Remembering My Machinist Dad On Labor Day

SheWhoMustBeObeyed

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Mon Sep-03-07 03:29 PM
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Remembering My Machinist Dad On Labor Day

I first posted this in 2005 and DUer applegrove has encouraged me to put it up again. I add nothing to the original post but the observation that it was my mother's dedication that made my father's achievements possible. They were inseparable in their devotion to each other, their family and the fight for workers' rights; I honor, love, and miss them both.

When he left the Army after WWII, my father went to work in the same factory where his father had worked. Grandpa had been a solid employee but he died while Dad was away in basic training. So the plant hired the young veteran, perhaps expecting he would carry on his father's legacy of hard work and anti-union sentiment.

They were half right. My father was the most dedicated worker I have ever known. But the long hours he put in at his lathe were nothing compared to the decades he committed to union activism.

He was one of the first to sign the petition when the IAM started organizing his shop. Though threatened by the company and smeared as a Communist by management and co-workers alike, he persuaded others to sign, and vote, until they won their right to collective bargaining.

That was in the 1950s. By the mid-60s Dad was shop committeeman and president of his local. He and Mom were also active in politics, supporting and campaigning for pro-labor candidates at the local, state and national level. Dad went to DC to lobby for the repeal of the right-to-work laws. One of his proudest moments came when Everett Dirksen gave him the finger. (Dirksen actually flipped off his whole group, but Dad had quite the mouth, and was sure that it was his um, statements to Dirksen that prompted the bird.)

Then the Big Strike began. The membership had gone on strike before, but this one was different. It was rancorous, sometimes violent, and it lasted the better part of a year. Strike benefits ran out. Mom's part-time work became full-time. Dad was at the bargaining table or on the picket line most of the time. And only a few miles away, Chicago was threatening to burst into flames over civil rights. Just before the contract was settled, just before his 40th birthday, Dad had his first heart attack.

It was during his convalescence that he decided to become a District Organizer. When his employers learned of his plans they offered him a management position as union liason. They pressured him as remorselessly as they had when he first signed the petition to bring a union into their plant. They promised him money and power.

In the end Dad decided he could not join management, no matter how much it would benefit us - that it would destroy his credibility with both management and the rank and file. So he quit his job of 27 years, became an organizer, and a few years later was elected to his first term as a Machinist Business Representative.

Dad's responsibilities, according to a 1977 article in a local labor newspaper, were to "negotiate contracts, organize the unorganized, handle grievance and arbitration cases, follow up on settlements in industrial injury claims, and in general make (himself) available to individual Local members." He was also charged with "putting in much time on research with respect to contract negotiations and arbitration cases, and writing leaflets for use on the unorganized, which are distributed at plant gates."

He did all that and more for over 2,500 members, day in and day out, with nights devoted to fielding calls and studying labor law, with no more than a high school education, for 14 years. He did it under Nixon, Carter and Reagan. He did it despite plant closings, take-aways and concessions. Even as he neared retirement, it was his hope to become a federal mediator.

And throughout it all, every few years, he ran for and won re-election. Five days after winning his last election, while talking on the phone with management from one of the shops he represented, he suffered a massive heart attack and died instantly.

My father saw his job as being the man in the middle between workers and owners, and his goal was always to bring the two sides together. At his funeral, representatives from both labor and management served as his pallbearers.

Happy Labor Day, Papa. You were a great man.