May Day martyrs live on in today's struggles: The Mohawk Valley Formula and Wheeling-Pitt's Ron LaBow

by Fred Gaboury

This article was reprinted from the April 26, 1997 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

The use of psychological warfare as a way of breaking strikes is not new. It was honed to a science in 1936 by James H. Rand Jr., head of Remington Rand during the CIO organizing upsurge, and presented to the National Association of Manufacturers and called the Mohawk Valley formula. Rand said the formula was the plan business had "hoped for, dreamed of and prayed for."

Although the formula succeeded at Remington, it failed miserably during the Little Steel Strike of 1937 and millions of workers went on to organize mass production workers into powerful industrial unions.

In his attempt to duplicate Rand's success at union busting, Ron LaBow, the Wall Street financier who controls the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation, has updated the Mohawk Valley formula and applied it to the strike between Wheeling-Pitt and the United Steelworkers of America, now dragging on toward its seventh month.

Rand realized that a strike is a war of nerves as well as of muscle; of heart as well as stomach. He recognized that resolve is a decisive factor in determining the outcome of a strike. His formula concentrated on weakening that resolve by telling strikers over and over that they can't win and by driving wedges between the rank and file and the union leadership, and between the union and the larger community.

The way to do that, he said, was to brand union leaders as outsiders who were using the strike to push some hidden agenda. Rand's formula called for a propaganda blitz that portrayed the union's demands as outrageous in order to cover up the employer's refusal to bargain.

Then, for good measure, he said, threaten to close the plant in order to mobilize the community's "leading citizens" as a support group for the employer.

Rand's formula called for organizing public meetings to crystallize sentiment against the strike, the creation of an organization of "loyal" employees and a well publicized back-to-work movement as part of the larger campaign to demoralize the strikers.

A one-by-one comparison between what Rand proposed and what LaBow is doing may be worth the effort, if for no other reason than that of reviewing history.

Consider, for instance, LaBow's choice of words in a full-page ad that appeared in the Nov. 13 Times Leader of Martin's Ferry, Ohio. In it he spoke of "union negotiators " who had "walked our employees off their jobs."

"Our employees?" Since when does LaBow own the workers who bailed Wheeling- Pitt out of bankruptcy?

Then there was LaBow's ad in the Jan. 19 edition of the Wheeling, W. Va. News Register. By then "our employees" had become "free men and women" who should be given the opportunity to "settle this strike the American way" by "voting their consciences" on the company's last offer.

How's that for a smoke screen? And the appeal to the American way? Just how "American" was it for Wheeling-Pitt to renege on its promise to reinstate a defined benefit pension plan?

Why not vote, he said, because there was no way the company was going to meet the union's pension demand - "Not now. Not ever," he said. ("Never" is a long time, meaning that you can't win - taken almost word-for-word from the formula.)

What LaBow deliberately ignored is that members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) - including those who work at Wheeling-Pitt - vote for union officers, on whether or not to strike and on whether or not to accept a contract agreed to between their negotiating team and Wheeling-Pitt. (By the way - who voted for Ron LaBow to be top dog at WHX?)

Newspapers in the region have carried stories and editorials that could have been written by LaBow. After a judge ruled that Wheeling-Pitt strikers who live in Ohio were eligible for unemployment compensation, a headline in one paper said the ruling would prolong the strike, a conclusion based solely on a quote from LaBow calling the decision "unfortunate" and that it was "likely to prolong the strike." (Again the formula: Since you can't win, why not surrender now?)

Another paper warned that unemployment benefits paid Ohio strikers might have to be repaid How's that for sowing doubt and confusion?

Or the story in the Feb. 28 edition of the Wheeling Intelligencer. In it LaBow said if the strike were to go on for 10 or 11 months, Wheeling-Pitt would "be forced to take drastic actions. Anything is possible," he added. "The situation is very discouraging." (Again: word-for-word from the formula.)

LaBow repeated his threat in the Times Leader on Feb. 28. In an article headlined, "Local VP says negotiator has failed USWA," LaBow said, "Eventually, at some point, things are going to have to be done that are very unfortunate."

Six weeks after making these remarks, LaBow took the first of his "drastic actions" and announced the closing of three of the struck plants. And for emphasis, he made the announcement while both sides were meeting under the auspices of Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV - that'll show 'em!

The News Register is the most duplicitous of the area's papers. In its Sunday issue of Oct. 6 the paper editorialized: "We won't take sides in the dispute between Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel and its union employees." (Ha! ha!) Four months later a Feb. 2 editorial approvingly quoted a Wall Street analyst who accused USWA president George Becker of using Wheeling-Pitt strikers "as pawns. . .using the local guys to make a point about bigger issues."

The editorial said it "would not hurt" LaBow to shut the company down and told News Register readers "there is very little reason to believe [LaBow] is just bluffing." (Could Rand do any better if he was running the Wheeling-Pitt strike?)

By mid-February, all pretense of impartiality had vanished as the Register became an active accomplice in LaBow's campaign to destroy the fighting spirit of the rank and file. On Feb. 16 the paper published the results of a poll its editors said was meant to "gain an impartial, confidential idea of the feelings and fears of both Wheeling-Pitt employees and other area residents." The results were what one expects from an "impartial survey" conducted by the area's newspapers who have made hundreds of thousands of dollars each from Wheeling-Pitt ads.

As was said at the beginning, LaBow has studied and updated the Mohawk Valley formula and applied it with a vengeance to the Wheeling-Pitt strike. He provoked the strike with but one purpose in mind - to break the USWA at Wheeling-Pitt and, in so doing, to weaken the union's position in the 1999 round of negotiations. If anyone is using "the local guys to make a point about bigger issues," it's Ron LaBow.

It's obvious that LaBow has learned the principles outlined in the Mohawk Valley formula. But workers have learned, too The following verse from the 1947 song "Talkin' Union" (by Millard Lampell, Lee Hays and Pete Seeger) says it all:

Out in Detroit, here's what they found,
And out in Frisco here's what they found,
And out in Pittsburgh here's what they found,
And down at Bethlehem here's what they found:
 
That if you don't let red-baiting break you up,
If you don't let stool pigeons break you up,
If you don't let vigilantes break you up,
and if you don't let race hatred break you up -
You'll win. What I mean, take it easy-but take it.

And that goes for the folks at Wheeling-Pitt, too.