January, 1999
Labor Party Press
Conversation with
Mike Hendry
Mike Hendry is President of OCAW Local 7-517 in
Lemont, Illinois.
I thought the convention was successful. We got our business done. It
wasn’t quite as thrilling as the first one, just because it’s not all new. It
was more orderly and business-like. But I got kind of a kick out of it.
You do get to the point where you almost want an early gavel. It’s
not as though if somebody gets up and makes the same speech in different words, I’m
going to change my mind about how I feel about something. And it’s not like
they’re really arguing with an adversary here. Some of the speakers were very
forceful and effective. I just hope they apply that elsewhere too, not just in a place
where most people agree with them.
On the electoral issue, I think we need to get more exposure and build up
the party before we run candidates. A lot of people don’t even realize that the
Democrats and Republicans are pretty much the same. We’ve had lots of experience
locally with politicians who are very friendly and hold your hand through the election,
and then once they get in, it turns out they’re in the pocket of big business, just
like everybody else.
My members come from three locations. I work at an oil refinery and we
also represent people at an asphalt plant and a carbon plant. Among my members,
there’s definitely a lot of dissatisfaction with the status quo.
The Labor Party presents itself as a topic of discussion in my local just
about every time somebody reads the paper. People are always spouting off about how this
guy’s in office and he’s screwing us. And that’s a good time to bring up
the point. There is an alternative. And we’re it.
There are other unions that work in our plant as contractors, and
we’re going to try to get some of them to affiliate with the Labor Party too.
A big issue for us is Taft-Hartley. In fact, there’s no better
example of why we need to get rid of Taft- Hartley than us. We were locked out for nine
months. As soon as we got back to work they supposedly sold the place to one of the
partners, claimed that they were new employers, and threw away the contract. We
haven’t had a contract for over a year. So people here are definitely into the idea
of a workers’ rights campaign.
The other thing is, it just sickens me when I hear about all these
children in poverty in this country. I thank God that my family is okay. But I can imagine
if you were in poverty what a bleak outlook you’d have — going nowhere and
sinking further every day. It’s immoral that we let that happen to anyone.
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