Leon Bates (UAW Leader)

Leon E. Bates Sr. (December 3, 1899 – July 25, 1972) was a labor union leader with the UAW (United Auto Workers) from 1937 to 1964 when he retired, as an International Representative of the UAW. He was one the first African American Union Organizer to work for the UAW-CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations).

Biography

Mr. Bates was born in Carrollton, Missouri to Werner Bates and Matilda (White) Bates. In Detroit he met and married Anna L. Perry together they had two children.

He attended Lincoln University of Missouri for a year before moving to Detroit with other relatives to seek work opportunities in the manufacturing plants during World War I. At the end of the war he remained in Detroit while his other relatives returned to Carrolton. In his own words he had many different jobs in the years between the World Wars; working as a Cab Driver, Common Laborer he even considered trying his hand at home made liquor during prohibition. However, his Bootleg liquor making thoughts were very short lived as he was convinced that every knock at the door would be the police. The Detroit Police Department had a very long and well deserved reputation of police abuse and abusive tactics.

By 1935 he was working at the Briggs Manufacturing Company of Detroit, Michigan; Briggs Manufacturing was founded in 1909 by Walter Briggs, Sr.. Mr. Briggs worked his way up to be Vice President of the B.F. Everitt Company (car body makers) in 1906, in 1909 he acquired the Everitt Company and incorporated it in to the Briggs Manufacturing Company; which he had formed that same year. Briggs Manufacturing was one of the country's largest auto body manufacturers at one time; supplying parts to Ford, Chrysler, Packard, Hudson Motors, Studebaker and many others. Briggs Manufacturing became a division of the Chrysler Corporation 1956.

Unions

While at Briggs, Mr. Bates got involved with the organized labor movement. He worked passionately for the labor cause at Briggs and in 1937 Briggs Manufacturing and the UAW-CIO signed their first agreement. The 1920's and 1930's were difficult, but exciting times in America, especially for the labor movement. The United Mine Workers, The Pullman Porters, The Teamsters were all make great strides in organizing but paying a very high price for that success.

The coal miners would be involved in one of the longest and bloodiest fights of their history in 1920 and 1921. The violence began on May 19, 1920 when simmering hostilities between mine workers trying to organize and the private detectives hired by the mine owners trying to keep the union out, boiled over in the tiny community of Matewan, West Virginia in what has come to be known as the Battle of Matewan and culminated in the Battle of Blair Mountain where 10 to 15,000 armed miners confronted police, militia, and private detectives in August of 1921.

The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was organized by the predominantly Negro Pullman Porters in 1925. The BSCP suffered through a long and protracted fight to achieve recognition by the AFL in 1935 and its first collective bargaining agreement with the Pullman Company in 1937.

UAW years

By 1937 the UAW-CIO had organized the Briggs Manufacturing Company and signed a collective bargaining agreement, through that effort Leon Bates became one of UAW Local #212's most outspoken Union stewards. In 1937 Briggs was the forth largest employeer of Negro's with 1,300 or approximately 10% of its total payroll, in the Detroit area. The UAW-CIO was keenly aware of this fact, there leadership had made the decision to include the Negro workers in their organizing efforts. This decision went against all of the social, economic, and business norms of the day, vast majority of labor unions were segregated at this time and simply would not accept negro membership. The UAW-CIO was so concerned about the issue of Negro participation that, the UAW-International Office sent out a letter encouraging each local to elect at least one Negro delegate to its 1937 convention, Leon Bates was one of two Negro delegates elected to represent Local #212 at the 1937 convention.

1937 was a big year for the UAW; they had organized Chrysler and General Motors, they were having a significant amount of success with organizing the smaller parts supply manufacturers ie Midland Steel Products, Kelsey-Hayes, Bohn Aluminum, Fisher Body, and Timken Axle.They had been working on organizing the Ford Motor Company employees for some time and then came May 26, 1937 and their clash with Ford Motor Company security guards some times known as the "Ford Service Department", led by Harry Bennett. This violent confrontation has come to be known as the Battle of the Overpass. Just before shift change the UAW organizers were posing for the press when they were suddenly and viciously attacked by Ford security guards at gate #4 of the Ford River Rouge Complex. The violence was a publicity nightmare for Ford. Henry Ford had repeatedly stated that he would never sign an agreement with any union. Ford had gone out of his way to publicly undermine the UAW's efforts at his plants. When token donations to Negro charities and churches were not enough, Ford turned to Harry Bennett and the Ford Service Department and its union busting tactics. The UAW took some time to heal their wounds and refine the tactics and returned to the Ford organizing efforts.

In September of 1940 the UAW intensified its efforts to organize Ford with the assistance of the CIO. John L. Lewis president of the United Mine Workers and president of CIO put the full support of the CIO behind the UAW's efforts. The CIO sent Michael Widman to head-up the overall organizing drive. The UAW had previously appealed to the Negro workers, but now the efforts were being stepped up. For their part the UAW knew that if they were going to be successful they needed to recognize every man in the plant that they could. At this point the UAW brought in seven Negro organizers, Leon Bates was one the first hired. The UAW picked former Local #212 president Emil Mazey to be the director of the UAW Negro organizing effort. For the UAW, Mazey was a logical and safe choice, he had come to prominence for his organizing work at Briggs during the Sitdown strikes. Mazey was respected and trusted by the many Negro workers of Briggs. In 1937 Mazey had unseated Local #212's first president a hard core racist. Mazey ended the exclusion negro workers at union social events and hired a Negro office secretary over the objections of the White office secretaries. Local #212 and had fought to eliminate racial pay differentials for equal work. Still the Negro organizers were not happy that a white man had put in charge of the Negro effort and complained to the UAW International Executive Board, Walter Hardin (a Negro) was quickly transferred in from a Chicago assignment to be coordinator.

The UAW divided Detroit into two separate districts [EastSide and Westside] headed by Leon Bates and John Conyers Sr. Each office had a staff of clerks and secretaries, and latter personnel to handle transportation issues. Bates and Conyers met with Ford workers in their homes, coffee shops, and restaurants they met with larger groups at local churches. during the Ford drive the orginizers worked extreamely long hours, most of them outside of the office. The UAW created a family atmosphere by organizing wives clubs, they also strengthened their relationships with the NAACP, Urban League, and the Michigan Democratic Party.

The Ford orginizing drive ended June 20, 1941 when the Ford Motor Company signed a collective bargining agreement with the UAW-CIO. This was six months before the United States entered World War II after Japan attacked the U.S. Navy Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941. With the agreements settled between UAW the "Big Three Automakers", the UAW-CIO Negro orginizers found themselves squarely in the middle of a new battle. The United States was gearing up for the larget military effort in its history, a two front war; when conflict came to head on the home front, in the form of "Hate Strikes" and "Jim Crow" policies! At Packard Motors White workers had refused to work with Negro workers, after the plant manegers refused reasign the Negro workers siting the FEPC rules (Fair Employement Practices Committee) and the WLB (War Labor Board) policies, the White workers walked of the job. As a result the Negro orginizers found themselves in the unusual position of advicating for their union at the same time fighting to reform their union. Pushed by the Negro orginizers the UAW urged the U.S. Government to sanction the companies for the labor policies and practices. The UAW also enforced its own sanctions on its members; declaring the strike improper and againt union rules & policies, the UAW international ordered the employees back to work, or they would remove the local union leadership, and support the termination of any and every participant of the strike who refused to return to work.

By 1944 with the dust settling on many labor issues in and around the Detroit area, and leadership becoming better orginized & business savy. Leon Bates accepted a new assignment in Indianapolis, Indiana. Even though Ford, Chrysler, General Motors, Packard, Hudson, and many other manufacturers had signed collective bargining aggrements many areas had yet to fully form local unions, ratify the aggreements, and cease Jim Crow policies and practices. Even though the UAW-CIO had an official non-discrimination policy and position, many locals had segregated division and some plants had altogether separate locals which were segregated. This was the situation in many Indianapolis plants when Leon Bates arrived as a staff representative of UAW International Office. One of his first and toughest assignments was the International Harvester Foundry on Brookville Road on Indianapolis's far East Side. At the time International Harvester maintained a Jim Crow system of manegment at its Indianapolis Foundry with two Locals (Local #226 and #998). Officially the division was because of skill and job classification "ie" local #998 was the local that Mold Makers, Milwrights, Electricians, Pipefitters, Machine Operators, etc belonged. Local #226 consisted of Laborers, Loaders, and Helpers which were considered Negro jobs. During the war, and through the civil rights errea Leon Bates worked on behalf of the UAW cause and for job equality many times these were not the same thing.

Retirement

In 1964 Leon Bates retired from the UAW and moved permently from Indianapolis to his lake front vacation home in the small community of Idlewild, Michigan. His retirement was an active one, he was appointed UAW Region 3 Retiree Representative and immediately got himself elected Township Supervisor and County Board Member. He was the first African American elected to the Lake County, Michigan Board of Commissioners. He continuied to work in Democratic Party Politics at both the state and national level traveling to events and functions across the region and country. At the time of his death 1972 he was running for reelection (and favored to win his 3 term) as Township Supervisor, when he fell from his boat and drownd in Lake Idlewild. His funeral was attended by many state and national Democratic Officials, UAW Officials, he was Eulogized by then UAW President Leonard Woodcock.

UAW Local #226 Union Hall in Indianapolis, IN is named Reuther - Bates Hall in his honor.

He is burried in the Yates Township Cemetery in Idlewild, Michigan.

See also

* Timeline of labor issues and events
* List of strikes

*

Reference

* Labor and urban Affairs Achrives, the Walter Reuther Library Wayne State University

* Black Detroit and the rise of the UAW; Meier & Rudwick, Oxford University Press 1979 [http://books.google.com/books?id=bnyzwZmHor8C&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=Leon+Bates+and+the+UAW&source=web&ots=g8CeYyk6nF&sig=f8GzFWYwRnOThgroAfrgSz8FitI&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result]

* The Flivver King

* Bates Family History

External links

* "Walter Reuther Library UAW Collection" http://www.reuther.wayne.edu/ward/uaw.html

* "Michigan Democratic Party Official Web site" http://www.michigandems.com/

* "The Flivver King" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0882860542