‘I Marched with Dr. King’

Because it is presently fashionable to worship the labor union accomplishments of the late Mr. Chavez, there is a tendency by many people who drove through a town where Mr. Chavez was living to claim intimate association with him. The Bureau of American Statistics reports that more than 16 million Americans claim to have participated in civil rights marches with Dr. Martin Luther King in the 1960s. Those who claimed to also have marched with him in the 1970s quickly were discounted. Mr. Contreras was said to have been trained by Mr. Chavez to be a union negotiator. You know about suave union negotiators — those white-gloved, spats-sporting dandies who bow low, wink with their left ears, wear long sleeves to hide their tattoos and always ask, “Mother, may I?” Young but hardening Mr. Contreras spent two years thinking with his fists in Toronto where he organized the Toronto grape boycott. The Toronto grape boycott? By the late 1970s, Mr. Contreras’ thug tour of the Western world took him to San Francisco where he was an organizer for one of the dirtiest unions extant, H.E.R.E., the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees. For years, like a roving hoodlum, he was dispatched from city to city, to “organize,” whether workers wanted to unite or not. It is important to understand Mr. Contreras’ stucco-edged tactics as a union organizer. He was in no danger of winning the Mr. Nice Guy prize. It was not as if he ambled into a hotel randomly, threw an arm around an idle bellboy and said, “Chumley, can you find it in your ample heart to let me ply you with a drink? You may not know that you are a victim. I am a rescuer of victims. And I am here to make life much smoother for you. When would you like to say yes? Now or later.?”

The Mobster Mentality

The stories I heard about H.E.R.E. union organizers after Mr. Contreras turned his jackals loose a few years ago in Santa Monica would make old cops shiver. When his hoods talked about jewelry, they meant brass knuckles. It is regarded as a plus on Mr. Contreras’ problematic resume that he was the chief thug overseeing a month-long hotel strike in San Francisco in 1979, the first walkout there since the 1930s. Says a biography: “His militant tactics enabled (Local 2 in San Francisco)to negotiate a city-wide hotel contract in 1988.” “Militant” is as close as intimidated newspapers come to calling the radical rough-housing a form of terrorism. About this time, Mr. Contreras was taking bows for winning amnesty for 2700 unionists who were illegal immigrants. He was very effective for many years in papering over hordes of illegals so they could obtain services and vote. You know what the tee-shirt says: “No Human Is Illegal.” Mr. Contreras lived by that concept. What a helpful, multi-talented chap Mr. Contreras was. None of us is old enough to hear even a cleaned-up version of his strong-arming tactics in voter-recruiting campaigns. Perhaps you saw the “Godfather” series of films in the 1970s.

Here Is a Lesson for You

On the heels of state Sen. Sheila Kuehl’s summer-long campaign to make the gay lifestyle a centerpiece of public school education, along comes another clunky body. They are trying the same stunt, and it may work. The County Federation of Labor probably was just trying to be helpful. The Los Angeles Times reported deceptively this morning in the passive voice that the teachers at the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex “received a lesson plan put together by the federation. It includes suggestions for making the labor movement part of classes on world history, U.S. history, government and economics.” Simply in the spirit of goodwill, the good, ol’ boys down at the union hall also delivered an exercise called “What Are Your Rights on the Job?” We all are victims, you know. Plus, they included an hour-long lesson plan. What a poor model for vulnerable, inquisitive minds.

More Mob Mentality

Mr. Contreras and I crossed paths a few years ago at the Loews Hotel in Santa Monica after his goons had completed another successful organizing mission. Talk about lipstick on a pig. There stood business-suited Mr. Contreras, wide smile for the cameras, alongside the hotel’s general manager, a corporate fuss-budget type who also managed a cousin of a smile. There was less sincerity in the room that morning than there ever was in the Kremlin. Ten years ago, this wonderful thug person was “elected” chief executive of the County Federation of Labor by “acclamation.” Wait a minute. The federation has 300 unions and 800,000 members. When a federation of this size votes “unanimously” to elect a wonderful thug person as its sacred, unquestioned leader, this can be described as a bullet fired into the brain of American democracy.