Labor's Grand Old Godfather

Outside on the Florida beach, men 15 or 20 years his junior were content to lounge in complacent retirement, but the pink-cheeked, white-haired, blocky figure stumping the hotel corridors was clearly just rounding into top form at the age of 80. Trailing cigar smoke and the unmistakable evanescence of power, AFL-CIO President George Meany last week took firm command of the annual assembly of the nation's labor chieftains at the elegant resort town of Bal Harbour, Fla. When he was through, Meany had displayed his consummate mastery of the labor movement and strengthened his position as perhaps the most caustic and telling critic of President Ford's economic policies. Pointing a stubby finger of alarm, Meany warned that unless someone did something and did it fast, the American nation could once again experience what he referred to--and vividly remembered--as the "Great Depression."

Snapping Turtle. In his 20th year as head of the combined AFL-CIO, Meany is a phenomenon. His mind is quick, his memory is sharp ("I haven't forgotten a thing in my life," he told the conference last week), and he is so self-assured that he does not hesitate to speak for all American workers, even though only 13.6 million belong to the 110 increasingly disparate unions that make up his confederation. Meany used to be as grumpy with the press as a snapping turtle, but in his youthful old age he can charm Dick Cavett on late-night television by relating stories of his boyhood in The Bronx at the turn of the century. Meany has perked up the Sunday TV interview scene by calling Chairman Arthur Burns of the Federal Reserve Board "a national disaster" for his tight-money policies. And he dismisses Alan Greenspan, the chief of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, as an apostle of "economic Darwinism--you know, the survival of the richest."

What makes Meany's present eminence even more remarkable is the fact that some of his critics in the labor movement were saying that he was an anachronism 20 years ago. Meany's archenemy was Walter Reuther, the fiery and eloquent head of the United Auto Workers, who was the great reforming force in American labor after World War II. Second only to Meany in power, Reuther wanted the AFL-CIO to fight harder to recruit new members and to crusade more. Stubbornly, Meany took a pragmatic, go-slow approach ("ideology is baloney," he says). Bitter with frustration, Reuther pulled his UAW out of the AFL-CIO in 1968.

But there is more to Meany's new prominence and pertinence than the point, true as it is, that he is a survivor who has outlived his enemies. One era of social reform is over, and the cycle of history has swung round to the problems he knows the best and fears the most--the lunch-bucket issues of recession and rising unemployment. To Meany, Ford's economic program ("the weirdest one I have ever seen") will not pump enough money quickly enough into the economy to do any real good.

While Ford wants to cut taxes by $16 billion, Meany last month called for a $20 billion slash. Last week when the House Ways and Means Committee called for a reduction of $21.3 billion, Meany raised his figure to $30 billion. Said he: "Events are overtaking not only the President but the Congress." Meany also wants a minimum wage of $3 an hour and, to spur home building, mortgage rates lowered by Government action to 6%, a notion as simple as it is unworkable.

If Meany is outraged by Ford's program, he remains deeply worried that the Democrats will play politics with the problem, "and load this depression onto the other party." Indeed, Meany has been disenchanted with the Democrats, labor's traditional friends, since the party's convention nominated George McGovern in 1972.

Last week Meany announced that the AFL-CIO would play no role in choosing the Democratic presidential nominee in 1976. The decision showed that Meany could still be vindictive--and shortsighted. By opting out of the selection process, Meany was unwisely forfeiting his chance to persuade the Democrats to choose a candidate favorable to labor. Meany could make things worse for labor--and the Democrats--by sitting out the election campaign itself. But if the party chose someone who is friendly to the workingman, Meany could well end up mobilizing the AFL-CIO behind the Democratic candidate as of yore.

Give-Away Policy. Meany's early Democratic favorite had been Senator Henry (Scoop) Jackson, whose record on domestic affairs earned the AFL-CIO's support. But Meany was angered by Jackson's support of the trade bill, fearing that it would threaten jobs in this country by increasing the flow of American capital and technology overseas. More important, Meany accused Jackson of "phonying around with Henry Kissinger," claiming that for almost two months the Senator had joined the Secretary of State in concealing a Soviet let ter rejecting a trade agreement with the U.S. that seemed all settled.

Asked at Bal Harbour if he had confidence in Secretary of State Kissinger, Meany quickly replied: "Oh my God, no." Then he added: "I think his policy [the pursuit of detente] has got to lead us to an eventual disaster. His policy is a give-away policy. It's not a relationship between two sovereign nations ... I say this is a policy of appeasement, just plain, ordinary appeasement."

Meany's deep suspicion of the Soviet Union and its policies has not changed over the years, nor has his unabashed love of flag and country and the presidency--if not all the Presidents. For a while, Meany even cooperated with Richard Nixon. But he angrily broke with the President after claiming that his wage and price controls discriminated against labor.

Today Meany is fighting President Ford's economic program with the same bull-like intransigence that carried him to the peak of the labor movement. He has written every member of the House and Senate to plug the counterproposals of the AFL-CIO. The federation's six lobbyists in Washington are putting special pressure on Oregon's Al Ullman, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which is writing the key legislation. Every Monday, lobbyists from 30 or so of the federation's affiliated unions sit down with AFL-CIO representatives to coordinate their onslaught on Capitol Hill. The 51 state federations of the AFL-CIO are calling meetings to drum up more opposition to Ford's program, and the weekly AFL-CIO News, Meany's house organ (circ. 60,000), is shrilly calling for more action. Reads a typical headline: CONGRESS, FORD HIT FOR LACK OF URGENCY.

With Meany so vigorously in command, labor experts say that he will not only stay in office for as long as he likes, but will probably be able to pick his successor when he does decide to go. Meany's most likely choice is Lane Kirkland, 52, now the AFL-CIO'S secretary-treasurer. Although Kirkland is not "a man to set 'em on fire," in the words of one union official, he is respected as an able, knowledgeable and tough-minded leader. He is also something of a diplomat. Kirkland keeps telling people that he will probably be retiring from the AFL-CIO before George does.

The man who can brand Kissinger an appeaser and demand the removal of a President is a curious blend of simple and lordly tastes. He likes the perquisites of his $90,000-a-year job, including being chauffeured in a black Cadillac limousine. Meany rides in front --not as a gesture toward egalitarianism, but because he gets carsick if he tries to read while sitting in back. On his way home to Bethesda, Md., he usually pores over the New York Daily News, a surviving habit from his days in The Bronx, which he left almost 30 years ago.

Benevolent Patriarch. The influence of The Bronx goes deeper in Meany than his reading tastes or his accent, which turns work into "woik" and oil into "erl." He is the benevolent patriarch of a large, Irish-Catholic family, much like the ones he knew while growing up and learning the trade of a plumber. Meany and his wife Eugenia ("Gena"), now 78, have three daughters and 13 grandchildren, all clustered in the Washington area. There is a lingering air of life in exile about the family.

To relax, Meany loves to play pool with one of his teen-age grandsons, or to shoot a round of golf with one of his sons-in-law. Twenty or more years ago he started painting pictures by numbers and has progressed from primitive oils, reminiscent of bad Grandma Moses, to wild impressionism. Meany also taught himself to play the piano by ear and now has a console organ in his home. At night, passersby can sometimes hear him beating out Dixieland jazz and old Irish ballads. After three martinis, a solid meal and a good cigar, Meany may break into song, if the company is congenial. Galway Bay is the likely choice, or Cockles and Mussels.

At home or in the office, Meany is used to having people pay him respect and listen to what he says. After all his years of power, he would be hard put to imagine life being any other way. Last week at Bal Harbour, sitting in the sun, his thick hands folded over his comfortable paunch, George Meany held court while a number of men came by to pay obeisance or ask a favor. Meany listened, chatted and offered advice, the octogenarian godfather of the American labor movement in the glory of his years.

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