Peter Lenihan, organizer for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, around 1910 |
I looked everywhere for Peter
F. Lenihan, a widely admired labor organizer for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
The problem was that his name
was misspelled in an old issue of the Union
Telephone Operator, the trade journal for the telephone operators union. But it was spelled correctly in the notice of
his death.
In 1912, the IBEW sent Peter to Boston to work with a group of women operators who wanted to strike
against the New England Bell Telephone Company. Ultimately he recommended that they focus on
forming a local – the Boston Telephone Operators Union – and try to negotiate
with the company.
Years later, they remembered
his patience, energy, and wisdom.
“Girls,” he told them, “there
are only twenty-five of you now, remember you will not always remain this
number, you will increase and in less than one year you will be the most
progressive Local Union in Boston if not in the Brotherhood.”
Not striking but appealing to the public; Seattle, 1916 |
Peter, a shop electrician, probably
became active in the union during the late nineteenth century as the labor
movement expanded in response to greater industrialization. The IBEW was founded in 1891 and represented
linemen, cable slicers, fixture hangers, trimmers, switchboard men and shop
men.
From sweatshops to meat
processing plants, inhumane, unfair treatment and vile working conditions led
to labor unrest. Unions organized
aggressively, and often failed.
Some of the most famous
incidents of labor strife occurred during the years surrounding the Panic of
1893, which was triggered by a credit shortage and awakened American workers to
the prospect of long-term unemployment.
The 1892 strike at the
Carnegie-owned Homestead Steel Works culminated in death and defeat for the
steelworkers.
In 1894, 100,000 unemployed
men led by a progressive-minded businessman named Jacob Coxey marched from Ohio
to Washington, D. C. They asked the U.S.
government to provide jobs by investing in the nation’s poorly maintained roads, to no
avail.
Also in 1894, the American
Railway Union struck against the Pullman Company. President Cleveland ordered the army to break
the strike and 90 workers were killed or injured.
The Industrial Workers of the World ("Wobblies") was founded in 1905 with the goal of being "one big union." |
Brother Lenihan, as his
colleagues might have called him, found a place in the middle of the action,
working behind the scenes. With a wife,
Martha, and four young daughters at home in the Bronx, he tried not to put
himself in harm’s way.
When Peter arrived in Boston
in April 1912, he found a list of grievances typical of its time: excessive hours, low wages, unpaid overtime,
petty penalties, no break time, and the company’s use of the dreaded “split
trick,” as the split shift was known. It
forced employees to work two shifts per day with no guarantee of a stretch of consecutive
hours. The extra commuting time
inflicted stress and exhaustion.
Everyone knew the conditions
were bad. In 1909, Congress had asked
the Bureau of Labor to investigate the conduct of telephone companies. The survey covered 34 Bell Telephone
companies and nine AT&T companies nationwide. Among the many problems cited were poor
ventilation, the spread of tuberculosis through receivers and transmitters, eye
strain related to flashing switchboard lights, ear strain related to buzzing
and the callers’ poor enunciation, and verbal abuse from supervisors and
callers alike. Recent scholarship points
to sexual abuse, as well.
While Peter always represented
the IBEW, he also worked closely with the Women’s Trade Union League, founded
in Boston in 1903. The WTUL formed in
response to the marginalization of working women; the nation’s largest union,
the American Federation of Labor, focused on white men.
Jane Addams, founder of
Chicago’s Hull House, and Emily Greene Balch, a peace and labor activist who
taught sociology at Wellesley College, were among the WTUL’s first officers. Professor Balch, who would receive the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1946, actually went into the field to interview telephone
operators, needle workers and other factory women.
Wellesley College, June 1912: Boston Union Telephone Operators at an outing organized by Peter Lenihan |
Perhaps it was Emily Greene
Balch who urged Peter to organize an “outing” for the Boston telephone
operators in June 1912. What better
place to spend the day than on Wellesley’s beautiful campus?
Eventually Peter returned to
New York. In 1913 the Boston local
struck with little success. But the
women roared back after the Great War, winning major concessions from Bell
Telephone.
In 1914, Peter unexpectedly died
at home at the age of 39. In the Union Telephone Operator, his friends in
Boston recalled his kindness and strategic thinking. They wrote:
The
telephone operators always had a “friend in court” in Peter F. Lenihan, and his
untimely death was a serious blow to those of us whose happy privilege it had
been to work under his guidance.
Telephone operators at work, 1920 |
See
post: 5/16/18
https://www.throughthehourglass.com/2018/06/in-memory-of-peter-lenihan.html
I wish I didn't focus on why he died so young, and so "suddenly," but such mysteries fascinate me, particularly when a wife is not mentioned. I can't help wondering if he had such a different attitude that most men of his time because he was not like most men of his time.
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