PG&E History 9 & 10

HISTORY FOCUS: •PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC •SACRAMENTO MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT •SIERRA PACIFIC POWER

Fanning the Flames (continued)

9. FANNING THE FLAMES OF DISCONTENT

To PG&E, of course, such thinking was akin to treason. In its arrogance, PG&E continued to threaten union-minded workers and thumbed its nose at the NLRB’s order to cease and desist promoting company unionism. The company’s attitude angered many of its workers. But wanting a union, believing in a union, even speaking out for a union, was not the same thing as having one. The IBEW, at the dawn of the 1940s, had only a handful of members scattered among seven different locals in the PG&E system. The UWOC had yet to materialize as a real force on the property.

Still, as the Great Depression dragged on and a second world war approached, worker discontent smoldered at PG&E. All that was needed was a spark to start the fire and individuals who would—in the old Wobbly phrase—”fan the flames of discontent.”

On March 25, 1941, the US Ninth District Circuit Court of Appeals provided the spark when it upheld the NLRB order that PG&E must cease and desist promoting company unionism. Mindful that PG&E had scorned the NLRB order during the two years since it was issued in 1939, the Court stated in its decision:

“In the future the Company must live under an injunction and must be tried not by the NLRB but by this court, for violating the injunction, and that it is restrained from committing any acts whether like or unlike the acts referred to in the record.”

The spark had been struck. The following month, two events separated by only a day signaled the beginning of the fire.

On April 17, the CIO chartered Local 169 of the Utility Workers Organizing Committee to organize PG&E workers in Contra Costa County, site of PG&E’s new River Plants. On April 18, the IBEW brought several locals together to form one new union for the purpose of organizing system-wide on PG&E: Local 1245.

One of the charter members was Mitch Mitchell.

Unidentified workers on Pit 5 Powerhouse construction site. Around 1943. (Courtesy Mrs. Earl Coker)

10. EMPLOYEE ASSOCIATIONS VS. REAL UNIONS

There was no such thing as an apprenticeship when Mitch Mitchell began work for PG&E as a grunt in Modesto, California in 1935. New workers, he says, started climbing almost from the beginning:

“I had done some climbing in the woods and so I had some experience. I didn’t know anything about line work, but everybody on the crew climbed: the truck driver, the groundman, everybody climbed. It just depended on what was needed. For example, if we were doing a line construction job, the grunt would always dig the hole, the lineman framed the poles, and so on, but once the poles were set and you were stringing wire, the grunts would climb and lay up wire. So they were the menial people. They did what anybody else didn’t want to do. I went up for fifty cents an hour.”

But his ability to climb wasn’t what landed Mitchell a job at PG&E. It was his ability in handling the bat and ball. Mitchell’s skills as an infielder were needed by the company baseball team.

In the early 1920s, when unionism was still a threat in the immediate post-war period, many companies organized “employee associations” to siphon energy away from legitimate unions. This anti-union strategy was at the heart of the open shop “American Plan”. At PG&E, this phony union took the form of the Pacific Service Employees Association (PSEA).

Just as Pinkerton thugs provided the stick for anti-union employers to scare workers away from unionism, “employee associations” provided the carrot. Through these associations, which were in fact organized and dominated by the company, workers could obtain a number of benefits, such as health and life insurance. Of course the company didn’t pay any of the premiums; workers had to pay their own. But employee associations like PSEA sometimes made it possible for workers to obtain group rates.

The PSEA also sponsored sporting events, like baseball teams and bowling leagues, presumably in the hope that if a worker is having a good time bowling or playing baseball for the company team, he’ll be too busy to think about a union. During the 1920s and early 1930s, this tactic enjoyed some success. But as time went on, many employees were thinking union. The only trouble was, not all workers were thinking about the same union.