Lee Pressman (July 1, 1906 – November 20, 1969) was a labor attorney and earlier a US government functionary, publicly alleged in 1948 to have been a spy for Soviet intelligence during the mid-1930s (as a member of the Ware Group), following his recent departure from Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) as a result of its purge of Communist Party members and fellow travelers. From 1936 to 1948, he represented the CIO and member unions in landmark collective bargaining deals with major corporations including General Motors and U.S. Steel. According to journalist Murray Kempton, anti-communists referred to him as "Comrade Big."
Background
Pressman was born Leon Pressman on July 1, 1906, on the Lower East Side of in New York City, first of two sons of immigrants Harry and Clara Pressman of Minsk. His father was a milliner on the Lower East Side of New York City. As a child, Leon survived polio. In his teens, the family moved out to the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn. In 1922, he entered Washington Square College of New York University, where classmates included Nathan Witt and possibly Charles Kramer (later, fellow AAA and Ware Group members), then transferred to Cornell University, where he studied under labor economist Sumner Slichter.
In 1926, Pressman received his bachelor's degree from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. In 1929, he received a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School. At Harvard, he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and was in the same class as Alger Hiss. With future defending lawyer Edward Cochrane McLean, they served on the Harvard Law Review:
<blockquote>Mr. Hiss: ... Lee Pressman was in my class at the Harvard Law School, and we were both on the Harvard Law Review at the same time.</blockquote>
Career
After graduation, he joined the law firm of Chadbourne, Stanchfield & Levy (currently Chadbourne & Parke) in New York City. (During the Great Depression, founder Thomas Chadbourne asserted that the capitalist system itself was "on trial" and became an early champion of both collective bargaining rights and profit sharing for workers.) There, he worked for Jerome Frank (future chair of the SEC). When Jerome left in 1933 to work in FDR's New Deal, Pressman joined a small firm called Liebman, Blumenthal & Levy, to handle Jerome's clients. (See "Ware Group" sub-section, below)
AAA
In July 1933, Pressman received appointment as assistant general counsel of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) by Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace. He reported to Jerome Frank, who was general counsel. The New Dealers saw the AAA as complementing the National Recovery Act (NRA – where fellow Ware Group member and lifelong Hiss friend Henry Collins worked). As they arrived at AAA, two camps quickly arose: previously existing officials who favored agribusiness interests and New Deal appointees who sought to protect small farmers (and farm laborers) and consumers as much as agribusiness. Or, as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. summarized the attitude, "There were too many Ivy League men, too many intellectuals, too many radicals, too many Jews." By December 1933, Frank had hired John Abt and Arthur (or Howard) Bachrach (brother of Abt's sister Marion Abt Bachrach) to develop litigation strategies for agricultural reform policies.
WPA, RA
By April 1935, Pressman had been appointed general counsel in the Works Progress Administration by Harry L. Hopkins. called the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935, passed in the United States Congress and became law on April 8, 1935. As a result, on May 6, 1935, FDR issued Executive Order 7034, that essentially transformed the Federal Emergency Relief Administration into the Works Progress Administration. "Pressman set to work analyzing the budget request that would transform FERA into the WPA."
In 1943, during hearings by a Dies Committee "Special Committee on Un-American Activities," director of research J.B. Matthews asked whether witness Lucien Koch had retained the New York City law firm of "Hays, St. John, Abramson, and Schulman" and "Is this Lee Pressman's firm?"; Koch confirmed "yes." (Osmond K. Fraenkel, a fellow member of the National Lawyers Guild, was also a member of Hays, St. John, Abramson, and Schulman.)
In his role as the CIO's general counsel, Pressman was influential in helping to stop the attempt to deport Communist Longshoreman's Union official Harry Bridges.
Under John L. Lewis 1936–1940
In June 1936, Pressman was named a counsel of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO—later AFL-CIO) for the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC—later, the United Steelworkers of America), appointed by union chief John L. Lewis as part of a conscious attempt to mobilize left-wing activists on behalf of the new labor federation. According to scholars, "One of Pressman's unofficial roles in the CIO was liaison between the CIO's Communist faction and its predominantly non-Communist leadership."
In June 1938, Pressman moved back to Washington, D.C., to become full-time general counsel for the CIO and the SWOC. He remained in this position for the next decade. (According to his obituary in the New York Times, he was general counsel from 1936 to 1948.
thumb|right|upright=1.2|Pressman testifies on behalf of a National Health Bill, 1939
In May 1939, Pressman spoke on behalf of the CIO before the US Senate's Education and Labor sub-committee to support the "National Health Bill" (part of the Reorganization Act of 1939), sponsored by US Senator Robert F. Wagner. He attacked the American Medical Society's position against the bill as "reactionary," which he felt had kept the bill from going "far enough."
From May through August 1939, Pressman attacked support for the "Walsh amendments" to the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (AKA the "Wagner Act"). In May 1939, when AFL president William Green supported the amendments on CBS Radio, the CIO's response, penned by Pressman, accused Green of colluding with the National Association of Manufacturers against not just the CIO but also the AFL, i.e., workers. In August 1939, Pressman appeared before the Senate Labor Committee to state that Green's support did not represent AFL rank and file.
Also in August 1939, Congress passed the Hatch Act of 1939, which restricted political campaign activities by federal employees. A provision of the Hatch Act made it illegal for the federal government to employ anyone who advocated the overthrow of the federal government. The left-leaning United Public Workers of America (UFWA) immediately hired Pressman to challenge the constitutionality of the Hatch Act.
In October 1939, during a closed-door session during a CIO convention, president John L. Lewis declared his intent to rid the CIO of "Communist influence." This decision came in response particularly from Philip Murray and Sidney Hillman, the CIO's two vice presidents, that pre-dated the Hitler-Stalin Pact (announced the previous month). Instead, Lewis would empower eight member of the CIO's 42 executive committee members. Further, Lewis increased the number of CIO vice presidents from two to six with: R. J. Thomas, president of the United Automobile Workers; Emil Rieve, president of the Textile Workers of America; Sherman Dalrymple, president of the United Rubber Workers; and Reid Robinson, president of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers. "Left forces" failed to have Joseph Curran, president of the National Maritime Union, elected vice president. Further, Lewis demoted Harry Bridges from West Coast CIO director to California state CIO director. In 1939, New York Times reported on further internal conflict.
On January 3, 1940, Pressman discussed the "1940 Legislative Program of the CIO" on CBS Radio. orIn his speech, Pressman said:
<blockquote>On pretexts of economy, more money for war purposes and similar catch cries, the reactionary financial interests and their political henchmen hope to reduce appropriations for the unemployed and for publish works, to emasculate labor and social legislation, and to restrict our civil liberties. The CIO ... calls for a determined advance in adapting social legislation to the needs of the whole American people.
On May 18, 1940, Pressman again spoke on CBS Radio, this time on the "Wagner Act."
In 1941, FDR appointed CIO vice president Sidney Hill to the Office of Production Management. Hillman lobbied for a mediating entity to OPM, and FDR created the National Defense Mediation Board (NDMB). In June 1941, NMDB and the United Auto Workers took over a North American Aviation factory during a strike. Later in June 1941, at a convention of the National Lawyers Guild in Chicago, Pressman criticized the Vinson and Ball bills before the US Congress, both of which he accused of a "long-range" plan whose aims included "destruction of workers' rights to organize, bargain collectively, and strike"; "destruction of labor organizations as the barrier to unchecked monopoly profits"; and "complete control of the national economy and the government by big business."
Pressman continued to give as good as he got. In February 1940, he held a "heated exchange" with US Representative Clare Hatch during a hearing of the US House Labor Committee, again on the issue of amendments to the NRLA (Wagner Act):