Reagan Posthumously Inducted into the Labor Hall of Fame

By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor

Men in dark suits and black government cars hovered around Sirens Java & Tea in San Pedro this past week on Aug. 10. Few outside of the coffeehouse knew it was U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, who stopped into town before heading off to the  Port of Los Angeles with the Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union to meet with port officials and union leaders to show the importance of the twin ports to the U.S. economy.  The visit was initiated by the Secretary of Labor’s office according to an ILWU spokesman.

Acosta gave no inkling that the following day at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum he would announce the induction of the 40th president of the United States into the department’s hall of fame.

Reagan’s induction was an ironic choice considering his betrayal of labor during his presidency.

The director of the POLA, Gene Seroka, said that the secretary was there to discuss, “jobs, jobs, jobs and how important this port complex is to our nation.” The ILWU leadership was mute in response to the visit.

According to remarks reported by the Washington Examiner, Acosta noted that the former actor served as president of the Screen Actors Guild.

“I hope you’ll forgive me if I point with some pride to the fact that I’m the first president of the United States to hold a lifetime membership in an AFL-CIO union,” Reagan said in 1981, referring to SAG’s affiliation with the AFL-CIO.

Acosta also mentioned the former president’s role in promoting the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic’s first free and independent trade union, Poland’s Solidarity movement.

But Reagan had a combative relationship with unions while in office, as well as a record of betraying his SAG membership in a 1952 sweetheart deal in favor of media company MCA, which represented him.

The president of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization had originally demanded a wage increase and a reduction to their five day, 40-hour work week. Reagan called the strike illegal.

Long time labor writer for the The San Francisco Bay Guardian, Dick Meister, reminds casual readers and students of labor history that before, Reagan, no GOP president had dared to challenge labor’s firm legal standing, gained through Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the mid-1930s.

“Reagan’s Republican predecessors treated union leaders much as they treated Democratic members of Congress — as people to be fought with at times, but also as people to be bargained with at other times. But Reagan engaged in precious little bargaining. He waged almost continuous war against organized labor,” Meister wrote.

Reagan had the benefit of a labor movement that the general public saw in a negative light.

Meister said Reagan had little apparent reason to fear labor politically, with opinion polls at the time showing that unions were opposed by almost half of all Americans and that nearly half of those who belonged to the unions had voted for him in 1980 and again in 1984.

Aside from firing 13,000 striking air traffic controllers, Reagan put in charge dedicated union foes of the federal agencies that were originally designed to protect and further the rights and interests of workers and their unions.

This was particularly so on the five-member National Labor Relations Board, which he stacked with union foes, including NLRB Chairman Donald Dotson, who believed that “unionized labor relations have been the major contributors to the decline and failure of once-healthy industries” and have caused “destruction of individual freedom.”

Under Dotson, a House subcommittee found, the board abandoned its legal obligation to promote collective bargaining, in what amounted to “a betrayal of American workers.”

Meister noted that union-busting was only one aspect of Reagan’s anti-labor policy. He attempted to lower the minimum wage for younger workers, ease the child labor and anti-sweatshop laws, tax fringe benefits, and cut back job training programs for the unemployed. He tried to replace thousands of federal employees with temporary workers who would not have civil service or union protections.

The Reagan administration all but dismantled programs that required affirmative action and other steps against discrimination by federal contractors and seriously undermined worker safety.

Dan Moldea’s 1986 book, Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, MCA, And The Mob, documents Reagan’s role in granting MCA, which represented him, a waiver of SAG’s rule that prohibited talent agencies from producing TV shows. This sweetheart deal — selling out the interests of SAG’s members — opened the way for MCA to become a power in TV production and then movie making. Reagan was potentially liable for criminal prosecution — both for his initial actions, and for obstruction of justice in the investigation — but the Justice Department dropped its investigation after achieving their primary goal: the ending of MCA’s monopoly.

Reagan joins labor leaders such as Cesar Chavez in the hall of fame.