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1925-1930
IBEW BETWEEN THE WARS—
A Time of Discovery and Despair

The period between the two world wars was a dark time for North America and the IBEW. Where workers made little progress in the 1920s, they were the first to suffer in the ‘30s. Automation, electric machinery and new building methods opened Lip people’s imaginations to skyscraper cities, Buck Rogers spaceships and Dick Tracy wrist radios. But bleak commentaries like Karel Capek’s play “R.U.R.,” (from which the world learned the word robot) about rebel machines which take over their human creators, showed the late ‘20s as also a frightening time.

Even though it was hit hard by the Open Shop Movement after the First World War, the IBEW had some notable success in the early ‘20s. Former International President Frank J. McNulty was elected to the U.S. Congress from New Jersey’s Eighth District. And the 1921 International Convention adopted a plan to establish benefits for union members, still known today as the Electrical Workers’ Benefit Association-though it took until 1927 to establish a retirement plan for the Brotherhood.

For the IBEW 1925 was also a successful year. Although failing health forced Charles P. Ford to step down as International Secretary, the position was placed in the capable hands of G.M. Bugniazet, who soon became one of the Brotherhood’s most distinguished holders of that office. And following the death of Samuel Gompers, William Green’s election to the top position at the American Federation of Labor left a vacancy on the AFL’s Executive Council—a vacancy filled by IBEW International President James Noonan.

Despite how many historians portray the Roaring Twenties, as a business boom time, by 1928 local unions were writing to the IBEW’s Journal of Electrical Workers and Operators with reports of slow work situations. Local 102, Paterson, New Jersey, Press Secretary M. Divoretz wrote in February 1928, “For the benefit of the Brothers who like to travel, I would advise you all to stay clear of Paterson, as there is absolutely nothing doing around this territory and I am sorry to say there is no outlook of any work either.” Those sentiments were repeated that month from Local 106, Jamestown, New York, to Local 18, Los Angeles.

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1925-1930 IBEW Between the Wars

1925 A. Philip Randolph, Ashley Totten, Milton Webster found Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (U.S.); 19 injunctions restrain John L. Lewis and UMW from interfering with coal production in nonunion West Virginia coal mines; John T. Scopes convicted of teaching evolution; labour representatives in Canada's House of Commons join forces with Agnes McPhail (first woman M.P. in Canada) and other Progressives to form the "Ginger Group," a voice for workingpeople, farmers, the handicapped and the underprivileged.