There is general agreement that Floyd Abrams is the foremost lawyer in this country on the issue of free speech. Earlier this summer, the New York Times hired him to represent Judith Miller, one of its reporters who had become ensnared in the outing of Valerie Plame, the undercover CIA agent.
Abrams lost the Miller case, but he usually wins a high percentage of the issues he takes to court. Earlier this year, Abrams published a book having to do with his court cases pivoting largely on the issue of free speech. It is called Speaking Freely, Trials of the First Amendment.
(Viking Penguin, New York, NY ©2005)
Reading Floyd Abrams’ book set me to thinking about two arbitration cases that had some quotes that hang around in my memory. Obviously, those arbitration cases did not compare in any way with the significance of Abrams’ court cases. But they had a light moment or two that should be recorded.
For an eleven year period, my work in the Bell System had to do with labor relations at AT&T Long Lines, the corporate headquarters of AT&T and the New York Telephone Company. These two arbitration cases involved employees of Long Lines in Atlanta and in St. Louis.
During the Depression, there were several management employees at Long Lines who developed a dictatorial style. A mistake could cost a job at a time when there were no jobs around. Somehow, two of the dictators were Charles Jeep of St. Louis and Grey Madry of Atlanta who were both Division Accounting Managers.
Jeep in St. Louis had an exit from his office so that he could avoid walking through his Accounting Department. He was roundly feared and disliked, but he always seemed to avoid trouble with the union.
On the other hand, Jeep’s counterpart in Atlanta not only had a dictatorial style but carried a chip on his shoulder about Yankees. For Madry, the Civil War was nowhere near finished.
Two cases arose in Atlanta during my tenure as Labor Relations Manager. My recollection is that employees were paid once each week by a check. Mack Harris was a male clerk who had no future in the Accounting Department, but Intelligent Design assigned him to the posting of ledgers in the Atlanta Accounting Department.
Customarily, when Mack Harris was paid, he would cash his check at a department store or more likely at a saloon and prepare for his evening activities. As soon as the currency was in his hands, Mack would remove his shoe and stuff a twenty dollar bill in the toe.
This was a well thought out precaution. Harris would take the rest of his pay and proceed to become drunk and disorderly. This drunkenness usually earned him a night in jail. The following morning he would appear before a judge and be fined at which point, he would have the $20 from his shoe tip to pay his fine. All of this court procedure caused Accounting Manager Madry to fire Mack Harris.
In this case, my recollection is that the Atlanta Accounting clerks were paid on Friday afternoon for their work of the previous week. So Harris filed a grievance which led to an arbitration case held in Atlanta.
During the arbitration case, Harris was clearly just a country boy who seemed to mean no one any harm. Your old essayist is a pushover for country boys who are just trying to get along in the big city. Harris was friendly and it may be suspected that he would do whatever he could to help his friends and foes alike.
So a large hotel room was booked with enough room for long tables facing each other to accommodate the union and the company representatives. An arbitrator was selected by both parties and a court reporter was hired to record the testimony.
While the arbitration proceeding was being established, Grey Madry was told to spend his time at the Central Area Headquarters in Cincinnati. The arbitrator soon caught on that the Company’s most important witness would not be appearing. He must have thought, “How strange.”
With Madry out of sight, the unpleasant job of representing the company fell to Jim Horney, and Accounting Representative from Cincinnati. What a thankless task to dump on Jim Horney, one of my best long term friends.
My recollection is that Jim Horney led off the witnesses. It was at this point that all of us began to question whether the court reporter could hear well enough to do his job.
For those of us with some military background, instructions are given with words to clarify letters. For example, A is Able; B is Baker; C is Charlie; D is Dog; E is Easy and F is Fox, X is X-ray; and Z is Zebra, etc. If the control tower wants an airplane to land on runway 32B, the pilot will be told he is clear to land on 32 Baker. These words were standard throughout the American Army.
When Jim Horney sat down in the witness chair, the court reporter swore him in and asked for his name. Jim replied, “James D. Horney”. His name was clear to everyone but the court reporter who asked him to repeat what he had said. On perhaps the third or fourth try, Jim used his Army background. Jim said, “My name is James, D for Dog, Horney.”
The “D for Dog” must have opened the court reporters ear canals because when the transcript of the day’s proceedings appeared the next day, it said, “The witness, James Dog Horney, was sworn and testified as follows.”
An accommodation was worked out with Mack Harris getting his back pay and being warned by the arbitrator to control his drinking and to avoid jail. No one alive now knows whether that ever happened.
Grey Madry had to be moved or preferably put on pension which may have happened. Before the Mack Harris’ case, one of Madry’s clerks had a baby. She lived a considerable distance from the office. Her name was Retha B. Queen. When Mrs. Queen told her boss that she could not work evening overtime as she was needed at home to care for her new baby and husband. Madry replied that in his scheme of things, there “Would be no time for frivolities as home life.” Madry still believed in the divine right of kings. Putting him out to pasture had to be done as soon as possible. Once Madry was gone, Retha B. did her duties for several years.
The second arbitration case involves Floyd Evans of St. Louis, a very bright country boy. Reporting to Floyd, were several Line Inspectors working out of AT&T’s St. Louis District Plant Office. The Line Inspector’s job was pretty much a prize. The inspectors worked alone and each had a small pick up truck for his use. The idea was to walk every foot of pole line or cable line looking for anything that could be fixed before trouble developed. But the key here is walking and inspecting. Every pole had to be inspected. The open wire on the pole had to be inspected. The markers on the cable sections had to be inspected to see if the gas pressure was within limits. Again, the Line Inspector would not know of potential troubles unless he walked his territory.
Unfortunately, there was a Line Inspector who did not do his job. He simply did not walk the pole or the cable lines. It seems he was found most often in his truck, sometimes asleep. This happened nearly 50 years ago, so one way or another, his name has now escaped me. Let’s call him John Jones.
The conduct by Jones could not be accepted by his boss, Floyd Evans, so he first suspended him and sometime later dismissed him. The president of the Long Lines telephone union when Jones was fired was Ed Ward. A few years earlier, the job of union president in St. Louis belonged to me. Ed Ward was a fire eater who had to be controlled. But now, Ward was the president of the St. Louis local who hated everything AT&T did. The hatred oozed out of Ward’s skin.
So Ed Ward pushed the grievance for John Jones and in 1959, it went to arbitration in St. Louis.
The arbitrator and the court reporter were picked. They were
no-nonsense men so proceedings moved right along. AT&T’s first witness was Floyd Evans. Floyd talked country as some people speak French or Spanish. My parents were country people who often mangled the English language. Floyd, like my parents, often articulated the word “cain’t” when he meant “can’t.” But never, never, think that a man who speaks country is dumb. Floyd could think extensively. His words may seem strange, but he was a very bright man.
Floyd was AT&T’s first witness. After the usual sparring between attorneys, Floyd was asked why he fired John Jones. Remember, that the first responsibility of a Line Inspector is to WALK and to INSPECT.
Floyd thought very little of John Jones’ walking and inspecting ability. He said that Jones was fired because “John Jones has set in that truck so long till his legs is growed together.”
As we were preparing for the case, Floyd had offered this evaluation to me. It seemed to me that Floyd’s observations were a succinct evaluation of Mr. John Jones’ worth to the company. It was my opinion that Floyd should testify exactly as he had spoken to me. So when Floyd testified about Jones’ legs being “growed together,” a smile may have crossed my face. But the arbitrator seemed to find the testimony fascinating. He started to smile and had to hide his face until his judicial demeanor returned.
The arbitrator came from New York City where he was a law professor at NYU. He was a very bright fellow, but his pronunciation of English words identified him as a native New Yorker. For example, the word “never” had a soft ending as in “nevah.” If he drank beer, perhaps he would order a “Millah beeah.” Floyd’s testimony opened up a new vista for the arbitrator. My guess is that the arbitrator used Floyd’s description of “his legs is growed together” in all his classes and outside speeches. He should have paid us just to hear the country testimony by Floyd Evans.
The game could have been called as soon as Floyd offered his testimony about Jones’ work. Nonetheless, it went on for another day or two. In short order, the arbitrator ruled that John Jones’ dismissal was appropriate.
So that is my contribution to go with Floyd Abrams’ book. It seems to me that Madry’s exhortation that “we don’t have time for frivolities such as home life” ranks well up there as exhortations go. But for me, Floyd Evans’ response was the gold standard. “John Jones has set in that truck so long ‘till his legs is growed together.” That says it all.
E. E. CARR
September 15, 2005
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In the guy’s defense, his position probably shouldn’t have existed in the first place. Generally if something goes wrong with a line, people make that known to AT&T, and then AT&T comes and fixes it. Having someone identify potential risk areas, or even having them out there patrolling, only has the potential for speeding up the company response to the problem if there’s an imminent threat to the line, or if somehow the inspector comes across the damage before someone tells AT&T there’s a problem. Maybe something about the infrastructure was different back then, but it seems like sleeping in a truck is roughly as helpful as inspecting miles and miles of lines.
Also they clearly should have started paying Harris on, say, Tuesday morning. I have to applaud his foresight, though.