It worked
by John Hedgecoth

I attended a funeral Friday for Iowa labor leader and political activist Chuck Weed, who was a big help to the congressional campaign I worked on in 1996. I wanted to pay my respects to a person who volunteered his time for me. I ended up getting a lesson worth relating.

Chuck was in his early seventies. He grew up on a farm in Colorado and graduated high school during the depression. His first job was with the Civilian Conservation Corps. He came to Iowa when he heard John Deere needed workers, and worked there until 1942, when the Army called. After World War II, he returned to the plant and helped the United Auto Workers expand their membership substantially. He was a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, every year organizing a holiday cookie-baking drive during which thousands of cookies were delivered to the Iowa Veterans Home.

Why the obit? Only to set up the lesson. After the service I decided to stop by the UAW hall to see the rest of Chuck's army of retirees for the campaign, hoping to show them a photo of my new baby.

I pulled up and parked among Town Cars and Caddies -- not a single import among them -- all polished up for the day. I took a chair with the retirees and looked around. I didn't recognize the faces, but I knew them. Paunchy, over-60 men, many in tattered suits, accompanied by their hunched, tired wives carrying bowls of macaroni salad or jello fruit salad. They were not unlike members of my own family.

I discovered many of the retirees had worked with my father when he was a UAW member at the Harnischfeger crane plant 20 years ago. Others knew my uncle, who worked at the FMC plant across town.

When 1982 brought the verdict on Reaganomics and all the plants closed, these boys simply retired early. The cranes, the tractors, FMC, all left. This town, like hundreds of others in the rust belt, scrambled to reinvent itself as something other than an industrial center.

But these boys, the ones at Chuck's funeral, they've been here all the while. While my father and 3000 other people here suffered multiple layoffs and pay cuts in the 1980s, and their children struggled with a greatly revised set of expectations about life, these boys hung around.

They stayed in more than a physical way. They remained loyal. They kept paying their union dues. They kept playing cards at the VFW, they kept making cookies. They kept buying new cars and taking vacations with their three monthly pension checks (union, company and government).

They stayed with the politics of FDR and Truman, which they believe had built their way of life, and that's why they helped me put up 500 lawn signs in an afternoon.

Chuck Weed continued to serve his country and his fellow workers, for one uncomplicated reason. He stayed bacause things worked for him. The country needed him, he served, and was repaid. the company needed him, he worked hard, and was rewarded. The laborers wanted a better life -- shorter hours and the like -- he gave it to them and they repaid him. The system functioned for them. And still they are among us, believing.

They do not know downsizing. They do not over extend themselves on credit. They do not believe a tax cut is the best thing govenment can give them.

Their working lives were spent in a time when the the fabric of this culture was clean, strong, thick. They made their contributions and were given what was due them.

That basic bargain built America. I am left to ask whether it continues to be respected, and I am afraid of the answer.

John Hedgecoth heard the Teamsters are trying to organize a McDonalds in Montreal. He's thinking of road-tripping for some union-label McNuggets.

return to the Shut up, I'm talking page
return to the LIES home page
return to the A&A home page