VIDEO: On Rick Smith Show Discussing “We Always Had a Union”
Robert Richman, 1948-2025
At my grandma’s funeral, years ago, the priest said something that stuck with me. And I don’t usually go for this sort of thing. But he talked about the work, the drudgery, of raising kids: bedtimes, bathtimes, breakfast and out the door to school. And again and again. And, he said, we don’t consider it heroic because it’s just expected of a parent. But it is heroic.
My dad was a hero. He worked. A lot. For us. He worked a couple decades at a job he hated. He worked through late shifts, schedule changes, transfers and as much overtime as he could gobble up.
And he always had a second job on top of that. Some of them were cool. He worked at Bellerose Lanes bowling alley. That was fun for me. I wound up joining a youth league. Still have never scored a turkey. He was also an ice cream man! That was a special thrill. However old I was – 9? 11? – to be handling the cash and handing out the treats to the customers.
And, of course, he drove for car services while there was still money in it. When Uber destroyed that business, he finally retired for good from all work.
When I say he hated his job, I mean that he hated the bosses, the bureaucracy, the reassignments and shift changes. He loved issuing tickets. Many times I’d be driving with him and he’d notice, “That’s not a legal parking spot,” clearly itching for his ticket book.
LaGuardia: the pro-union mayor: Today’s City Hall contenders must follow Fiorello’s labor agenda
In New York’s mayoral election, plenty of candidates claim to be the anti-Trump. But, when it comes to protecting workers’ rights and reducing economic inequality, the better question is who will be the neo-LaGuardia. The “Little Flower” served as the city’s mayor from 1934 to 1945. A Republican, Fiorello LaGuardia was an aggressive advocate for egalitarian and anti-corruption New Deal policies, particularly in support of working New Yorkers at a time when the ambitions of the federal government remained limited.
An example: In 1934, newly elected Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia watched a citywide hotel strike drag on for a second month, and determined to find an amicable settlement for the workers. The industry, represented by the Hotel Association, sparked the strike by firing union activists who refused to join a company union.
The federal government’s untested mediators saw their job as getting the strikers back to work; nothing more, nothing less. The hotel bosses doubted the feds even had that authority, and steadfastly refused to negotiate with their workers’ chosen representatives.
The mayor responded by siccing the city’s health inspectors on the picketed hotels, producing 600 summonses in 48 hours, embarrassing the bosses and humiliating the scabs (who were forced to line up and drop their pants for mandatory hernia exams). The strike ended the following week.