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    Strike Folly - a student paper from the University of Colorado Denver History Department on strike history including the Coors Strike.

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    Strike Folly - a student paper from the University of Colorado Denver History Department on strike history including the Coors Strike.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    5 views23 pages

    Striker Folly

    Uploaded by

    The CU Denver History Department
    Strike Folly - a student paper from the University of Colorado Denver History Department on strike history including the Coors Strike.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 23
    Striker Folly Strikes are a perilous weapon that workers can use against their management and are a weapon that can easily backfire and result in the destruction of the union’s power. A strike happens when worker's feel they are mistreated by the management, while the management feels they need to have those unpopular practices to sustain their position of power, and ‘maximize their profits. Those two forces, the embattled workers and the determined manager, collided once again in April 1977 when the Local 366 union (a brewers union at the Coors Beer brewery in Golden Colorado) decided that a strike against their employer, the Coors Company, was their best course of action to obtain their desired goals. Through the course of the strike, the union attempted to gain the support of various outside groups, ranging from women to Chicanos. The resources that the union expended on sustaining the support of those groups eventually caused them to fail in their strike as they ultimately lost the resources to sustain themselves, The victory of the company over the union was not unique to the Coors Beer Strike, and is part of a larger pattern, of manager victories over embattled workers. in the Homestead Strike of the late eighteen hundreds, as disclosed by Paul Krause, history professor at the University British Columbia, the workers attempted similar tactics to Coors workers, such as the attempted use of anti-employer rhetoric, and though attempting to gain outside support, though their strike also ended poorly, with the company breaking the union in the end. Almont Lindsey, history professor at Mary Washington College, described the Pullman Strike, which also took place in the late eighteen hundreds, as an example of a more successful strike, "Paul Krause, The Battle for Homestead 1880-1892: Politics, Culture, and Steel, (Piusburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992), p, 178-181, 329-362, where even though the workers accomplished little, a court decision forced the company to make some concessions to the workers.” In both cases though, the workers themselves failed, and the company concessions came from outside sources. The pattern of union loss continued intermittently through the twentieth century until the 1970s and 1980s, where union membership, and union power, declined drastically.’ That pattern of union losses and declining union power, continued in the Coors Strike, with that strike following a similar course to the Homestead Strike, where the strike ended up breaking the union. Following the expiration of the union contract on December 31, 1976, months of fruitless negotiations with the company resulted in the local 366 going on strike on April 5, 1977 with alist of grievances against the Coors Company." In an interview with a Denver Post staff writer James Silverthorn, the union president, explained that the strike came as the result to company negotiator’s refusal to remove any of the regressive rhetoric from the new contract. Silverthorn also explained that chief among the disputed contract changes were among other things, a “change in the holiday schedule without adding any new holidays... . Company refusal to include a union security clause... [and] an end to the system under which employes chose their shifts according to seniority.”° In the same article, an unnamed Coors informant suggested that greed was the true basis for the strike, as the company already put a pay hike into effect in February, which in effect raised worker's hourly rate to “28 per cent above the ® Almont Lindsey, The Pullman Strike; The Story of a Unique Experiment and of a Great Labor Upheaval, (Chicago; University of Chicago Press, 1942), p. 90-93, 97-99, 107-110, 128, 308-311, 335-343, Nelson Lichtenstein, State of the Union : A Century of American Labor, (Princeton; Princeton University Press, 2002), p. 213. * Denver Post, April 6, 1977, p4. * Denver Post, April 6, 1977, pA. ° Denver Post, April 6, 1977, pa. average paid to workers in comparable jobs in the Denver area.”” The union kept to the stance that the negotiators had already settled the issue of wages, and that the real issue was worker's rights. The company on the other hand countered that, yes the two parties had come to an agreement on wages but the union was nowhere near satisfied and that their desire for higher wages was the true issue in the struggle. The union pressed the issues of contract changes that harmfully affected the workers because they knew that they needed outside support against the company. Over the next several months, the union continuously added new fronts to their argument in the attempt to woo various groups into supporting their cause. The first, and most obvious; group that the union targeted was other unions and their members. In two follow-up articles in the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News, the union added further rhetoric that they hoped appealed to union members. The Denver Post article asserted that the dispute centered entirely on the issue of seniority, where the union required a clause in their new contract that guaranteed shift assignment by seniority.” In the Rocky ‘Mountain News article, Ed Hoffman, a union steward, contended the company had every right to decide which shifts they needed covered, but the union needed control over who worked those shifts, through seniority rights.? The focus on demands that followed union lines quickly brought them union support over the next few weeks, as the national AFL-CIO endorsed their actions."° Immediately following their declaration of a strike against the company, the union issued a boycott against the company because they realized that they would not be able to ” Denver Post, April 6, 1977, p. * Denver Post, April 8, 1977, p. 4. * Rocky Mountain News, Apri 8, 1977, p.6, 27 * Rocky Mountain News, April 12, 197, p.6. coerce the company into making concessions without hurting them financially." The AFL-CIO applauded it as a brilliant strategy and immediately endorsed the boycott, requesting that the boycott in support of local 366.’ The union other local branches of the AFL-CIO j immediately gained further support for its cause when the Denver Area Labor Federation also decided to throw its weight behind the boycott, and by relation the strike." By making th first front the issue of union-centric worker rights, local 366 gained the powerful backing of the national AFL-CIO, as well as local unions. ‘As the need to bring in additional support arose, the union created a new front on worker's rights to appeal to a larger audience. in the week after the strike’s commencement, the company issued an ultimatum to the workers. The statement announced that Coors would issue a proclamation that the company was planning on creating a new job vacancy for each of the workers on strike, and that unless a worker filled that vacancy by crossing the picket line and returning to work, the company would fill that new position with a fresh hire."* in response to the ultimatum, the union filed a suit against the Coors Company with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) sighting the unfair labor practices employed by the company.”> The union charged Coors with allegations that the company spread misinformation pertaining to seniority rights in the new contracts and accusation that the company refused to bargain collectively with the union." The union found the issue of unfair labor practices vitally important because it determined whether the striking workers still had a job at the company 1 Rocky Mountain News, April 12, 1977, p. 6. * Rocky Mountain News, Apri 12, 1977, p. 6. ® Rocky Mountain News, April 12, 1977, p. 6. * Rocky Mountain News, April 12, 1977, p. 6. * Rocky Mountain News, April 12, 1977, p. 6. * press Release by Local 366 informing public about the NLRB filing complaints against Coors, April 27, 1977, p.2, 3, Coors Support and Strike Papers, Denver. Auraria Library Archives, Carton 1, File 8. following the strike or not.’7 Now that the union was directly fighting the company to ensure their members future at the company it was even easier for other union to join the cause against Coors. That issue of replacing striking employees also hampered the union cause however; as it showed what the company was willing to do to stop the strike. Coors stated that since the workers on strike found their jobs to be so difficult, the company would find new employees More suited to the job, and the company, to replace them.”* The threat of losing their jobs was frightening to the workers, who faced financial trouble throughout the strike, and added stress to the situation, making the workers more on edge, and uneasy about the potential for a long and drawn out strike. During the third week of the strike, the union added more arguments to their front against Coors’ anti union labor practices. During a negotiation that took place on Monday April 18, the Coors negotiators suggested that the new contract between the union and the company contain an open shop clause.’? The new clause would permit new employees to join the brewery without also having to join the union, which would take away some of the union’s immediate power, and potentially all of the union's power in the future, as the contract would no longer mandate that employees have union membership.”” If the company succeeded in securing an open shop clause in the new worker contract, the union would lose its major sources of revenue, as the workers not in the union, who do not pay union dues, would continuously grow in number while union membership would decline, With the workers © Rocky Mountain News, April 12, 1977, p. 6. * penver Post, April 10, 1977, p. 2. ® Denver Post, April 19, 1977, p. 2. * Rocky Mountain News, April 20, 1977, p. 10. gaining the benefits of the union without having to join it, there would be little incentive for employees to join the union. The security of the union itself was at stake, and was an obvious ‘common ground between local 366 and other unions. Even though the union kept its fronts generally unified thus far in the strike, confusion over those fronts began to show when the Denver Democratic Party voted to support the strike, and the boycott.” The group voted in support despite the inability of many of those on the executive committee to decipher the extent and purpose of the strike.“ Those members of the executive committee that could determine something about the strike concluded that the main purpose the strike was the protest against the company’s unethical employment of strikebreakers.”* Just three weeks into the strike and the boycott, the union was already suffering from confusion over the various fronts it took against the company. By the third week, a lack of faith in the union, an environment of mounting economic pressures, as well as a fear for the company’s strong armed tactics, caused as many as half of the striking workers to return to their job. By April 21, one company employee estimated that the company filled as many as 840 of the 1,472 striking employees’ jobs.”* The company filled those empty positions with 172 newly hired employees, 102 transfers from other areas in the company, and the rest from employees returning to work from the picket lines.”> Bob Russo, a Coors spokesman, then explained the next day that 849 of the original 1,472 strikers were back at work, and that 188 new hires, and 104 transfers, brought the total to 78 per cent of the 2 Denver Fost, April 20, 1977, p.4. © Denver Post, April 20, 1977, p. 4 ® Denver Post, April 20, 1977, p. 4 ™ Denver Post, April 21, 1977, p. 3. * Denver Post, April 21, 1977, p. 3. vacated jobs that the company filled through various means.” DeBey, a union representative, countered the claim and declared that the company vastly overestimated the number of strikers that returned to work and gave his own estimate that the true number was somewhere between 500 and 550.”” Either way, a significant portion of the strikers was back in their jobs, feeling that they would be better off back at work then on the picket lines. Ina lengthy article on April 25, a Rocky Mountain News staff writer attributed the current dispute to two issues. The first issue was the long history of strikes against the company by the union, where, for example, twenty years before the current strike, the workers in the union walked out of their jobs for 117 days.” That strike and subsequent negotiations brought the union little of its desired changes, and left a feeling of bitterness and resentment in n and continuation of the strike in the late 1970s.”° ‘the union, which played a part in the initi The second issue raised by the article was the union’s indignation at the language that the company slyly added to the workers contracts.” The new contracts included clauses that gave the company the rights to search employees and force them to undertake lie detector tests."* ‘The reference to past grievances against the company strengthened the relationship between local 366, and the various groups, such as the AFL-CIO, that found issue with Coors over the years. The new front against the company’s use of lie detector tests was a more overarching catchall front that the union planned to use to entice other groups, such as homosexuals, into joining their cause. ® Rocky Mountain News, April 22, 1977, p. 15. ” Rocky Mountain News, April 22, 1977, p. 15. * rocky Mountain News, April 25, 1977, p. 5. ® rocky Mountain News, April 25, 1977, p. 5. * Rocky Mountain News, April 25, 1977, p. 33. * rocky Mountain News, April 25, 1977, p. 33. In response to the NLRB filing complaints against the company, the union issued their own statement in late April on the complaints and their positions on the strike. The press release, most likely crafted by Dick Hunter, a union man, expressed that the public and the Powers at be, such as various labor boards, were finally addressing the union’s major issues. The first, and greatest issue enumerated was the company’s use of lie detector tests, and their ability to discharge any employee that refused to partake in a test. The union began to flush ut their front against lie detectors because they knew they found an easy way into gaining the support of homosexuals. Among the lengthy list of standard questions asked to employees was the blatantly biased question of “Are you a homosexual?” The union used that question as Proof that the Coors family was homophobic, and used the opportunity to entice homosexual Broups into joining their cause. The complaint also spoke against the company’s offering of greater seniority rights to individual employees than to the union, and the company's attempted coercion of employees on strike.** The union used those complaints as added ammunition in their workers’ rights front by showing other unions that the Coors family felt complete contempt for local 366. The strikers then added another front against Coors, when the president of the company, William K. Coors, referred to the strike as “the most irresponsible strike ever perpetrated on a brewery”, and the strikers, stating, “these monkeys out on the picket line ~ Press Release by Local 366 informing public about the NLRB fling complaints against Coors, April 27,1977, p. 4, Coors Support and Strike Papers, Denver. Auraria Library Archives, Carton 1, File 8, "The Issues Dignity". AFL-CIO. n.d. Coors Support and Strike Papers, Denver. Auraria Library Archives, Carton 4 Fille. 3 Press Release by Local 36 informing public about the NLRB fling complaints against Coors, April 27, 1977, p. 3 4 Coors Support and Strike Papers, Denver. Auraria Library Archives, Carton 1, File 8. ”° As though one animal reference think only about what they can do to destroy this company. during a stockholder meeting in May were not enough, Coors then referred to one worker who was unable to decide whether he wanted to pass the picket line or not, and went back and forth several times, a chicken for his indecisiveness.°° What would have been a minor incident became a major one when Norm Boyer, a union member, took great offense at the monkey statement, put on a gorilla suit and handed out bananas to all who passed the picket line, including Coors himself.” The union aimed their name-calling front at the public, and used Coors’ untimely statement as proof that he held a general disregard for his worker's feelings and the feelings of people in general. Prior to the stockholder meeting, the local 366 were in the middle of publishing a series of statements on their stances, through which they were hoping to clarify their positions, and remove the confusion that pursuing so many different fronts caused. Following the meeting, and the insulting animal references, the strikers made haste to finish their statements and subsequently published them in the following weeks. One such union paper was their Preliminary Fact Sheet, assembled to shed light upon the anti-union history of the company. The unnamed author enumerated the major points of debate between the union and Coors as being the union shop, which according to the author's estimates more than ninety percent of the workers wanted, and the complaints displayed in the NLRB case.” By restating the importance of the union-centric goals the union once again displayed its commitment to gaining and sustaining the vital support of other unions. The author then went on to make ® Denver Post, May 9, 1977, p. 7. * Rocky Mountain News, May 10, 1977, p. 70. » Denver Post, May 11, 1977, p. 2. ** “Preliminary Fact Sheet” by local 366 workers, 1977, p. 1, Coors Support and Strike Papers, Denver Auraria Library Archives, Carton 1, File 1 10 several lesser arguments. The most memorable were a tirade against Coors’ environmental ical practices, which the author argued were only for public relations purposes, and Coors’ poll status, as a right wing activist.” The company, they argued, was blatantly anti- environmentalist, as they had repeatedly used their influence to seek economic gains at the cost of environmental degradation.” For example, the Coors family staunchly opposed a "hottle deposit amendment” the year prior to the strike and showed “a one-sided propaganda film against the bill” while “Joe Coors contributed money personally for the bill’s defeat.”** In another case, Coors coerced barley farmers in the San Luis Valley into using “hail-suppressing techniques” to mitigate weather damage, even though those same techniques hurt local rainfall.’ In highlighting Coors’ less than stellar environmental history, the union took up another front in the hopes that environmentalists would throw in their lot with the strikers and join the boycott. By bringing up Coors’ political leanings, the author connected him to other right wing activists, and to radicalism. The paper then made the statement that any right wing activist was automatically out to get workers by necessity and that it was the union's job, as the bastion of the workers, to remove Coors from a position of power before he could do any harm to the «preliminary Fact Sheet” by local 366 workers, 1977, p. 2, 3, Coors Support and Strike Papers, Denver Auraria Library Archives, Carton 1, File 1. © «preliminary Fact Sheet” by local 366 workers, 1977, p. 2, 3, Coors Support and Strike Papers, Denver Auraria Urary Archives, Carton 1, Fle 1 ©

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