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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview E-0012-3, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Jim Pierce grew up near Ponca City, Oklahoma, during the late 1920s and 1930s. Pierce begins by speaking briefly about his experiences growing up in Oklahoma, paying particular attention to his Cherokee heritage, his education, and his father's involvement in the AFL. Pierce describes how he attended "anti-CIO" meetings with his father during the 1930s, which piqued his interested in labor politics. During World War II, Pierce served in the Navy and developed a worldview that tilted his interest in the labor movement more towards the "militant" side he had been indoctrinated against as a child. Following the war, Pierce began to work for Western Electric, and by 1947, he had moved to Fort Worth, Texas. Along with his fellow workers, Pierce joined the small local union called the National Federation of Telephone Workers. Not associated with a national organizing force like the AFL or CIO, this small union was typical of organization for workers such as he during these years. Pierce participated in a six-week-long strike with his union in 1947. The workers were victorious and shortly thereafter they joined the CIO. Around that time, Pierce became a leader in the local union as a strategy to keep his company from transferring him away from his ill wife and their infant child. From there, Pierce joined the staff of the CIO and worked in Texas, organizing local unions for the CIO until 1954, when the merger with AFL occurred. Pierce's growing interest in the civil rights movement and his continuing adherence to the more radical principles of labor politics prompted him to go to work for the International Union of Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (IUE) at that point. Pierce remained in Texas for several years, organizing locals for the IUE, before taking a more regional approach. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Pierce spent much time organizing workers in Florida for IUE and relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina. During the 1960s, Pierce continued to work with IUE, but through the jurisdiction of the AFL-CIO's Industrial Union Department (IUD). From 1963 to 1968, Pierce was the regional director of the IUD's effort to organize textile workers in the Southeast. In particular, he focuses on the brief effort of the IUD to organize migrant workers in Florida. Pierce had become increasingly interested in the problems of migrant workers during his career in the labor movement, and the decision of the IUD to halt its effort at organizing this group was a major factor in his decision to leave the IUD in 1968. Pierce concludes the interview by discussing his disillusionment (and simultaneous belief) in the labor movement, his thoughts on the future of labor activism and organization, and his work with the National Sharecroppers Fund during the late 1960s and the early 1970s.
Jim Pierce first learned about the labor movement while growing up in Oklahoma during the 1930s. By the late 1940s, he had become a leader in his local union at Western Electric in Fort Worth, Texas. During the 1950s and 1960s, he organized unions for the CIO, the IUE, and the IUD. He describes his belief in labor activism but also his growing disillusionment with the movement by the end of the 1960s.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Jim, I guess the way to start might be for you to tell me how you got interested in the labor movement in the first place. Was that from your parents or your location?
My father was a union member, a member of the Carpenters Union active when I was young in helping saw mill workers organize in addition to others. Probably one of the very early and moved by the Carpenters Union to do any industrial type organization especially on an interracial basis. So, my background in trade union movement goes back to the time when I was a child and my father was a union member and a business agent for …
Did he work for the Carpenters Union?
Well kind of on a local … he was a local business agent part of the time
and sometimes … well
And that was in the Craft Union, the AFL Union?
That's right.
Where was that?
This was in Ponca City, Oklahoma.
I didn't know there were unions in Ponca City, Oklahoma. How many were there?
Oh, when I was just … it was during the Depression, a tornado came through Ponca City and blew the roofs off the houses. It was the Carpenters Union that put the roofs back on. They were very strong. The Union in Ponca City in the middle thirties was stronger really than the Craft Union in Charlotte today because they built the homes, they built the garages, they built the additions. Now …
Was it an all union town?
Oh, it was very well organized.
Industrially as well?
Well there were only two industries, two refineries. One was Conoco and it had the Oil Workers Union, and the other was City Service and it had an independent company union. So it was a union town. But Ponca City was kind of right in the middle of the old populists area, so you have got a lot of unions and you've got a lot of Norman Thomas, and you've got a lot of …
Now, you got that growing up, or you just kind of became aware of that later?
No, no, no. This was my life. This was … dad was, as I said AF of L … I remember when the CIO was first formed and the … oh, preachers and people like that were going through the country calling the CIO a communist organization and they had their tent meetings, and they showed films of bodies laying all over the place, and the hammers and the cycles, you know, and everything. Dad would attend those meetings because he was strongly AF of L, and we went … ahh, he took us so we could see these kind of things.
Was this 1936 - 1937?
Oh yes.
So how old were you then?
Well, I was born in 1925. Ten, eleven, twelve.
Your mother was also an interesting part of your background?
Oh yes, mother was I guess half Cherokee. Her ancestors escaped from the trail of tears in Missouri, as they were marching the Cherokees over from North Carolina, and they settled in the Ozark section of Missouri and my father married her in Missouri and they moved to Oklahoma. So we actually … their background was Missouri. I was born there on the Osage Reservation … what was then the Osage Reservation, now is Osage County, Oklahoma.
Your father moved over to the Reservation?
He moved to Oklahoma and then he … the Osage Reservation was on one side
of the Arkansas River and Ponca City was right across the rives in what
they call Kay County, and so we lived part of the time in
How was … was your mother aware of a particular kind of repression as an Indian?
I don't really know. She died when I was about ten years old. I really don't know that much about that. I remember her as beautiful brown skinned, with long hair braided … I remember all of the Indian remedies for diseases … skunk oil she relied heavily on, and the herbs and things she got from her Indian background. She was very much an Indian and proud of it and I am too.
And that stayed with you?
For a long time.
So you went to CIO meetings, what would your father …
No, these were not CIO meetings, these were anti-CIO meetings, conducted
by the people who were fighting CIO. In that area you had the populists
movement, but you also had a very traditionalist fundamentalist type of
church movement, and these preachers at their tent meetings would …
maybe this is why I don't like preachers too well … would take advantage
of the fundamentalists background, the religious background of the
people to preach against CIO, and they had some of the most horrible
Would they be in union halls or churches?
Usually in tents. The ones I remember were in tents.
Was it at a Revival meeting?
Revival type religious meeting with all of the anti CIO, oh hell, it was no different from what happened in Gastonia in the twenties and things like that. Industry uses religion to beat unions period. It still does, it did then, and will always do it if it can.
So the Carpenters and the other Craft Unions … were they already making some alliances with business at that time? I mean you were so young that …
I don't think they were alliances. It was just that the CIO posed a treat to the AF of L. the CIO posed a threat to the industry. Industry was using the preachers to defeat the CIO, and the AF of L was glad to see it happen, I guess.
Can you remember the first time you didn't feel anti-CIO yourself?
Yeah. While I was in the Navy … I don't remember a lot about this … the
miners went on strike, and they were CIO and everybody was raising hell
about the miners striking during the war, and I thought they were
You were in high school in Ponca City?
Right. I was in high school, but it wasn't in Ponca City. I was living about two or three miles from Ponca City over in Osage County, and because there were so many Indians they didn't bus us to Ponca City two or three miles away, they bussed us to a little country town about 25 or 30 miles away. So I was actually in high school in a little town called Burbank. It was only in my senior year that they decided to start bussing from our section into Ponca City.
So you went to school with Indian kids … you were an Indian kid?
Of course. Seventy or eighty percent of the … my classmates were Indians, or at least part Indian
Was it a segregated school system?
No.
A separate school system for the Reservation?
No, no. There were whites.
But you felt like one of the Indians more than white?
Of course I wanted to be one of them. Yeah, that's right. You know it only takes a few times for some white to tell you to get out of the way half breed, before you decide that you would rather be a half breed. You know.
What was your father's reaction to that?
I don't know. You know, at that point, it was during the Depression, he had lost his job, there was no construction work. He tried to get a job in the refinery and had one for a little while and apparently because of his union background they tossed him out, and he was cutting wood, you know, out in the forest for a living and so you saw him very very little. I mean during the summer you would take a sandwich down to him or something like that, but … I didn't know my father in those early days. I didn't see him.
Did you have a lot of brothers and sisters?
Just two brothers younger than I. One only a couple of years younger and one was born when my mother died.
When you left high school, did you go straight to the Navy?
No I wasn't old enough. I graduated at 16 from high school, and I
traveled. I worked on construction, … well the first job I had was
selling magazines for about a month or two until I found out that it was
a gip, and the people weren't getting the magazines, so I went on
construction and followed construction crews as an apprentice carpenter,
until I became 17, and then when I
That was up to the war years then?
That's right. That was in '42.
In '42. Still without much feeling about unions strongly except about the CIO. I mean you had the AFL background …
That's right.
But you were mostly just a young man out to see the world? Is that the way you did …
Yeah. I wanted to know what was going on, and I thought traveling would do it, and in those few months between the time I graduated from high school and the time I went into the Navy, oh I was in Texas, then I went to Louisiana and from Louisiana to Iowa, from Iowa to Montana, from Montana to Nebraska, from Nebraska to California, from California to Oregon and then back to Oklahoma a time or two in between traveling, working to see what the world was like.
What else happened to you in the Navy that's important in terms of how it shaped your direction … you read about the miners, you read about John Lewis.
What really happened to me in the Navy was … I don't know, the Navy
really did change me. I went overseas. I was in a bomber group in the
Navy, mostly a reconnaissance type group, but the idea of killing, the
idea of war, of working people in Germany and United States and England
and France and Japan killing one another for the benefit of their
governments or industry, which at that point, I was beginning to think
What did you read to make you think there might be a conspiracy?
I am not sure that I read anything. I don't really remember. In the Navy you talk to a lot of people from different areas, you … I traveled a lot, I traveled all over the world while I was in the Navy. For a long time I was in the naval air transport service, and you never knew; You know, you may be in Africa today, and South America tomorrow and Australia the next day … when you weren't flying … I got out of the war part … I mean the fighting part pretty quick. I didn't like it and I don't think they liked me in it, and they put me in naval air transport … I had gone through a radar, super secret radar counter measure school, and in the process of getting clearance or getting me cleared for that, they did a study back, they did an investigation back home and found that when I was a senior in high school and on the debating team, … I think the question was "resolve that communism in theory is better than democracy in practice," and I probably did more reading getting ready for that debate than I did all the rest of the time put together, but I won the debate.
And the Navy found that out?
The Navy found that out and during the course
So you kind of got some kind of world view, is that what you are saying?
Maybe it was bar view,
What did that make you do when you left? When you got out of the Navy, did you go back to Ponca City?
Briefly. I was quite restless. I had left
In Ponca City you went to work for Western Electric?
Actually I went to work for them in Tulsa. I went from Ponca City to Tulsa, went to the University for a little while, decided that I couldn't go the route, and joined Western Electric there. They shortly, within a few months, transferred to Texas, to Fort Worth and the rest of my life really is tied to Texas more than it is Oklahoma.
You installed what
It was central office equipment. We worked on the first L-Carrier, the first Coaxiae Cable that went across the country, that kind of long distance, highly technical equipment that was being installed right after the war.
Were you a member of a union then?
Yeah, a very interesting little company union that had dues of $.50 a
month and the office was in the telephone building. A very cozy
arrangement called the National Federation of Telephone Workers. It
Most of the telephone operators themselves were members of the National Federation of Telephone Workers.
That's right. Nearly all of the telephone workers in the country belong to those little unions.
What was your perspective on that little Federation at the time? Were you just making it a part of your job, …
Well, I joined the union because I had always been taught that any union is better than no union, but it wasn't much of a union.
So something happened from Western Electric in that it had a telephone installer and a company union to organize the committee of the CIO.
Yeah, what happened was the union wasn't servicing the needs of the members and the people became more and more militant within this company union, and finally in 1947 against the advice of the leaders of the organization, we went on strike, and we stayed on strike for six or seven weeks, and won it, and won it in spite of the union in many cases.
This was a wage agreement strike within that union, this wasn't an organizing drive by CWA or something like that?
Oh no, no. CWA had not been formed at that
And you won it?
And we won it.
What happened …
Won it without strike being a. Won it without any real leadership because we had the greatest people in the world.
Did you assume leadership in that strike yourself?
Not really. I was active, but not really leadership. The day before the strike I got married, thought the strike would last two or three days and I could go on a honeymoon, and we did. Pat and I went to Carlsbad Caverns we took a bus, we didn't have a car, we took a bus to Carlsbad Caverns and spent two days down there and spent all the money we had and came back expecting the strike to be over, and found that it was going to last another five or six weeks without us having … without any money. So we picked up a little cash here and there and sponged on her relatives, and manned the picket lines. It was a lot of fun.
You never had any doubts though at the time?
That we'd win?
Having been married a week.
No, No.
So after you got the contract you went back to work for Western Electric?
Went back to work for Western Electric and a lot of us got together and decided that we needed a real union and decided that the CIO was the union that we wanted. There was a movement at that point among some of the guys to … and this was the installers, a movement among some of the people to get a charter through AF of L and others through CIO. AF of L would not offer a charter, they wanted to put us in the IBEW, which already had a few telephone workers scattered across the country. We didn't want a charter … I mean we didn't want to be a part of an existing union, we wanted our own telephone union, and when they were unsuccessful, and I wasn't in this negotiation because I was leaning towards the CIO. But when they were unsuccessful in getting anything moving with AF of L, we went to CIO and formed the Telephone Workers Organizing Committee. We got an Organizing Committee Charter. Allen Haywood was put in … appointed by Phil Murray as the, you know, temporary Director, and we started organizing telephone workers in the CIO. There wasn't any full time staff to amount to anything, maybe two or three people. The rest of us were doing it on our own time.
When you all went on this strike, and this was '48, I guess.
'47.
'47. Were you in contact with other telephone workers in different parts of the country doing the same thing? Was this just a strict …
No, it was all over the country. It was a large national strike …
You didn't want to have this in your plan, that was my …
Oh no, no, no. It was a national strike.
So you had gotten candid instructions (?) from other people? What was the network like, I mean who coordinated that?
It was most uncoordinated, as you would think of coordination now, the trade union was. It was just people on strike. Each of the telephone systems had a … well, Southern Bell had a union, the Western Electric Installers had one union called the National Federation of … anyway it was Local 77, I can't remember what the name was … Local 77, that was the Installers, the Long Lines people in Western had a different union, the factories had a different union, the operating company, Southern Bell, Southwestern Bell, all of these had a different union, and they were loosely a part of the National Federal of Telephone Workers, but it was so very loose that any local could do anything that it wanted to, and our local covered about five or six states and had five or six thousand or maybe two or three thousand members, a pretty good size local in those days.
But Allen Haywood hadn't worked with telephone
That's right. Now, as the strike progressed, we got help. When I say help, it was mostly in the form of just coming by and supporting you on the picket line, talking to you and things like that, but CIO and the people I knew who were CIO members are very responsive to some of our needs. Some of us got part time jobs during the strike. Some CIO planner, maybe an AF of L, I don't know, but the CIO people, I think, took a good look at this group of militant telephone workers … I think when we went to them later asking for a charter, I think they responded to that request as a result of the strike and the militancy shown in the picket line.
I was asking some details about that because that was your first taste of a real strike … I mean yourself.
That's right.
And that seemed to push you personally from working as an installer to a more avid interest in the CIO as an organization.
That's right.
How did that happen? What kind of interest did you take after the contract was signed?
I became an active union member. I helped organize, but I was still just
a local guy … as we traveled, and the installers did travel from
telephone location to telephone location we talked to the operators
There was a strong move among all the workers then.
That's right. Our installers had found their way. They knew they wanted to go CIO. We already had a charter, but we were working in buildings where the telephone operators, lineman, and so forth were members of … well after that strike, the National Federation of Telephone Workers was reformed into the Communication Workers of America, CWA, and they were trying, I guess, to strengthen CWA and move it away from this company domination. We were trying, and they wanted to stay independent, we were trying to move these people out of the CWA into the CIO Telephone Workers Organizing Committee. So, it was that kind of organizing effort that I engaged in there for a while. But even at that point, I wasn't really dedicated to a life in the trade union movement. I was an installer. I would do most of my organizing on the job. I had not really decided that that is what I wanted to be … It just wasn't that strong. There was no question in my mind that … the CIO was the way for the people to go, that we needed a strong union, that we needed all of that, but I made no decision at that point to be an active strong leader in trade union movement or anything like that. It didn't happen that way then.
What happened was about
What union was this?
This is Local 77 Telephone Workers Organizing Committee
You are still working in this …
Oh yeah. I was very much a part-time Secretary-Treasurer, you know, and I didn't know anything about it. I took a correspondence course in bookkeeping so that I could be a good Secretary-Treasurer, and I stayed Secretary-Treasurer of that local until I went on the staff of CIO.
What made you want to go on the staff of CIO?
I don't know what made me want to. I got an offer. When I got back to
Fort Worth, they had not
They must have … did they observe you while you were forming that Industrial Union Council?
Oh sure.
Is that what precipitated the offer?
I am sure of that.
That was the only evidence of the kind of work that you did.
Well that plus helping other groups in strike. We had set up … there was
a strike in Pangburn Candy Company, two or three hundred women mostly
horribly abused by the company, organized in a union, and I helped the
packing house workers organize them, you know, part time, in my spare
time actually, and they went on strike. Now, you know, I was an
installer for the telephone company, I was Secretary-Treasurer of my
local, but I helped on a picket line and we set up, even before we got
the Industrial Union Council with the help of … oh some very liberal
Small Town.
Oh yes. The labor movement, we really got all the labor movement involved in this.
Other parts of the community too, or just …
Oh yes, other parts, sure.
Which ones?
Oh, we had … I'll never forget a lawyer and his wife, Jack and Margreat Carter, Willard Barr, was the editor of the Little paper, a few people in the black community became involved in it.
Did you do that kind of coalition work, or were you working with the labor?
At this point, we had formed … the League for Social Justice evolved out
as a kind of coalition that was going there between unions and liberals
and blacks, and we had regular monthly dinner meetings upstairs over a
Chinese restaurant. We couldn't meet in the restaurant, we couldn't meet
in the hotel, we couldn't meet anyplace because it was interracial. But
there was a Chinese Restaurant He wouldn't serve us in his restaurant,
but he had a place up over his restaurant that he let us use
And then you got hired?
And then I went on the staff.
Who hired you?
Bob Oliver. Bob Oliver was Regional Director of CIO then. It was the old CIO Southern Organizing Committee. Van Bittner was in charge of it. The CIO Southern Organizing Committee …
John Riffe?
John Riffe was maybe Vann's assistant or something. John was up above way up above me.
Texas was then in the Southeast region?
Well the CIO Southern Organizing Committee started over here, I guess, and went all the way to Texas. In fact, we had a few campaigns over in New Mexico during that time.
What's your first impression of going on CIO on the Southern Organizing Committee?
Elation, I guess, at the thought that I could do full time what I had nearly been doing full time anyway.
What about your perception of the organization. They had just been through two tough years with Operation Dixie.
I probably didn't know that much about that at
You said locally, when you worked for CIO, …
When I first worked for CIO, it was all within the state of Texas. At that point, it was all within Texas. Later, I did some work in Oklahoma, some work in New Mexico, some work in Louisiana, but at that point, they hired me, set me up with another guy in Fort Worth and we started organizing Fort Worth.
Who influenced you, or maybe it wasn't a person, maybe it was events to call yourself a devote socialist in 1948 or 1949?
In the coalition right after I became Secretary-Treasurer of my local and
started to … got back to Fort Worth and started attending the meetings
of the coalition with people like the Carters and Willard Barr and Ross
Mathews, business agent for the Machinist Union that had the big
Consolidated plant, aircraft factoryx … These
They were older?
Much older. I won't say much older. Yeah, they were older. None of us were real old. There were a few people down through there that had come with the CIO from the sit in strikes and were very active trade unionists back in the thirties and then when they started to set up an organizing committee they brought a number of those people South … there was a guy named Joe Sahan who was an UAW organizer …
A lot of the people came from the Mine Workers.
A lot of them came from the Mine Workers, a lot of them came from UAW. The real backbone of the old CIO Southern Organizing Committee, though were the miners. And you know this is normal, Phil Murray was President of CIO, the steel workers had been organized by the miners, there … they had done a pretty good job of organizing their industries and there were representatives now available to go help other people.
Plus John Lewis's influence too among a lot of people.
Oh sure, sure.
Was there anyone in Texas at the time though of the … I don't know caliber or influence of the way people talk like that about Van Bittner or John Wright or Walter Reuther for that matter. There wasn't one person like that who influences you.
No. Bob, Joe, an old gentlemen named Andy
Andy?
Hardesty. There is guy named Don Ellenger who is now dead, but at that time was very active in the trade union movement, but these people together with the Carter's and the Barr's and other people like that, they were older, they had read more, they had a much better education, and they kept pressing books at me. Books, ideas, you know …
People took an interest in you?
Yeah.
It sounds like local people, not …
That's right it was local people. Local people and the organizers who were down with the CIO at the time.
Did you know Walter Reuther?
Then? Oh no, no, no.
You were just in Texas.
That's right, that's right. I met Phil Murray about two years after … or maybe a year after I went on staff, the first time I had ever met him … Allen Haywood about the same time. It wasn't until I became coordinator of the Industrial Union Department that I had been able to sit down with John L. Lewis and talk.
So you are still cutting your teeth?
I still am.
What are some of the other things you remember.
You left in '54 right?
Yeah.
Five years you were with the CIO Organizing Department?
Right. In 1954 the merger talks between AFL-CIO were under way. I had five years of fighting the AF of L, I had five years of thinking about where I wanted to go. I didn't want to stay with a merged AFL-CIO. I had become very active in the Civil Rights struggle. I just couldn't see going off to merge the organization because I knew the AF of L representatives or at least the AF of L representatives that I knew did not share my ideas and dreams. I didn't want to be associated with them so, Jim Carey was Secretary-Treasurer of CIO and of the CIO Organizing Committee, I had met him a time or two. He, or somebody in his office called and asked me to transfer over from the CIO to the IUE. We had organized two or three plants for IUE at that time. It was a brand new union created out of the … as a result of the expulsion of UE from CIO, and it didn't have any representatives in the state. We had successfully organized two or three plants for IUE, and they needed a service representative and somebody to continue their organizing efforts. They were on their feet by this time financially, and they could afford to hire a couple of representatives, so they hired me and Red Purcell. We transferred over from the CIO to the IUE.
Are they now a member of the merged AFL-CIO?
They were a member of the merged AFL-CIO.
But you were uncomfortable working for them.
No, because, you know, it was an international union. It made its own policies; just being a member of the AFL-CIO doesn't …
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Before we go on with IUE because I think that is an important story, how UE was expelled and how IUE was formed. A few more questions about the CIO.
Okay.
You were on the organizing committee, or were you under the Regional Director or was there a difference?
There was no difference. I was a member of the staff of the CIO Organizing Committee. Each state in the South had a Director and Sub-Directors and I worked directly under Bob in Texas.
Who did Bob report to?
Well, Van Bittner until he died, and then for a short period of time a guy named Baldanzi was Director. He was camped, he was trouble.
Well he finally went to AFL, right? United Textile?
He went to UTW, right. Then John Riffe became the Director of the Southern CIO Organizing Committee.
So the State Director Bob Oliver reported to the Director of the Southern Organizing Committee.
Right.
And then he reported to Al Haywood and Phil Murray.
That's right.
Who were … well there are a couple of names I could throw at you … I'm interested in this … at this particular time, the role of liberal intellectuals like Lucy Rendolph Mason, for example, was a trouble shooter, she worked out of the Atlanta office, she went around to hot spots and she walked in … she was 55 or 60 years old and she did various things. Other intellectuals wrote like David Burgess. Were you aware of those kinds of roles a few played?
Oh sure, because they, in many cases, became involved in our organizing campaign as you know. We'd start an organizing campaign, we'd run into trouble, all kinds of trouble, then we'd have to call on these people … the specialists from the Atlanta office … the writers were always in and out. We had one guy who did publicity for just Texas but many times … I can't remember the guys name from the Atlanta office that helped me to write. Lucy would come in.
Lucy who?
Mason.
She came into some …
Yeah, into the area into the specific campaign … There was …
Is it amyth about her Virginia heritage in helping her get around to places you couldn't get. Is that the way it really was?
She made some beautiful contacts for us. There was another guy. He headed up a Department called Religion and Labor.
Wasn't …
Ramsey. What was his first name? Anyway, he would come in and try to muster church support for the organizing campaign. You were always getting somebody from outside to come in and help on things like that.
Besides assisting, did you feel like they were essential?
I don't know that I had a feeling there. I was told … I was young, and I was told that they were coming in to help, and I accepted it as help and in most cases it was help. The most help it was to me, it broadened my view of labor movement and the liberal movement because they weren't organizing, you were sitting around in the motel or a room someplace talking about the old times.
So besides affecting the campaign, they affected you personally?
In my individual life, that was their biggest contribution. I think they helped me a lot more in developing my ideas than actually on the organizing campaigns.
Can you remember say on Lucy Mason, how many times she came to Texas?
No, I have no idea. I came in contact with her maybe two or three times in those five years.
What about during those years any rank and file people that were part of campaigns. Do you remember particular people very vividly then for one reason or another?
Sure. You know I can hardly remember my own name, but I can recall numerous instances of extreme courage and dedication on the part of people inside the plant and people in the community. I am sure you don't want individual experiences, but …
Maybe we'll get some of those later.
But there were a lot of people …
You remember specific people?
Oh sure. In many cases they eventually became staff members during that period. I kept a lot of the old leaflets and old records and reports from that time because I just like to go back and look at them and think about the campaign in Louisiana, or in Corpus Christi. You know, you just like to look back occasionally.
Did you happen to … this is just kind of off the top of my head, but did you ever run into a fishermens strike during the early fifties that was being run by … I guess, by the fur and leather workers.
Down in Louisiana.
All around the coast, John Russell told me about a two year …
Yeah, I read about it. I wasn't involved in that. But I did read about it. In fact, it was during that period, and I don't remember where or when, I first met H. L. Mitchell, and I think he might have been involved in that.
I think he was working for the Meatcutters but maybe …
I think so. I don't remember.
Your transition to IUE-it makes sense the way you were disturbed by the merger within the organization and you went to work for an international. What kind of residual influence was there from UE. Were all the communist party people … they weren't around, right?
Well, they had no locals in Texas. I think they may have had one or two small units. You know, like electric, you have a master contractor, you have little tiny units scattered that come under national agreement. There may have been one or two UE units in Texas at that time that I wasn't aware of. One that I was aware of because somebody had wanted me to … asked me to go over and try to raid it, get out of UE and into IUE, and I told them I wasn't interested. There were too many unorganized people to organize, instead of raiding a union that was already established, and I just didn't do it.
So your primary commitment then was still to trade union work. I mean, it wasn't that you had gotten so involved with Civil Rights and other things that you were working more with coalition? You were working for IUE.
I was working for IUE, yes, I was involved in the Civil Rights thing, and
one of the understandings we had was that I could continue that
completely as a staff member for IUE. In fact, Carey encouraged
What kind of involvements would this kind of work mean?
Well, during the CIO days we worked real hard … most of it was just getting money together for the legal defense funds fight on what eventually became the Brown case. But then after that, oh in '55 and '56 actually trying to integrate the unions, insisting that we have our conventions, our State CIO Conventions in an integrated facility. There were just all kinds of … like, we organized a plant that was a former AF of L plant that had separate seniority lists, and we forced them to integrate the seniority list. I, you know, … putting non-discrimination clauses in union contracts for example and encouraging others to do it.
But you did start at home. I mean you started with your locals.
Absolutely.
Was the IUE, were most of those locals mostly white?
Most of them, yes. Remember, IUE now as factory workers go, was among the
better paid, more skilled workers, and there was an awful lot of whites
in the IUE plants. In fact a great majority.
Did you try to bring some of those people onto your staff with IUE?
We didn't have a staff. The only staff we had was me and Red Purcell.
You became Regional Director though, right?
Yeah, much later and over here.
But you were in Texas for say how long?
I was in Texas for about a year or a year and a half with IUE then they started picking me to more or less involve myself in other states, to trouble-shoot. I had got some experience at that point in negotiating, handling NLRB cases, arbitration cases, so they started lifting me out of Texas and sending me to Mississippi and Louisiana and Florida and places like that.
But you were still organizing and servicing locals and negotiating contracts.
That's right.
And grievances?
That's right.
You had full …
You weren't doing all of these at one time, but it was interesting. I thought, … they gave me an opportunity to get a very good trade union education because they allowed me to involve myself so much.
Were you aware of things in Texas similar to that League of Social
Justice on a state-wide level, like a Texas coalition, the Texas Observer.
Oh sure, sure.
Did you meet Larry Goodwin during those years?
Yeah, yeah, and Ronnie Dugger … Ronnie is still a good friend of mine, and Larry … Larry is at Duke isn't he … yeah, yeah.
He keeps doing the same work …
Sure, I knew all of those guys. Mrs. Randolph, who was the financial
angel for the Observer, is a great old lady. We had
quite a thing going then. It was during that period that the Democratic
party in Texas deserted the Democratic party and the only real tie we
had with the national party was through the various coalitions we had
going at that time.
So, you represented labor in the different coalition meetings. You along with other people.
Sure.
Were you becoming a spokesman in their eyes?
Oh gosh, I don't know. I was heavily
You were working under Red Purcell?
Well not really at this point with IUE. We … in CIO he was over me, when we transferred to IUE, we were just two representatives, that's all it was. We'd organize a plant, and he would negotiate a contract; the next one he would organize and I would negotiate the contract. In fact, it was kind of a co-worker kind of thing. But I was more active in the Civil Rights movement. I was more active in the State CIO Council. I was more active in the political action arm of the CIO. Red pretty well limited himself to organizing, and I went on the board of the State CIO Council, for example, and he did not. You know, things like that. At this point I was involved in a lot more different things than he was.
Were you still living in Fort Worth at the time?
Right.
So, did IUE grow in Texas?
Very much. It's a nice big solid union over there now.
You and Red Purcell took it from scattered locals …
From nothing actually. See there were no IUE locals when we first became
involved with IUE. While we were still with CIO we organized a few
plants for IUE
Did you find it harder … I mean, these were the fifties when things were tough, certainly tough in this state.
They were tough.
What was harder about organizing in the fifties than say in the late forties. You were younger in the forties so your perceptions have changed … but, I mean, was the political atmosphere tougher, or was the mood of the workers not as much pro union or what were the factors?
I found it very easy to organize the workers. Your opposition from the companies were … was horrible. They used a lot of goon squad tactics. They attempted to turn a community and the churches and you know groups like that against you. You were denied facilities, you know, for meetings. We held a hell of a lot of meetings under trees and in the dark and out in the woods and out on the roads … well in Texas too. It was hard and particularly since we were under direct orders and certainly agreed with these orders not to have segregated meetings. It is pretty damn hard to have an integrated meeting in East Texas or Louisiana in 1952 or 1953, when you were organizing a saw mill out in the middle of a rural area … it was hard, but fun.
Was it dangerous?
Looking back, I guess we were pretty stupid.
Yeah, it was dangerous, darned dangerous.
Did Pat ever tell you why don't you skip that one under the trees?
No, she was with me all the way. I guess I wouldn't have made it if she hadn't of been. She was tough … but there was a standard number of arrests for everything from … well, the arrest would say one thing, the arrest would really mean an integrated meeting or putting out leaflets or something like that … a few beatings along the way.
Were they Klan?
We ran into them occasionally. Not too often where I was.
But the mood I am trying to get at is different than Mitchell and those guys in 1934. I mean they met under trees, but it sounded more dangerous when they talk about the kind of meetings they had in 1934.
I don't know.
You weren't there in 1934?
I wasn't there.
It's a big jump to 1963, but I want to move along because I think … you were in Texas then for about 15 years.
We lived … I went to Texas in 1946, I guess, the latter part of '46
probably. Pat and I were married in 1947. They lived … Pat and the kids
lived in Texas until we moved over here in 1961. From '56 to '61, I
worked for IUE throughout the South. For a number of years I spent
nearly all of my time in Florida. They were
Why so much concentration on Florida? Were you Regional Director of IUE?
I was kind of in charge of the organizing efforts in Florida at that point. There was a lot of industry and a lot of heavy electrical industry moving into Florida and they asked me to go down and you know organize the plants like GE and Westinghouse, and Sperry and Strombery Carlson and people like that.
Did you know Jim Carey?
Yeah.
So he was still …
Oh sure, he was President all during the time that I was with IUE. But it was virtually an impossible place to take your children. You know, the school situation was bad; the living conditions were bad. Florida was going through a real boom in population growth, and schools were like half-day things. You'd go half days to school, and it was just a bad situation.
Secretary Treasurer of IUE, Al Hartnett, at the time, tried many times to get me to move my family down there, but I just couldn't see it.
You didn't work with migrants or black workers
That's right.
And they were mostly just white workers?
Mostly.
Did you come in contact with migrants?
It was in Florida when I resumed my interest in migrants. In my early CIO days, I have done a considerable amount of organizing in Texas, along the Texas coast, and even out around El Paso, I saw and became involved as a part of the Civil Rights struggle some of the problems of migrants. In fact, you know, when you had a day off you couldn't drive all the way to Fort Worth, and a campaign was slack, well a lot of times you'd just drive out and learn things. You know, see people and talk to people. So, I developed an interest in, and I think this probably comes from my own rural background, an interest in problems that they had in the Texas valley, but there wasn't much that we could do about it. We did it through the CIO Council, we did what we could, but it wasn't a lot. But then when I got back to Florida … when I got to Florida as kind of a State Director for IUE, I continued my involvement in the Civil Rights movement, in the political movement, and they were involved with migrants and that is when I first became involved with what we call the eastern stream of migrants, but not very heavily involved.
You were learning.
Learning is right.
Was anyone working with you then?
Yes, the National Council of Churches was doing some work, The American Friends Service Committee was doing some work. Most of it was service type work and not organized.
What happened in IUE to make you move on? In 1961 you were … '56 to '61 you were in Florida and then you were with IUE for about two more years …
Yeah in '61 they asked me to transfer to the Southeast and become, I think it was Regional Director was the title. The District of IUE stretched all the way from Philadelphia to Florida. They set up a southern division and I guess they called me Regional Director. They asked me to move over here and take charge of IUE's operations in Virginia and south, and actually told me that I could move any place I wanted to. So Pat and the kids had been a habit now for a number of years, were traveling with me during the summer if I travelled, or stayed with me if I was in one location, came over and we spent the summer together. At this point I was servicing a number of locals all the way from Virginia to Florida. We picked Charlotte, and I came over here as Regional Director of IUE.
You told me once before that you picked Charlotte because of its airport?
We had to have a place where you could hop a plane and go someplace fast
in case of a strike situation. We also had young children. Linda was in
school and I think maybe Brenda had had a year of school. Anyway, three
young
So you moved to Charlotte in 1961.
Right.
And you were able to stay closer to home then? You didn't have to do the Fort Worth - Florida…
I did a lot of travelling, but I had staff. I had 12 or 14 staff people who were working under my direction and they did the day to day stuff. I still went in on campaigns. I still went in to handle NLRB. cases, or arbitrate agreements, or negotiate a contract. I still did all that, but at least I was home some of the time, and I had an office here for the first time in my life.
In 1961, then, that was the first time you had staff under you really?
No from '56 to '61, and particularly when I was in Florida, I had four or
five people working
Did you make an effort during this time to bring in black workers into the IUE, or was the work force so skilled where you were trying to organize it, that it was usually higher skilled, mostly white work force.
The most you could do on that during this period … you remember, your basic thrust is organizing already existing plants. So in the organizing end of it, you had no control. You organized whoever the company hired. Now when you negotiate the contract, you bore down on it very strongly … integrated seniority lists, nondiscrimination cluase, hire more blacks, hire more blacks, hire more blacks. And where we had strength we were able to accomplish a great deal, yes.
So after two years as Regional Director here with about 14 staff people, you moved on to IUD?
I didn't move on. I stayed on IUE's payroll and … as a member of the IUE staff right up until 1968, but I was on loan to the IUD. What happened they decided to set up the IUD Coordinated Organizing Campaign, now remember Reuther is President, they've merged, Reuther is President of the Industrial Union Department, and Jim Carey is Secretary Treasurer of the Industrial Union Department, and they decided they wanted to do some coordinated organizing among the industrial union …
Jim Carey is Secretary-Treasurer of the Industrial Union and the National President of IUE.
That's right, and … so they decided they
What was the one industry?
Textiles. Textiles, some attention given to wood, and all of the textile
thing fell in the southeast Textiles was here of course and then the
wood thing was in this area also, furniture. The first idea was to put a
coordinator in each of the areas, a special coordinator for textiles,
and a special coordinator for furniture, wooden furniture. They had a
number of meetings and Bill Pollack and John Chupka of Textile wanted me
to take over the textile drive, the industry drive. Nick Zonarich was
the Director of organizing and was put in charge of this. IUE wanted me
to stay closely allied with them and was willing to release me and even
continue to pay my salary if I would take on the southeastern drive. So
I compromised. They decided that I would be the coordinator of both
textile and wood, the regional coordinator for the industry drive. So I
became the coordinator not only of
Because they wanted you to head the southeastern regional?
That's right.
Are you tired?
No.
Okay. Just a few things about those IUE years in Florida from '61 to '63. Any particular campaigns come to mind that seemed very important. Did you learn things about the various industries, say about GE in Florida, things that you thought about when you got to J.P. Stevens later … you know, when one fell and you understand a snow ball effect, for example.
Not in Florida. Of course, you know, I was working in all the other southeastern states at the same time I was working in Florida. I think I learned a great deal from organizing … oh, for example, helping on the GE plant in Rome, Georgia, the GE plant in Roanoke, Virginia, negotiating a contract for the American Boxch-Arma in Columbus, Mississippi.
What year was this?
Oh gosh!
I'll have to look at your files.
You'll have to look at the file. Now, I don't
These were the IUE years?
These were the IUE years. I don't know that there was any one. You gather experiences, techniques, meet people during nearly every organizing campaign that lends something to your actions in the future, you know. You run into situations …
What about from the industry's point of view, the leverage points in industry like, I mean, I don't know as much about GE as say I do about Stevens. Did you have to break them?
GE was always a tough one.
That's what I thought.
Awful tough to organize, and they did call on me … They did not call on
the community for support, they did enlist the white citizens council in
their campaign, they did call on this jack legged preacher, … here this
guy, what's his name, George Heaton, calls himself an industrial
psychologist. He is a former Baptist preacher who would go into a place
where you were organizing and after the company had pitched a party and
got the workers about half drunk, he'd come in a preach a sermon, you
know. You had those kind of things, and you had them in all industries.
You had it over in the Vickers campaign in Jackson, Mississippi, You had
the company, with the aid of the people in the community, putting out a
picture of Jim Carey dancing with a beautiful black woman, who was, I
believe, the wife of some Ambassador from an African country, They used
all that stuff, and they used
But there are some differences in what the industry can do, for example, Stevens can shift their work to other towns.
Oh yeah.
And that makes them tougher when they can transfer work?
That's right, but so could GE, and so could Westinghouse and so could a lot of others, you know. So you recognize those tactics, you've understood those problems from working in other industry.
Did the assignment in 1963 seem a little overwhelming? You had to head a
textile drive, the key thrust of IUD's decision, when you had to head
the southeast
Oh, it was a job. It was hard getting organized. We hired a bunch of young organizers, put me back to where I was a lot of years before when I was young and came on the staff and somebody helped me. We hired a lot of young people, we had a lot of experienced organizers that were transferred in from other locations.
Who were some of those people? Among the exerienced ones, the young ones were people like Michael Lozoff and Gene Guerro, right?
Yeah. Well, no, they were kind of later on when we got to the migrant thing. See right at the start In addition to everything else, a year or two later, we started the migrant organizing campaign which was just another industry campaign like textile, only much more exciting and heart breaking in the end.
Who were some of the older organizers that were assigned down here that were important, especially when the Stevens campaign started?
It was always hard to tell who was actually assigned and who you were
working with. I wouldn't want to say this guy was actually working with
us, when he was actually working for his international union … but
people like Joe Kirk. Joe Kirk is presently maybe a sub-director of the
steelworkers union, was on the old CIO Organizing Campaign. I had met
him first in Rome, Georgia when we were organizing the GE plant … most
helpful in getting this thing started off. Herbie Williams at that time
was the
But all of them … even though they were assigned from various internationals or from the IUE … IUD Department, you were in charge of them?
That's right.
And you coordinated with Reuther or with …?
Well with Nick Zonarich, the line was kind of like this. Nick was the Director of Organizing for IUD. He reported directly to Walter Reuther and Jim Carey. I was, of course, a coordinator. There were five of us. We would have regular coordinator meetings and discuss strategies.
You mean in addition to Boston and Detroit?
That's right. In each area location, we had a committee composed of Regional Directors, or somebody assigned from the participating international union. So you've got an awful lot of help from these people, and they would meet periodically … well, solve jurisdictional problems, shift staff as it was needed… mostly giving good technical help to me in their particular industries.
Were there strong feelings from people outside textiles that it was, you
know, that it wasn't necessarily the right industry? I mean, was there
I think … I don't know if there was consensus, but there was certainly a majority feeling almong all of the unions, as they were represented by the committee that was set up down here, and of course, in Washington when we would meet there, that textile was an extremely important industry and therefore we should conduct that drive and give it priority even maybe over the regional drive. People like Pat Grayhouse and Joe Mooney, who were our liaison with UAW — Pat is Vice-President of UAW, Joe was his assistant, — felt strongly about the Stephens campaign. Yeah, I think if there wasn't consensus, there was certainly a majority opinion that this was it. I don't know of anybody who opposed it.
Did you have the money that you needed?
Relatively well funded at the beginning, yes.
And that was 1965?
That was '63, '64.
You started with Stevens right off the bat.
Probably within six months after the decision was made, Stevens was
pretty well tagged as the target. Now this was the result of hundreds of
thousands of leaflets put out at various textile plants to feel out the
interest of the people, because it wasn't just us sitting here saying
Stevens is the target, it could
So, it was both?
It was both, right. It was both. If during that period of time there had been less interest among the workers at Stevens than there had been say at Burlington, I am sure we would have found a way to make it Burlington.
I am real interested in coming back later and talking about this period in detail because of what is happening at Stevens now in Roanoke Rapids and what happened already in South Carolina in Wallace. Once again, the Stevens campaign occurs, but we will have to come back to that because that is a big story and I need to do some of that research. In '65 you say you took on the migrant drive.
I believe it was '65, right.
Was Stevens in full gear?
Oh yeah.
Was that because the young guys like Lozoff and Guerro that you hired?
Did they push you into that or
Oh no, no, no, no, no.
You sought them out.
Yes, we sought them out, yes.
The migrant thing probably …you know, how does something like this start … you look back and you don't really know how it started because different people were doing different things aimed at the same direction. Reuther, of course, had a strong interest in farm workers. Nick Zonarich always wanted to organize the very poorest more depressed people. He always wanted us to bear down on them. I had had exposure in both the Texas valley and in Florida to the migrants, and I was pushing strongly for it. There were others, churches, people that we worked with politically that had an interest in this.
Had Chavez became more nationally known ?…
Not really at that time. At that point, Chavez was running a … I think it
was probably an OEO funded community action type thing that was
organizing farm workers, yes, but hadn't achieved the stature that he
presently has, and it was not within the labor movement. I can't
remember on the west coast who headed up the farmworkers the AFL-CIO had
a farm workers campaign going. I think it was based with strong support
in the Philipino community and had been for many years, there were a lot
of Chicanos and blacks in it. I just can't remember that guy, I didn't
know him that well. He left and Franz Daniels
Did they join different unions? Did they join different internationals?
This time it was an IUD card they were signing, then later the decision was made that you involve the Laborers International Union, so we switched over to the Laborers International Union cards, and they became involved. A man named Bud Loeberg our liaison with the laborers… came in occasionally. Vurnie Reed is still with the Laborers Union, a really nice guy … got involved with it, very excited about it, but it fell apart for some reason.
You signed up …
We signed up 25,000 or 30,000 or more maybe …
But they didn't …
No I think someplace along there the decision was made by Reuther to put all the money and effort, everything that they had on the west coast instead of here, and they turned this over to the Packing House Workers Union and it has fallen flat on its face after that.
It was out of your hands?
It was out of my hands. I was specifically instructed not to involve myself in it whatsoever. I got plenty pissed off about that.
What about your staff that had been travelling with them?
Well they first were transferred over to the Laborers or worked with the Laborers and then they were pretty well dissipated …
And they were pretty angry too?
I hope they were. I know they were. In fact I
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
Go ahead and say it anyway.
I was never able after that to look at Walter Reuther and see God. You
know, he was now a labor leader, he was now a man who made political
decisions instead of human decisions, he was now a man who would desert
30,000 or more people and that's the way I felt about … he was a man
now, he was no longer God. At one time he was and there were a few gods
in my life and he was one of them, but after that I was never able to
feel the same. Before that, in Washington, I had an opportunity to sit
in the same room with Reuther and listen to him talk and talk to him. It
was a great pleasure. After that I really
Were you in on those meetings that made that decision?
No. The decision was made … I was called into Washington, I went into a meeting and Jack Conway and Ralph Helstein, I believe it was Ralph from the Packing House Workers were present. They took me into the room and Conway laid the law out to us that we were no longer involved with the migrant campaign, that we were to turn over all books and records and cards and everything else to the Packing House Workers and that was it. I blew my stack. I cussed them out and I raised cain. I couldn't change the decision and there wasn't anything I could do about it. I could have quit. I started to, but I also was aware that I still had the Stevens thing, I had the area thing going, that if I did quit it wouldn't affect anything, but it caused me to do a lot of thinking, and I did that … It was that that moved me where I am today, it started the movement.
It sounds like that was the most bitter feeling you had for the kind of standard criticism of labor … a top level decision handed down.
My wife couldn't live with me for weeks after that. Nobody could live with me for weeks after that. I was a very angry person, and I didn't hide any of it.
Were you angry at those individuals, or
Oh, it was all mixed together. It was a period in my life that I don't even like to remember. I was … I felt awful bad because I knew that we could do something for those workers. I knew that we knew how to organize them. I knew we knew how to set up grievance procedure, and negotiate contracts, and conduct strikes. The people were with us. We had had some successful strikes in the Belle Glade area, by the union movement in many cases. So I knew we could do a job. So I felt awful bad because we weren't given the opportunity and that we were having to leave the people. I was angry. Angry at Conway because he was a vehicle that brought the word to me, angry at Walter Reuther for making the decision, angry at anybody else that I didn't even know I was angry at.
Did you tell Reuther what you thought?
I sure did.
What did he say?
He was very tolerant … didn't blow his stack when I cussed him out.
Was he defensive?
I don't really remember to much about that conversation. You know, I had reverted back to nearly being an animal at that point. So angry that I couldn't think.
Then you came back here.
Came back here and worked even harder on the things I was doing because I couldn't do anything.
But you kept moving and that was about '67 when that happened.
That's right.
And about a year later you left the IUD.
Yeah.
I guess you left IUE.
Yeah, I left IUE at that point. There were other things.
You were still with IUE?
I was still with IUD. I was still with IUD, but still with IUE, yes. I was still on the payroll of IUE, still coordinating for IUD, and then of course the Memphis thing happened when Martin was killed. The State, County (AFSCME) professed a strong desire to organize in my area and became involved in the IUD effort. The sanatation workers in Charlotte had contacted me at the office wanting a union. Joe Ames, the Secretary-Treasurer of State County had been down two or three times. IUD at that time was losing support from its international unions. I had been with it for five years, the staff was well trained … I was bored. The migrant thing had been terminated and I was back to this. It had become routine, I needed action, and State County offered me the opportunity to get back into the real struggle not only for unions, but for Civil Rights. It looked like a union that was really willing to fight and I needed a fight pretty bad then, and they offered me the job. I went in to talk to Nick; I went in to talk to Paul Jennings. I told Paul that it would necessitate me severing from IUE. I wouldn't ask them to make it a loan. The loan situation from IUE to IUD was satisfactory but it didn't seem proper to do that with State County, so I severed after all those years.
You could have had fights where you were couldn't you? I mean, Stevens wasn't won?
It wasn't a fight. Stevens had become a long series of NLRB legal cases, miles of testimony, miles of unfair labor practice charges.
Did it look hopeless?
No, it didn't look hopeless at all. It just was a legal battle, and I needed track action. You know, I needed direct action. I tried in many cases to say, you know, screw the NLRB, let's go out and organize like they did in the thirties. Let's organize and strike and come hell or high water we will either win or lose, but the legal thing was just tearing us apart and always will. It just is not the way to organize unions.
So that is another element that caused you to change jobs?
That's right. I was getting away from NLRB by going with State County because they weren't covered by the NLRB. I was getting away from being a lawyer instead of an organizer. I was getting away from solving labor union problems through the courts instead of by direct action, and I wanted direct action.
So it was not only the autocratic level of a Reuther kind of decision on
migrants, it was a direction that certain kinds of union activity had
taken legally
That's right.
And it was your particular situation at IUD.
That's right, But also, everything was colored by my bitterness going
back a couple years to the migrant
So you went with AFSCME in '69.
'68.
'68, when you were in Memphis during that big garbage workers strike, were you active? You weren't the key organizer, were you?
No. I was an absolute nothing. I was a support person like thousands of other people were. This was an AFSCME thing. I was there because I knew some people who had some talents, but no, I was not a key person.
Who were the key AFSCME people in Memphis?
Gosh, I don't know. During that time my association, what little bit I
had, was working with Civil Rights leaders, Martin Luther King and other
people like that and meeting occasionally with Joe Ames
Did you meet with King and Civil Rights people?
Well, all during my IUE days and my IUD days, I was involved in various
marches in Selma and Birmingham, and I helped organize the march on
Washington in '63. So I knew Martin Luther King well and intimately
during all this. So it wasn't that I got acquainted with him in Memphis,
it was that I was there probably because I had a feeling for him.
So you went to Memphis primarily because of your relationship with Civil Rights leaders, not your trade union position? AFSCME didn't need you? or they didn't call you to come?
Well they needed support from everybody. Now this is like on the first
march, one that resulted in a little disturbance. Martin called it off,
if you remember that. They needed support, but they didn't need actual
involvement in the strike situation as much as they did just broad
support from people outside, Of course, I would have gone simply because
I was the Coordinator of IUD and because Nick Zonarich was going and so
forth, but it wasn't that kind of involvement, And of course, the fact
though that this was one of a continuing series of things that I had had
going for years with Martin Luther King and Andy and the others caused
me to want to be there. And then of course, a week or two later,
whenever it was when they had the next march and he was killed, I wasn't
there. I can't remember why I wasn't there. Some business kept me from
being there. But it was his death that drew me awful close to State
County and the plight of the workers, plus the fact that constant
pressure here in Charlotte from sanitation workers and water department
workers wanted the union here. So I was very receptive at this point for
that kind of a change. Also, I wanted to get away from National Labor
Relations Board because I was too embarrassed by some of Meaney's
statements and because I wanted more action and IUD was not getting
enough support, not
Besides the action, did you think you would have more freedom?
Not really more freedom because I was very very free under Nick, and with IUD. I couldn't have had more freedom. No, I really questioned whether I would have as much because I had seen Jerry Wurf in action, but not closely. I didn't know him, but I knew I was taking on a few problems. I didn't realize how many problems I was taking on.
So did he hire you, Jerry Wurf?
Well actually, Joe Ames and Jerry's assistant did the negotiating - Bob Hastings I believe it was. I didn't see Jerry until I actually had gone to work, and that was probably the second or third time I had ever met him. It was certainly the first chance I had to have a conversation with him, and it wasn't that lengthy. He just said "glad to have you aboard" sort of thing.
You were hired as Southern Regional Director?
That's right.
And he let you locate in Charlotte because you lived here, and because they were down here already and because of the Charlotte sanitation workers?
That's right.
This was a natural place to stay.
It was natural, that's right. The only other place that would have been
logical would have been Atlanta
You were there for about a year?
Until Christmas of '69.
Not even a year and a half. What were the major strikes or the major activity besides Chapel Hill?
Well, you had the Charlotte sanitation strike it was a city strike. Actually, it involved a lot more than sanitation workers. It was a good one, it resulted in a memorandum of agreement and very closely resembled a contract. The following year, probably my most important contribution, or one that I had a part in at least, was rebuilding Memphis after Martin Luther King's death.
The union was shattered, the contract was a couple of pages. It didn't cover basic union things that are normally in union contracts, and I spent a great deal of time during that year in Memphis actually engaged in negotiations, rebuilding the local. We brought it up from a few hundred to about six or seven thousand. We negotiated an agreement, did it without a strike. That probably was the most important thing although there were others that were as exciting — an organization of Sanitation Workers in Jackson, Mississippi went on strike in the city in the middle of the day. And organizing we did a lot of organizing that year Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Florida.
It was a beautiful exciting year and then back to
Do you think of Memphis as your primary contribution, as the most important thing regionally?
I think probably so, yes,-to bring that out of the shambles that it was in and get an agreement that still holds. I think it would really have to be judged on not just what you do at the moment but on how long it goes, how long it will last after that. Many of the involvements with State County fell apart after I left for one reason or the other, and I feel bad about that. Not that I feel like I could have kept them together when other people couldn't, but I just never liked to see one that I organized fall down. But the Memphis thing did hold although I don't know how much it is holding right now.
What about the others in Jackson?
Jackson, I think, fell apart; Charlotte fell apart after I left, There
was a series of strikes, of losing strikes, that resulted in not having
any union,
As you were coming near the end of being with AFSCME in Christmas, 1969
you had been involved in a lot of different things in the sixties, both
with IUD and then with AFSCME. A lot of labor history is written about
big strike upheaval periods, like the Pullman strike and the
No.
But you were involved in the sixties when there was a general upheaval time in the society.
Oh with the students through the SSOC involvement and with all the young people, especially the young people that worked with me in the migrant thing, the whole Civil Rights thing. I missed very little in the Civil Rights movement from '47 to today … All of that, yes, I was a part of that.
Did those kind of events and people that were involved in these movements, push you away from the labor movement as well as the specific things we talked about? I mean, a lot of those people weren't in the labor movement that you worked with; the people that you just mentioned-students, civil rights leaders, community leaders.
Throughout my labor days probably more than 50% of my time was spent
outside the labor movement anyway, working in Civil Rights and various
other causes. I have used my role in labor …
In 1970 you left the State County, which we talked about at some length, in a previous interview and then you had about nine months there when you were in limbo before you started the Sharecroppers Fund.
Six months.
You talked a little bit about that the other time working in Charlotte, neighborhood organizing. What things pushed you to the Sharecroppers Fund? Did you need a job?
No.
Did you want to …
I think the migrant thing caused my mind to go back to my childhood when
I was rural, and through all these years with the labor movement. Of
course, in the South it was basically a rural movement too, you know.
You were organizing factories in small towns, you were organizing people
in many cases who lived on the land and commuted to work, and had a
horse and a cow and a field and so forth. So I'd stay
Prime years.
That's right, and I had that opportunity. There was also the fact that it
was nearly forced on me, I wasn't about to go to work for anybody and
then ask for a leave of absence a month later and go to jail to serve my
jail sentence. So I wasn't about to go to work for anybody on a
permanent basis during that time. It gave me a chance to do a lot of
thinking, a lot of talking, I made a lot of colleges and talked to
people about labor and Civil Rights, and the South. The more I thought,
the more I felt like I really needed to get to the basics of some of
America's problems and the basics in the rural areas. That's where the
city problems start, and that's where they are going to have to be
solved. You are going to continue to have ghettos
Then this opportunity came along. I approached it and I accepted the position [Executive Director] with many reservations which I made known to the Board of NSF. I only accepted it really for a year, a try out period with full understanding that I would help them reorganize and they did need some reorganizing. They needed some real attention to be given to directions of the staff, what they were and what they should be. I agreed to do that, but with the understanding at the end of a year that reorganization was completed, I could go on back to the labor movement. That really is what they expected me to do, I think that may have been what I expected to do in a way, but that year just convinced me that what I needed to do with a few remaining productive years, if there were any at all, is to do it from here. [the NSF]
Did you travel a lot that first year? Did you see a lot of rural areas in the South? Is that what convinced you?
That first year that is about all I did … was to go to projects, look for
problems, talk to people about solutions find out where NSF should
direct its attention. And the only way you could find that out is the
same way that we will ever find out what
Do you put a lot of hopes in the co-ops? How can NSF become meaningful besides the way its network and its political contacts work?
I see a need for a Graham Center, where people can get together and people can train, where people can trade ideas, where people can spend some time in an appropriate atmosphere to really discuss their problems and come to some kind of an idea as to how they want to solve them. So I see it as an important facility. I don't see it as the major thrust of NSF. I see our work out in the field with local farmers as the major thrust, but I see the need for this and the things that can be done here to make this other more possible.
Do you feel like when you are at the Graham Center today, and you are travelling among the other co-ops that working with farmers and working with the labor movement are linked together?
Absolutely. I see so much value in the labor movement and the people that
are in the labor
That's an hopeful view of the labor movement, and I hope its right.
That's right. Now it doesn't mean that you don't take two steps back and one step forward. But its an organization that is devoted to social change. I mean that's its purpose. That's right, that's its purpose.
It'll get off of the track sometimes, but there will always be somebody to bring it back sooner or later.
You have given me a lot of good insights into the different areas of your
life. I want to go back another time to get names of rank and file
leaders that you remember in particular strike because then I think I
can use those names with your own research and your records to get some
good insights about why certain things failed and didn't go further. But
I think this
Very good.
END OF INTERVIEW