PEOPLE'S SONGS
that dealt with the politics and issues of the day. In New York City, an organization of professionals calling themselves People's Songs began to perform for grass roots activist groups and especially unions. Pete Seeger was one of the leaders. By 1947, a Cleveland group was formed, consisting mainly of amateurs. The leader was Bryant French, a professor of English at Western Reserve University, who played piano and composed. Other members were Dave Guralnik, the editor of the New World Dictionary; Don Hermann, an optometrist from Warren, Ohio; Amanda Vance, an African-American housewife and mother, who played guitar; and Norm Berman, an intense little man with a clear tenor voice.
Like the New York group, People's Songs Cleveland sang at political meetings and picket lines and sponsored frequent parties and songfests called hootenannies. Mostly held in homes, the hootenannies were noisy, intimate affairs and great fun. I went regularly with my friends Dorothy and Lois Klein, and we made new friends and became part of the circle. Dottie and Norm began to go out together and were soon seen as a couple. But one night Norm called me and asked if I was going to the party that night. I
In the late 40s a renaissance of folk music inspired songwriters and folk singers to form groups and to write and perform, in the style of folk music, topical songs
said yes, and he said,“I’ll pick you up at 7.”After we hung up, I suddenly thought, “O my gosh. I have a date with Dottie’s boyfriend." I felt terrible. I called Dottie and told her about it. I said, “Do you mind?” and she said, “Yes.” I said, “I’ll call him back.” When I called Norm back he said, “She can‘t tell me who to go out with, and she can’t tell you who to go out with.” I called Dottie and said: "It’s just a one-shot deal. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not as though I’m going to marry him or anything.”
PROGRESSIVE PARTY CONVENTION
In July of 1948, Norm and I went to the Progressive Party convention in Philadelphia. That is, I went with Dottie and Lois Klein, and Norm went with Joe and Bill Haber. We really believed that the Progressive Party candidate, Henry Wallace, could be elected. Norm was working in the Progressive Party office and the rest of us were making phone calls, addressing envelopes, and giving money for the party.
The convention was exciting enough to keep us high, and we were high on our own, so we floated through the few days in Philadelphia. It was like a pre-honeymoon. We sang and cheered ourselves hoarse. There were a lot of corny songs—"everyone loves Wallace, friendly Henry Wallace"—but the one great song that became the real campaign song was “Roll on, Columbia, Roll on” about the Columbia River dams. In 1948, we were all for hydroelectric dams. Now we wonder if they did more harm than good. We heard dozens of speeches, but the one I remember was the fund-raising speech by William Gailmore and the great joke he told about two Russians pissing in the snow after a night of drinking vodka.
Those of us who thought the time had come when a
third party could win a presidential election in
America were incredibly naive and more than 60 or 160 years ahead of our time, but I wouldn’t trade those days of hope and camaraderie and love for any easy victory. Just say “John Bartram” and see me smile.
JAIL
The United Electrical Workers were on strike at a company called Fawick, led by our friend Marie Haug. An anti-labor judge named Connell issued an injunction and then had Marie and other strikers arrested. The charge was contempt, not even a criminal charge, and he set bail for Marie at one million dollars!
We were outraged, and after some phone calls decided to picket the judge’s house in Shaker Heights. Norm and I didn’t have a car, but we customarily borrowed my mother's car to grocery shop on Saturday. That Saturday we borrowed it but went to the little demonstration instead with some signs. The police were there, sending the protesters away. Our friends waved us on, and we didn’t stop. We did our shopping and returned the car. It seems Shaker Heights had an anti-picketing ordinance, unconstitutional of course.
The next Monday morning when I was at work at Bellefaire, Fritz called me into his office, saying I had a call from Norm. He was in jail, along with nearly a dozen others who had been picketing Saturday morning. I told him I would be down to see if they had a lawyer, etc. I took the bus and got off at 14th and Euclid. I had really no idea where to go. As I stood there, I saw a man reading a newspaper with a headline about the arrests. I read over his shoulder to see the names and there, among the ones I expected, was Helen Heimlich—my mother! My mother in jail!
He said, “Which one? The county jail or the city jail?" I had no idea, but he must have figured it out,
because soon I was at the county jail, and there was in fact a lawyer, Sam Handelman. Virgil, my stepfather, was there too, but he wouldn’t talk to me. The police had taken our license number as we drove past, and of course traced it to my mother.
Mother was released very soon, thanks to the intervention of Judge Silbert, for whom she had worked as a teenager. And Norm was out soon too, but was accused of two counts, because of a letter of protest he had written. Mother took to her bed from the shock. She was most insulted that the police who arrested her had called her by her first name. But she forgave us rather quickly. Virgil stayed angry longer. I had been very calm and cool when I knew my husband was in jail, but I was shattered when it was my wholly respectable, wholly innocent mother.
By the time the case dragged through the courts, David had been born, and when Norm was sentenced to 21 days I was nervous about being alone with the baby and no car, so we arranged for a young man to stay with me and the baby during that time. Norm was released after 19 days for good behavior. The whole case was strongly criticized by the bar association and the judge reprimanded.
Norm was my hero husband, standing up for what was right, and he too was forgiven and deeply loved and respected by my mother. In retrospect it was a minor incident in the history of labor’s struggles in the fifties, but it’s a precious memory to me.
THE UNION: SSEU & TAFT-HARTLEY
When I was in graduate school, doing my field placement at the Council Educational Alliance (precursor to the Jewish Community Center), I joined the local union of Jewish social service professionals. It was a token membership, since, as a student, I couldn’t in any way benefit from the union contract. But at the time I felt it was a very significant act, equal to my first vote.
Two years later, when I began to work at Bellefaire, I joined the Social Service Employees Union. With my masters degree, I was earning $1,800 a year; when the little union negotiated the 1947 contract, it went up to $2,400! The SSEU was affiliated with the United Office and Professional Workers of America, the UOPWA. Besides our chapter, the UOPWA represented insurance agents, workers in union offices (the unsung secretaries of the labor functionaries), artists and sign painters, and assorted other white collar workers.
I believed strongly in the union and invested a great deal of time and energy, and in a short time I found myself the president of a local that included five Jewish agencies: Bellefaire, Jewish Children’s Bureau, Jewish Family Service Association, Jewish Vocational Service, and Jewish Community Center.
It was an exciting and challenging time for me. I
attended union conventions in Atlantic City and Philadelphia, met leaders of other unions, learned a lot about leadership, and made wonderful friends.
The Taft-Hartley Act led the attack on unions and succeeded in splitting the union movement. Under pressure from the government, the CIO expelled seven unions with the charge that they were communist dominated. Our little union of naive white-collar workers was one of those.
I had worked like hell to build up that union. I loved it, and I thought that it loved me. But soon some of the members began to agitate to disaffiliate with the UOPWA. Furious campaigning followed—meetings, phone calls, home visits. When the vote came, I lost. I came home crushed and burst into tears when I told Norm.
My husband reacted coldly. He said, “If you are going to be a union leader, I don't want to ever see you cry again. You are going to win some and lose some, but it is not about you. You don't cry about it, you just keep on doing what has to be done." I did really become a union leader, and I did win more than I lost. And I never cried about it again.
THE UNION: ORGANIZING FOR SAEU
The job I found when I left Hill House was with my union, the Social Agencies Employees Union. Until then SAEU had functioned only with volunteer officers, but as they grew, it had become clear that they needed to professionalize.
I couldn't have imagined a job that was better suited to my talents and energies. I was able to set my own hours, and my salary was based on what I had been earning—only now I was half time, meaning half salary. But David and Laurie were more or less independent by then, so we thought we could manage.
The union executive board told me that for the first year I should do no outreach but concentrate on putting the administration in order and strengthening the chapters.
I rented an office at Cedar and Lee and hired Susie as my secretary. We began straightening out the books and setting up systems for keeping membership records and files up-to-date. It was easier than we anticipated. Things were not in a mess, just a few months behind.
Then I began to meet with the chapters. We had five Jewish agencies covered by a master contract, plus Hill House and the Center for Human Services, the largest private agency in Cleveland. Those were wonderful meetings. I got to know the members and what their issues were. Each chapter shaped up and began to have regular meetings and functioning officers.
But the key, as it turned out, was the grievance clause in our contract. It had, after all, been drafted
by our attorney Bernie Berkman, one of the best labor lawyers in the state. There were grievances everywhere, and the worst offender was the Jewish community centers. JCC had made an art of chiseling the lowest-paid employees out of benefits. It hired workers for 14 hours a week, because 15 was the minimum required to earn seniority and benefits. Its other ploy was to hire employees as “temporary" and lay them off just before six months were up, only to replace them with other temporaries, or even hire them back a few weeks later.
We tracked these temporary and part-time workers meticulously and discovered that JCC often slipped up. One employee, for example, was temporary for almost six months every winter and then became part-time for the next six months—then back again. But the union argued that once he passed the six-month deadline, even as a part-time worker, he could no longer be considered temporary. Ralph ended up with a full-time job and a couple of thousand dollars in lieu of back benefits.
Another ploy was to hire a worker for two 14-hour jobs, with no benefits for either one. But the union proved to an arbitrator that 14 plus 14 equals 28: another win and another happy union member.
Filing and winning these grievances proved to the members that the union could and would enforce the contract and protect their rights. And it proved to management that they were now dealing with a smart and tough union.
THE UNION: ACTION AT MURTIS TAYLOR
Murtis Taylor Multi-Service Center started out as a neighborhood center in the kinsman area and added a mental health component when the federal government passed the Community Mental Health Act. The second director after Murtis Taylor was Anita Pernell-Arnold, a bright, tough, highly trained Chicagoan. Like the community they served, the director, the board of trustees, and most of the employees were black.
One day out of nowhere I received a phone call telling me the union should help the employees at MTMSC because they were being badly treated. The caller was an anxious mother! I told her that the union would be glad to help the employees there, but that they would have to contact us directly. A couple of months later I got a call from a social worker I knew, the only full-time white employee at MTMSC. As a supervisor, she could not be in the union, so I suggested that she talk to a worker she could trust, give him or her my phone number, and then never again contact me or mention the union to anyone at the agency. Soon I got a call from Al Watson, a worker with 20 years experience at MTMSC. We were off!
At MTMSC I set a pattern I was to follow in all my organizing. First a small meeting of trusted peers, followed by a larger meeting including trustworthy friends. Next came the appointment of an organizing committee, of which the SAEU executive and trustees would be informed, so that they would be protected under the National Labor Relations Act. That was followed by meetings of all interested employees. Issues were discussed and cards signed, following all the legal steps. Then an election was scheduled.
Despite the enthusiasm workers had displayed at our meetings, I was worried about the election. Anita had fought the union tooth and nail. She had even played the race card, calling the SAEU a “white union” (an unfair labor practice and patently untrue). Al assured me we would win easily. As the "yes" votes rolled in, I began to relax, and Anita froze. When the union was declared the winner, she strode out without a word. She never forgave me or the SAEU.
Organizing Murtis Taylor was relatively easy; negotiating a contract was a nightmare. Anita was determined not to yield anything to the union—not
money, and certainly not power. As negotiations
dragged on, not even a federal mediator could bring us close to an agreement. Finally the management team walked out on us in the middle of a meeting. We had no recourse but to strike. The law required ten days’ notice.
I was in a total panic. I had never been on strike, much less led one. This was a new chapter of workers who had never been in a union before. They had voted for the strike, but could they pull it off? I tried desperately to get someone to intervene—the Mental Health Board, the Welfare Federation, the Central Labor Council. No one would respond; we were on our own.
I did get help and good advice; from Norm, my wonderful union-experienced husband; from Bill Livingston of the UAW; from our great attorney, Bernie Berkman. And as day ten approached, I pulled myself together and decided to win.
Since our notice had been delivered at noon, we set the strike for noon. At noon sharp, all our members got up, put on their coats, and walked out—half thru the front door, half thru the rear. There they were met by union Executive Board members who handed them their professionally made picket signs, and by 12:15, MTMSC was surrounded by pickets.
I learned a lot in the next four weeks. First of all, I learned not to strike in mid-winter. It was December, and it was snowing, and it was cold. The members were great. All but two eligible employees took their duty on the picket line, and those two did not cross it. It was a 100% strike. But the cold took its toll. Colds, coughs, and worse . . . our ranks thinned.
The community saved us. Restaurants sent sandwiches and coffee. A tree trimming company began to drop off wood for our fires, burning in steel drums. The postal workers refused to cross the line to deliver mail, forcing the agency to send someone to the post office to pick it up. A folk singer sang on the picket line until his fingers froze to the strings. a hefty member donned a Santa Claus suit and handed out presents to the strikers' kids. The Board of Trustees caved.
Monday after Christmas, the workers reported to work, with smiles and dignity, winners all. And I had learned how to do it
THE UNION: SUMMING UP
I worked for the union for 16 years. While I had liked my previous job as a social worker, working for the union was the most satisfying work I ever did or could ever imagine. I started out as an enthusiastic but really ignorant organizer and ended up a very effective leader. That sounds immodest, but the record shows it to be true. The union grew from less than 400 members to more than 800.
I personally organized five additional shops, and as the work increased, I hired an assistant, Carol Stein, who also organized new workers. The union grew from 7 agencies under contract to 16. Carol and I shared the responsibility of negotiating contracts, fighting grievances, and training new leaders. On some occasions I went to arbitration, confronting experienced management attorneys, and more often
than not I won.
As an independent union, we had some intrinsic weaknesses. When we decided to affiliate with an international union, we were literally wooed by four strong unions, and we chose SEIU, Service Employees International Union.
Although I loved my job, I began to feel that it was very demanding and stressful. In other words, I was getting too old for it! I carefully planned for my retirement, giving myself and the union two years to further train Carol and shift responsibilities to her. I think I did it well. I never looked back, and I got only one phone call for help.
When people refer to me as a social worker, I correct them. I feel honestly that I helped more people change their lives in my second career.