George Meany

George Meany (1894 -1980) was one of America's most powerful labor leaders during the 20th century. He was president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) from 1955 to 1979.

George Meany was born on Aug. 16, 1894, in New York City. He inherited his dedication to the trade union movement from his father, who was president of a local plumbers' union. When George had to leave high school because of difficult family circumstances, he chose his father's trade. After a 5-year apprenticeship, he received his journeyman plumber's certificate in 1915.

In 1922 Meany was elected business agent of his union local. Although unionism did not thrive during the 1920s, Meany steadily broadened his activities within the building trades. President of the New York State Federation of Labor (1934-1939), he took advantage of the progressive mood of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal by helping enact more pro-labor bills and social reform measures than had previously been passed in the entire history of the New York Legislature. In 1939 Meany was elected secretary treasurer of the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

During World War II Meany served on the War Labor Board and represented the AFL on Roosevelt's committee to draw up wartime labor policy. He also served on a special committee that the president regularly consulted on labor-management problems. After the war Meany helped establish the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, which contributed to the success of the Marshall Plan for the rehabilitation of war-torn Europe.

In November 1952 Meany was chosen president of the AFL. Three years later he was unanimously elected president of the newly combined AFL-CIO at its first convention. He was consistently reelected without opposition.

Throughout his career Meany was interested in reform, both within the labor movement and society at large. He initiated the first major attacks on corruption in the unions and was responsible for establishing a code of ethical practices for all union affiliates. He also took important steps toward eliminating racial discrimination in the labor movement. Under Meany's leadership, the AFL-CIO vigorously supported the Occupational Safety and Health Act, designed to protect employees from dangerous work conditions. The act became law in 1970.

Meany put the full political force of the labor movement behind efforts to enact civil rights legislation. Without the trade union movement's support, none of the civil rights bills passed during the 1960s would have gone through Congress. The results of these bills testify to the persisting relevance of the labor movement and to Meany's social vision.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower twice appointed Meany a U.S. delegate to the United Nations General Assembly, and Meany received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1963). George Meany died on January 10, 1980, at the age of 86.

Further Reading

A chapter on Meany is included in Jack Barbash, ed., Unions and Union Leadership (1959), and some biographical information is in Thomas R. Brooks, Toil and Trouble: A History of American Labor (1964; rev. ed. 1971). See also Philip Taft, Organized Labor in American History (1964). Finke, Blythe F. George Meany: Modern Leader of the American Federation of Labor (1972) □

MEANY, GEORGE 1894-1980

President of the afl-cio

Reunion of Labor

To many Americans in the 1950s, the term organized labor meant George Meany, president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) after his election in 1952. Meany orchestrated the reunification of that union with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1955. As president of the newly unified AFL-CIO, Meany led the campaign to rid the union of its gangster elements.

Early Career

Organized labor was a part of Meany's life since his childhood. His father had been the president of the Bronx's local chapter of the Plumbers International union. Young Meany regularly spent Sunday afternoons watching the informal union meetings that took place in his home. After he left school, and against his father's wishes, Meany became an apprentice plumber. Before long he also followed his father into union affairs, and in 1922 he won election to a full-time post as a union administrator in the local union his father had led.

Anticommunism

Meany quickly proved to be a natural leader: a tough, sensible negotiator who won over union members with his straightforward approach. In the 1930s he became involved successively in citywide and then statewide labor affairs. In 1935, when a group of craft unions within the AFL split to form the CIO, Meany was president of the New York State Federation of Labor. In 1936 he threw the support of the union behind President Franklin Roosevelt's reelection bid, thus extending his influence into national issues. In 1940 he became national secretary-treasurer of the AFL. He was instrumental in coordinating labor's support of the war effort during World War II. Although Meany was a vocal anticommunist, he also deplored the tactics of McCarthyism and the U.S. support of right-wing dictators simply because of their anticommunist stance. By the 1950s he was known as an outspoken critic of any threat to freedom, from extremists on the Right or the Left.

Civil Rights

In the 1960s Meany aligned the unions with civil-rights causes, public housing, minimum wages, and national health insurance. He supported the ILS. involvement in Vietnam. A fervent Democrat, he joined the chorus of those calling for the impeachment of President Richard Nixon following the Watergate affair, Meany's support for conservative foreign policies and liberal domestic plans reflected the broader tensions within the labor movement itself, which during the 1950s still remained firmly linked to the Democratic party.

Source:

Archie Robinson, George Meany and His Times (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981).

Meany, George (1894–1980), labor leader.Born in New York City, George Meany in 1915 joined the United Association of Plumbers and Steam Fitters, his father's union. In 1922 he attained his first union office, winning election as business agent of New York City Local 463. He served as president of the New York State Federation of Labor from 1934 to 1939, and in 1939 was elected secretary‐treasurer of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Upon the death of William Green in 1952, the Executive Council elected Meany president of the AFL. In 1955, successful in his efforts to effect a merger with the once‐rival Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), Meany was elected president of the AFL‐CIO, a post he held for twenty‐four years.

Meany acted forcefully as an advocate of labor's views from within the political system. He supported civil rights legislation but rarely challenged the racially discriminatory practices of craft unions. Meany was an ardent cold warrior who fought procommunist unionism at home and abroad, and also supported the Vietnam War. During his AFL presidency, union membership declined as a proportion of the nonagricultural labor force, a circumstance that Meany viewed with equanimity so long as the AFL‐CIO remained influential in government and Democratic party circles. Meany clashed frequently with United Automobile Workers president Walter Reuther, who urged revitalization of labor's activist traditions and a less strident approach to foreign‐policy questions.

As a labor leader, Meany championed workers' economic interests and allied with the mainstream civil rights movement. He did little, however, to accommodate the concerns of women, minority or marginal workers, or more militant trade unionists.
See also Anticommunism; Cold War; Immigrant Labor; Labor Movements; Women in the Labor Force.

Bibliography

Joseph C. Meany , Meany, 1972.
Robert H. Zieger , George Meany: Labor's Organization Man, in Labor Leaders in America, eds. Melvyn Dubofsky and Warren Van Tine, 1987, pp. 324–49.

Robert H. Zieger

George Meany 1894–1980, American labor leader, president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO; 1955–79), b. New York City. A plumber, he was elected business agent of his local union in 1922 and rose in 1934 to the presidency of the New York State Federation of Labor. He proved an able lobbyist before the Albany legislature, where he successfully helped promote the passage of 72 prolabor bills. Elected secretary-treasurer of the AFL in 1939, he held that post until his elevation to the presidency upon the death of William Green (1952). When the AFL and the CIO merged in 1955, Meany was elected head of the new federation and was reelected after that without opposition. Angered by reforms in the Democratic party in 1972, Meany was influential in leading the traditionally Democratic AFL-CIO into a neutral stance, supporting neither one of the major candidates in the presidential election. Many observers agreed that this was a significant element in President Nixon's landslide victory. Meany later broke with Nixon, however, and became an early advocate of his resignation or impeachment. A supporter of Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election, Meany later denounced Carter's economic policies.

Bibliography: See J. C. Goulden, Meany (1972).