Profiles in Dignity: Founding Father
Roy Kubista helped Wisconsin workers win the 40-hour workweek and got public employees the respect they deserve.
MADISON, WISCONSIN
A short 60 years ago public employees could be expected to work more than 40 hours a week without overtime pay. Rather than giving them support, the American labor movement treated these workers as second-class citizens.
People like Roy Kubista changed all that.
An AFSCME founder, Kubista, 86, is the only surviving signer of the union constitution. But he never expected to become a part of history.
In fact, when he went to work for the Wisconsin State Employees Association in 1934 at the height of the Depression he was only looking for a temporary job.
Under Exec. Director Arnold Zander, the 4-year-old WSEA already had saved members’ jobs by preserving civil service. But Zander was already preparing for a much bigger fight: creating a national union for state, county and municipal employees.
"I thought Zander was dreaming, really, because it looked like an awfully big task at that time," Kubista recalls.
Kubista drew up a list of 20 public sector locals affiliated with the American Federation of Labor — a total membership of 3,966. While Zander traveled the country developing support for the new union, Kubista drafted a constitution, organizational charts and "a bunch of resolutions."
The name he chose for the union was "American Federation of Public Employees." He was overruled by the the 1935 founding Convention in Chicago, which adopted the name "American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees."
"We wrote that into the constitution," Kubista says, "and it stuck all these years — although it is a rather awkward, long name."
The Convention also elected Zander president and Kubista secretary-treasurer.
The union applied for a charter to AFL Pres. William Green who was hesitant to grant recognition. Back then, the AFL was primarily composed of craftworkers and those in the building trades. "Can you imagine what happened in 1936 when the two top officers of a prospective labor union were Arnold Zander, Ph.D., and me with my Master’s degree?" Kubista chuckles. "Those plumbers and carpenters looked askance."
But in 1936 the AFL relented and granted the charter. When the newly chartered AFSCME met in Detroit the next year, the Convention elected Zander to be president and Pennsylvanian David Kanes secretary-treasurer.
Kubista returned to Madison, where he succeeded Zander as executive director of what was to become Local 1 and, later, Council 24. His tenure lasted 37 years. "I had thought it was only a temporary job, but it wasn’t," he says with a smile.
One of Kubista’s early victories came during World War II when public employees were doing double duty on the homefront. "Our people were working way overtime," Kubista recalls. He told officials that cutting back working hours to 40 hours, five days a week would open up positions for returning veterans, and his argument succeeded. "Governor Goodland thought that was a good idea ... [and] signed the bill. ... It was a real pioneering effort," he says. It was not until 1966 that the federal government first extended the 40-hour workweek to some state and local employees.
Thanks to the WSEA and Kubista, the governor also signed the first state employee cost-of-living bonus in the country. "After that, unions grabbed it — the United Auto Workers and others," he says.
Of all his accomplishments on behalf of Wisconsin state workers, Kubista is proudest of his role in drafting the 1943 employee pension plan.
The plan had been vetoed. Then a group of charwomen, most in their 70s, who cleaned the state capitol took on the fight. "They went to see the governor one night, and he smoked his pipe in front of the fireplace up there in the governor’s mansion," Kubista recalls. "These old women talked to him about how they needed a pension. Well, they must have been very effective because the next day Goodland sent a message to the legislature saying he wanted to recall his veto and sign the bill anyway."
The plan Kubista created is still providing for Wisconsin state retirees. The union he helped found is still protecting workers across the nation."AFSCME started with a membership of close to 4,000 members. Now it’s over a million," he says with quiet pride. "That’s remarkable growth."
By Susan Ellen Holleran
