John W. Livingston,
born
August 17, 1908, on a farm in Iberia, Missouri (the foothills of
the Ozarks), served the AFL-CIO in the post of
Director of Organization for ten years, from the merger of the AFL
and CIO in December 1955 to December 1965. During this period,
Livingston demonstrated his well‑known skills as an
administrator, negotiator, and organizer.
By
the time Livingston was twenty-six, he was well into a lifelong
career as a trade unionist. In December 1927, after attending
Iberia Academy for two years, Livingston worked five years at the
Fisher Body Division of the General Motors Corporation in St.
Louis, Missouri, where he worked in the trim department.
In 1930, he had a brush with management when he and some thirty
other workers demanded an increase in their 40-cents-per-hour
wage. For their boldness, Livingston and thirty-one other workers
were summarily fired. A skillful worker, Livingston was soon back
at Fisher.
John William
Livingston
*
* * * *
Born
March 2, 1915, in Athens, Ohio, William "Bill" Kircher
rose from the labor union ranks to hold the AFL-CIO post of
Director of Organization from 1965 to 1973. A well-liked fellow,
Bill Kircher's life was long and studded with many achievements.
Kircher
graduated in June 1932 from Athens public schools. He then
attended Ohio University and graduated in 1936 with a bachelor's
degree in journalism. He worked as a reporter and editor for the
Athens Messenger (1935-1936) and as editor for La Peunte Valley
Journal (1936-1937). From 1937 to 1941 he also served as editor
for several community newspapers in the Cincinnati area. Kircher's
union activity began with editorial employees on several
newspapers in Ohio; he helped to bring them into the American
Newspaper Guild.
In
1940 Kircher went to work for the Wright Aeronautical Plant in
Evansdale. While working at this defense plant, he helped form UAW
Local 647 and served from 1941‑1943 as the local's
full‑time Education Director.
William Kircher
*
* * * *
Negroes
in the United States read this history of labor and find it
mirrors their own experience. We are confronted by powerful
forces telling us to rely on the good will and understanding of
those who profit by exploiting us. They deplore our discontent,
they resent our will to organize, so that we may guarantee that
humanity will prevail and equality will be exacted. They are
shocked that action organizations, sit-ins, civil disobedience,
and protests are becoming our every day tools, just as strikes,
demonstrations and union organization became yours to insure
that bargaining power genuinely existed on both sides of the
table. We want to rely upon the goodwill of those who oppose
us.
Indeed,
we have brought forward the method of non-violence to give an
example of unilateral goodwill in an effort to evoke it in those
who have not yet felt it in their hearts. But we know that if we
are not simultaneously organizing our strength we will have no
means to move forward. If we do not advance, the crushing burden
of centuries of neglect and economic deprivation will destroy
our will, our spirits and our hopes. In this way labor's
historic tradition of moving forward to create vital people as
consumers and citizens has become our own tradition, and for the
same reasons.
Martin Luther
King
*
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