Labor's Boardroom

By Daniel Benjamin/Jay

On a rainy morning, the United Paperworkers' union hall in Jay, Me., is thick with cigarette smoke, coffee cups and strikers. Some of the men and women are back from 6 a.m. picket duty at the nearby International Paper mill; others, despite the weather, will report for the afternoon. The union was locked out of one IP plant in Alabama 15 months ago and went on strike last June at three mills -- the one in Jay and two others in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- because of contract disputes. Despite the length of the strike, the members are hanging tough: only 5% of the 3,500 affected employees have returned to their jobs, even though the company has hired replacement workers. The strikers' hopes in a seemingly hopeless cause focus on one man: Ray Rogers, the tenacious labor organizer who eight years ago helped bring a union to the J.P. Stevens textile company after 17 years of resistance, and has led fights against many other firms, has taken up the banner of the United Paperworkers.

The strategy he devised to pressure IP is vintage Rogers. He is enlisting the aid of other unions, thus turning one company's dispute into a national issue. He is leading consumer boycotts, demonstrations and letter-writing campaigns against companies who have directors who also sit on IP's board. Thus the targets include Avon Products, Coca-Cola, Bank of Boston and the PNC Financial Corp. of Pittsburgh. In some cases, the leverage will be strong. At Rogers' urging, a district council of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is threatening to withdraw $15 million from a banking subsidiary of PNC. Reason: W. Craig McClelland, executive vice president of IP, sits on PNC's board. Such strong-arm tactics give hope to William Meserve, the president of the United Paperworkers' Local 14 in Jay. Meserve calls Rogers "the only effective tool we could bring in" and "probably the workingman's biggest friend."

Rogers, 44, whose consulting firm, Corporate Campaign, is hired by unions on a case-by-case basis, is one of the labor movement's most controversial and innovative figures. As architect of the "corporate campaign," a strategy for shifting labor disputes from the picket line to the boardroom, he has been involved in many of the major union fights of the past decade, including the successful battles of farmworkers against Campbell soup and flight attendants against American Airlines. While supporters describe his approach as a welcome addition to strike tactics, critics attack him as a glory hound who seduces local unions into pursuing his interests -- publicity and influence over the rank and file -- rather than theirs. Whatever the judgment, in an era of union retreat, Rogers provides a rallying point for labor.

He could use another victory to erase the memory of a highly publicized defeat. In 1985 and 1986, Rogers helped orchestrate what turned into a long and bitter walkout by meat-packers at a Hormel plant in Austin, Minn. That brought him into conflict with the Union of Food and Commercial Workers International, which came to disapprove of the walkout and such stratagems as dispatching pickets to Hormel plants that were not on strike. Hormel eventually outlasted the strikers, and 650 jobs were eliminated.

Rogers' current campaign could be equally futile. Unlike most unionized companies, IP negotiates on a plant-by-plant basis. At present, only four of the firm's 26 mills are affected, a fact that mitigates IP's sense of urgency about settling. Before the lockout and strike, workers at the four plants were more or less happy with business as usual; at an average wage of $13.55 an hour, and with considerable overtime, some mill hands were earning more than $40,000 a year. But at several mills the company insisted on eliminating "premium pay," the double wage that paperworkers have traditionally received for Sunday and holiday shifts. In return for the concession, the company offered workers one-time bonuses ranging up to $6,450.

The timing of the demands angered employees. The company's earnings more than doubled in 1986, rose 33% in 1987 to $407 million and increased at an annual rate of 77% in the first quarter of 1988. Nonetheless, IP contends that its return on investment lags behind much of the paper industry's. Warns Spokesman Richard White: "If we don't get all our costs in line, we'll end up like the shoe industry, another tombstone in Maine."

IP's stand does not deter Rogers, the son of a machinist and assembly-line worker. Designing strategy in his Manhattan office, often dressed in a T shirt and jeans, he hardly looks imposing. But he can marshal large forces as effectively as many a general. Rogers has sent carloads of United Paperworkers -- "caravans" he calls them -- to gather support at the plants and union halls of other industries. The response has been encouraging: in April more than 8,500 sympathizers from unions around the U.S. converged for a rally at the Jay mill, roughly doubling the town's population for a day.

Rogers has also staged demonstrations at the headquarters of PNC and Bank of Boston and at shareholder meetings of other firms that share directors with IP. The protests are only a small part, says Rogers, of the "transformation of the strike force into a powerful economic force." The real punch, he points out, will come from boycotts and threats to withdraw union funds from banks; only such actions will turn executives against IP. "I'd much rather see rich businessmen fight it out in the boardroom," Rogers says. "You can't embarrass them. You have to make them deal with real economic or political pressure." The question is whether the pressure will build fast enough to budge IP before the strikers lose hope.