My Own Story - Part III

A Dragon Slain

The long awaited date for the voting finally came on November 13, 1977. The National Labor Relations Board Representatives set up a very official looking voting station in the plant's lunch room where the actual voting took place during the employees lunch break and after their work shift ended. I honestly didn't know for sure which way it would go. Terry the asshole's cronies seemed to have grown in numbers during the past year of campaigning and although there were still a lot of workers not in his clique and up his ass, none of them would tell me straight out which way they had planned to vote. So the stress was incredible on me. I knew that if I lost the election, then I also had lost my job as well because there was no way I was going to continue working under the conditions that I had been during the previous year.

Since I was the Organizer, I was allowed to sit with the National Labor Relations Board Representatives along with one company representative to ensure there were no discarded votes, double voting etc. The voting would continue until 2 hours after the end of business on that day, 6:00 P.M. By the end of the first hour just over half of the voting workforce had voted. Of course, Terry the asshole's cronie ass kissers were the very first voters in line to cast their "no" ballots. I was astonished to see that a significant number of employees had decided not to vote at all, deciding instead to just go home after the day had ended. Most of these people were men that I was counting on to vote yes, so now the pressure was really on me and I was beginning to feel pangs of doom and panic.

The bottling plant had truck drivers who not always returned from their routes by day's end and there were at least 5 of them still out on the road during the last hour of voting. I knew that all 5 of these men were sure "yes' voters but if they weren't there to vote, it wouldn't matter.

By 5:30 only one truck driver had returned and he promptly voted. It came right down to the wire. I had made a mental calculation of who I thought had voted which way when I saw each man enter the voting booth. I had the voting in my mind called at a basic dead heat by 5:45 but I wasn't so sure it wouldn't be a landslide in the company's favor because of so many wishy-washy employees who were so terrified of being found out that they had voted "yes", if they actually had.

Then, just as the time was about to be called to end the voting another truck driver walked into the room at the last minute and he quickly cast his ballot. After his vote, time was called and the voting was officially over. I felt myself go into kind of a state of suspended animation, sort of like a dream-like state as I watched one of the National Labor Relations Board Representatives open the ballot box and sort all the paper ballots into two piles, the "yes" pile and the "no" pile. My heart pounded as he counted the first pile. He exclaimed "twenty four votes for this pile". That was very distressing for me because I had counted approximately 30 men voting in total which meant over 20 of them decided not to vote.

The next pile was counted and he exclaimed "10 votes for this pile". At this point I was fairly certain that I had lost the election and my job. Then he said in a loud voice "under careful and watchful eye of representatives of the Company, the Union, and The National Labor Relations Board, I hereby declare this election to be a 24-10 vote victory for The Union, Local# 669 of The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, which thus authorizes it from this moment forth to legally represent the employees of Bev-Pak Inc.

Terry the asshole was officially stripped of his dictatorship that day and not only was I immediately reinstated to my former job as forklift driver at Union scale wage but I was also appointed Shop Steward by the Union, giving me the authority to oversee fair treatment for all employees and authorizing me to bring grievance complaints directly to management for immediate resolution. Shortly thereafter, all of us as employees received our retroactive pay scale adjustment checks netting each and every one of us over $4,000.00.

That bottling plant still exists today, now operating under the name of Adirondack Beverages, Inc. It has grown to employ hundreds of people and now has an additional plant in another state. Thirty three years later, the Union, Teamsters Local# 669 of The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America still represents the work force of Adirondack Beverages, Inc. Those employees enjoy some of the highest paid wages and the best benefits in the industry.

I was just 22 years old when I single-handedly organized the employees of Bev-Pak and brought the Teamsters Union into represent them to insure equal treatment and fair pay for all. And though it was a monumental challenge, I ultimately prevailed and felt like I had slain Goliath for the good of all employees of that company. And to this day I consider that victory to be one of my greatest life accomplishments.

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