Teach Your Children Well
By Gerald W. McEntee
In 1924 at the age of 21, my father, Bill McEntee, went to work for the City of Philadelphia’s Sanitation Department. He went to work for a city government that not only would not recognize employee unions, but would take advantage of workers at every turn.
When city workers finally started to organize into a union in 1933, my dad and his fellow employees were working six days a week, often 12 hours a day with no overtime.
Times were hard. Bodies were weary. And nerves were frayed. There wasn’t a lot of time for family or anything else.
Things got even worse when Philadelphia went through a financial crisis during the Depression. Six-day workweeks were cut to three-day workweeks and the daily wage was frozen at $5 regardless of the number of hours worked.
Desperate, city workers turned to unions to make a difference. Philadelphia municipal employees first organized with the Teamsters and then later formed a company union. Finally in 1938, AFSCME, a newly formed national union based in Wisconsin, was chosen by the workers to represent them at City Hall.
Soon after, my father became one of the founding members of Street Cleaners Union AFSCME Local 427.
One of the events that shaped my life and the future of all public employees in this country followed soon after. The City of Philadelphia refused to sign a collective bargaining agreement with the local unions and the workers went on strike.
This was a first in American and AFSCME history. Never before had a union gone out on strike against a major city government.
At the end of the four-day strike, city leaders signed the city’s first collective bargaining agreement. That agreement eventually led to the formation of Council 33, of which my father was the first president, and the rise of AFSCME in Pennsylvania.
Thirty years later, inspired by my father and driven by a deep belief in what AFSCME stands for, I began the push to get collective bargaining for state employees in Pennsylvania.
As I walked the halls of the Pennsylvania state capitol building, I knew I walked in the very tall shadow of my father. But I walked in that shadow knowing that the lessons he had taught me about the union and the difference it could make in people’s lives would lead the state employees to victory.
And it did. In 1973, employees of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania won the right to collectively bargain. And within two years, we had signed up almost 100,000 new members.
Now you may be wondering why I am writing about my father in this column. In this issue of the Public Employee, we have highlighted several workers who have kept the union tradition in the family — much as I did by carrying on the legacy of my father.
But teaching our children the value of unionism and what we have done for workers in the 20th century is about more than just keeping a legacy going. It is about progress. It is about justice.
Talk show commentators, economists and corporate CEOs have been arguing for years that unions have long outlived their usefulness. They are wrong. Working men and women face unprecedented attacks from the radical right. They have less job security than they did 10 years ago. The divide between the “haves” and “have nots” continues to deepen. It could not be more clear — unions are more relevant today than they have ever been any time during our history.
Be proud that you are part of one of the greatest movements the world has ever known. Be proud of the fact that your union is fighting for justice not only for you, but for your children and your children’s children.
Be proud that you are a part of our AFSCME family and help your children understand that being involved in your union is not only about wages and benefits, it’s also about their future.
Tell your children about your union. It may make all the difference in the world to their future.
It did mine.
