Transcript

Location: 621 Gillette St.

Howard Fredricks (interviewer): Archie, let’s, uh, get back to La Crosse and the labor problems here in La Crosse. During the war things went fairly smoothly for—between management and labor?

Archie Currie: Well, we had a no strike pledge so there were no big problems at that time. Some of the factories throughout the nation had a few wildcats, but we had no problems at the Auto-Lite—La Crosse Auto-Lite Plant. 

Ah, I believe it was the ‘46 negotiations—first negotiations after the war I think were ‘46. Gets kind of foggy after all these years, but we were offered what I thought was just tremendous because we were always nickel and diming before that and here we get an eighteen cent an hour across the board offer from management. And our local union president called the bargaining committee at large and the executive board all together and talked to all of us. He thought we shouldn’t report this offer to the membership because—I think I explained before: before you go into negotiations you always take a strike vote to get the executive board that power that if the bargaining committee isn’t making headway they can go back and you’ve got that strike vote. Well, we had that strike vote, ah, on these negotiations and the president suggested that we not tell the membership. And, uh, that goes back again to why I always supported Reuther because his belief was always that the informed membership was a good membership. And so Paul Bigley and I took a stand that we wanted it reported to the membership. And the president had his supporters on both sides.

Fredricks: And the president was?

Currie: Al Danielson. He had his supporters within that executive group. And, uh, Paul and I—the only other one we were sure of was Don Yolton. So we had quite an argument and Paul, he was a pretty good, uh, orator. It was a shame to have him talk in front of a bunch of women or Christians because he had some pretty vile language, but he was our main floor leader on this fight. And we began to swing a few more of them all the time and we finally won the vote that they report it to the membership. With the recommendation to turn it down and that proved our point, that they did turn it down. And we went back in, we wanted a couple of more things on the fringe benefits. And we got them. I mean, there was no problem that first negotiation after the war. There was no problem at all, uh, getting that stuff, because—I still say the biggest strike in the nation was just before the war started when the factories wouldn’t convert to war production like they should until they got that cost plus contract from the government. They were guaranteed a certain amount of profit over and above, uh, the cost of producing. So they had made their’s during the war and they weren’t too tough at that time. 

Our, uh, next negotiations wasn’t so profitable. It was, uh, let’s see, ‘48. We had a short strike. Uh, fringe benefits mostly at that time. We never struck for wages, although wages was always in there, but in the Auto workers, Reuther was never striking for just wages. You always had to include improved working conditions and insurance and stuff like that. Pensions were farther down the line. Uh, the next negotiations was pensions. But we had a few insurance arguments and stuff like that. Our strike only lasted a couple days. And then in ‘50—

Fredricks: And how did it come out?

Currie: We got most of what we wanted. We usually did.