Hutcheson was born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1874. He was the son of Daniel Orrick and Elizabeth Culver Hutcheson. His father, born in Ulster, was raised in Canada and came to the United States in the 1840's to work in the Michigan lumber industry. He was later a carpenter and farmer.
Education
Hutcheson had only six and a half years of schooling before becoming a shipyard carpenter's apprentice at the age of fourteen. His apprenticeship lasted three seasons; during the winters he worked with his father as a sawyer.
Career
From 1893 to 1902 Hutcheson worked in Michigan as a farm laborer and well driller, and in the Dakota wheat fields and the Coeur d'Alene mining district in Idaho. In 1902 he found employment as a carpenter for the Midland (later Dow) Chemical Company in Midland, Mich. Under his leadership the carpenters there formed a local union, but the union failed and he was blacklisted. Hutcheson then returned to Saginaw, where he worked as a carpenter, and in 1906 he became business agent for two carpenters' locals; he strengthened the locals, increased membership, and won the eight-hour day.
Hutcheson was elected second vice-president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners in 1913, two years after he was defeated for membership on the executive board. He became first vice-president when Arthur A. Quinn resigned rather than leave his New Jersey labor base (the union constitution required the first vice-president to live in Indianapolis, site of union headquarters). Two years later when James Kirby died, Hutcheson succeeded him as president of the second largest union in the United States. Although luck had brought him to power, Hutcheson consolidated his position and remained president until his retirement in 1952, centralizing power within the union and making his office dominant.
In 1916, he reorganized the New York City locals and forced a strike settlement over the opposition of the local carpenters, thus radically altering a union that had traditionally retained local autonomy. By 1924 he had gained absolute control and faced no further opposition in reelection. In defeating his opponents in the 1920's and 1930's he relied heavily on Red-baiting, purging his detractors as alleged Communists. At the same time Hutcheson steadily increased the power of the United Brotherhood. During World War I he served on the president's War Labor Conference Committee and the War Labor Board. He refused, however, to agree to any antistrike pledges and led the building trades unions in opposition to the wartime open-shop policy.
From his power base in his own union, he became leader of the construction unions. Under Hutcheson, his union was more concerned with protecting its jurisdiction than with recruiting new members. His organizing staff initiated jurisdictional disputes with other unions rather than working to enlist nonunion carpenters. During the 1920's membership declined, reflecting the national trend in unionism, but it rose sharply during the 1930's and 1940's, when unionization spread most rapidly. Hutcheson ignored the unorganized while claiming jurisdiction whenever another union entered the field. Irving Bernstein wrote, " 'God created the forests, ' goes an old construction saw, 'and He gave them to Bill Hutcheson, ' But the Good Lord had not been generous enough, for He had failed to reckon with technology, which substituted other materials for wood. During the Hutcheson era the principle was amended: anything ever made of wood was carpenter's work" (The Lean Years). Thus Hutcheson was continually at war with machinists, lumbermen, and members of other unions.
As a strong voice for craft unionism within the American Federation of Labor, Hutcheson opposed the industrial unionism of the Committee (later Congress) of Industrial Organizations and became embroiled with John L. Lewis at the 1935 AFL convention over jurisdiction in the rubber industry. The two wrestled on the floor of the Atlantic City convention after Lewis had struck the first blow. Hutcheson later became reconciled with Lewis, but not with the CIO. He favored suspension of the CIO unions from the AFL, and aborted negotiations between the two federations during World War II. His jurisdictional rather than organizing approach led in 1940 to his indictment, with other brotherhood officials, under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act; the carpenters had boycotted the Anheuser-Busch Company after a dispute with the machinists' union. In the "Hutcheson case, " the Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of the indictments by a lower court.
In 1939 he rejoined the AFL as first vice-president but remained in conflict with other leaders over jurisdictional issues and reconciliation with the CIO. In 1952 his last act on the executive council of the AFL was to oppose merger negotiations with the CIO. The immediate issue was jurisdictional: a nor-aiding agreement between the two labor federations. He walked out and took the carpenters union with him. The carpenters brotherhood returned later that year, but Hutcheson had been replaced by his son.
He sought always to protect his own union carpenters; he did not hesitate to work closely with contractors, even at times breaking strikes of other unions in collusion with employers. Through his son he influenced the brotherhood long after his death in Indianapolis, Ind. Unethical and corrupt brotherhood practices under his son's regime were exposed by the McClellan Committee, but Maurice Hutcheson was pardoned after being cited for contempt and won reversal of a bribery conviction on appeal.
Achievements
Politics
Hutcheson was also at odds with other labor leaders over politics. A lifelong conservative, he consistently supported Republican candidates for office, headed the Republican labor division in 1932 and 1936, and was a delegate to the 1948 and 1952 Republican conventions. In 1941 he joined the National Council of the America First Committee. An opponent of the New Deal, he resigned in 1936 as tenth vice-president of the AFL, after two years in office, in protest against the AFL's close ties with the Roosevelt administration.
As conservative in economics as he was in politics, he favored minimum government interference and preferred the status quo.
Personality
"Big Bill" Hutcheson was six feet three inches tall and weighed more than 300 pounds.
Connections
In 1891 he met Bessie May King, daughter of a local farmer. They were married on October 10, 1893, and had four children, one of whom, Maurice Albert Hutcheson, succeeded his father as president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. They were divorced in 1928, and Hutcheson, later in the same year, married Mrs. Jessie Tufts Sharon. After her death in 1948 he married Madelaine Wilson.