Sunday, September 13, 2009
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DeWitt Walton: “The work’s still going to get done, and it’s either going to get done by union workers or by nonunion workers. If it’s done by nonunion workers, we all lose.”
In Pittsburgh, the Steel Workers’ DeWitt Walton isn’t shy about pushing individuals, people in power and even fellow trade unionists outside their comfort zone.
“You have to be willing to take some risks,” Walton says. “We’re not always going to be successful. Sometimes we’ll fail. But you can’t be afraid of failure, because if you’re afraid to fail, you’re afraid to achieve.”
The latest initiative Walton hopes to add to the achievements list is “green jobs” training for two dozen adults at the Bedford Hope Center in the Hill District.
The neighborhood, where Walton lives, is an historically black community. Looking west toward downtown, the neighborhood seems to stand eye to eye with the glass towers of Mellon Bank and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Before the city’s manufacturing economy withered, Walton recalls, the neighborhood was vibrant.
Now, real unemployment approaches 50 percent, he says. Few residents have the kind of family-supporting jobs that manufacturing supported. Those who have jobs often need two or three of them to stay afloat. The new realities increase crime, increase gang activity, diminish the focus on education, break down families and break down communities, he says.
Ongoing collaboration between the Housing Authority and the A. Philip Randolph Institute tries to change that reality, at least for some people, Walton says. “It’s an incredible opportunity to empower the disadvantaged and those who don’t have a voice, to build power, and to give opportunities to those who lack opportunities.”
Following A. Philip Randolph’s Footsteps
Walton knows the difference opportunity makes. “I’ve been homeless in my life. I’ve been out in the streets, didn’t have a place to stay, didn’t have no money. So I know if it weren’t for folks looking out for me, where I’d be. So we’ve got to give back.”
He worked for 19 years in the mills in and around East Chicago, Indiana. Now he is special assistant to USW president Leo Gerard. Steel Workers’ leadership, Walton says, gives him the opportunity to work to bring fundamental change in the community the union calls home. In the process, he says, he provides service, demonstrates union values, and does “the kinds of things Mr. Randolph himself would want every chapter to do.”
The latest initiative leverages a lot of Walton’s connections – the Steel Workers, his college fraternity (Kappa Alpha Psi), and especially the growing partnership between the Housing Authority of Pittsburgh and the local chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, of which Walton is vice president. The goal is to carry forward the fight for racial equality and economic justice that Randolph led through his legendary work with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
The training is an attempt to give residents in the Hill District a leg up in pursuing construction careers. The A. Philip Randolph Institute and the Steel Workers are providing extensive, 30-hour OSHA certification and other workplace safety training. The pre-appenticeship program takes them into territory that traditionally is the realm of Building Trades unions. It is Walton’s hope that the training gives the graduates the preparation they need to pass apprenticeship entrance exams and catch on with union trades.
Having the Hard Conversations
It was Jack Shea, president of the Allegheny County Central Labor Council, who got the A. Philip Randolph Institute and the construction unions in the same room for the “candid kinds of discussions about what we need and how we can get there,” Walton says.
In the next 10 years, tens of thousands of union building trades workers – nearly all of them white – will retire. They’ll need to be replaced. “How do you get there?” Walton asks. “The work’s still going to get done, and it’s either going to get done by union workers or by nonunion workers.
“If it’s done by nonunion workers, we all lose. So let’s deal with the issue of diversity in a constructive way. Let’s help those who don’t have the skills obtain the skills. Let’s provide the kind of support that we need to have, so that they can be successful and build the movement.”
It’s the kind of candor that Walton brings regardless of who’s across the table. To achieve common goals in a city where race and class tensions linger, he says, “we have to understand that it takes collective work and collective effort. I expect – and so far have been met with – respect. Not necessarily acquiescence, but understanding. Not necessarily saying that it’s going to be easy, not saying that we’re going to be friends, but understanding that we can respect each other and that there are going to be common goals, and how we can meet those common goals?”
The approach also has opened opportunities for Walton, his union and the A. Philip Randolph Institute with environmentalists, anti-violence groups like 1Hood, and young voter activists. In the mills, Walton says, “I learned to use every tool in my tool bag. I will work with anybody who has the objective of empowering and improving communities: my fraternity, politicians, community activists, just rabble rousers if they are about moving a progressive agenda forward.”
Story by Michael Kuchta, AFSCME Council 5 Minnesota
Photo by Belinda Gallegos, 1199SEIU
