Local 65: the documented labor course

1943 – 1968

The union: The plant's workers were organized in Local 65 of the United Rubber Workers of America, CIO — the local that stands beside the company as a defendant in the Chrapliwy case, a co-builder of the veterans' housing below, and the named institution of the strikes that follow. The labor course is printed here at the size the surviving record carries it: three wartime and postwar strikes fixed by the wire press, one strike asserted at summary strength, and one six-month strike preserved in a single worker's documented account. The gaps are named where they stand; the Mishawaka Enterprise runs in Hoosier State Chronicles are the settling source for the local texture the wire copy cannot give.

March 1943 — the wartime strike: On 8–9 March 1943 Local 65 struck the plant in protest at the War Labor Board's "unreasonable delay" in ruling on a wage appeal — the union had asked twelve and a half cents an hour. The local's president, George S. Cummins, stated that the plant's entire working force had struck: 7,500 workers, in the wire account carried by the Eugene Register-Guard of 9 March 1943. About three-fourths of the plant's output was war work; the War Labor Board refused to act while the strike continued. Plant manager Charles Glaes is named in the Klamath Falls Herald and News account of 8 March. A strike against a war plant, in the month the plant's employment was running to its all-time peak, over twelve and a half cents: the wire record gives the fact, the number, and the standoff, and this fragment prints no more feeling into it than the record carries.

1950 and 1951: On 10 February 1950, 3,100 employees struck, in the United Press wire carried by the Medford Mail Tribune; the wire's statement of the issue is garbled in the surviving text, and the strike is printed here at the strength that survives — the date, the local, and the number — with the February 1950 Mishawaka Enterprise named as the settling source for the issue. On 18 September 1951 a strike by 4,300 CIO production workers closed the plant, leaving only a maintenance force, in The Daily Banner of Greencastle, Indiana, preserved in Hoosier State Chronicles. The dispute, the wire states, was over pay rates for eleven skilled mechanical-development workers who could not reach the $1.92 top rate under the master contract's twelve-cent increase; Local 65's president is named in the wire as "Ray Holderrear," printed as the paper gives it. A strike of 4,300 asserted in 1931 at the rubber-garment works stands in the city's history summary as carried on Wikipedia and its mirrors; no primary source for it was reached, and it is recorded here at exactly that strength, with the 1931 Mishawaka Enterprise and South Bend Tribune runs as its settling sources.

1967–68, at one family's size: The six-month strike of 1967–68 is preserved in the documented account of one worker, Miles G. Beard, active in URW Local 65, whose family memoir records that the strike "took every nickel he had" and won a five-cent across-the-board raise, and that during it his family took surplus food from relatives on welfare. Beard worked the auto-mats division on the 11 p.m.–7 a.m. shift for an extra fifteen cents an hour, and retired in 1980 after more than three decades at the plant. A strike measured at a kitchen table is still a measurement; it is printed as one man's documented account, not as the local's official history, which the record reached does not contain.

The union as builder: The local's other documented monument is housing. After the war, in the National Park Service's National Register nomination for the Normain Heights historic district, United Rubber Workers Local 65 joined American Legion Post 161 and VFW Post 360 to form Mishawaka Vets' Homes, Inc., which built the Normain Heights veterans' housing development — today a National Register historic district — in a city so short of housing that it had appointed a housing coordinator, J. A. Riggs, in January 1946. The Beard family were among the Normain Heights households. The union that struck the plant in 1943, 1950, 1951, and 1967 also built a neighborhood for its returning members; both facts are the labor course, and both are in the federal record.

Sources:

1. Eugene Register-Guard, 9 March 1943 (wire) — the Local 65 strike of 8–9 March 1943, the War Labor Board delay protested, the twelve-and-a-half-cent demand, Cummins's statement that the entire force of 7,500 had struck, and three-fourths of output in war work.
2. Klamath Falls Herald and News, 8 March 1943 (wire) — plant manager Charles Glaes named.
3. Medford Mail Tribune, 10 February 1950 (United Press) — 3,100 employees on strike; the wire's statement of the issue garbled in the surviving text.
4. The Daily Banner (Greencastle, Indiana), September 1951, via Hoosier State Chronicles — the strike of 4,300 CIO production workers closing the plant on 18 September 1951, the eleven skilled mechanical-development workers and the $1.92 top rate, and the local president's name as printed.
5. National Park Service, National Register nomination, Normain Heights historic district — Mishawaka Vets' Homes, Inc. formed by URWA Local 65, American Legion Post 161, and VFW Post 360, and housing coordinator J. A. Riggs appointed January 1946.
6. Family memoir of Miles G. Beard — the six-month strike of 1967–68, the five-cent raise, the surplus food, the auto-mats night shift at fifteen cents extra, and retirement in 1980 after more than three decades.