Re: [Redbadbear] Unions [and various related matters]

That's a very interesting perspective.  I got into Workers Education Local
189 about 1978 or so.  At that time, I was on the Navajo Res. I had belonged
to AFT many, many years earlier -- late 50s well into the 60s -- mostly as
an at-large member of Local 1010, Phoenix, when my close friend, Bill
Karnes, was its long-time president. [I also voted for it at one point in
Seattle.] Bill was also a national VP of AFT who was very friendly to Mine
Mill, my major union affiliation.  Glen Parrish, another national VP of AFT,
became a friend when I taught  for a year at Wisconsin State, Superior --
just before Eldri [who he knew] and I married and went into Mississippi
[Summer of '61.] I continued my 1010 membership for a long time. They were
one of the few outfits who gave me Life Insurance when I was in the South.
[Bill, BTW, is a cousin of Steven Zunes, the peace activist -- but  vastly
older than Steven, of course.]  Shanker hadn't gotten his hooks into AFT
yet -- not in those days.

We initially knew Steven when he was just an extremely rambunctious little
tyke, whose folks were at Tougaloo for a year. [We have since renewed our
friendship and he visited us here about a year ago.]  Ethel Mae Taylor,
whose nephew [David Sarvis] plays the Eastern mining boss in Salt of the
Earth, was also at Tougaloo.

Anyway, I really liked 189 when it was totally independent.  I was a
national board member from the Northern Plains [North Dakota] at one point
and got to a few of its meetings.Then some folks in 189 pushed hard for some
sort of national union affiliation.  It came down to voting for CWA which I
opposed.  But that won out -- and CWA did nothing for 189 [wouldn't even
give us real cards and considered 189 an "associate member" of CWA. In time,
university educators in 189 pushed for the merger with University and
College Labor Education Association to become UALE.  I was one of those who
voted unsuccessfully against merger.  I continue to belong to UALE, but it
isn't the same.  Nice folks, all, but too Goddamned academic and stuffy.

Best-

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR]
www.hunterbear.org

When you cut to the bone  and cut away the college degrees, academic and
other titles, published books and articles, ours is essentially a working
class and Indian family.  We consistently join unions  -- and we always
support them with the greatest vigor.


It's critical to always keep fighting -- and to always remember that, if one
lives with grace, he/she should be prepared to die with grace.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Connexions" <CornetJoyce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <Redbadbear@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <Redbadbear@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <marxist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "socunity" <socunity@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 10:32 AM
Subject: Re: [Redbadbear] Unions


>
> >
> >I have three comments to make on unions:
> >
> >1]  After I got out of the Army,  at the beginning of 1955  and still
> >extremely young, I have never worked anywhere without carrying at least
> >one union card.  If a collective bargaining contract [or a bona fide
> >comparable understanding] did not exist, I sowed my seeds and did my best
> >to achieve
> >it.  Sometimes I was successful.
> >
> >2]  Every union to me, including craft organizations, has some
> >revolutionary potential.  Of course, industrial unionism -- militant and
> >democratic and sensibly radical --  is My Thing.  But I have said
> >countless times, that any real union is better than none.  My
> >youngest  daughter's [Josie] special
> >friend is an up and coming IBEW activist.  I'm impressed.
> >
> >3]  I am not writing off appropriate political parties and political
> >action and litigation, but my basic faith lies in the working class --
> >organized, unionized.
> >
> >Yours, Hunter [Hunter Bear], UAW -- and United Association for Labor
> >Education [I came into UALE, the result of a merger,  via Workers
Education
> >Local 189.  189 had broken away from AFT and gone independent].
> >
> >HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR]

      Connexions to Hunter Bear:
>
> I was a member of local 189 AFT - a "national local" founded by A.J. Muste
> et al. My office was the mail drop for 189 when they conducted a campaign
> against the "phase 2" wage freeze program of the Ford adminstration which
> the AFL supported. We put out a button with a picture of Archie Bunker
with
> the slogan "Only Dingbats Support Phase 2." The progressive Archie Bunker
> production company threatened to sue but backed down at the prospect of
> having Archie sue a union. One woman was wearing an Archie button in a
> Washington restaurant when George Meany and Al Barkan of COPE entered.
> Meany spotted the button and loved it and asked his son-in-law Barkan if
it
> was "one of ours." Barken awkwardly reminded Meany that the AFL was FOR
> phase 2. Al Shanker swore he'd get rid of 189 upon taking power and as I
> recall he did just that.
> CJ
>
>
>
>
>





"[C]apital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and 
dirt."
--Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Chapter 31

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