EXCEPTION OF SAN DIEGO, AMC&BW RAIDING OF RCIA WAS CONFINED TO THE EAST
Scope and Content Note: In the East, “it was largely due to the rottenness of both organizations.” There were exceptions to the rule of rottenness, like John Haletsky in Reading, Pennsylvania. The corrupt leaders were the old ones who were entrenched. The Western RCIA leaders were young and had not learned any tricks, though lately there have been some problems with some larger locals.

RCIA PENSION PLAN
Scope and Content Note: Suffridge wanted a pension plan for officers as early as 1947. Meyers opposed it on the grounds that the members did not yet have pension plans. A compromise was reached - a year or two for study and then submission of the plan to a referendum vote of the membership.

RCIA/AMC&BW MERGER TALKS
Scope and Content Note: Only got serious after Housewright was elected to head the RCIA, and Gorman was getting ready to retire from the AMC&BW. Automation was preventing AMC&BW growth, except through merger. The talks took a long time; Gorman was probably putting up roadblocks. One problem was the opposite relationships the two unions had with the Teamsters.

MORE ON RCIA/AMC&BW MERGER
Scope and Content Note: Meyers cautioned that the AMC&BW was not a union that could organize new members whereas the RCIA was an organizing union.

MICHAEL HARRINGTON AND THE RETAIL CLERKS
Scope and Content Note: Harrington interviewed Meyers extensively for The Retail Clerks. His estimate of the RCIA was correct in that the president had too much power, but Suffridge always used that power for the benefit of the members.

JAMES SUFFRIDGE
Scope and Content Note: Was ideologically far removed from Meyers and would sometimes pull rank. He was, however, what the union needed because, in order to do the job of organizing, the union needed strong leadership and no internal politics.

CLEVELAND AND PETER FORMICA (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: Formica was very popular in Cleveland. He was deserving of more recognition than he received, especially considering the quality of the Executive Board in the 1940s. The Cleveland Central Labor Council was “a crooked group.” The Teamsters offered Formica and his followers direct affiliation, and the AMC&BW were solidly behind Formica also. The Teamsters, Formica's people and the Meat Cutters tried to intimidate Meyers and the RCIA representatives when they came in to save the RCIA locals in Formica's area. Meyers lost one small group in the fight because the opposition treated them to drinks after a meeting at which Meyers thought he had convinced them to remain with RCIA. The RCIA appealed to Dan Tobin, Teamsters' President, to get his Cleveland Teamsters to stop interfering. No appeal to Gorman was thought worthwhile. In an attempted peace meeting with Tobin, William Finnegan, Secretary of the Central Labor Council, was called as a character witness, and he proclaimed, “I ain't doin' nuthin against no Teamsters. The Teamsters done everything for me....” The Central Labor Council ran headlines supporting Formica. Anecdote about mix-up over telegram, written by Meyers over A.F.L. President William Green's signature, in support of the RCIA cause. Meyers had to run to the RCIA convention in order to get permission from Suffridge to spend money advertising the telegram. Green, however, was unaware of the telegram, and the opposition tried to advertise that fact. Meyers was able to save the situation by a last-minute visit to Green.

THE FORMICA SITUATION WAS AS CLOSE TO INTERNAL POLITICS AS THE RCIA EXPERIENCED DURING SUFFRIDGE'S ADMINISTRATION
Scope and Content Note: Formica was gathering Catholic leadership around the country “to plan a capture of the International for the Mother Church.” While there were several corrupt officials in RCIA in need of cleansing, Suffridge probably started with Formica because of this political scheme. Before going into Ohio, Meyers visited Formica's political allies in Catholic Boston to forewarn them about what was to happen. Meyers had just replaced Irishman Edward Shay as Division Director. Shay “had watched the Division fall apart.” The Boston people had nothing against Meyers, but admitted they wanted to get rid of Suffridge and Housewright. Meyers told them to save it for when there was an election.

FORMICA'S LOT WAS UNFORTUNATE
Scope and Content Note: Had the RCIA been strong and unified, Formica would not have had to get mixed up with the corrupt elements of the Cleveland labor movement.

MORE ON THE CLEANSING OF THE CLEVELAND AREA (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: With most of organized labor in the area arrayed against the RCIA, things got to a point where Meyers had to call in the entire organizing staff. Meyers guaranteed jobs to any local person who remained loyal to the International. Over the years, many called him on this promise, and he has always delivered. One strategy Meyers used was to reduce the dues by edict and have the organizers sign people up on the same card that announced the dues' reduction. Meyers held nightly mass meetings and told the people they were ten dollars behind the usual scale. When they went into negotiations, Meyers had a hard time convincing management they should offer more than the usual two dollars and then convincing the members they ought to accept the five dollars offered. The issue of back pay caused some hard feelings with management because the union's mailing list was more complete than Meyers had told management negotiators.

FORMICA'S LETTER OF CONFESSION
Scope and Content Note: Everything in the letter was true. One salary, one source for expenses, and absolute honesty constituted Suffridge's union religion. Formica hoped the confession would provide him mercy or consideration. Suffridge told him it would be considered, but it is questionable whether it ever was.

WALT DAVIS
Scope and Content Note: Ironically, Davis, who now heads a UFCW department, worked for the Cleveland Central Labor Council at the time of the Formica situation and was writing material against Meyers and the RCIA.^[3]

RCIA AND THE TEAMSTERS, DAVE BECK AND SEATTLE, 1948 (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: All RCIA business agents and officers in Seattle were appointed by Beck. He was inviting clerks from California to attend his western conferences. Beck was the call-in man for management. He was management's representative on the labor side. Nathan Shefferman was Beck's close associate. Beck was in the pay of management.

ANECDOTE ABOUT BECK AND SUFFRIDGE IN 1942
Scope and Content Note: Suffridge manufactured a strike in order to get a wage increase before expected wage controls were instituted at the beginning of World War II. When Suffridge was with Safeway in San Francisco, he found Beck in the office of the company. Beck said he was there to help management. Suffridge threw him out.^[4]

MORE ON SEATTLE, 1948 (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: Beck's attempt to force clerks to scab on striking machinists precipitated the RCIA's confrontation with him. Meyers had his hands full in New York and Denver and would just as soon have avoided the situation. Meyers took all western organizers and several western local officers to Seattle.

MORE ON SEATTLE, 1948 (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: A membership meeting gave Meyers thunderous applause when he declared the members were “no longer at the Beck and call of any outsiders.” Meyers had to go outside the state of Washington to find an auditor who dared inspect the local books. He found Beck was using RCIA credit cards and charging Clerks a heavy per capita tax. Furthermore, he regularly settled for a nickel at negotiations, thus forcing the clean Tacoma local to strike for every raise. One of Beck's henchmen later became an RCIA vice-president. Beck even controlled a federal judge. During that period, Beck's picture appeared on the cover of Time with an article claiming he would soon become head of the AFL, and that he had just caused the appointment of President Truman's Secretary of Labor, L. Schwellenbach. Teamster President Tobin finally intervened to get Beck to sit down with Meyers, but Beck insisted on unacceptable conditions for the meeting. After three months, Beck could no longer take the constant pressure and publicity RCIA was applying. Meyers and Beck met in Tobin's office and reached a satisfactory agreement, though Beck later claimed he had the right of approval over any RCIA director appointed for the area. One of the first things Meyers had done when he arrived in Seattle was to lease a building in order to separate the Clerks from Beck's offices. Part of the agreement with Beck and Tobin was that the Clerks would remain in the Teamsters' building until their lease had expired. Because Beck was so influential in Seattle real estate, Meyers was unable to sublease the new building and had to pay rent on it for five years.

RCIA - TEAMSTERS RELATIONS ELSEWHERE; DENVER AND THE MAY COMPANY STRIKE (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: Beck was so angry with his defeat in Seattle he put out an edict that RCIA picket lines were not to be observed, even though Clerks and Teamsters had very good relations in many cities. Denver Teamsters had militantly supported the May Company strike for six months. With tears in their eyes, local Teamster leaders then came to Meyers and reported that Tobin and Beck had ordered them to break the picket lines; to deliver to the May Company. If they failed to do so, they would be placed under supervision and lose their jobs. The building trades rose to the occasion, surrounding the May Company pickets with 14 building trades' picket lines. The word went out that, if the Teamsters tried to break the picket line, the building trades would take over the Teamsters in Denver before Beck could and would retain the local, honest officials. It worked; Tobin and Beck were forced to back off. The Teamsters continued to respect the picket lines for the remaining two months of the strike.

POLICE AND RAILROAD UNIONS AND THE DENVER MAY COMPANY STRIKE (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: Supplies were being delivered to the May Company warehouse by rail at 3 a.m. The women strikers laid on the railroad tracks to stop the trains. The police picked them up from the tracks and set them down, and the women would immediately return to the tracks. In the morning, Meyers got in touch with executives of the railroad brotherhoods, who came to Denver. They decided the situation was too dangerous for their members and ordered them to deliver no more cars to the warehouse.

CONCLUSION OF THE MAY COMPANY STRIKE (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: Finally, May Company officials from Cleveland came to Denver, accompanied by Einar Mohn, a Teamster associate of Beck and later a Teamster vice-president. Meyers refused to negotiate while Mohn was present. The Secretary of the Building Trades Council in Denver physically removed Mohn from the room but then secretly asked Meyers to settle if possible because the building trades themselves were facing a tough strike in two weeks. The strike had been precipitated when the company offered twenty-four dollars, and the union insisted on twenty-six dollars. Now Meyers demanded thirty dollars because of the rapid rise in the cost of living during the eight months of the strike.

MORE ON CONCLUSION 0F MAY COMPANY STRIKE (“Recollections”)
Scope and Content Note: Thirty-six hours of continual negotiations. Got everything but a union shop but did get a modified union shop. The situation, however, deteriorated after that because the local hired a weak business agent. Also, the International, tired of dumping money into the situation, agreed to holding an election in the store rather than at the post office as Meyers had wanted. The election, as a result, was lost by a small margin.^[5]

END OF TAPE 8, SIDE 1 (at 05:25) and END OF NOVEMBER 20, 1980, SESSION
Note: The tape sounds like Meyers had more to say, but the interview had ended, and Meyers was merely preparing to play a tape he had had Walt Davis make for his grandchildren.

MEYERS' DUTIES UPON TRANSFER TO INTERNATIONAL HEADQUARTERS IN THE MID-1950s
Scope and Content Note: Suffridge gave him no specific instructions, but assumed Meyers would produce organizing literature, particularly literature useful for training organizers. Organized seminars for organizers. Also, Meyers ran “the Research Department obliquely” until Ben Seligman became Research Director.

JAMES A. SUFFRIDGE SCHOLARSHIP FUND
Scope and Content Note: Meyers helped set this up and until his retirement made sure blacks received some of the scholarships.

THE ADVOCATE AND WILLIAM MAGUIRE
Scope and Content Note: Maguire, as editor, was “employer-minded in his concepts.” His articles tended to stress methods of increasing sales for the employers. Maguire had been hired by Coulter. He had never been a clerk and knew little of the labor movement. Maguire edited the newspaper until 1951, when he was made an administrative assistant, and a more talented man became editor. Maguire entered Formica's conspiracy to replace the RCIA's Protestant leadership with Catholics. When Suffridge discovered the conspiracy, Maguire made a full confession and was forgiven. The new editor also was in cahoots with Formica and was forgiven.

THE ADVOCATE AND MEYERS
Scope and Content Note: Meyers wrote most of the editorials from about 1958 to 1968. Meyers had the ideas, and Stan Seganish, a talented writer and illustrator, brought them to life in pamphlets and The Advocate.

ANECDOTE WHICH ILLUSTRATES HOW MEYERS' INFLUENCE DECLINED WHEN HOUSEWRIGHT BECAME PRESIDENT
Scope and Content Note: The vice-presidents took turns writing editorials for The Advocate. Vice-President William McGrath, Housewright's administrative assistant, wrote an editorial entitled “Can the Clerks Stand Prosperity,” which Seganish and Meyers thought would hurt the organzation in future contract negotiations. Meyers took the editorial to Housewright and McGrath, and McGrath told him he had no business second guessing. After that, all editorials had to be cleared through McGrath, and Seganish was given a hard time until he could no longer take it and quit. Meyers himself was in no position financially to quit.

MONITOR RADIO PROGRAM MESSAGES
Scope and Content Note: Meyers was in charge of this project, which cost approximately $800,000 a year. This project was quite popular, especially among other unions which felt these messages were helping them as well as the RCIA. $80,000 worth of advertisinq during an All-Star baseball game.

BEN CROSSLER AS DIRECTOR OF ORGANIZATION
Scope and Content Note: A business school graduate, spent most of his time reviewing the expense reports of the organizers. Meyers was always placed in charge of major organizing efforts. Suffridge appointed Crossler Director of Organization as an interim measure before firing him; Meyers, without the title, was actually more the Director of Organization than was Crossler. “I was minister without portfolio.”

MEYERS' RELATIONSHIP WITH SEGANISH
Scope and Content Note: Seganish was grateful. He came to Meyers as a talented technician and left ten years later as “a knowledgeable labor man.” Seganish went on to edit six other labor magazines, employing four writers. Tragically, Seganish is almost totally blind today. Shortly after leaving the RCIA, Seganish had to have an expensive operation, but Secretary-Treasurer Maguire stated his hospitalization insurance would not cover the operation, even though Seganish had considerable unused vacation. Meyers, as a trustee of the union, suggested Maguire ought to reconsider, and he did.

MEYERS AND RESEARCH DIRECTOR SELIGMAN
Scope and Content Note: Meyers reviewed the proofs for Modern Trends in Economics, which Seligman wrote while working for the RCIA.

MEYERS AND ORGANIZATION DRECTOR CROSSLER
Scope and Content Note: Crossler was hostile toward Meyers, but was happy for any help and advice Meyers gave because “he had no answers.” Crossler avoided responsibility. Crossler was under the false impression that Suffridge had brought him to International headquarters as a probable successor.

BEN CROSSLER
Scope and Content Note: As he would do later with others, Suffridge brought Crossler in as Director of Organization, promoted him to chief administrative assistant, and then ignored him until he resigned. As secretary-treasurer of the California Clerks Council, Crossler provided friendship to local officers, but not leadership. He did have considerable talent for taking notes during negotiations. Crossler's ability to make friends with local officers, however, was a threat to Suffridge.

SUFFRIDGE'S RELATIONSHIP WITH JIM HOUSEWRIGHT
Scope and Content Note: Housewright disliked Suffridge, but Suffridge nevertheless chose him as his successor in part because he was Protestant, and Suffridge “believed that the particular group most representative of the people in the country should produce the head of the organization.” From the time Suffridge dumped Vernon Housewright as Secretary-Treasurer, Jim Housewright began purposely to build a following, hiring only those people who would be personally loyal to him.

DONALD CARTER, CALIFORMA DIRECTOR AND DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH
Scope and Content Note: Carter was originally hired by Jim Housewright as one of his loyal followers. When Crossler was getting too much of a following in California, Suffridge made Carter California Director. Carter was sent to California as a strong man from the International but California had a tradition of independence. Carter had a sister who was nearly paralyzed, and Joe DeSilva gave her a job. When DeSilva and others challenged the Housewright slate in 1968, Carter was beholden to DeSilva and supported him. Carter was then recalled to headquarters and switched sides. At the International, he was stationed near Meyers with instructions to learn from him. When Seligman left the RCIA, Carter became titular head of the Research Department.

BACKGROUND ON THE FORMICA AFFAIR
Scope and Content Note: Suffridge accepted Maguire's confession, and forgave him because Maguire, unlike Formica, was not interested in running for president. Shortly before the effort to clean up Cleveland was launched, Suffridge called an Executive Board meeting and arranged to have Meyers room with Formica. Meyers and Formica had a common interest - long battles against the May Company. At this meeting, however, Formica was uncomfortable and untalkative. Suffridge asked if their rooming together had revealed anything, and Meyers did not know what he was talking about. Suffridge then explained that Formica was under the control of the Meat Cutters, and the Teamsters, that he was drawing several salaries and expense accounts, and that he was trying to put together enough support to defeat Suffridge at the next election. While the union had other trouble spots at the time, Suffridge explained the urgency of this situation since the union was in danger of losing the whole state of Ohio. Meyers was shocked at the news and expressed no enthusiasm for the pending clean-up operation.

MEYERS SENT TO BOSTON WHEN THE CLEVELAND CLEAN UP BEGAN
Scope and Content Note: Because Meyers was unenthusiastic and because he was not necessarily a clean-up man, Suffridge sent him to Boston to explain to Formica's Catholic colleagues there what was about to happen, and to check out their loyalty to the International in case the situation got out of hand. The Boston people explained that they had nothing against Meyers, just against Suffridge and Vernon Housewright.

EDWARD SHAY, MEYERS' PREDECESSOR, EASTERN DIRECTOR
Scope and Content Note: A genial Irishman who was ineffective. The organization was crumbling around him. When the Executive Board of the 1,200-member Pharmacy local in Boston went back to work the second day of a strike it called, Suffridge could not reach Shay and had to send Meyers into the situation. After that, Suffridge called for Shay's resignation. Shay was well liked and Meyers, at first, was resented, but that passed.

MEYERS' RELATIONSHIP WITH VERNON HOUSEWRIGHT
Scope and Content Note: Meyers had little respect for Housewright's labor intelligence, but they were friends on a personal level. As long as Housewright did not interfere with Meyers' work, they got along. Meyers did not want to go to International headquarters at Lafayette because he was sure his intolerance for Housewright's opinions would get him in trouble.

SUFFRIDGE'S RELATIONSHIP WITH VERNON HOUSEWRIGHT
Scope and Content Note: The two men had teenage daughters, and Housewright's daughter bragged that her father, being president, was more important. “And Suffridge's wife heard about it....It's unbelievable.”

VERNON HOUSEWRIGHT'S RESIGNATI0N
Scope and Content Note: Housewright had been promised the presidency by C.C. Coulter. Desepte, the president before Suffridge, had been an old man, “exiled to San Francisco” at $5O per week: he spent all his time visiting locals and reminiscing. Suffridge felt Housewright could do no worse than that; so he kept Coulter's promise. Housewright was popular in the midwest; genial and sociable. When Suffridge decided to dump Housewright, he had RCIA attorney Sol Lippman carry the news to Meyers. “It made me sick.” Suffridge wanted the Executive Board to request Housewright's resignation. The Board was weak and looked to Meyers for direction; and Meyers had been given a direct order from Suffridge. “A very, very unpleasant chore.” Meyers was angered and took a month's vacation just prior to the 1959 convention.

MEYERS' OPPOSITION TO A DUES INCREASE AT THE 1959 CONVENTION
Scope and Content Note: Meyers opposed the dues increase on the floor of the convention, claiming this would be a hardship on organized department store workers because the union had not yet organized most department store workers. Also, the increase was purely a way for local officers to get higher dues and blame it on the International. Because the local officers supported the increase and Suffridge had the votes, he did not complain of Meyers' opposition.

MORE ON VERNON HOUSEWRIGHT'S RESIGNATION
Scope and Content Note: Meyers had the choice either of carrying out Suffridge's wishes in regard to forcing Housewright's resignation, or of resigning. The question arose, however, “for whom was I resigning?” -- for Housewright, who, for example, made an anti-semitic remark about the management of the Jewel Tea Company. The Executive Board voted unanimously in favor of the motion for Housewright's resignation. Suffridge and Meyers talked it over with Housewright. “We talked cold turkey. We said, 'The organization is growing, and it needs a different kind of leadership....It needs somebody that can pull his weight in certain things....'” They pointed out to Housewright that he would lose if he decided to take the issue to the convention floor, and that he would then be in a poor negotiating position vis-a-vis a pension. Housewright initially refused to resign, but shortly changed his mind. “I thought it was rather an absurd situation.” Housewright retired to Florida, got into the real estate business, and in time became fast friends with Suffridge again.

JIM HOUSEWRIGHT'S NEPOTISM
Scope and Content Note: He “was a totally political character.” He put all his relatives on the payroll. In contrast, Meyers' wife did considerable volunteer organizing and never was on the payroll.

ANECDOTE ABOUT SUFFRIDGE'S OFFER TO NOMINATE RICHARD NIXON FOR VICE-PRESIDENT IN 1952
Scope and Content Note: Lippman approached Meyers, saying Suffridge wanted the Executive Board's approval to accept the invitation to nominate Nixon. Meyers refused, and the rest of the Executive Board went along with Meyers. Meyers told Lippman that the Board not only would not approve, but might even pass a motion against the idea if Suffridge persisted.

PRESIDENT NIXON'S VISIT TO RCIA HEADQUARTERS
Scope and Content Note: Suffridge “got even” later by bringing Nixon to headquarters. Nixon claimed he wanted to get closer to the labor movement. Suffridge took him from office to office, where Nixon shook hands for photographers. Nixon sat in on the Executive Board meeting, between Housewright and Suffridge, and was presented with an honorary membership. In gratitude for the award, Nixon wished the RCIA continued growth, and Meyers responded that an aid toward that end might be an Executive Order directing government commissaries to deal with the RCIA. Jay Foreman saw that Meyers' quip appeared in The Advocate.

MAKING PRESIDENT THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF RCIA
Scope and Content Note: Legitimate reasons. It was “old-fashioned” to have the Secretary-Treasurer as chief executive officer.

PETER HALL AS SECRETARY-TREASURER, SOUTHERN DIRECTOR, AND DIRECTOR OF ORGANIZING
Scope and Content Note: Jim Housewright had made a deal with southerner Peter Hall to hold the office of Secretary-Treasurer for a certain time and then retire. He made similar deals with people from other parts of the country in order to consolidate his power. Hall “was a good organizer. He was clever, cunning, intelligent, one hell of a poker player, but he knew no labor history, and very little about labor in general.” A realist. He would check on the job his organizers were doing by personally checking with employees in the stores. Meyers was responsible for Hall becoming Southern Director. “When Pete Hall went on the radio for 30 minutes, I worked for a week writing his speech. But when he went on the radio, he was one of the most credible speakers I had ever heard....He was an asset.” Came to headquarters as Director of Organization. He kept good books on organizers' progress.

MEYERS' RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS ORGANIZERS
Scope and Content Note: As a division director, Meyers tended to ignore unproductive organizers until he had time to get rid of them.

MORE ON PETER HALL AS ORGANIZATION DIRECTOR
Scope and Content Note: Leaned on Meyers for literature, techniques, and methods.

ANECDOTE ABOUT MEYERS AVOIDING TOM BEST'S TESTIMONIAL SO AS NOT TO UPSTAGE PRESIDENT JIM HOUSEWRIGHT
Scope and Content Note: Meyers claimed his wife was too ill. Wrote Housewright's speech.

MICHAEL HARRINGTON'S THE RETAIL CLERKS
Scope and Content Note: His estimate, that Suffridge had not abused the great powers given to him by the constitution, was an opinion shared with Meyers. His prediction that the RCIA would become the largest union in the-AFL-CIO was all his own. “...A pretty good independent scholar and observer....” Harrington complaining to Meyers of the lack of democracy in Joe DeSilva's Local 770, but Meyers pointed out the freedom DeSilva, through organizing and negotiations, had won for his members in their work places.

JOHN HALETSKY AND THE 1968 RCIA ELECTION
Scope and Content Note: University of Wisconsin School for Workers Director “Bob Ozanne characterized the rebellion of the larger locals as 'the revolt of the barons.'” “It seemed like a logical development.” Haletsky, who challenged Housewright for the presidency, was a capable man. Meyers' “right arm in the Eastern Division.” During the campaign, DeSilva was “a very heavy load on Haletsky's back.” Meyers had recommended Haletsky as his replacement as Eastern Director, but Haletsky had refused because his local salary was larger.

SUFFRIDGE HAD LED MURRAY PLOPPER TO BELIEVE HE WOULD BECOME PRESIDENT
Scope and Content Note: Plopper, a good negotiator, knew little of the trade union movement. He was Jewish, and Suffridge made conversion to Protestantism a condition of Plopper's becoming president. Plopper was ignorant about religion and did not take Suffridge's condition seriously. Up to the day of Suffridge's expected retirement announcement, Plopper thought the announcement would carry a recommendation that he succeed. Five minutes before the Executive Board meeting at which Suffridge's retirement announcement was expected, Maguire informed Meyers that Suffridge had changed his mind and wanted the Board to reject his offer to retire.

MORE ON PLOPPER'S FAILURE TO BECOME PRESIDENT
Scope and Content Note: Plopper had been going around making deals as to whom he would appoint to various positions after becoming president. Meyers felt Plopper should be told of Suffridge's intentions before the meeting and did inform him. At the meeting, Meyers moved and Maguire seconded a motion not to accept Suffridge's resignation; motion passed unanimously, with Plopper voting in favor. Plopper, who was Suffridge's chief administrative assistant, became bitter, and Suffridge ordered that no communications be sent to him. A few weeks later, Plopper resigned.

THE RCIA PENSION PLAN WAS THE MAIN ISSUE IN THE 1968 ELECTION CONTEST
Scope and Content Note: The concept of a pension plan for staff was brought up at the 1947 convention. Meyers opposed it on the grounds that the union had not yet bargained pensions for the membership. Suffridge met this argument by agreeing to a membership referendum on the question. At the 1963 convention, Bill Olwell, now a vice president, and other young people complained of the 15-year vesting provision of the pension plan, wanting to make it only ten years. Meyers pled the case of the “builders of the union,” and counseled patience for a few years. “I pulled Suffridge's bacon out of the fire, but I didn't put the fire out.” In 1968 then, “the barons who were looking for power used that as their number one argument.”

DEFEATING THE OPPOSITION SLATE IN 1968 - HERSCHEL WOMACK AND DETROIT
Scope and Content Note: Herschel Womack was president of DeSilva's local 770 until DeSilva, “fired” him. Womack came to Meyers for a job as organizer. Meyers gave him a job and later gave him a charter to organize department store workers in Los Angeles, taking that jurisdiction from DeSilva who had pretty much ignored department store workers. Later, when Meyers finished cleaning up Detroit, he left Womack in charge. Womack built the Detroit local from 11,000 members to 30,000, rivaling the size of DeSilva's local. Despite what DeSilva had done to him and what Meyers had done for him, Womack made a pact with DeSilva to form a large block of votes for the opposition in the 1968 election. These two large locals, plus Haletsky's good reputation back East, made for a formidable opposition. However, Housewright sent strong man Jack Loveall to Detroit who dealt with Horace Brown, who held the number two position in the local. Brown, together with most of the staff, confronted Womack. Womack then asked Meyers to author for him a letter of repudiation. “That, to a very large extent, torpedoed the DeSilva plan.

DeSILVA, THE MAIN CHARACTER IN THE 1968 OPPOSITION
Scope and Content Note: “A talented and capable leader of a primitive sort.”

ANECDOTE ABOUT DeSILVA'S FAILURE TO FOLLOW UP ON A LOS ANGELES DEPARTMENT STORE ORGANIZING DRIVE
Scope and Content Note: Meyers gave DeSilva a department store charter and $20,000 to launch a campaign. When Meyers returned a few months later, the campaign had been allowed to die, and DeSilva had doubled his own salary and increased that of the other local officers. Meyers accused him of betrayal, and DeSilva claimed he was going blind, and would not be able to work within a year - a total fabrication. DeSilva was a cunning, capable person.

JOE DeSILVA
Scope and Content Note: His poor English was one reason he did not run for president himself. He had a lot of power in Los Angeles, even with the press. “A complex character.” His pluses were greater than his minuses.

OPPOSITION IN 1968 WAS LITERALLY A “REVOLT OF THE BARONS”
Scope and Content Note: Men with big locals who thought they could take over the International. These locals in large measure had “been either built up by us, created by us, or saved from destruction by us.” Al Akman, Baltimore, was an honest and able man who was captivated by DeSilva.

ANECDOTE ABOUT SUFFRIDGE NEAR BLUNDER DURING THE 1968 RCIA ELECTION CAMPAIGN
Scope and Content Note: Suffridge suggested to Meyers that he tell Akman he had all his people lined up against him. Meyers said this was foolish; Akman was too smart to fall for such a deception. This angered Suffridge.

1968 ELECTION ISSUES - THE COUNTRY CLUB
Scope and Content Note: Other than the pension issue, none were worthy of consideration. The opposition was “unscrupulous,” charging the Executive Board with purchasing a country club at $600,000 for themselves. The Washington Daily News, “a rag,” printed the story on the front page. Actually, the union had loaned the $600,000 at prevailing rates and purchased three memberships for the purpose of entertaining friendly employers.

OPPOSITION DEMAND THAT HALF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD CONSIST OF LOCAL OFFICERS
Scope and Content Note: The administration slate countered that this would be all right, provided no one took more than one salary.

MEYERS' SUPPORT WAS NOT SOLICITED BY THE OPPOSITION
Scope and Content Note: No one would have thought of it, but Meyers remained on speaking terms with several who were in the opposition.

SUFFRIDGE'S SELECTION OF JIM HOUSEWRIGHT AS HIS SUCCESSOR
Scope and Content Note: Housewright was clever and an able man at making friends. He had been able to get many of his people jobs at International headquarters.

SUFFRIDGE EXPECTED HOUSEWRIGHT TO BE MORE COMPLIANT AS PRESIDENT
Scope and Content Note: “He was sorely and bitterly disappointed.”

HOW HOUSEWRIGHT REPLACED SUFFRIDGE ON THE AFL-CIO EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
Scope and Content Note: Housewright could have simply explained how this seat on the CIO Executive Council would add to his prestige as president and also the prestige of the organization. Instead, at an Executive Board meeting, he had the vice-presidents (except Meyers and Don Carter) one by one get up and say how they were getting pressure from locals to have the president, not the president emeritus on the Council. Suffridge, “with some contempt,” told Housewright this method was unnecessary, that he would have vacated the seat voluntarily if asked.

WHY SUFFRIDGE RETIRED
Scope and Content Note: He later regretted giving up power. One reason he retired was that he had gotten at two conventions supplements to his pension, and it would not have paid financially to continue in office. He knew he would not hold power forever.

END OF TAPE 12, SIDE 1
Note: Tape 12, Side 2 is blank.

SECRETARY-TREASURER WILLIAM MAGUIRE IN THE 1968 RCIA ELECTION
Scope and Content Note: He was privately negotiating with the opposition, when the administration found out, he “was very cowardly and quickly collapsed and became a staunch supporter of our ticket.” He was a liability, however, because the opposition exposed the fact that he had never worked in a store, and it was therefore a violation of the constitution for him to hold office.

VICE PRESIDENT EARL McDAVID IN THE 1968 RCIA ELECTION
Scope and Content Note: Director of the Northwest Division, which was still a weak area because of lingering Teamster influence in the food stores. Not strong, but honest. Opposition used adultery blackmail against him until he confessed to the administration forces, who straightened things out with his wife.

GENERAL COUNSEL SOL LIPPMAN IN THE 1968 RCIA ELECTION
Scope and Content Note: A womanizer who was set up and blackmailed by the opposition. Suffridge gave him a severe verbal lashing. He was fired after the election.

VICE PRESIDENT CHARLES KELLEHER IN THE 1968 RCIA ELECTION
Scope and Content Note: “A total incompetent.” A flatterer. Haletsky and DeSilva rehearsed him for Executive Board meetings. The administration did not try to bring him into its camp.

FIRST WORD OF THE OPPOSITION SLATE
Scope and Content Note: “We knew there was something brewing, but we didn't believe that anybody would have the get-up or the courage or the organizational ability to do... something with it.” At a 1967 Executive Board meeting, Haletsky declared himself openly. “He said there was a faction that questions the leadership of the International, and wants to contest it in an election....” Suffridge “went into an anger tantrum.” Haletsky suggested a recess for factional caucuses.

CHARLES OSTERLING, ANOTHER HEIR-APPARENT
Scope and Content Note: “A good Protestant boy,” who was working in a bank when he married Suffridge's daughter. Suffridge made him an organizer in Meyers' division. He separated from his wife, but Suffridge kept trying to get them back together. Osterling came into Meyers' division with the attitude that his relationship with Suffridge would provide him special consideration, which Meyers quickly disabused him of. Meyers gave him the toughest job he had - organizing department stores - because that would be the best way for him to learn. Meyers pretty much ignored him. When Murray Plopper became Eastern Division Director, he figured it would be an asset to have Suffridge's son-in-law on his staff. When Meyers was called upon to clean up Baltimore, he sent in five people, including Osterling, who did a credible job and stayed on as one of Akman's business agents. He tired of that and sought a headquarters job from Suffridge, who obliged by placing him in charge of the Sears boycott, which Meyers was working on. When Crossler resigned as Director of Organization, Suffridge promoted Osterling to that position. Suffridge confided in Meyers that he was trying to teach Osterling enough to make him president. At that point, Meyers made up his mind to destroy Osterling.

HOW MEYERS PREVENTED OSTERLING FROM BECOMING PRESIDENT
Scope and Content Note: “Knowing Suffridge's intentions, that was...a hazardous motivation for me to engage in....He can't ever be president of the organization that I built.” When Suffridge had Meyers line up Executive Board support for a supplement to his pension and creation of the President Emeritus position, Meyers had no problems, until he came to Osterling. Osterling realized this meant Suffridge would be staying on for awhile. Osterling said to Meyers, “What the hell is the matter with the guy? Why doesn't he go out in a blaze of glory?” Osterling signed the resolution, but Meyers inmediately described the incident to Suffridge. “Suffridge promoted him to the little corner and ordered all mail to bypass him.” Osterling eventually resigned.

REITERATION OF SUFFRIDGE'S IMPORTANCE TO THE RCIA
Scope and Content Note: “Without Suffridge, the Retail Clerks International would be one of the minor..., decentralized, racket-ridden organizations...and would be very small in number....I credit him without reservations, and regardless of his personal prejudices, idiosyncracies....”

LIKENS SUFFRIDGE TO GOMPERS - A MORE USEFUL PERSON AT THE TIME THAN DEBS
Scope and Content Note: [Meyers here digresses into a discussion and evaluation of Samuel Gompers and John L. Lewis.]

MORE ON SUFFRIDGE'S IMPORTANCE TO THE RCIA
Scope and Content Note: He was willing “to bet the $400,000 of a treasury on the judgment of an honest radical.” His merciless discipline of honesty - only one salary and no other sources of income.

THE RCIA LEADERSHIP BEFORE SUFFFRIDGE AND MEYERS
Scope and Content Note: When Coulter went to Detroit, Hoffa would “give him a pint of whiskey, turn him around, and send him back to Lafayette.” Poor quality Executive Board. Today tbe Board is better only because Suffridge and Meyers spent years “creating a unified policy, a constitution, and a rigid practice which they (Board members) knew would cost their head not to follow.”

QUALITIES THAT MADE SUFFRIDGE A GOOD LEADER FOR THE RCIA
Scope and Content Note: From a small southern town; his father a grocer. Suffridge was not influencing Meyers' thought, but he had faith in Meyers' thinking. A very skillful administrator. A good judge of character, except in cases where he got silly notions like making his son-in-law president.

ARTICLES ON THE RCIA IN FORTUNE MAGAZINE AND SATURDAY EVENING POST
Scope and Content Note: Meyers is not too proud of either because the Luce interests, when they do an article, want something in return. The Post article was okay, but the headline “was something like 'A Confirmed Republican Runs an Organization of Retail Clerks.'” Story of the RCIA article in Fortune Magazine. A writer interviewed both Meyers and Suffridge and mixed up some of the quotes.

MORE ABOUT THE FORTUNE MAGAZINE ARTICLE
Scope and Content Note: When the writer asked Suffridge if the RCIA was a liberal organization, he answered that “the better wages we get for people are liberalism enough. What need has a high-paid clerk...in a Hollywood men's store for liberalism?” In the article, the writer attributed the quote to Meyers, and Suffridge insisted that Meyers buy “25,000 reprints of the damned thing.” For some reason, these things never seemed to harm the organization.

MEYERS' APPROACH TO ORGANIZING CLERKS
Scope and Content Note: Clerks are generally middle class oriented. Meyers' approach was to avoid teaching theory to clerks but to lead them slowly step by step to a realization of their economic situation. He taught his organizers to go slowly and to become friends with the employees. It was based on an understanding of a process by which the worker arrives at the loss of his fear. The process of coming to a realization that in unity there is strength.

JERRY WURF, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF STATE, COUNTY AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES (AFSCME)
Scope and Content Note: An admirer of Meyers, who liked Meyers' radio advertisements for RCIA and today is running a similar program for his own union.

UNITY DURING THE SUFFRIDGE REGIME
Scope and Content Note: Prior to Suffridge, there were very few international organizers in the field. Locals sprang up variously but were not organized by the International. Creation of the three divisional directorships led to building of an International staff. The staff was used for organizing new workers, not for spying on established locals. The established locals were happy to loan staff to organizing drives, because they realized this could only serve to help them. “It's hard to argue with a good; you argue with an evil.”

ANECDOTE ABOUT INITIAL ORGANIZATION IN THE DENVER MAY COMPANY
Scope and Content Note: Meyers was working in Denver, and Suffridge came for a tour of the 11 states in the Western Division. Meyers called a meeting of the May Company employees. Meyers told those assembled they had just “created a miracle,” that they were doing an heroic thing by initiating the organization of department store workers in Denver which would bring better working conditions to tens of thousands of people. The next few days witnessed a continuous march of people into the union office for membership applications.

SUFFRIDGE INITIATES THE 50-50 ORGANIZER PLAN
Scope and Content Note: Took Suffridge on the western tour, and Suffridge offered each existing local a dollar-for-dollar match for any money of their own they would use to hire organizers. “It had not been the custom for international unions to give; it was more their custom to take.” This was a “Suffridgeism....And it worked...because just as soon as they accepted his proposition, they accepted directorship....” Initiated this program in the West because that was where he was from and because Meyers was director there.

MORE ON UNITY DURING THE SUFFRIDGE REGIME
Scope and Content Note: A period of growth and enthusiasm and a period of locals benefiting from the International. “Just like I said to Suffridge, 'we're growing too fast to write a history,' we were growing too fast to quarrel. There was nothing to quarrel about. We were always counting successes.”

SOME PHANTOM GROWTH IN THE EARLY PERIOD
Scope and Content Note: The union had officially only 6,000 members when Meyers joined. However, among the first 100,000 gained, there might have been as many as “40,000 that local unions may have withheld reporting because there was no centralized policy or discipline or method of checking.”

OAKLAND GENERAL STRIKE, 1946
Scope and Content Note: The Clerks were striking two small department stores when an organization of scab Teamsters from Los Angeles tried, with an Oakland police escort, to cross the picket line. A streetcar motorman was run over by a motorcycle policeman. This made the strike a big issue with the Central Labor Council which called a general strike in order to get the mayor to promise not to use police to escort strikebreakers. The general strike lasted three days.

DIGRESSION ON SEAFARERS' HARRY LUNDEBERG
Scope and Content Note: He was a personal friend of Meyers. Gave $100 or more each month of the Montgomery Wards' strike. AFL President William Green was financing Lundeberg's battle with Harry Bridges and the Longshoremen. This meant many thugs were on the payroll. Helped in Los Angeles drug store negotiation by walking into the bargaining session with about a dozen of his men, just to say hello “to our friends, the Clerks.” During the Clerks' battle with the Meat Cutters in San Diego, Max Osslo borrowed some of Lundeberg's muscle without asking. Lundeberg was not pleased with the San Diego Meat Cutters taking the Clerks to an NLRB election.

MORE ON THE OAKLAND GENERAL STRIKE, 1946
Scope and Content Note: Lundeberg promised all the help he could give. Meyers came into the situation from Denver on the day of a conference with the mayor and company officials. The city agreed to refrain from using police to escort strikebreakers. The general strike was called off, “everything was lovely, and the strike died on the vine.” One good result of the strike was the election of a Clerk as mayor. Meanwhile, Palmer Hoyt, in Denver, accused Meyers of initiating the general strike in 0akland and of planning the same for Denver.

DIGRESSION ABOUT PICTURES AND LITERATURE MEYERS HAS IN HIS STUDY
Scope and Content Note: Formica literature; Philadelphia literature used against Meat Cutters' Harry Poole (a list of Clerk NLRB victories over the Meat Cutters); picture of the Suffridge administrative assistant who was in league with Formica.

ANECDOTE ABOUT SELIG PERLMAN
Scope and Content Note: Perlman told Meyers he used to appeal to the liberal tendencies of Jewish garment employers when he was involved with organizing garment workers in the early days in New York and suggested that Meyers should be able to do the same with the Jewish owners of the May Company. “I said, 'They're German Jews.'”

ORGANIZING KRAMBO (KROGER) STORES IN MILWAUKEE (1957-1958)
Scope and Content Note: There was a “Greek gangster” on the RCIA payroll in Chicago, “a totally useless person,” who used physical force to organize smaller stores. He was to play a role in the Krambo campaign in Milwaukee. The Krambo chain had 13 successful stores, 800 employees, and an independent union run by an attorney. When the Kroger Company purchased the Krambo chain, Hoffa sent a crooked organizer to organize the clerks for the Teamsters. Central Division Director Murray Plopper, who was well-liked and well-known in his native Milwaukee, either was unaware or ignored the Teamster attempt. When Meyers found out, he wired all organizers and local officers in the Central Division to attend a meeting the next day in Milwaukee. At the meeting, he pointed out that the Teamsters had filed, and the Clerks were on the outside looking in, “and where in the hell is the local union?”

MORE ON ORGANIZING KRAMBO IN MILWAUKEE (1957-1958)
Scope and Content Note: There were 100 men at the meeting, and Meyers told them they were to drop everything for the next few days, visit Krambo stores, and sign up a majority, even though only 10 percent was required to get on the NLRB ballot. Plopper was angry, feeling that Meyers was overstepping his authority in his division. Within two days, close to a majority of the Krambo clerks had been signed up. The attorney from the independent union approached Meyers to make a deal; “he was crooked as a corkscrew.” Even if Meyers were inclined to buy the attorney's support, Hoffa could outbid him. Meyers' advice to the attorney was to tell whatever friends he might still have in the independent union to sign with the Clerks, who represented most of the rest of the Kroger chain. The attorney took his case to Suffridge, who told him Meyers was in charge and the only one to deal with; “that was a Suffridgeism.” The Teamster organizer bought all the male Krambo clerks leather coats and also gifts for the female clerks. The secretary-treasurer of the Milwaukee RCIA food store local (E. M. Stadelmann, Local 1469) was an older and very weak man. “In fear of what would happen, he withdrew the whole local treasury from the bank and put it in a separate account because he couldn't know which way things were going to go, and he figured that since we had found him asleep, he would be slated for the ash heap.” Looking over the local staff, Meyers found Peter Voeller, now Central Division Director, who appealed to him. A cranky, but good, organizer from Minneapolis was placed in charge, and Plopper returned to his office in Chicago. Meyers gave the man in charge his method for tallying visits and support. (In the second Krambo election, this tally procedure showed exactly the number of votes the union received in the NLRB election.) The night before the election, the Teamsters held a mass meeting at which the Chicago Greek gangster appeared as an employee of the Teamsters. He told the crowd, “I pleaded with Meyers and Suffridge to give the working people a chance; but they wouldn't listen to me.” The election was lost to the Teamsters by a narrow margin. Meyers preferred charges to prevent Teamster certification, and then flew to Atantic City for the AFL-CIO convention which was to expel the Teamsters. At the convention, Meyers overheard the Meat Cutters' Harry Poole bragging loudly about the Teamster victory in Milwaukee. Meyers told him he was counting his chickens too soon, and Poole apologized. Meyers returned to Milwaukee and made arrangements for a campaign to win the second election. The campaign was very thorough. Some employees had 13 marks by their names, meaning they had been visited 13 times before the election. The Clerks won this election by a landslide.

PETER VOELLER
Scope and Content Note: Placed in charge of the Madison, Wisconsin local, where he was very successful. Later Meyers drafted him to head the International's new Community Affairs Department.

“SATURATION CITY,” MILWAUKEE
Scope and Content Note: Meyers did not think much of the strategy, though he did contribute materials. Probably Osterling's brainchild. Campaign was aimed at the 6,000 Gimbels-Schuster employees. Billboards, signs on buses, etc. Except for a few janitors, no one from Gimbels would even talk to the union. As a by-product, however, several small stores did join the union. “The notion that you could organize Gimbels-Schuster in that way was dynamically a wrong notion. Meyers feels the saturation has to be within the 6,000 clerks, not from a distance.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT
Scope and Content Note: “Something that is very distasteful for me to talk about.” The Department collaborated with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Each vice president, in turn, took trips to Europe. They were briefed by the State Department and the CIA before going and were debriefed upon return. When Meyers' turn for a trip came, he refused. Suffridge did not object; he sent Meyers to Hawaii and San Juan instead. Gerard O'Keefe, a former CIA man, was hired to head the Department. Meyers had continual visits from delegations of foreign trade unionists, but he always confined his remarks to the organizing methods of the RCIA.

POLITICAL VISIT OF CHILEAN DELEGATION OF TRADE UNIONISTS
Scope and Content Note: For an hour, Meyers talked to them about organizing, and then, instead of asking about organizing, each made a statement about how terrible and repressive the Allende government was. Meyers made no comments, asked if they had any questions about what he had discussed, and terminated the meeting. His picture with the delegation appeared in the next issue of The Advocate. “They were obviously set ups.” When he heard of Allende's assassination, he was sorry he had met with the delegation. Suffridge was a thoroughly patriotic man, and he believed he was doing the right thing. He thought it was his duty to collaborate with the CIA.”

JAY LOVESTONE
Scope and Content Note: Lovestone worked closely with O'Keefe and Suffridge. Meyers believes Lovestone was working for U.S. intelligence while he was heading the American Communist Party. Lovestone and William Foster competed for leadership of the American Communist Party, which had to be conferred by Josef Stalin. “This turned into a frequent race to Moscow.” When Foster won the race, Lovestone returned to the United States and set up the Communist Party Majority. He then became an advisor to David Dubinsky, president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, who was fighting the left wing in his union. “From that point on, Jay Lovestone was the supporter of just about every dictator and every reactionary force, any place in the world.”

WHY MEYERS DID NOT LIKE THE RCIA's FOREIGN AFFAIRS ACTIVITIES
Scope and Content Note: Meyers felt this collaboration with the government on foreign affairs did not look good when the U.S. labor movement was always criticizing Russian unions for the same thing. He always restricted his remarks, even at international conferences, to methods of organizing white collar workers.

COMMUNITY RELATIONS DEPARTMENT
Scope and Content Note: “It did not know what it had to do.” Meyers agitated that the Department should start with day care centers and the like for the membership. Eventually, because of the civil rights movement, the department wound up with black leaders who “knew what they had to do.” It was Suffridge's idea to create the Community Affairs Department.

ACTIVE BALLOT CLUB (ABC)
Scope and Content Note: RCIA started this rather than the Committee on Political Education (COPE) because of Suffridge's feelings about the AFL-CIO's political/legislative action. AFL-CIO lobbyist Andy Biemiller was in a rut. Charles Lipsen, a professional lobpyist and a good one, was hired to head ABC. Lipsen went with Suffridge on his world trip with Lyndon Johnson. Lipsen was fired after the 1968 RCIA election because he was playing both sides.

CHARLES LIPSEN, RCIA LOBBYIST
Scope and Content Note: Meyers disliked him. “He was one of the best lobbyists on the Hill, and he was one of the most ignorant men I have ever met.” Suffridge liked him because he departed from Biemiller's style. He did not neglect anti-labor Congressmen. After the RCIA fired him and he gave up lobbying, he had a book ghost-written for Penthouse in which he explained how he used to pimp for Congressmen. Meyers refused to accompany him to Capitol Hill. While Lipsen could not convince anti-union Congressmen to support a bill, he could use them to open doors to other Congressmen. “Suffridge did not want to be under total obligation to the AFL-CIO political efforts.”

SEARS AND NATHAN SHEFFERMAN
Scope and Content Note: Meyers organized Sears in Boston. Meyers testified before the Senate Labor Committee (McClellan Committee) which produced “thousands of pages of how Sears used Shefferman and underworld tactics to destroy a union.” A liberal journalist interviewed Meyers by phone for three hours and wrote up the story very well. Meyers had it reprinted in quantity. Daniel Bell also wrote an article on Meyers' fight with Sears, which appeared in Fortune Magazine. Even though Meyers had been able to purchase 25,000 reprints of the Fortune article on Suffridge, the magazine would not offer reprints of this article. Meyers got around this by having Senator Hubert Humphrey read the entire article into the Congressional Record. Thus, since he could not get reprints with the Fortune masthead, he got them with the Congressional Record's.

MORE ON LIPSEN
Scope and Content Note: Fired after Housewright elected president and then went to work for the Teamsters. Followed that with his Penthouse book on how a lobbyist works.

WHY RCIA MOVED HEADQUARTERS FROM LAFAYETTE TO WASHINGTON IN 1954
Scope and Content Note: Lafayette was “a nothing town,” and the union had outgrown its building. Also, Washington, D.C., had become the headquarters of the labor movement. Meyers was in Washington when the headquarters were moved there. Suffridge told him to move the Eastern Division office to Philadelphia, and just before Meyers moved himself there, Suffridge appointed Plopper Eastern Director and put Meyers in the International office.

MERGER WITH THE AMALGAMATED MEAT CUTTERS
Scope and Content Note: Meyers disagrees with Pat Gorman's assessment that merger talks, previously promising, died when RCIA moved to Washington. The move was in 1954, and that was the time when Clerks and Meat Cutters were fighting jurisdictional battles all over the country. Obviously Suffridge was not keen for merger in those days since he helped Meyers destroy the AFL-CIO Food and Beverage Department, which could have been a step toward merger. After Jim Housewright was elected, talks resumed; and while Housewright felt Gorman was a block to merger, there was a time when he thought merger was close and feared Meyers would oppose it. The merger was finally consummated in 1979. At that time, the Meat Cutters had good reasons for merger, but the RCIA could have continued to grow without the Amalgamated.

MERGER ISSUES
Scope and Content Note: “The bargaining chiefly consisted of what their (Meat Cutters' officers and staff) pensions would be.”

MORE ON MERGER ISSUE
Scope and Content Note: Meyers feels the main reason there was no merger in the 1950's, was because the Meat Cutters at the time had a better pension plan. After pensions, the chief concern was the division of offices.

MEYERS' CONCERNS ABOUT THE MERGER
Scope and Content Note: The RCIA had good organizers, but the Amalgamated had “consummate politicians, people who could collaborate with the Teamsters..., and I...kind of got a bad taste in my mouth” when a recent Action issue praised the Teamsters' late president, Frank Fitzsimmons. Meyers is concerned that the political skills of the Meat Cutters might result in their control of the organization.

WHY RCIA WAS SO SUCCESSFUL AT ORGANIZING
Scope and Content Note: First, Suffridge, a capable administrator. Second, and more dynamically, “We were a fashion-plate bunch of sissies so long as we were a small organization of men's clothing and shoe store people....When the chain supermarkets became an important factor..., they brought youth into the retail industry.” Youth has energy. RCIA differed from CIO unions in that the CIO unions themselves were young, but their membership was not necessarily young. For CI0 members, many of whom had been exploited for years, it was a liberation movement.

SUFFRIDGE'S ROLE AS PRESIDENT-EMERITUS
Scope and Content Note: The RCIA did not have a two-headed leadership after Housewright's election in 1968. Suffridge made a mistake. Lippman never had the courage to tell Suffridge his plan for retaining control of the union after picking his successor was not in conformity with the National Labor Relations Act.

JAY FOREMAN POINTED OUT THE ILLEGALITY OF SUFFRIDGE BEING CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD
Scope and Content Note: Foreman was an attorney for Adam Clayton Powell's House Labor committee when Suffridge hired him and put him in a little office near Meyers. Meyers put him to work on pension plans. Foreman saw that, if the administration forces won the 1968 election, the NLRB could set the election aside on the grounds that the RCIA constitution was not legal because of the Chairman of the Board position. When it was explained to Suffridge that the constitution had to be changed, he lost his temper. The Executive Board, subject to convention ratification, eliminated the Chairman of the Board position, but kept the President-Emeritus post. “There his plan fell, because as Chairman of the Board, he would have had the power to temporarily remove the president.”

HOUSEWRIGHT OUSTS SUFFRIDGE
Scope and Content Note: Housewright for a while acted submissive to Suffridge, “but the hatred was there and the cruelty was brewing.” Housewright had Suffridge's office cleared out and told him that the President-Emeritus office was only honorary and not entitled to an office at union headquarters.