Rob Kall: No
wonder that the unions are just flailing and failing now! There is a great quote you have in here from
Frederick Douglas that I have to read, and it goes just like this:
" Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate
agitation are people who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want
rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the awful roar
of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical
one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power
concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out what people will submit to, and you
will find out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed
upon them , and these
will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they
oppress. "
Staughton Lynd: You like that? (laughs)
And as I say in the book: imagine a local trade union in the Midwest in
a community like Youngstown, where there is a substantial African American
Community, but the whole tone, the majority tone of the community, is set by
White immigrants from Eastern Europe, and Italy, and the Catholic Church that
has represented them over the years. And
in that community, my friend the late Ed Mann said "Now, I don't like to read
to people, but I want to read you these words," and he read exactly the words
that you've quoted, and then said "We've been listening to politicians all
morning saying next to nothing, but I'm telling you that I'm going down that
hill to occupy that US Steel headquarters, and maybe some of you would like to
come with me." And people sprang to
their feet, charged out the door, ran down the hill, broke in the door, and
occupied the building. It was quite a
day.
Rob Kall: That's change! That's how it happens. It doesn't happen by some representative of
the union saying "Don't do anything, because we made a deal and now we're
getting screwed anyway." You know? What you're also writing about, the
Archbishop, Romero, he stood up to a lot of people, a lot of administrators who
said "You can't do that." Apparently, at
least the Pope who he was Archbishop under gave him some encouragement and
support.
Staughton Lynd: Initially, yes. And then there was a change in the Papacy,
and Romero had the experience of holding in his arms the blood-soaked body of
the first young man that he had consecrated as a Priest. And when he went to Italy to speak to the new
Pope, he took with him pictures of this young man who had been not only
murdered, but brutally murdered. The
Pope said "Well, didn't they say he was a Communist?"
And
Romero said "Yes. They said that."
And
the Pope said "Well, Mr. Romero, I am directing you to create a better
relationship with the government of El Salvador."
So,
(laughs), that was no longer encouragement from the top.
Rob Kall: Yes.
And you say a page later in your book that you came away from this
struggle with another conviction as well, that "Only local unions, not any
national union, or federation of national unions, could be looked to for
visionary energy and seeds of change."
Staughton Lynd: That's right.
There was such a local union, at least one, here in Youngstown when we
first came. It was Local 1462 of the
Steelworkers. Above the union hall were
written the words "Home of the Rank and File."
The two men on account of whom my wife and I moved to Youngstown were
President and Vice-President of the Local, and they put up a fight, but they
lost. The mill closed, and we weren't
able to re-open it.
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