Mechanics Educational Society of America
The Mechanics Educational Society of America was an independent trade union of tool-and-die-makers. First active in the automobile industry of greater Detroit, Michigan, MESA was founded in 1933 and was "the first union to effectively establish itself in what had been a traditionally open shop strong, Detroit's mass production automobile industry." MESA's general secretary was English immigrant Matthew Smith.
Origins
The Mechanics Educational Society of America was founded by disgruntled members of the International Association of Machinists as an educational society. However, radical transplants from the United Kingdom like Smith, Frank McCracken, and John Anderson recognized the potential of the group and pushed for a full-fledged union. In June 1933, the U.S. Congress passed the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 which protected the collective bargaining rights of unions. A month later, MESA began an organizing drive in Detroit, Pontiac, Michigan, and Flint, Michigan which increased membership to approximately 5,000.Leading members
Longtime national secretary Matthew Smith, who had been active in the Amalgamated Engineering Union in England, refused to obtain U.S. citizenship, telling a U.S. Congress subcommittee: "I'm an internationalist, a citizen of the human race." Another prominent leader was Trotskyist Bert Cochran, who was a district organizer for MESA during the 1930s and 1940s. However, Cochran led several MESA locals out of MESA and into the UAW.Membership and Locals
Membership in 1944 was approximately 42,000. By 1935, the union had expanded out of Detroit into other cities with a significant amount of industrial workers, including Rome, New York, Flint, Michigan, Toledo, Ohio, Cleveland, Ohio, Defiance, Ohio and the Connecticut cities of Torrington, New Haven, and Bridgeport.Federation and World War II
In July 1938, MESA rejected an invitation to merge with the recently organized Congress of Industrial Organizations, citing "fundamental differences in policy" while also arguing the CIO's established union in the auto-industry, United Autoworkers, was run by a "quasi-dictatorship." In 1942, MESA became a founding member of the Confederated Unions of America. A 1944 article in the American Economic Review described the group as "...a class-conscious group far to the left of the AFL internationals and even most of the CIO affiliates."MESA refused to adopt a no-strike pledge that other unions had agreed to during World War II. As such, it was targeted by the federal government via the National Labor Relations Board; in jurisdictional disputes with the CIO, the government consistently decided against MESA. In response, MESA's membership went on strike. In November 1944, United States Under Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson wrote to MESA's Smith saying "Your strikes...represent no honest grievance...You are striking our fighting men from the rear. The War Department insists these strike be stopped at once." MESA refused to end the strike.