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- Description:
- Don Stevens, former Michigan State University trustee and AFL-CIO board member, reminisces about his childhood, family, farming, his early education, and his experiences with labor unions and union organizing. Stevens talks about his early work life, hearing about unions during the auto sit-down strikes in 1936 and 1937, listening to radio preachers condemn unions, and failed attempts to unionize a laundry where he worked and later success in organizing dairy and retail workers in the Grand Rapids area in the 1940s. Stevens also discusses CIO leadership during the war, union political efforts regarding health and safety, unemployment insurance, higher wages, and seniority rights and his own involvement in the growing union movement and labor organizing. Stevens is interviewed by John Revitte, MSU professor of Labor and Industrial Relations. Part one of four.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-02-08T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Michigan State University Professor Emeritus of Economics C. Patrick "Lash" Larrowe, talks about his family and childhood in Portland, OR, how his interest in working class issues and unionism grew and why he chose economics as a way of teaching about labor issues. Larrowe describes his early union experiences while in college, joining the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists, his service in World War Two, getting his first professorship at the University of Utah, and finally coming to work at the Labor and Industrial Relations Center at MSU. Larrowe discusses settling in at MSU and the people he worked with including, Jack Stieber, Charles Killingsworth, and MSU President John Hannah. He also explains the tensions between the Labor School and state conservatives and why the MSU faculty grievance system was created in the face of professors being terminated. Larrowe says he left the Labor School and moved to the Economics Department when his research and published material was threatened with censorship. Larrowe is interviewed by John Revitte, MSU professor of Labor and Industrial Relations.
- Date Issued:
- 1989-06-12T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Mabel McQueen talks about her career at REO Motor Car Company/Diamond-Reo Trucks, Inc, in Lansing, MI, from 1953 to 1975. She describes her youth on the family farm, working at Motor Wheel through the war, her work as a secretary and bookkeeper, her supervisors, and her feelings about the union. McQueen says that many of her family members also worked at REO and that REO itself felt like one big family. She says that the bankruptcy was a terrible time and that it was heartbreaking watching friends and co-workers being fired and losing their pensions. The interviewers are Shirley Bradley and Lisa Fine. Recorded as part of the REO Memories oral history project.
- Date Issued:
- 1992-06-16T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- In the first of two interviews Dale Brickner, professor in the School of Labor and Industrial Relations and associate director of the Labor Education Program at Michigan State University, talks about his youth, family and education and explains how he became interested in labor issues. Brickner talks about his early labor activism and says that he served on a picket line as a youngster and was struck by a teargas canister. He recalls jobs he had in college that had him advocating for labor rights, working in a steel mill and as a reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Brickner also talks about graduate school, teaching economics and labor relations and recalls several of the union officials with whom he worked and shares stories of his time working with unions and educators. Brickner is interviewed by John Revitte, MSU professor of Labor and Industrial Relations.
- Date Issued:
- 1995-07-13T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Harry E. Lester, a former district director for the United Steelworkers of America, talks about his labor and political activism in southeast Michigan, his childhood in West Virginia, coming to Michigan in 1953 to work for Ford, later working at Mclouth Steel and joining union Local 2659. He talks about why he became active in the union, receiving labor law training at Michigan State University, establishing a teachers union in Gibraltar, MI, and labor education programs at several state universities. He says that he had a difficult time transitioning from being a "gladiator type" of fighter for the workers to becoming a bridge builder. Lester is interviewed by John Revitte, MSU professor emeritus of Labor and Industrial Relations.
- Date Issued:
- 2013-07-17T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Olga "Jo" Beltrame, with her husband Ed Beltrame, discusses her career as a union officer and organizer with the United Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee and UPWOC Local 69. Beltrame talks about her childhood in Montreal, her father's union activity, coming to Detroit to find work at the age of 14, her experiences working at the Swift meat packing plant and what she later did to help organize meat packing plants, especially Swift's Detroit Hammond-Standish plant. The Beltrames both discuss unions and their shared union activities through the years, including their work in organizing meat packing plants across several states, the wage improvements and benefits which were won for workers, and their elected positions in the union. Ends abruptly. The Beltrames are interviewed by John Revitte, Michigan State University professor of Labor and Industrial Relations, and Joan Kelly, editor of the Michigan AFL-CIO newspaper. The first of two interviews.
- Date Issued:
- 1982-06-24T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Nationally renowned folk singer John McCutcheon delivers a performance entitled, "Culture and community: organizing hearts and minds". McCutcheon weaves together music and discussion to highlight both culture and community as a way to organize He reflects on his youth, his relationship with his parents and explains how he got his start in music. Question and answer concludes the session. McCutcheon is introduced by Professor John P. Beck, Associate Director, Michigan State University School of Human Resources and Labor Relations. Part of the "Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives" Brown Bag series sponsored by the MSU School of Human Resources and Labor Relations, and cosponsored by the MSU Libraries Colloquia Series. Held at the MSU Library.
- Date Issued:
- 2012-02-17T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Walter Campbell, former Regional Director for the Allied Industrial Workers (AIW) Region 7 in west Michigan and former Secretary-Treasurer for the Michigan State AFL-CIO, talks about his youth in Muskegon, MI and serving in the Civilian Conservation Corp in 1933 and 1934. Campbell recalls union organizing drives in the 1930s and 1940s and talks about the formation of the UAW-AFL and the UAW-CIO and the creation of the AIW with Les Washburn as president. He says that he went to work for the International AIW in 1943 and talks about women and minorities working in American industry after World War II, the closed shop and labor strikes. Campbell is interviewed by John Revitte, professor of Labor and Industrial Relations at Michigan State University.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-04-02T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Marvin Grinstern talks about his employment at REO Motor Car Company/Diamond-Reo Trucks, Inc, in Lansing, MI, from 1965 and 1975. Grinstern describes growing up in Lansing, farming, visiting his father at the plant, as a boy, during the 1937 strike and finally joining his father and other relatives at REO. Grinstern also talks about a fatal accident on the shop floor, managers abusing their position, the REO bankruptcy, the plant closing, and the resulting shock, depression and suicides among workers. Grinstern laments the loss of manufacturing companies and jobs in Lansing and remarks on the great changes that came to factories in the wake of unionization and women in the workplace. The interviewers are Shirley Bradley and Lisa Fine. Recorded as part of the REO Memories oral history project.
- Date Issued:
- 1992-12-03T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Leslie Mitchell remembers REO Motor Car Company/Diamond-Reo Trucks, Inc., in Lansing, MI, as a great place to work, in this interview conducted by historian Shirley Bradley. Mitchell discusses growing up across from the REO plant where both of his parents worked, starting his work life at the General Motors Oldsombile plant and later moving to REO. Mitchell describes a tragic death at the plant during his tenure which led to UAW Local 650 successfully organizing REO workers. Recorded as part of the commemoration of REO Motor Car Company’s 100th Anniversary.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-05-05T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection