Fl
TH OUGHTS
Michigan labor czar Sam Fishman covered a
wide range of issues in this exclusive interview
before his death last week
NOAM GELFOND
Special to The Jewish News
lAt hen teenagers edge
close to adulthood, their
parents often teach
them about the facts of
life. When Sam
Fishman left New York at 16 to
come to Detroit to work, his father
lectured him on another matter im-
portant at the time — the facts of
unions. "My dad lectured me that if
you're going to go work in the plant,
remember that a union is the most
important thing in a worker's life."
So while most boys his age were
treated to ball games by their
fathers, Fishman went with his dad
to union meetings.
"I meet many people today in
the Detroit Jewish community who
tell me they remember their dad tel-
ling stories about organizing or
about their grandfather and great-
grandfather organizing," Fishman
said.
From those working class roots
Fishman, 62, carved a lifelong path
in the labor movement — from the
Ford Motor Co. assembly line in the
1940s to a UAW local leadership, in-
cluding the presidency of Local 36,
and numerous roles with the inter-
national UAW.
Until his death he reigned as
president of the Michigan chapter of
the AFL-CIO. Fishman was also
very active in the Democratic Party,
serving as a member of the execu-
tive committee of the Democratic
National Committee and an officer
of the Michigan Democratic Party.
He was also involved with the
Jewish Labor Committee.
The AFL-CIO (formed nationally
when the American Federation of
Labor merged with the Congress of
Industrial Organizations in 1955) is
not actually a union, but an amal-
gamation of unions with the purpose
of achieving a strong, unified voice
for the labor movement.
Fishman soft-peddled the fact
that the Detroit News dubbed him
"Michigan's Kingmaker" of state
politics and the second most power-
ful political figure in the state." To
the latter suggestion he replied
rather diplomatically, if not mod-
estly, "After who, my wife?" There is
no doubt, however, that Sam
Fishman made sure that the con-
cerns of his movement were heard
throughout the state.
Though Fishman shrugged off
his influence within state politics,
others did not.. Michigan Democratic
Party Chairman Rich Weiner said,
"Sam Fishman had been very active
for a long time both in Michigan
Democratic Party politics and on a
national level. And I'd say that his
presence on the national level had
certainly been a plus for us.
The thing about Sam was that
he was able to separate himself from
labor and make decisions based on
what was best for everybody, not
just labor."
Historically, the labor move-
ment was nothing if not progressive.
Says Karl Mark Pall of the office of
the president of AFSCME Council
25, the largest union in the country
and the second largest in Michigan,
and whose family was active in the
early years of the labor movement:
"Sam was part of that early pro-
gressive movement that said labor
was like a family. We should take
care of people and work together like
families. We should socialize like a
family and be responsive to the
needs of our 'family.' That everyone
who wants a college education
should be able to get one was a
major priority of his. Everyone takes
that for granted now.
Fishman believed, "There's a
consensus in the labor movement
that the whole fight or quest to pro-
tect jobs or increase the job market
go more to what gets done politically
and legislatively, than what the
labor movement can do in collective
bargaining. Now that's easy to say,
but that's a revelation of recent ori-
gin, say in the last decade .
"The classical or historical
example that you can use in Detroit,
around the auto industry" is the
Chrysler story. He argued that even
though the UAW helped the corn-
pany beat its brush with bankruptcy
by agreeing to concessions, what
really saved the company was secur-
ing guaranteed loans from the fed-
eral government and some indi-
vidual states. "That's a simple case,"
he said, but the labor movement
understands that what we did politi-
cally and legislatively has more of
an impact, is more significant, than
anything we can do in collective
bargaining."
Of course, those events occurred
during a Jimmy Carter administra-
tion that was sympathetic and loyal
to labor. Today, under Ronald , Re-
agan, the scenario is quite different.
Fishman saw a White House
that is watching millions of so-called
Rust Bowl industrial jobs fade away
without a fight.
We have seen a new phenom-
enon in the history of the U.S. For
the first time we have become the
recipients of a very unfavorable
trade balance. We've become a de-
btor nation, we import considerably
more than we export. Each billion
dollars of trade that we import more
than we export means the loss of be-
tween 20,000-25,000 jobs."
So when you multiply 25,000
jobs by the $170 million deficit the
U.S. is likely to tally this year,
you're looking at millions of lost
jobs.
And this is what troubled
Fishman. "We're not just importing
cars and importing steel and textiles
and everything else, the other piece
of that process is we're exporting
jobs at the same time. So the labor