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of Baltimore completely unorganized and rent with discontent, Broening and
McCurdy, representing between them the BFL and the Maryland Federation of
Labor (the supposed central organizations of all workers in the state), announced
with some fanfare a 'drive" to organize street car workers, firemen, and retail
clerks. Consistent with American Federation of Labor practice, these categories of
workers could easily be organized on a craft rather than an industrial basis. The
Baltimore Fire Board immediately forbade firemen to from organize, essentially
putting an end to that aspect of the "drive." The BFL did have success with barbers,
and McCurdy chose a meeting of the barbers union to launch his red-baiting attack
on the seamen in the port of Baltimore who were then running their own relief
system, organizing their own hiring hall, and systematically working to organize
every ship that came into the harbor. About the same time, the BFL was proudly
show-casing its success in recruiting 20 bartenders into Bartenders Union Local
532.52
Most of the time though, the BFL was acting after the fact in organizing
drives and strikes that were already in progress. To its credit, it often extended at
least its verbal support to those organizing into AFL organizations, as with its
resolution of support for a Teamster strike in mid-1934, or its call to boycott the
meat packers that were resisting the organizing efforts of the butchers union. The
BFL was however, quite jealous over jurisdictional matters, as when McCurdy
himself rebuked the PUL, a member organization of the BFL, for threatening to
lead a strike of WPA workers; in McCurdy's view, that was the prerogative of the
BFL. And, as already noted, when Communist, either suspected or real, were
involved in organizing efforts no matter how just, the BFL was more than willing to
join hands with management to try to crush them. But whatever its involvements
with various forces and sectors of the working class, there was one sector of the
class that the BFL was almost militant about ignoring: Black workers."
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