America Loses a True Working-Class Hero

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/4995/america_loses_a_true_working-class_hero/

Tuesday October 6 3:00 pm


Rudy Kuzel, former president of UAW Local 72. (Photo by Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)


On October 1, when retired UAW Local 72 President Rudy Kuzel succumbed to cancer at age 73, Wisconsin lost the most extraordinary working-class hero I've ever known.

Before his retirement Rudy led Local 72 through many tumultuous struggles—first with American Motors and then, after 1987, with Chrysler—during his 38 years as an autoworker.

With his bristling crew-cut, his intimidating gaze, and his uniform of a black T-Shirt and blue jeans under his shiny UAW jacket, a reporter once described Rudy as looking like an old-fashioned union leader sent from central casting.

Rudy not only looked the part of a labor leader, he fully embodied it with a degree of commitment and skills as an inspiring unifier, chess-master strategist at the negotiating table, and uplifting orator. He was a steadfast, utterly resolute force for labor and a broader vision of social and economic democracy.

While too many of Rudy's contemporaries saw the labor movement as narrowly working for "just us," Rudy always saw labor's responsibility as "justice for all."

Reporting on Rudy while serving as editor of Racine Labor just north of the auto plant in Kenosha where he worked, I had the unique opportunity to see him in action again and again, always marveling at his ability to win the trust of his members and to spread a progressive message with imagination and flair. As a public speaker, Rudy was a non-stop fount of compelling quotes and powerful images.


FULL story at link.

[Earth Bound Misfit]

1. K & R

R.I.P Rudy. It appears as if you were a Mountain of a Man.

...Just a few months after that battle, Rudy and Local 72 members faced the biggest struggle of their lives. Chrysler had provided guarantees for keeping jobs in Kenosha in exchange for state and local subsidies, but on January 27,1988, Lee Iacocca announced that 5,500 auto-assembly jobs were, in effect, being relocated to a low-wage plant in Mexico. Where many union leaders would have started negotiating a plant shutdown agreement, Rudy gathered the Local 72 leadership and laid out a plan for battling the shutdown every step of the way....

...Local 72 brought in Jesse Jackson, who drew a crowd of 7,000 or more to an outdoor rally on a frigid February day where he decried the "economic violence" of Chrysler's decision... Wherever Chrysler officials appeared anywhere in the US--like at the National Auto Show--so did Local 72 to remind Chrysler of its written and moral obligations.

Finally, a visibly exasperated Lee Iacocca showed up in mid-February at a news conference in a hotel ballroom near Milwaukee's airport, with Local 72 protesters locked outside. Given the huge stakes for southeastern Wisconsin, every TV station broadcast the event live.

Surrounded by a coterie of bodyguards and Chrysler exectuives, Iacocca, with a great sense of self-congratulation for his munificence, unveiled a $20 million trust fund for victims of the Kenosha plant closing. Iacocca and his entourage then floated away.

Immediately, UAW Local 72 members poured into the ballroom with the reporters still present. Rudy Kuzel then strode to the podium... I actually felt anxious for Rudy in dealing with this complex challenge, which turned out to be a bit like worrying about Michael Jordan's ability to handle a layup. I wrote this for Racine Labor:

Once more showing his remarkable gift for pitch-perfect metaphors delivered at critical moments, Rudy compared Iacocca's plan to a scene in a Western movie: "Jesse James and his brother Frank hold up a bank and cleaned all of the town's money. Pretty soon a posse starts chasing them, frantic about getting back their money. But Jesse got a bright idea and reached back into his saddlebags and took out a few coins and tossed them over his shoulder as he kept galloping away. Immediately, the posse comes to a screeching halt and they all start fighting among themselves over the few coins.That's what Lee Iacocca's plan is all about. They want us fighting among ourselves while they make their getaway from Kenosha."

Eventually, the fierce eight-month struggle to save the 5,500 jobs was undercut by the withdrawal of support bu Gov. Thompson and Rep. Aspin. But Rudy's determination and leadership forced Chrysler to shell out $250 million in benefits to the workers and Kenosha, making it the most expensive plant closing up to that point.