George Meany

Labor Leader

  • Born: August 16, 1894
  • Birthplace: New York, New York
  • Died: January 10, 1980
  • Place of death: Washington, D.C.

American labor leader

Meany unified the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations to form the AFL-CIO, a major labor federation. He served as the federation’s president for twenty-four years and championed workers’ rights.

Areas of achievement Labor movement, economics, government and politics, social reform

Early Life

The second of eight children, George Meany was born to Michael and Anne Meany in the Harlem section of New York City. His father, a plumber and president of the local union, frequently invited union members to the house. When Meany was five years old, his Irish Catholic family moved to the Bronx. As a child, he enjoyed playing baseball and swimming, and he earned money running errands for various businesses.

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While Meany was not a particularly good student, he possessed an excellent memory and did well in mathematics. He dropped out of high school and pursued the plumbing trade, over his father’s objections. When he was sixteen years old, he joined the United Association of Plumbers and Steam Fitters Union as an apprentice. Five years later, he became a journeyman plumber. Meany assumed responsibility for supporting his family after his father died and after his older brother sustained fatal injuries fighting in World War I. However, he found time to date Eugenie McMahon, whom he married on November 26, 1919.

In 1922, Meany was elected to serve as business agent for Local 463. The position translated into more job security for Meany because as an agent he was employed directly by the union and did not have to compete with other plumbers for work. He was responsible for ensuring compliance with building codes as well as enforcing the terms of the union contract. By most accounts, he was effective in negotiating resolutions to workplace disputes. However, he declined to conduct union business in his Bronx home because of his wife’s insistence that he maintain a strict line between his personal life and professional endeavors.

Life’s Work

Meany, at age forty, was the youngest person ever to be elected president of the New York State Federation of Labor, the largest branch of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), a labor organization comprising various trade unions around the country. He served in that position from 1934 to 1939 and was an effective lobbyist for prolabor legislation, including an unemployment insurance act. Although he stayed in Albany, New York, during the workweek, he returned to the Bronx on weekends to spend time with his family, which now included three daughters, Regina, Eileen, and Genevieve. Meany was a delegate to the AFL convention of 1935, during which John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), advocated the inclusion of mass-production workers, especially those employed by the automobile and steel industries. At that time, however, the unions that belonged to the AFL consisted of skilled craftsmen, such as plumbers and carpenters, who generally shunned the lower paid factory workers. Lewis and several other union presidents broke away from the AFL and formed a rival union federation, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

Meany continued to rise in the labor movement and was elected secretary-treasurer of the AFL, the number two position in the organization. When his term commenced in January, 1940, he moved to Washington, D.C. He traveled back and forth between the nation’s capital and the Bronx, where his family remained until his youngest child finished high school. Most reports reflect that Meany was a more effective lobbyist and leader than AFL president Bill Green. Initially, Green assigned few duties to Meany. However, after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Green recommended that Meany serve on the National War Labor Board established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to resolve wartime labor disputes. After World War II ended, Meany endorsed the Marshall Plan, which was designed to render aid to European countries ravaged by combat. He demanded that a portion of the aid be earmarked for European workers. He had a long-standing interest in the plight of foreign workers, as was evidenced by his prior involvement in a secret plot to assist German union workers fleeing from Hitler.

With respect to the American workforce, Meany and other labor officials unsuccessfully opposed the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Widely regarded as antiunion, the act was passed by Congress over the veto of President Harry S. Truman. Among other things, the act imposed penalties against unions for engaging in unfair labor practices, prohibited strikes by government employees, and banned the “closed shop,” in which an employer hired only members of a certain union. In 1952, after Green died, Meany became president of the AFL. One of Meany’s top priorities was to merge the AFL and the CIO. By that time, the CIO was no longer controlled by the confrontational Lewis. Moreover, the CIO had undertaken a campaign to rid its member unions of communist influences, which was important to Meany, a staunch anticommunist. Meany successfully engineered a reconciliation and merging of the AFL with the CIO in 1955, and the new entity became known as the AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO would be led by Meany for the next twenty-four years. The first vice president was Walter P. Reuther, president of the CIO at the time of the merger and leader of the United Auto Workers (UAW). However, Reuther disagreed with Meany over numerous issues, including organizing efforts. The UAW eventually broke away from the AFL-CIO and did not rejoin the federation until after the death of both leaders. Meany, vowing to purge member unions of corruption, established an ethics committee to investigate questionable activities. He triggered an investigation of the unions representing laundry and distillery workers. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) was expelled from the AFL-CIO after its leader, scandal-ridden James R. Hoffa, refused to resign.

A balding, stocky man with an ever-present cigar, Meany was an outspoken advocate for workers’ rights and wielded considerable political power in Washington, D.C. In 1963, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contributions to the country’s labor movement. During President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration, he supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and he ordered the AFL-CIO to eradicate discrimination from its ranks. The federation sent delegates to support the antiracism efforts, namely marches, of Martin Luther King, Jr.

During the administration of Richard M. Nixon, Meany lobbied in favor of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) of 1970. Essentially, the legislation protected workers’ welfare by requiring employers to observe safety and health standards. Although Meany supported Nixon with respect to the Vietnam War, he was one of the first to call for Nixon’s impeachment after the Watergate scandal.

As Meany aged, he suffered from arthritis and leg problems, which made him use a wheelchair. Always a devoted family man, he enjoyed spending time with his fourteen grandchildren. Meany retired in 1979 and was succeeded by Lane Kirkland, his second in command for many years. Meany died from heart failure on January 10, 1980, in Washington, D.C.

Significance

Meany has been praised for unifying rival labor factions and molding the resulting entity into a powerful political force that continues to exert political pressure into the twenty-first century. Under his leadership the AFL-CIO’s Committee on Political Education (COPE), for example, successfully supported numerous prolabor candidates over the years of his tenure as president. Meany also has been lauded for elevating the status of the labor movement through his determined campaign to purge unions of corruption and discrimination.

Meany was criticized, however, for being too conservative in the light of declining union membership, a decline that began in the 1970’s. His resistance to aggressive organizing efforts were decried as well. Some questioned his ability to address modern labor challenges, which, in turn, raised the issue of whether he should have stepped down sooner. However, even Meany’s detractors cannot reasonably deny that Meany left a sizable imprint on the labor movement.

Bibliography

Dubofsky, Melvyn, and Foster Rhea Dulles. Labor in America: A History. 7th ed. Wheeling, Ill.: Harlan, Davidson, 2004. Traces the labor history of the United States from the colonial period through 2003. Addresses the impact of September 11, 2001, on American labor.

Goulden, Joseph C. Meany. New York: Atheneum, 1972. Presents Meany’s life and career through the Nixon administration. Maintains that Meany was a successful AFL-CIO president because he developed the necessary political power to make the voice of organized labor heard in Washington, D.C.

Lichtenstein, Nelson. State of the Union. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002. Provides a history of the labor movement, with emphasis on the Great Depression onward. Discusses the passage of important legislation, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Includes photographs.

Nelson, Daniel. Shifting Fortunes. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1997. Explores the labor movement’s rise and decline. Uses tables to demonstrate the changes in union density, and argues that the labor movement’s future is dependent upon various factors, including economic.

Robinson, Archie. George Meany and His Times. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981. Details Meany’s rise to prominence in the labor movement, from his early years to his death. Through interviews with Meany, offers his opinions on various politicians, labor leaders, and events. Includes photographs.

Zieger, Robert H., and Gilbert J. Gall. American Workers, American Unions: The Twentieth Century. 3d ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. A history of the American labor movement in the twentieth century.

1941-1970: December 5, 1955: AFL and CIO Merge; December 5, 1957: AFL-CIO Expels the Teamsters Union; September 14, 1959: Landrum-Griffin Act Targets Union Corruption; December 4, 1970: Chávez Is Jailed for Organizing a National Lettuce Boycott.