In Part 4 of this New York series, I dealt with a Personnel Vice President of AT&T who earned my complete disrespect and anger over a period of five years. Now that we are free of Jack Marsh, we can return to some men who had my respect and admiration. In this section of the New York series, I will be discussing some men who taught me a great deal about human relations. I was fond of these men and perhaps the reader will come to share my admiration.
The quote in the title about the boiled owl comes from a very skilled labor negotiator, but you will have to read the full essay to see what he was talking about. I heard the man use the expression and I fully agreed with him. Our latter day readers will just have to wrestle with this little essay.
This is a story of contract bargaining in 1955 between the AT&T Company and the Communication’s Workers of America (CWA). The main characters are Herb Goetschius, Charlie Brown and that flash of Louisiana lightning named Henry Joyner. In dealing with these three men, we will also be dealing with my good friend and boss, Dick Dugan, as well as with a former communist – at least he claimed that he had reformed. Not everyone believed him. There is also a woman who liked to read notes in an upside down fashion and we will tell you about a negotiator who believed in his advocacy so much that he wanted to take his heart out and let it beat for us on the bargaining table. So you see, we’ve got some pretty dramatic moments ahead in Part 5 of the New York series of essays.
In the 1950’s, it was the custom of most major American firms to write contracts with their union representatives for only one year. In the years immediately after World War II, there were many changes in the ways companies did business. For instance, technology began to play a major part in the business decisions that company managements had to make. In the case of the telephone companies, customer dialing resulted in a decreased need for telephone operators. This sort of technological advance made American businesses reluctant to agree to any contract exceeding twelve months in length.
Bargaining a new contract every year imposed a burden on both the company and the union. There were months of preparation and many long hours involved when the actual bargaining got under way. Today, contracts are usually written for three years. Some may embrace five years. But in the 1950’s, it was necessary to endure this sort of discomfort every year. It was not all bad for me because I had the opportunity to meet some interesting characters and to learn a lot.
AT&T’s Long Lines bargaining team consisted of my boss Dick Dugan, and myself from headquarters in New York. We brought in the three Assistant General Managers from the regional areas to work with us.
Before we meet the three men from the regional areas, it would be appropriate to say a few words about Dick Dugan. Dick was an Irishman whose father had been treated very badly by the Accounting Vice President of Long Lines. Dick’s father was always on Dugan’s mind. Even though his father was dead, at a moment of triumph, Dick would always say, “This one is for you” meaning his father, Fred Dugan. When Dick had an opportunity to deal with his father’s tormentor, he would take great delight in knowing that he was evening up the score. In the end, Fred Dugan’s tormentor was drummed out of the company. Dick Dugan went on to become the President and CEO of the Cincinnati Bell Telephone Company. Fred’s oppressor finished dead last when it came to a race with Fred’s son, Dick.
Dick Dugan was a tall fellow with an immense amount of brainpower. He was never ostentatious about his intellectual achievements. Instead he covered all of his accomplishments with a ready wit. Dick was a good Irishman who left us at an early age. Dick was only about 60 when cancer overtook him. After all these years, I still miss him.
In contract bargaining, both sides almost always observed proper decorum. Negotiators are generally addressed in a formal manner and anger is rarely in good form. Anger may cause negotiators to say something that they would soon regret, so when it is detected that anger may become a problem, a recess is usually called.
Now before I introduce you to Herb Goetschius, it must be remembered that in the 1950’s, Joe McCarthy, the Senator from Wisconsin, was riding fairly high on a crest of anti-communist sentiment. In short, communists were deplorable people and most people would agree with that assessment. And so it fell to Herb, a real New York street fighter, to deal with a communist or a former communist on the union side on one issue. Herb came from New York and my belief is that he never attended a college. If he had gone to college, it would have been a waste of Herb’s time. Herb grew up in the New York Plant Department and by the time I met him in 1955, he had progressed to Director level. He was a wiry man who probably stood somewhere around 5’7” or 5’8”. And he was tough. Not arrogantly tough, but if he encountered someone who was trying to snow him, Herb would eat that person alive. As time went on, arthritis crippled his hands which caused him to consume large quantities of aspirin.
When Brother Goetschius elected to deal with a person who wanted to mislead him or with a man who did not know his business, the miscreant would be fixed with a withering stare. And then the words would start to flow. I have never been the recipient of Herb’s stare and I would be happy to avoid it for the rest of my life.
Now remember a few paragraphs ago I told you that the exchanges across the bargaining table were done in a respectful manner. When it came to discreet and decent behavior, Herb had no equal. But in this one case, he was responding to a communist, or former communist, who waded into deep waters by talking about things about which he knew nothing. Herb took it as long as he could and then decorum went out the window and he ate Mike Mignon, the former or current red, alive.
In early 1955, CWA had somehow acquired the bargaining rights at All American Cable and Radio (AACR). Mike Mignon had worked at AACR and was one of its union representatives. The International President of the Union, Joe Beirne, was a practicing Catholic and a fervent anti-communist. Yet Beirne took Mike Mignon in even though it was widely believed that Mike was a communist. He not only took him in on the CWA payroll, but he sent him to New York to participate in Long Lines bargaining.
When Mignon was identified as part of the CWA bargaining team, I called several union and newspaper people to see what they knew about him. Finally, the trail led to Wilson McMakin, the Vice President of Personnel for AACR. I met Wilson McMakin in a restaurant on Church Street. After a time, McMakin told me that Mignon was an assumed name. Mike was of Sicilian, not French origin. AACR believed that Mike was such a full-fledged communist that he was no longer permitted to enter the premises of AACR. To handle a grievance or to bargain, AACR would meet Mike in a hotel or a restaurant. And the kicker came when Wilson McMakin told me that in two weeks time, the House Un-American Affairs Committee headed by the notorious J. Parnell Thomas, a New Jersey Republican, would hold a hearing at which Mike Mignon would appear and identify other communists he had known in the past. In short, Mike Mignon was singing to avoid having the Immigration Service questioning his residency in the United States.
Obviously, we had to pretend that we knew nothing about Mignon’s troubles with immigration authorities. I more or less believe that his colleagues on the union side knew very little of Mike’s communist connection. When I told our side about Mignon, Herb Goetchius was righteously indignant. Herb didn’t like Mike to start with because Mike spoke as the voice of wisdom and experience. None of the rest of us trusted Mike. In a short while, I was led to believe that his union colleagues had no use for him either.
And so early in bargaining, Mike Mignon began to lecture using no notes. He often claimed that he had left his notes or speech on the subway. As always, Mike’s remarks had an unrehearsed, rambling sense to them. Now remember that I said earlier, that we always preserved a sense of decorum during bargaining. Forget about it. Herb listened to all he could bear. Finally, he interrupted Mike to say, “The problem is that you don’t know what the hell you are talking about.” At that point, Herb cited chapter and verse and when he was finished, Mike had very little more to say for the four or five weeks of bargaining that remained. All of us cheered to have the communist turncoat taken down to size.
We will leave Herb with a thought that he impressed upon all of the company negotiators. Herb said that the only things the union gets are what the company gives them. Whether concessions are taken from the company or whether the company makes concessions freely, the fact remains that the only things the union gets is what the company gives them.
Now let’s move on to the second bargainer in the 1955 contract negotiations. His name is Charlie Brown. Later, Charlie went on to become the CEO of the AT&T Company.
Charlie was a widower in 1955 and 1956, so he had no great trouble with the thought that the bargaining team had to spend its nights in New York. Charlie and I seemed to get along very well, so after dinner, or in place of dinner, we would explore New York. At that time, Charlie was interested in Spanish culture, the food, the art and flamenco dancing. So we spent quite a bit of time dealing with Spanish things.
The Spanish restaurants and nightspots were found on the west side of Greenwich Village. There was also a club at Charles and West Fourth Streets which featured the famed Pizzarelli guitar duos. Charlie spoke some Spanish at that time which he learned in preparation on a trip to Spain.
Charlie was a good companion and our friendship has lasted for pretty close to 50 years now. Charlie was a good bargainer because he wanted to know what motivated people, not just company people, but the Union folks as well. I recall one year the union had a very curious young woman from Philadelphia who sat directly opposite Charlie. Charlie noticed that for several days she had been looking across the table while he wrote. It became clear that she was trying to read what Charlie was writing. Old Charlie was a sly one. One day he printed in large block letters on his page, “CAN YOU READ THIS UPSIDE DOWN?” Charlie told me that he wanted to see how good she was. Well, this woman studied Charlie’s notes for a minute or two until she understood that the upside down thought was aimed at her. She blushed pretty robustly. I don’t recall her ever trying to read our notes across the table after that.
Charlie left the bargaining team a year or so later to begin his climb toward the top job in the telephone industry in the world. It made no difference that he was the CEO of AT&T; Charlie was still Charlie and we always got along very well. Charlie was a first class piece of work.
Now that we have discussed Herb Goetschius and Charlie Brown, that leaves us with one more fellow to deal with, that being the original Henry H. Joyner, whom I called Louisiana Lightning.
On the 1955 bargaining committee, Henry came to us from the Western Area based in Kansas City. Henry originally came from Louisiana and like most of the rest of Long Lines management people, had moved quite often. He was a few years older than I was and I very much liked to hear him tell of his experiences. Henry was a first rate intellectual and don’t let that Louisiana accent fool you. I enjoyed talking to him about literature, Huey Long and fine dining. Many years later when we were both in the Overseas organization, Henry told me of the joys of dining at the Hassler Hotel in Rome. He said it compared favorably with the cuisine of New Orleans. I ate at the Hassler on many occasions. I would say that New Orleans would win six out of ten contests with the Hassler dining room but in both cases, the dining would be five-star.
Henry was a devotee of William Cowper Brann, the Iconoclast. Brann ran a newspaper in the frontier town of Waco, Texas. He called them as he saw them. For one thing, Brann had no use for English royalty. This was in the 1880’s before World War I when the King and Queen and the Prince of Wales were viewed with a high degree of reverence in England, its colonies and in much of Europe. Brann got on to a story that the Prince of Wales had contracted a social disease – and he printed it for several weeks hand running. The Prince denied the story, but Brann soon located the sanitarium where the Prince went for treatment.
I had an opportunity to follow Brann’s story about the Prince and other subjects of the Iconoclast’s ire because his newspaper stories were reproduced in a set of 25 books. When Henry was working in Atlanta, he found the whole set of Brann books on sale at a used book outlet. So he told me what Brann had to say. After Henry’s most untimely death in Luxor, Egypt, his wife Martine offered the whole set of Brann books to me. I was overwhelmed. They occupied a place of prominence in the books in this house for many years. In anticipation of my becoming an angel, I sent the Brann books to my daughter in Austin, Texas, who wanted them. The books now are a few miles from Waco, their ancestral home.
One member of the union’s committee was a fellow from Pittsburgh named Roy Schultice. Roy was a likeable fellow. I knew him from when I had been in the union. I thought Roy was honest and well intentioned. I liked him very much.
In the bargaining room, Roy took the issue assigned to him very seriously. Sometimes he could be dramatic about his advocacy, but all of us would say that is just Roy being Roy. If Roy was presenting a case for a wage upgrade for a particular city, for example, he would tell us how tough it was to get to work with mountains to be surmounted. Then he would tell us that all of the employees in his upgrade city were first class citizens who were very patriotic and they were kind to their parents.
On one issue where Roy was presenting the union case, and Henry Joyner was assigned to respond to him, Roy got carried away by his emotions. It all came together at the climax of his fervent presentation when he turned to Henry and said, “We need this desperately. If I could take my heart out and put it on this table and let it beat for you, I (Roy) would be glad to do it.” Old Henry listened without cracking a smile. He was showing great interest in Roy’s dramatic presentation. When Roy came to the part of putting his heart on the table and letting it beat for us, Henry said to Roy, “That won’t be necessary. We understand your sincerity.”
The company had no intention of granting what ever Roy wanted us to concede, but gentle Henry showed a great deal of interest and let Roy down easily. Roy and Henry remained friends after the bargaining which is the way it should be. This was a good lesson in bargaining techniques by the man from Louisiana.
Henry was a fellow you could learn from. If nothing else, his expressions were pretty close to priceless. On a day when we had a little time to kill, Henry pointed out that a new, high rise building had just been constructed on the west side of Fifth Avenue and labeled #2 Fifth Avenue. For many years, the residents of Number One Fifth Avenue, on the east side of Fifth Avenue, had enjoyed a view of the Hudson River a few blocks to the west. But when Number Two Fifth Avenue was constructed, the residents had a full view of the new apartment building and the river view was no more.
When Henry considered the atrocity that Number Two Fifth Avenue represented and the fact that it cut off the river view of the residents of Number One Fifth Avenue, he had only one comment to make. Speaking of the people whose view had been cut off, Henry said, “Don’t you know that those folks at Number One Fifth Avenue are sorer than boiled owls.” Being from the Midwest, I did not know how sore a boiled owl might be, but in between guffaws, I agreed with my friend from Louisiana.
**
The fellows I served with on the 1955 AT&T bargaining committee were very bright men. Without any sort of tutoring, they showed me about how human relations should work. I enjoyed them immensely and as you can see from this essay, for 47 years I have waited to tell the world about Herb Goetschius eating Mike Mignon alive, about Charlie Brown’s upside down memo to the young lady who sat opposite from him and finally, Henry’s story about the boiled owl.
Well, now with that on the public record, I think this old soldier can die happy – or happily. The three fellows discussed in this essay, Herb, Charlie and Henry, would be most impatient with such a parsing of the English language.
E. E. CARR
June 25, 2002
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Man, I feel like I don’t have any particularly pressing commentary for most of this New York series — I’m just sitting back and enjoying them. Crazy that he used to run around the bargaining table with the CEO-to-be of AT&T, who seems to have shared a name with the protagonist from Peanuts. Specifically, he was friends with the CEO who oversaw one of the many breakups that that company went through:

“Today really signals the beginning of the end of an institution: the 107-year-old Bell system,” declared AT&T CEO Charles Brown, who appeared to be fighting back tears. “And the start of a new era in telecommunications for the whole country.”

I’ll consider myself lucky to retire with as good a memory of (and as many stories from) my working life as Pop does. To me, this sort of perspective represents a slice of life that neither I nor anyone else who wasn’t directly involved would ever hear about. Always fun to see it captured.