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Jerry Nichols: the Next Generation (January, 1998)

A Quiet Leader

AFSCME Steward, Winter 1998

MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE

Jerry Nichols remembers the man whose leadership first inspired him to become a steward.

“Mr. Vanya Johnson inspired me by showing me that there’s nothing to be afraid of when the boss is wrong,” he says. “He also inspired me by showing me how to stand up and say what’s right and what’s wrong.”

Today, Nichols’ leadership as a chief steward in AFSCME Local 1733 inspires his co-workers at the Memphis solid waste management department. A steward for over 17 years, as well as a trustee of Local 1733, he still traces his activism to the example set by Johnson two decades ago.

Nichols and his fellow sanitation workers had come to work on a rainy day when their supervisor insisted that they work outside. But Johnson, their chief steward, reminded the workers that the union’s memorandum of understanding with management said that on rainy days workers could be assigned to work four hours indoors and then work outdoors for the rest of the day. Johnson showed the memorandum to the supervisor who followed the rules and assigned them to indoor work.

“Mr. Johnson started working right beside us,” Nichols recalls, “cleaning the building on the inside. He never left our side. He didn’t have to stay, but he did. That inspired me to do the same, to want to be a steward.”

Emmie Lee, chairperson of the solid waste management chapter of Local 1733, praises Nichols’ leadership: “Jerry Nichols knows how to talk to people. He knows how to draw them to him. He never raises his voice, he never hollers, but he knows how to talk to people and get them looking his way. They give him respect and he gives them respect.”

When Nichols first became a steward, there was a divide between younger and older workers at his facility. He says: “Younger people were saying: ‘Well, I don’t really need the union.’ And I convinced them that they did need the union to support their job. I showed them that bosses don’t harass the people in the union. The younger employees learned to respect the older employees when they learned how the union came about.”

Nichols told younger workers how in 1968 Memphis’ African-American sanitation workers went on strike to secure decent wages, benefits and working conditions. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lost his life when he came to Memphis to support Local 1733’s strike. In the end, however, the workers won their strike and secured the basic dignity they deserved.

Nichols also took the younger workers to non-union job sites. He says: “They saw how the bosses would say ‘Hey, get on the truck, get on the truck.’ Instead of asking, the bosses were demanding. The workers realized that that wasn’t the way they wanted to be treated. They wanted to be treated equal. They found out that at the non-union site, all men were not treated equal.”

These younger workers who were once so reluctant to join the union are now taking leadership positions themselves.

“I have seen the younger crowd start to be stewards—where it used to be nothing but older men,” says Nichols. He serves as a mentor to many of these younger stewards.

He meets with the four stewards from his chapter each week to discuss what’s been happening in each of their workplaces and to sort out which complaints are grievances and which, according to Nichols, “are just gripes.”

He then investigates each grievance—and he emphasizes the importance of this to the other stewards: “You really have to investigate each case. You can’t take [the worker’s] word and you can’t take the supervisor’s word. The first thing as a steward I learned: what, who, when, where. If you can find out the four Ws, you can solve the case.”

Nichols came to this conclusion in 1980 when a worker in his unit was fired for doing drugs on the job. “He lied to me,” Nichols says. “Him, his wife, his family, they all lied to me.” Nichols helped him get his job back. A month later, he was fired again for the same thing.

In spite of such hard lessons, Nichols continues to find being a steward rewarding. “The thing I’m the most proud of as a steward is getting people back to work,” he says. “Because every man and every lady needs a job to support their family.”

His quiet conviction could inspire a whole new generation of leaders.

— By Alison S. Lebwohl 

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