Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 302: Fighting Times (feat. Jon Melrod)

Episode Date: August 4, 2023

Activist, lawyer, author, and former autoworker Jon Melrod joins us this week to discuss his new book Fighting Times, and the militant union movement in the 1970s Buy Jon's book here: https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1289 Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty Outro music: https://hollybodyhollybody.bandcamp.com/track/positive-pressure Intro music: in-house

So So our guest today joining us from, where are you at, John? Sonoma County outside of San Francisco about an hour north. Okay, joining us from beautiful Sonoma County, California, Mr. Jonathan Melrod, the author of the recently released Fighting Times, out now on PM Press and I guess wherever fine books are sold. Yeah, we've been trying to put this together, I guess, for several weeks now. And I'd always go back to John Hatton and like, oh man, something's come up again. I'm so sorry. So I'm glad we finally get to put it together. Yeah, I am too. I guess, or we'll start it out, and we kind of jumped into it a little early before we were recording, but you opened this book up, which is basically your history in, you know,

with the UAW and trying to jumpstart some labor militancy on the shop floor in the Midwest. And also it's a little autobiographical too, because the context that you start the book from is your battle with terminal pancreatic cancer, which they gave you, uh, six months to live. And, uh, here, here we, here we are 20 something odd years later, and you're still, uh, look like you're kicking ass. Uh, what the fuck was that like? Well, you know, it was, I don't have that much memory of it. But when I got the phone call from the surgeon and there was this like pause on the line and said, John, I'd like you to come in tomorrow. And I was like, no, I think we better discuss it today. and I was like, no, I think we better discuss it today. And he said, well, we didn't get the news we wanted. So, I mean, at that point you're like, whoa, this is like not a good scene. And, you know,

he said, I'm sorry to deliver the news, but you've got terminal pancreatic cancer. You got six months to a year to live, You know, we'll have you in surgery in two days, but I don't know if we're going to be able to get it. And I said, well, to myself, I've got a seven-year-old and a 10-year-old and I'm not going anywhere. So after the surgery, which was, you know, some painful shit um and i woke up i had like five tubes out of every orifice and they had created a few extra ones um but but uh you know i said to the surgeon look, you know, you can give me these statistics and these numbers and I guess that's your job. And when you tell me to put my affairs in order, I'm just not going to do that because I can't leave.

And, you know, one of the things that started me writing the book was that my kids really had no clue to what was going on in the sense that they said, Dad, why did you go from going to college and then go to work in a factory that's now killing you? And I realized that if I was going to be able to get them to understand and leave a legacy for them and any grandkids I hope to have, which doesn't seem to be coming along too quickly. But, you know, I needed to be able to explain why I did with my life what I did. And what's been amazing to me is that at the time, it was really a legacy for my kids and, you know, any future grandkids I've had. But it's now become sort of a living story for young people who are a new breed of young people going into labor, going into the working class movement. I mean, I'm on the phone all the time with, you know, a group of 10 people from Amazon who are reading the book and they want to talk about

organizing at Amazon or the same Trader Joe's United, which is an independent union. Or I work with Starbucks organizers up in the Massachusetts area, you know, talking about things of what we need to do next. And most recently, they've asked me to get involved with a whole crew of young people that have formed an independent union coalition out of Portland. Because a lot of a lot of people are not that, you know, the idea of joining a business bureaucratic union is a real turnoff. The idea that democracy is going to be taken out of your hands and that you're not going to be running the union, that you're going to have some business agent who goes in and negotiate your contract. It's just not acceptable because this is a young generation that's highly educated. And the other thing that young people don't want to put up with is being told you can't bring up

issues like transgender, you know, medication and healthcare. You can't bring up the environment because that's not really a union issue. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, you guys get it. And I didn't even know what the word intersectional unionism meant until I started working with young people. fighting racism, about fighting homophobia, fighting trans, you know, transgender phobia,

you know, as well as about, you know, dignity on the job and being treated as human beings. So, you know, the book has played that role as well. And I've been really excited at the number of young people that have written to me. I mean, we posted on Instagram and on my website, readers comments that are really, really moving. You know, just the other day, a guy wrote in and said, you know, I grew up in Wisconsin in a really, you know, poor working class family. And my dad died behind his punch press. And when he died, he had ulcers from the machining oil all up and down his arms. And I can really relate to your book and to your song of the week where we play a lot of working class songs like Billy Bragg, you know, talking about, you know, we've begun to work this music into our regular weekly posts. You know, we have a young woman who DJs it and tries to put together that, you know, these songs are about a culture that, you know, its own culture that has musicians, that has issues, that appeals to people, and that provides a vision for what the future can be. And I think that's what's most

important. You know, the book has really been able to inspire people to say, hey, I'm going to be an organizer. Or the other day, a Teamster guy wrote, you know, wrote to me and said, you know, I didn't realize get much respect for what I was doing. I dropped out of college. My dad wanted me to go back and become a professional. I read your book. And then I sent him a your podcast with one of your buddies conducted it, Brace at Truinon, and his dad finally listened to the podcast and wrote him, son, I'm really proud of you. I get it now. And to me, that made the whole book worth it.

Yeah, yeah, totally. Now, when you're talking about the guy that wrote to you talking about what his dad had endured in the factory and stuff. It's like we, because we're, Terrence and I live in eastern Kentucky, coal country. Aaron lives in Atlanta.

But back home, there's the whole epidemic of black lung disease, which is an easily preventable Germany and England and coal mines over there have eradicated epidemic of black lung disease, which is an easily preventable, you know, you know, Germany and England and coal mines over there have eradicated the disease a long time ago. American bosses don't want to put the couple of tweaks and ventilation things in there to like protect their workers. And so, you know, you have a whole generation of guys and gals that have

gone underground or, you know, worked around mines that have just kind of accepted, you know, uh, that this is kind of my plot if I'm going to have to, you know, work here and all this kind of stuff. And, uh, yeah, no, I don't know. It's that, that your story about like your work related illness and everything, you know, my, my grandfather had black lung disease and all this kind of stuff. It kind of, uh, uh, spoke to the universality of that, that we literally give our bodies, you know, oftentimes for this stuff.

And I thought it was a really powerful way to kick it off there. And also when your kids are asking you about your life and all that kind of stuff, it's just, you know, did you really pull a shotgun on the life and all that kind of stuff is just, you know, did you really pull a shotgun on the FBI and all that stuff? Well, the FBI, it's up on my website, www.JonathanMelroy.com. But the FBI was, you know, tracking me for a lot of years and getting me fired periodically. But I actually did pull that shotgun. And, you know, I guess it's one of the few times male white chauvinism protected somebody, you know, radical.

Yeah. Let me not try that. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I don't think I would have been able to pull that off. Yeah. I don't know. would have been able to pull that off. Yeah. Might not have went so well. But, you know, but the kids, the kids, there was this one line in the FBI file that said, Jonathan Melrod should be considered armed, dangerous, and mentally unstable. They said, well, you know, dad, we really get the monthly unstable part.

Go ahead, Aaron. No, John, I just want to comment and say real quick um like i think the intersectionality point is really um it's poignant and inspiring coming from young people especially because i think sometimes like there's maybe this assumption in some organizing spaces that like um cultural issues like um trans rights or maybe like Black Lives Matter. Well, maybe not so much that, but other issues that seem superficial, cultural, you know, are not related to material issues. And they're like inextricably linked, you know. So I just think it's important that like, you know, my generation is like understanding that. And that's already something that is apparent to them, you know, while they're getting into these spaces, you know. Well, I think your generation has forced my generation to deal with it.

Like I read a statement on from the UE, from their top leadership in the United Electrical Workers Union condemning what was going on, you know, at Cop City. And yeah, I was inspired that here was a you know traditional union coming out not traditional because they've always been a radical union but but coming out and saying this issue affects workers not just you know the people down there and you know it was actually from you guys that i was motivated to look more into Cop City. And, you know, I was kind of mind blown because when they arrested these 40 some people and they arrested them, you know, talking about conspiracy charges and RICO violations, you know, I said, wow, that's really the system at work. You know, I mean, they've taken what was set up for something else. And they figured how to, you know, navigate to apply

this to people who are protesting, you know, and, you know, it's sort of, you know, well, it's American history. I mean, if you go back, you know, why do we have the problems with police that we have today? Well, we had slave patrols, you know, back during slavery. Exactly. Why did, you know, it was the homesteaders that came out here to California during the railroad baron days that were able to gain land if they got rid of the indigenous people who was living there. I mean, so they formed armed posses. So what do we have today? Down by you in Florida, Governor Santa sent up that militia

that was supposed to be a civilian militia and turned into an armed military militia that people even quit. And that's what we're facing today so i'm really handed to younger people for putting those issues on the national agenda yeah yeah and just go ahead terence no you go ahead here no no i was just gonna say like just to um you know we talked about cop city a lot but um it really is just this confluence of environmentalism not just police brutality but racism like housing poverty so i mean i don't know know, it's just like one of the movements right now in the country that is kind of a, it's frightening, but promising, you know? Yeah. Well, it's going to be a tough fight because,

you know, not only are they pouring government money, I read that they're using a lot of private funding to build the whole thing. So, you've got this, you know, these forces not visible on the surface that are back there, and it's in their mind what this is all about, you know? It's not about just training police to, you know, serve and protect. Let's just say that. Yeah, not at all.

Yeah. I was going to say, you know, something that's interesting that just occurred to me is that the South, like the Southern states, the Southeast, like Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, where we're at, Tennessee, Carolina. It's like a lot of manufacturing has been relocated to these areas. It's kind of like a common misconception that like america is de-industrialized we're still one of the most powerful industrial like a lot of our gdp comes from an industrial activity still it's just that it's been moved and it is interesting like you see all these stories

about like the santas as you mentioned john and um obviously it definitely feels like the biggest like anti-lgbt uh uh like like fervor and uh policy is coming from these areas in the south so it is kind of like a a way to intervene there on the shop floor because i guess you're saying aaron like there's no there's no hard line between these solidly economic issues and what are conceived of these cultural issues. It's all the same, and it gets played out on the shop floor. And it's interesting, actually. I was thinking about this as I was listening.

I was listening to you on a podcast, John, and I was kind of looking through your book, and I was thinking about this movie from the 70s I don't know if you saw it or if you even like it or agree with it but it's a Paul Schrader film called Blue Collar with Richard Pryor yeah uh have you seen have y'all seen that movie it's good yes with Richard Pryor I think I want to see it yeah it. With Richard Pryor, I think I want to see it. Yeah, it's good. Richard Pryor, Yafet Kado, and Harvey Keitel. Harvey Keitel. What? Okay.

Hell yeah. I love Harvey Keitel. Yeah, it's excellent. It's about an auto factory in Detroit and about how racist the union is and about how sort of oppressive the factory itself is. And these white and black workers go in on this plan to kind of rip off their union. But like what winds up happening is like their race kind of gets like, you know, shouldered against each other in this way that like prevents them from having like a solidarity.

Instead, it kind of like fragments them and tears them apart. And so it's like yeah that your book is like good reading material for that movie and there's also a book called staying alive by jefferson cowey i've not read it in a long time but like it kind of deals with a lot of these same issues so i guess my question is like what was the historical context of the 70s that you know you decided to like go back into the go into the factory and everything and and also just militant unionism in general like where where was what was the basis for that in the 70s yeah i i'd like to just step back to one thing you said a minute earlier because

it was really on point and it's something i've been bringing up a lot. And you're right. There's two industrial powers in the world today, China and the United States. There's been a lot of deindustrialization, particularly in the Midwest. But in the south, in the southeast, that's where the EV car plants are. That's where the EV bus plants are, the big truck plants are. You know, and I'm beginning to work with a lot of young people down there. You know, like one guy who's, you know, UAW, I think it's in North Carolina, he works at Thomas Bus, and he's trying to organize a caucus down there. And when I was on Truanon, the question came up, what would I advise young people to do?

And I said, I would advise young people to go down if they want to be serious organizers and want to be serious about changing this country. They got to go down to the southeast and go to work in these non-union plants and integrate themselves with people, find out what life is about, and try to make some serious change. Because that's no different than the 70s. You know, that's what we did in the 70s. You know, I had been involved in the student movement, particularly in Madison, Wisconsin, which was sort of the epicenter of the student movement. I mean, we were on strike most of the time, you know, the black students strike, or the teaching assistant

students strike, or when they killed the kids at Kent State, then we struck and shut the university down, you know, and they weren't able to function. But in that movement, you know, we were part of the faction that was called RIM2, Revolutionary Youth Movement 2. And there were two basic principles that we formed the organization around. The first was support for the Black Panther Party, because there had been a struggle among Students for a Democratic Society, which was the major student organization. And some of those groups that, you know, were very sectarian left organizations, you know, were attacking the Panthers for being nationalists, for not being, you know, proletarian, for the working class. And so we felt that we really had to take a stand. So we were working with the Panthers. Oh, I got on my first FBI letter is in 1969,

tracing a phone call from my apartment in Madison to the Chicago office of the Black Panther Party, because I was the person designated to sell the Panther paper in Madison. And we used to sell about 350 papers a week. I mean, just gives you a sense of the revolutionary. That's impressive. Yeah, particularly for a not super big college town. That's right.

You know, and there was a trial at the time of three Black Panthers in Milwaukee, Milwaukee three that had been totally framed by the tactical squad on false accusations of murdering a cop. And. The tactical squad was known for riding through the black community and terrorizing it. Like an invading army, basically. Yeah, like an invading army. They'd have the shotguns hanging out the windows and just would slowly patrol to make sure that people knew, black people knew, we're here, we're armed. And, you know, you better pay attention to who we are. Yeah. And when the Panthers stood up to that, and a lot of them were Vietnam vets, so they weren't particularly afraid of, you know, weapons and guns because they had been around it.

And they had come back from Nam and they weren't going to take the same shit that had gone on in the military, sending them out to fight somebody they didn't even want to fight. They didn't even know why they were there. So when they came back and they organized, you know, the cops went after them. And we felt that that was essential for student radicals to be involved in that battle. And that's where I also had another shotgun incident because... The second shotgun incident. Yeah. And we're going to hold it at two. But after Fred Hampton, Sherman Fred Hampton was murdered, who had been the leader of the Panther Party in Chicago. And he came from a working class background. His dad

worked at International Harvester. And so Fred had a real sense of working class, working class, the need to organize the working class. And his dad had taught him how powerful the union was at International Harvester, how they had still were having sit down strikes, wildcat strikes and really fighting the boss on the shop floor. After they killed Fred, who I had heard two times speak and really in my book, Fighting Times, Organizing on the Front Lines of the Class War. in my book, Fighting Times, Organizing on the Front Lines of the Class War, if you go to pmpress.org, pmpress.org, and you put in the discount code FIGHTING in capital letters, we've made it so you can get a 40% discount. So it's available to everybody to read. But Fred Hampton, when he spoke, it really felt like he was looking at you, even though we're like hundreds of us. And he challenged us and he said, are you just going to be mother country

radicals that talk about politics? Or are you going to join the revolution? And joining the revolution means you got to devote yourself to fighting against injustice. And it turned a lot of us into from student radicals to becoming revolutionaries. And after they killed Fred, the Panthers got a hold of us about coming up to speak to the student body. us about coming up to speak to the student body. And it was going to be Bobby Rush, who later became a congressman and kind of, well, I don't want to say sold out, but he didn't live up to his Panther background. But I was told to be the security from the students for the Panthers who were coming up there. And I loaded up the shotgun into the back, into the trunk of somebody's beat up Chevrolet to go pick them up at the airport.

And three guys got in the car, Calvin, who was the Deputy Minister of Defense in Chicago, and they all took their pistols out of their briefcase. And then they took their bullets out of their bag. Because in those days, you could carry a gun onto an airplane if the bullets weren't in the same. We used to be a country, man. Yeah, we used to be a proper country. We used to have Second Amendment rights. we used to have second amendment rights that's right that's right but but so they got out and they you know they loaded up and it was after fred had been killed and i you know i was i got to be honest a bit nervous and you know was driving 25 miles on the dot you know and we got to the student union they got out and i got out and I got the shotgun. And we went up on stage in front

of hundreds, maybe 800 students in the great hall. And my job was to stand there next to the speaker with a shotgun on my hip. And I kind of said to myself, wow, you know, I don't know if it's the shotgun's the best weapon when you got a couple hundred people out there. But I said to myself, I've got to be willing to take on the risk that these brothers are facing every day in the struggle. I also said to myself, damn, they're going to kick me out of this school tomorrow. And what am I going to tell my father who worked his way up from being a poor guy, you know, to getting a profession, and his dream was to put me in college. And now I got to explain, you know, this situation, but they never did kick me out and you know i felt like i had played an

important role in being willing to throw down you know not just talk the talk but walk the walk so you know the 70s were a time of tremendous to go back to your question terrence you know, the 70s were a time of tremendous, to go back to your question, Terrence, you know, a tremendous, you know, upsurge, you know, of, of course, Black people all over the country, but of also students and students who were really willing to challenge the system. And we formed an organization that'll strike you as, you know, something that is close to you called Mother Jones Revolutionary League. And Mother Jones, of course, was a leader of the coal miners and the trade unionists. And, you know, she was a hell of a radical. I mean, one of her speeches said, boys, go home. Don't spend your money in the bar. Save up your money and buy weapons. Good advice.

Anybody who's been around the coalfields know that there was open warfare, you know, that had to be conducted to keep the union alive. Yeah. And so Mother Jones, as I said, one principle was support of the Black Panther Party. The others was other was an understanding that could go into the working class and build a class conscious movement against the capitalist system. And there were somewhere around 10,000 students that took up that call and went to do it, of different political affiliations, but were, you know, there to try and mobilize the working class. And I was part of that movement of some 10,000 students, and probably 20 of us went from Milwaukee, Wisconsin,

I mean, from Madison, excuse me, into Milwaukee, where we all took jobs in factories, and we all set out to build organizations, rank-and-f file caucuses in those factories to organize, you know, a militant class conscious workers movement. And I think we were able to do that. You know, there were, you know, at one point, when we first brought back May Day as a workers' holiday and a workers' day to express our anger and our discontent with the system, you know, we had the march start at the American Motors factory where I worked, which was closing in Milwaukee. And we carried a coffin that said 7,000 jobs.

And leading it was a black motorcycle club, the King Cobras, you know, and you couldn't see a cop for miles around because, you know, they know when they, where there's a place they shouldn't be. They know when there's a place they shouldn't be. And, you know, we were really, you know, down for organizing, down for changing the system. And, you know, of course, I got fired soon after that. But, you know, that was my life. You know, the FBI was following me and the Red Squad, the Milwaukee Police Tactical Tactical Squad was following me. And, you know, they I got fired at American Motors. And then the next place I went to work was a foundry, which I was the only white guy in. And, you know, I was on third shift welding Mack truck axles and they came and got me fired there

I mean it's not like anybody else wanted the job I can assure you about it. What was it John about the auto industry we talk all the time about different choke point industries like nowadays it seems like transportation you know and stuff like that what was it about auto workers in the 70s you know it seems like you, you know, and stuff like that. What was it about auto workers in the 70s? You know, it seems like, you know, there's, you know, the two texts and the Paul Schrader movie Terrence mentioned. James Boggs famously wrote a book about all this. What was it about the auto factories in the Midwest that made that a good sort of pressure point for like that kind of radical unionism? Well, you know, similarly to the movement on campus, there was a widespread youth rebellion. I mean, you can call it part of the

Woodstock generation. You can call it part of the black vets coming back from NAM and being rebellious. But there was a rebellious feeling among young people. I mean, this plant that they had in Lordstown, Ohio, I mean, was like, you know, open rebellion. You know, they talked about having, you know, the first union president with hair down to his shoulders. And, you know, you add that to the fact that in an auto factory, you work right next to each other on the assembly line, you know, eight hours a day. And there's a feeling of unity and solidarity that grows out of that and supporting each other. So it wasn't hard for me to make the transition from being a rebellious student to being a rebellious worker. And, you know, I got off my probation period in 61 days,

I was in the union, and they didn't give me a break. And all the other workers around me said, hey, Melrod, you some sort of chicken shit, take your break. You know, I'm like, whoa, You some sort of chicken shit. Take your break. You know, I'm like, whoa, you know, and they said, walk off. Just walk off the goddamn line. Got no balls. Are you a company man? So then it was like, you know, hey, I had to do something. If I take something out of this, we got to go to our friends and have a little sack about it. It's like a hazing ritual. And so finally, I couldn't withstand the torment.

And I took the taillights, threw them in the back of the trunk of the car and walked off the job, went into the cafeteria to sit down. I smoked Campbell non filters at the time, which is a throwback, but the foreman came down the line. You know, they used to all wear these white t-shirts with American motors logo. And he was like red. His face was beat red. And he said, you're fucking fired, Melrod. You don't walk off my line. You know, you only been here two months and I'm not going to put up with this.

And I was like, oh, damn, now I got to go back and tell my friends that I blew my first job in auto. But the steward came right up and we had one steward for every 35 workers on the assembly line. And that steward could get off the line after telling the boss. I have union business within a half hour and we were paid by the company when we were on union business. So you had 350 stewards in that plant, all being paid by the company to be off the line. And they were like your frontline forces. I mean, they were out there walking the line, enforcing the contract in a way that went back to the 30s, really, where there was that kind of combat unionism that we settled grievances right there on the spot.

And if they weren't settled, we'd vote to strike, because we have the right to strike over all grievances. Something that Walter Ruther gave away, and it's in my book, Walter Ruther gave away the steward ratio, he gave away the right to strike, and he gave away voluntary overtime. And we had maintained that in our factory up through the years until the mid-80s. We hung on to those despite, you know, fights over concessions, despite fights of the company saying, hey, your labor costs are twice what it is in the big three. And we said, well, then let's get the big three up to what our costs are. Let's let them get a union that can stand up to, you know, on the shop floor, that doesn't have to work overtime, you know, that can strike over grievances.

So that was the spirit in, in, in the shop. So after I got back, Oh, the steward walked up, steward came up and said, Hey, Melrod, go back on your job. And he pulls out this black little black book and he goes to the part where it says, you know, the employee has a right to a break at this time. And he said to the supervisor, you didn't give him his break. He had every right to walk off. And they were called blue button stewards. And I said to myself right then and there, I'm going to be a blue button steward because I want to be able to do that, to tell that boss who's fired and who's not fired. So I went back on the job and sure enough, about two or three months later, they came around and they notified everyone that we had to work on Saturday. And I went home and I looked at,

I had a contract and it said you overtime was voluntary and it was up to the individual. So I got this, I've been hanging with this group of young guys, you know, black Puerto Rican, one of them was in the Young Lords organization, you know, some black church women who had a good sense of organization. And we'd begun to form this caucus and we'd been the agraft copies, Xerox copies, which people, I don't know what a Xerox is, but it's like a copy machine. And we took those into the plant and we passed them out. And we said, and everybody the next day when they came around to notify people, you got

to work overtime, refused. And they couldn't put together a Saturday workforce, which did two things. One, it allowed us to go out and party Friday night and not have to worry about going to work on Saturday. You know, but secondly, the old timers said to us, you're putting into effect a very important union principle. If there's people who need jobs, they should be given those jobs rather than people working overtime. You know, an injury to one is an injury to all. We should be looking out for each other. And that was taught to me by seniority workers who had lived that life. You know, back at American Motors in 1969, they had had in one week period between the plant in Kenosha and the plant in Milwaukee,

Wisconsin, there had been 12 wildcat strikes in one week, you know, so that that militant tradition had carried over. And, you know, I'll just, you know, talk about one other incident that occurred in the early days that sort of set the tone for everything. Was the company announced they were going to speed up the assembly line three cars an hour, which for anybody who's been on assembly line, you know, which is a, you know, repetitive, boring, physically demanding job. To be told you have three more cars an hour, but we're taking no work off of anybody's job. You know, those are fighting words. That's speed up, which was, you know, a fighting, you know, that provoked a fight. And so we had this meeting of this caucus we were forming and we said, what are we going to do? And we said, let's put out a flyer that says,

overtime's voluntary, walk, don't run, and fight speed up. You know, now there was one other line in it that said, even Hitler wasn't this bad. So I kind of tried to explain that it wasn't the same, was a false equivalency. Well, we still have that going on today. Everybody always says, Hitler really, really in front of, forefront of people's minds for some weird reason. That's right. But it was democracy, so I lost the fight.

So that was a line in the leaflet, which I think I put it in, it's up on the website. And man, when we think I put it in, it's up on the website. But, and man, when we put that flyer out, something happened that I had never seen. All of the old guys started teaching us how to ride the line. And riding the line meant that you did your job. If it was taillights, you took your time and did your job for as long as it took you. That meant you'd push that next person out of their workstation. They'd push the next person out of their workstation. So everybody was just throwing parts in the car because they couldn't have enough air hose to get their job done. All right. So the aisles filled up with repaired cars,

cars needing repairs, the roof filled up. So that night we got together and said, what are we going to do to like really wrap this thing up? And we taught ourselves how to silkscreen t-shirts that had a big red stop sign. And on it, it said, fight speed up. And we brought in 25. Bam, 25 were sold.

People were wearing them. Next day, we made more. We probably sold 100. Company came around and said to people, anybody caught wearing that T-shirt is going to be fired tomorrow. Just like we had fired, they had fired some black workers three years earlier for wearing black power T-shirts. They had fired some black workers three years earlier for wearing black power T-shirts.

So, you know, I was in a bit of a quandary to what you do because I didn't want to be losing people their jobs, particularly people who work there 20 and 30 years. And then all of a sudden, my steward came up and said, I want a T-shirt. And my chief steward came up and said, I want a T-shirt. And the vice president of the union came up and said, I want a t-shirt. And the vice president of the union came up and said, I want a t-shirt. And they put the word out all over the factory that they were wearing in t-shirts the next day. Well, I learned something, which was when I went in, I was part of the anyone over 30 is a sellout generation. And, you know, sort of the yippies, Abbie Hoffman, the hippies, you know, if you're over 30, you were old and, you know, you were conservative. But these guys were willing to stand with us and willing to stand up against the company identifying

with the fighting with fight back caucus. That's what we were called then. And the next day we brought in hundreds of t-shirts and everybody was wearing them and everybody was riding the line. And they came around the next morning and they took all that work off our jobs and had to bring a new person into every section off of the street and hire them. So that was, you know, then the word came out, of course, that the president was going to get me fired because I had bucked the union in doing this on my own. And, you know, a couple days later, three plant guards came up and physically dragged me. You know, I tried to dig my heels in like a mule and I wouldn't leave.

And they picked me up by the arms and people were yelling to sit down. But the stewards had been told to go out and tell people not to sit down. So they were able to fire me. You know, just quickly, we went to the next union meeting, mobilized everyone, and the international sent their rep. And they're smart. The international had made it a black rep to try and appeal to the black workers who really supported me. They had put out their own leaflet from a caucus called Black and White Getting It Together, saying we need to strike to get this brother's job back. So he got up and said, oh, you know, I saw him before talking to all the black workers,

you know, like Melrod, stay away. He's a communist. You know, he's a black panther. And that was one of the things that was so ironic. They had passed the word that I was a black panther. You know, that's a good trick. But, you know, they took the strike vote and we knew we had won it. The president of the union had one of those clicker counters. And at the end he goes, damn it. And he throws it down and said, this thing is fucking broken. Let's have a voice vote. And then there was a voice vote and he ruled, oh, no, people

aren't voting. There wasn't a yes vote to strike or to call for a meeting to organize a strike. And we looked at the back of the room and it was filled with cops. And they had called the cops because they knew there would be an uproar because we had won the vote. You know, and that was it for that period of time. I filed a grievance and I went to the National Labor Relations Board that ordered me reinstated. But it took 2005 days for the before it got to the appellate court in the Seventh Circuit to order me back to work. But that was great, too, because they paid me all my back pay for all the time I've been out. And so just to fuck with them, the day I came back to work, I had blown up that check to like this big guy, this big guy. And I was like a boxer.

You know, I was walking down the line with a placard. And people are cheering and applauding. And the supervisors are red and pissed off. You know, and I got back in and, you know, the whole thing started up again. And I got back in and, you know, the whole thing started up again. So I think you guys stopped the speed up effort is was the genesis of my favorite workplace sentiment. And that is, boys, we get paid by the hour. Work smarter, not harder. That's 100 percent true. And if people are working harder, we used to tell them, hey, slow down, brother, because we don't want you to screw up the rate you know john can i can ask a question when you were talking about um uh white student groups radicals organizing with the panthers or like white workers organizing black workers especially

with the panthers was was there any um suspicion at first or resistance like among black radicals among the intentions of white student groups or even white workers on the factory floor and like how did you because it's something I think about now a lot too we were talking about cultural material versus material issues and sure like a couple years ago everybody was saying black lives matter defund the police but when it came to actually do the thing not just with liberal Democrats, you don't expect much from them, but with even within certain organizations, left organizations, I feel like there was either some hesitancy or even suspicion on the part of black radicals as to whether or not this was good faith. So how did you guys, how did that tension, was there any tension? How was it resolved, I guess?

Well, I'm really glad you brought that up, Aaron, because that's where I did a lot. I learned a lot of lessons. When the black students went on strike in 1969 in Madison, at first, they only wanted black students to strike. Well, out of 30,000 students, there were only 500 black students. So that strike couldn't get very far. So then we met with the leaders and said, let's take out all the white students. And that was an interesting discussion because there were some what I call cultural nationalists, you know, among the black students who said, no, we don't want to have nothing to do with white students. But then there was a larger faction, one of whom became one of my closest friends who had worked with the Panthers in Milwaukee, who says there are allies. We do

want them because we want to shut the university down. So what I always use as the example is, we pulled out the white students, you know, and the majority of them in the liberal arts part of the college were striking. We also set up what we called immovable picket lines, which meant you couldn't get into the classroom even if you wanted. We blocked all the doors. But when we called for this nighttime march on the state capitol in Madison, there were 10,000 people who marched. And out of that 10,000, only a couple hundred were Black. So we had done so much education among the white students that they were willing to support the demands of black students for more black admissions, for more black studies, for the formation of an African-American center. You know, so when we hear this shit now, you know, about critical race theory and this bullshit that we shouldn't be teaching Black history, you know, it runs counter to my own experiences when I saw white students join with Black students and fight together, you know. So that's the lesson from the campus. The lesson in

the factory was that we stood on a principle in our caucus that there were two central issues. The one was fighting white chauvinism and discrimination of Black workers, and the other was fighting misogyny and the discrimination of women. And even though that was kind of tough sometimes, I mean, you know, I went through, you know, a lot of experiences, like, you know, coming out, and I had a big Thunderbird, you know, when they went from the little one to the big one, where you could hardly see over the hood, it was so long, and all my windows had been bashed out, every window, every shard of glass was gone, and it was in the middle of the winter in Wisconsin. So driving home was like a bitch.

There was a breeze of air coming through the whole car. But we held to our principle. And when we were invited to go to march against the Ku Klux Klan in Tupelo, we put out a flyer that went to 7,000 workers in that factory, the vast majority of whom were white. And they didn't all agree by any means, but we wanted them to know that we were organizing a busload of workers to go down there and stand with the United League of Mississippi who were fighting the Klan because there was a resurgence at that time of the KKK. And then when we came back, we put out another

leaflet talking about what had happened down there. And I wish I had some pictures I could show you of the good old boys with their, you know, long guns all along the march, you know, standing there to intimidate us. But times had changed. All the Vietnam vets that were black had brought their weapons and put them in a pickup truck at the front of our march because i went up to see it because i was like whoa what's going to happen and i realized it was kind of like nuclear deterrence yeah yeah brickmanship yeah they're gonna get killed too so you know i didn't think but what was a little intimidating was when

we got there the bus happened to park right in front of the Tupelo Police Department. And right then, out walks 20 cops, fully Klan robed, with the pointed hats, and they're all carrying axe handles, and they got pistols in their pockets. And I said, I wrote this in the book, I said, what are you going to do? Call up the police and say, hey, I need help. The police are beating me, you know, when the police are the cops and the cops are the police. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. The Klan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The clearest to me that these things all went hand in hand. Yeah. You know, but let me just tell you one residual. When I got back to the factory, I was in the bar after work, which is quite common.

You know, obviously you guys know, but nobody's going to work at a coal mine and then go home and do, you know, calisthenics or. You know, so we were in the bar and I felt something sticking in my stomach. And I looked down and it was a 38. And the guy says to me, I'm Dead Eye DeMarino. And you're that fucking Jew commie Melrod who puts out the Fighting Times, aren't you? And I said, look, brother, let's have some whiskey. I said, bartender, double shots for both of us. Did them right. You know, didn't wait, man. Both of them went down. And then I said, hey,

two more double shots. I said, look, dad, I said, you and I may not agree on all the politics out there, but what who stood up for your department when they fired the steward, when the steward called a sit down? I said, we put out a flyer and called on everyone to support that steward. And he was rehired, wasn't he? And then I said, yeah, he was rehired. And I said, didn't we leave this fight in the shop about this issue? And he goes, yeah, you did. I said, well, look, don't we have more in common than we do have as differences? You know, you can believe your politics. I can't change what's in your heart. I can only ask you to change the way you act, you know. And, you know, he at the end of it of it i admittedly we had drank a lot but he was hugging

me he loved me and i got another one got another convert hell yeah yeah hell yeah but you know it was i mean that's why when hillary clinton came out and called working class people a basket of deplorables, I said, hey, you know, those are the people that I worked with and they're not deplorable. You know, they're deplorable because of conditions that they faced, you know, you know, that they've been treated in a way that they feel like if they can use white chauvinism to get ahead, you know, they'll do that. But if you're there talking all the time about unity and showing unity when we had a wildcat strike and we all had to stick together, we lose our jobs, you know, that stuff can be overcome. You know, then when my friends called the campaign, when Hillary was running against Trump and said, Hillary, you got to come out here to speak in Wisconsin. You know, we got to get you into these factories talking to people. And she didn't even bother to come.

What's she called? A flyover? She sent Chelsea out, you know, and what worker wants to hear from some 25-year-old white rich girl who went to Ivy League college, right? So charismatic Chelsea Clinton just inspiring the man. I'm proud of the people. I can't imagine Chelsea on the shop floor just inspiring the man. It wasn't going to happen. just inspiring the last it wasn't gonna happen no i think i think she had fault i know she'd called it fly over country but i didn't know she had uh also sent her uh her daughter out there that's funny yeah that is hilarious i didn't know that it's interesting like i keep coming back to

this so like the number of wildcat strikes in like the late 60s and 70s i'm i don't know the number exactly but i know that it was like an insane amount yeah that you had a lot of tension between union leadership and the rank and file and it's like you had mentioned earlier like speed ups i think the 70s are a very fascinating time because you do have all these radical militants entering into these uh workforces at the same time that you have these massive structural changes in political economy like you've got like you mentioned foundries like i know that the steel industry was at this time like shedding a lot of employment but they were trying to keep production at the same amount that they had been at. And so you have more workers doing more with less and less time and less resources.

And it's just, it's an interesting thing because the image that you painted earlier of everybody voting to go on strike in the union leadership, not agreeing with it. And you turn around and there's cops in the room and that's kind of the message that gets sent. it. And, you know, you turn around and there's cops in the room and, you know, that's kind of the message that gets sent. It's like, I guess maybe if there's any kind of like lessons to learn from that period, it's that you will find yourself perhaps in tension with union leadership because their interests aren't always the same as the rank and file and that there does need to be a sort of like militancy among the rank and file to sort of push these political demands, like large, you know, large scale political demands, like not just on the shop floor,

but like sort of outside of that, too, like in society at large. And so and I don't know, there's not really any question here. And so and I don't know, there's not really any question here. It's just, I guess, what I'm seeing just from the, you know, the components to our caucus work, one of which was sort of building the economic struggles. But the other was building the political struggles. And, you know, when they shot a kid, Ernest Lacey, a black kid from the inner city in Milwaukee, the cops shot and murdered him. And we took that campaign into the factory. And when we had our first Martin Luther King that preceded anybody else in the UAW, you know, we had it in our local and we actually won the day off before anyone in the international even thought about it. won the day off before anyone in the international even thought about it.

We brought down the speaker who was head of the Justice for Ernest Lacey committee. You know, I mean, you just can't shy away from these issues. When we found out they were selling Krugerrand gold coins from South Africa during apartheid, we called for a picket line in front of that jewelry store. So if you're not involved, and this is a great point that you've made, if you're not involved in the political struggles, as well as the day-to-day economic struggles, you're not educating people to their class consciousness to understand why the class has to stand together as one, or we can't fight these things, you know, and it's become even more imperative today, you know, with the way things are with the growth of the right, you know, there's just a lot of organizing work to be done out there. You know,

luckily, the new crop of young people that are that are doing that organizing recognize, you know, these things. And, you know, in the Starbucks, they've got a very large committee called Pocket, which is the caucus of the people of color who are part of that unionizing effort. So, you know, they're asserting particular rights and demands that come from the experiences at Starbucks of people of color. But you're right. That was a hell of a period because the Wildcats, we were really supportive of the drum from those movements in Detroit, Black Revolutionary Union movements. movements. And I just read a book recently, and the company and the union just ganged up to fire all of them. They drove every Black activist out of those factories that had been involved in any sort of job actions that weren't, you know, under strictly under the contractual provisions. So that was really the UAW that was in cahoots that wiped out that movement, which was a powerful movement. And had the union backed it, would have changed the whole

complexion in two ways of, you know, of the union. And those, you know, luckily, we had such strength in our local union. You know, we were elected to run the local union by 1984, you know, overwhelmingly with thousands and thousands of votes, you know. And so we were able to withstand the power of the international until the very end in 1985, when, you know, they came in and they said to us, look, if you, the bargaining committee, don't recommend this, we're going to put it up for a vote in front of the membership anyway, you know, and we're going to tell them that you lost them their jobs, you know. So that's the rule. Now, there's supposed to be reformed leadership in the UAW now. We'll see come September 15th if they stand by their guns and fight for things like the end of the two tier wage system and reinstoring cost of living increases on people's pay to keep up with inflation, you know, we'll have to see. But it's the genesis of a new movement,

because you've got, you know, that kind of, you know, reform leadership beginning to develop in unions all over the country. So at the same time, I'm working with people organizing independent unions. I'm also working with people who are organizing caucuses in like the electrical workers union where racism, you know, they say fighting racism. All the white electrical workers off these construction crews go to a bar that's got a Confederate flag hanging on it. So they said we can't even get people to go to the same bar, you know, because a couple of black workers who went to the bar and saw, you know, a Confederate flag turned around and walked out. Yeah. Just made just 180 immediately. Yeah. You know, there's challenges. But, you know, if we don't do you know, if we don't organize, then we lose.

Yeah, it's it's interesting. The reason I brought it up is because in this time period, like going back to where Tom and I live, you had a reform movement among and a lot of potential and promise in the early 70s. But by the time you get to the 80s, they've kind of been assimilated back into the leadership of the UMWA. And they're kind of like going back to business as usual. But at the same time, like, unfortunately, they didn't have a lot of choice by the end. By the 80s, the coal market has crashed again and their kind of backs, their backs are kind of against the wall. And so it, you know, it just kind of speaks to how some of these larger currents and trends in the economy affect your organizing on the shop floor and those things. Yeah. I mean, they were, you know, they're, they're really,

they've learned a lot. They've learned that, the union has learned how to divide white and black workers. You know, the international, like I said, they sent out a black rep to try and turn the black workers against me on the strike vote. But recently, I've been working with a guy who works at the Thomas bus plant. And the leadership of that union, the UAW there is black and they're militant, you know, and they had to fight hard to get that union in. Now, when the reform leadership ran, you know, which was almost all white and the existing leadership was black, they didn't join the reform movement because the union had successfully gotten them to ally with the prior leadership you know so not only do the companies know how to use racism the union officials at the top how to use racism just as well and you know those are i mean you know we

got to be on guard all the time because you know they've got a playbook that they've been working on for a couple hundred years really yeah yeah and john i just want to point out you you bringing in that that um that police murder of that young black boy into the factory floor is so important because like for white workers like when you're organizing as a union who do you think that the bosses are going to send in to beat your ass you know the same cops that kill little black boys you know yeah for sure for sure i mean for sure when we went wildcat who would come down the street with their sirens to get us off the street to stop blocking traffic but the police you know i mean it's not like any of them ever walked a picket line with us yeah man john i got one more thing to ask you about before we

cut you loose to go and enjoy the rest of your day. I'm having too much fun. One of mine and Terrence's favorite stories is about this guy in West Virginia that they had a bridge that was just in continual

disrepair and the local government wouldn't do anything about it and he's petitioned you know the state and you know and eventually the feds and everybody he knew to reach out to to get it and eventually he had this idea that he was going to write khrushchev and see if the soviets could do anything about that bridge involved balkan west virginia that's right there in the first chapter of the book. But a young John Melroy growing up in the D.C. suburbs petitioned Beijing once for something. And to his surprise, I was wondering if you would just tell that story for me, Catchy Luke.

Well, yeah, I was I was I was actually only 15 at the time, but I had become quite disenchanted. You know, I mean, the racism here, the Vietnam War there. And I kind of began to understand that these things came because of capitalism. So I decided to write a letter to Chairman Mao Zedong. I said, Dear Chairman Mao, I'm a high school student in the United States. And, you know, I'm an activist and I don't really believe in, you know, the government here. And I'd like to learn about socialism. Could you send me something explaining it? could you send me something explaining it and about two months later in this brown paper wrapping like pornography used to be sent in you know from the four volumes of mal's selected works which i still have on my bookshelf can i just say john that there's a uh i don't know if you know you know this relevant or you know what this is, but there's like a meme or a joke, right, about young

socialists, communists begging Xi Jinping to send them equipment and aid. Like, it's a joke. It's a meme. You actually did this. You actually did this. You actually did this. I did it when there was actually

socialism in China. Exactly. There's capitalists, you know, but yeah. I love that. I hope Mao himself saw that and like, you know, was inspired. And personally set them himself up. We got a high school student, you know, who's ready to like you know read chairman mao but that's great that's awesome but you know when you say it's in the first chapter i'm gonna give one more

pitch if i can for the book please fighting times and you put in the name of the book, and the discount code fighting in capital letters is discounted 40%. So I hope people do read it. Because, you know, this one Republican from Florida did a podcast with me. And he told me, you know, I'm a Republican, this is gonna be tough on you. And you know, he's trying to catch me and say, well, you talk about socialism, you know, this has got free enterprise country. And I said, well, look, dude, you know, what do you think Medicare is? You know, what do you think VA benefits are? You know, shouldn't we all have the right to Medicare? You know, I mean, that's what I'm talking about. And at the end of it, it blew my mind. He held the book up because it was a podcast

that was being taped, you know, visually. And he said, you know, I didn't think I'd ever say this, but I'd like to have all of my listeners buy this book by John Melrod because they're going to learn something. So I hope people get it. And I really thank all three of you. It was a lot of fun. And, you know, I've known about Troubillies from my kids for a while.

You know, I don't want to say my age. They have a great taste in podcasts, at least. Yeah, they definitely do. Tell them that. Send them my best. You and Tuanon are the two best that I've been on. That's great. Thank you.

Thank you, John. Thank you. Well, John, we appreciate it so much, man. And, yeah, again, y'all, the book is Fighting Times. Go to the PM Press website for the 40% off or probably available a lot of other places too if for some reason you don't like saving money. But John, yeah, thanks again for stopping by. And while you're deciding where to send your dollars,

always think about us, friends. Patreon.com slash TrillBillyWorkersParty for $5 a month. We'll get you an extra hour of this mess every week. We certainly appreciate it. Appreciate you too, John. Thank you again for coming on.

Thanks a lot, guys. Maybe next time I'll get down to see you all. Please do. Yeah, please do. Yeah, yeah. Please do. Please do. Yeah, all right. Your biggest load, your big solution. A genocidal amphitheater.