When Fred Red­mond, the Steel­work­ers’ vice pres­i­dent for human affairs, was a child in Chica­go, he and a dozen sib­lings and cousins spent sum­mers pick­ing cot­ton for their grand­par­ents in Mississippi.

This was a period when black workers still were relegated to the most dirty, dangerous and grueling positions in industry. They were frozen out of transfers and promotions to what were considered white men’s jobs, even at union plants. But, as Fred says, 'Even the worst union in the world is the best for black folks.'

Fred’s great, great grand­par­ents had been slaves. His grand­par­ents, mater­nal and pater­nal, were share­crop­pers, work­ing oth­er people’s land. The grand­kids’ sum­mer farm work helped Fred’s mater­nal grand­par­ents meet quo­tas and scrape by.

Fred says those sum­mers taught him that some­times peo­ple do not reap the val­ue of their work. In Chica­go, Fred’s fam­i­ly found a way work­ers may secure a fair­er share of the prof­its gen­er­at­ed from their labor. That, of course, is col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing. Union mem­ber­ship launched Fred’s fam­i­ly into the mid­dle class, and Fred has devot­ed much of his life to help­ing ensure that access to others.

Fred’s par­ents met in Lex­ing­ton, Miss., where his moth­er attend­ed high school and his father briefly worked. In 1953, they mar­ried and moved to Chica­go, where they first stayed with Fred’s uncle, Wilbur Red­mond. Fred was born the fol­low­ing year, 1954. His father pumped gas, stocked shelves, swept floors. His moth­er caught three bus­es to get to Evanston to clean houses.

Still, they strug­gled. Fred recalls one time his broth­er asked for a quar­ter to give to Unit­ed Way, which his school­teacher had told him helped poor kids. Their moth­er explained to them that they were the poor kids, the kids who got their school vac­ci­na­tions at a clin­ic where they had to wait all day, the kids whose par­ents both worked but whose sur­vival still required food stamps.

Then, sud­den­ly, Fred’s fam­i­ly expe­ri­enced a rev­o­lu­tion. His father got a union job at Reynolds Met­als Co. This is what Fred told me about that: ​“I was 12 and for the first time went to a den­tist, a doc­tor just for your teeth! We got a tele­vi­sion. We went to a pri­vate doc­tor for the first time. My father start­ed sav­ing and bought a home. That changed my life. From my grandfather’s expe­ri­ence to my father’s expe­ri­ence, the union changed my life. I am a liv­ing exam­ple of what a labor union can do for a person’s life.”

Fred’s Uncle Wilbur had got­ten a job in the plant through a friend at church. About a year lat­er, Wilbur Red­mond was able to help Fred’s father, Cur­tis Red­mond, get hired. Right away, Wilbur Red­mond got active in the union and was elect­ed chair­man of the griev­ance com­mit­tee. Cur­tis Red­mond served on the committee.

Fred’s par­ents were raised in the Jim Crow South. Fred’s mater­nal grand­fa­ther, Char­lie Paige, taught his chil­dren and grand­chil­dren to be cau­tious. Paige, who in addi­tion to share­crop­ping was a preach­er at the Church of God in Christ, served as a role mod­el of cir­cum­spec­tion, even when treat­ed with dis­re­spect by white people.

Sum­mers, Fred was told the cau­tion­ary tale of Emmett Till, a young teenag­er from Chica­go who was mur­dered in Mis­sis­sip­pi. It hap­pened in 1955, the year after Fred was born. Some­one in the town of Mon­ey, Miss., accused Emmett of whistling at a white woman. The Klu Klux Klan went to the house where Emmett was stay­ing with a rel­a­tive, grabbed the 14-year-old out of his bed, then tor­tured, beat and lynched him.

Those sum­mers in Mis­sis­sip­pi taught Fred to be reserved. But dur­ing the remain­der of the year, he watched as the union gave his father and uncle the strength to be forth­right. Here’s what Fred says, ​“My father got involved in the union and was out­spo­ken and spoke to white peo­ple in a way that he nev­er would grow­ing up. The union allowed him to talk back and speak out to white peo­ple. He was able for the first time in his life to speak out against injus­tice. He got that through the labor move­ment. He was able to tell a super­vi­sor that he was wrong, that the super­vi­sor had treat­ed an employ­ee badly.”

Four days after Fred grad­u­at­ed from high school in 1973, he went to work as a labor­er at the alu­minum mill. He got his col­lege degree by attend­ing part-time.

This was a peri­od when black work­ers still were rel­e­gat­ed to the most dirty, dan­ger­ous and gru­el­ing posi­tions in indus­try. They were frozen out of trans­fers and pro­mo­tions to what were con­sid­ered white men’s jobs, even at union plants. But, as Fred says, ​“Even the worst union in the world is the best for black folks.”

He explains, ​“For the first time, you were in an envi­ron­ment where you could speak against the union and against the com­pa­ny.” In the union, black work­ers had the pow­er of col­lec­tive voice, and they used it to change the union itself.

Black work­ers had been protest­ing job dis­crim­i­na­tion and dis­parate treat­ment by the union for decades. They formed orga­ni­za­tions called Ad Hoc Com­mit­tees for Black Steel­work­ers. They even pick­et­ed USW events, includ­ing the USW nation­al con­ven­tion in Chica­go in 1968.

Wilbur and Cur­tis Red­mond were active in that effort. Fred was just a teenag­er when his father and uncle assigned him to hand out fliers at a USW dis­trict con­fer­ence demand­ing that the Steel­work­ers hire black work­ers for staff posi­tions. Some USW mem­bers balled them up and threw them at Fred.

A year after Fred start­ed at Reynolds, the USW and nine steel com­pa­nies signed a con­sent decree with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to resolve more than 400 dis­crim­i­na­tion cas­es filed by black Steel­work­ers and ad hoc com­mit­tees. The intent of the decree was to enable black work­ers to trans­fer out of low­er-paid, dead-end jobs to bet­ter-paid posi­tions that had been effec­tive­ly reserved for white workers.

Two years after that, the USW cre­at­ed a new posi­tion on its exec­u­tive board, vice pres­i­dent for human affairs, and appoint­ed a black staff mem­ber who worked as an orga­niz­er in Mem­phis to fill the slot. That was Leon Lynch.

At that time, Fred was work­ing his way up through the ranks of the union, begin­ning at the Reynolds local. He recalls being passed up for over­time one day and com­plain­ing to the griev­ance man. When the griev­er did noth­ing to help him, Fred went to his Uncle Wilbur, the chair­man of the com­mit­tee. Wilbur Red­mond told Fred that he agreed with the griev­er, and if Fred didn’t like it, he should start attend­ing local union meet­ings and run against the guy.

First, Fred ran for shop stew­ard. Lat­er, he chal­lenged the griev­er for elec­tion and beat him. Ulti­mate­ly, he became pres­i­dent of Local 3911, which was the largest USW local in the Chica­go area. He fol­lowed in the foot­steps of Ray­field Mooty, who had served as pres­i­dent of the local when Emmett Till was mur­dered in 1955. Mooty, who would become an activist with the ad hoc com­mit­tees, was a cousin to Emmett’s moth­er, Mamie Till-Mob­ley, and trav­eled across the coun­try with her as she sought jus­tice for her son. Mooty per­suad­ed the USW to write the U.S. attor­ney demand­ing action to stop lynchings.

Fred served on the USW staff in Chica­go and Pitts­burgh. Lat­er, he was an assis­tant to a USW dis­trict direc­tor. After Leon Lynch retired, Fred ran in 2006 to replace him and won.

Fred says he knows his grand­par­ents could nev­er protest against the share­crop­pers who owned the land on which they lived. If they com­plained, even when being cheat­ed on pay, the own­er could throw them out.

Because of the injus­tice he saw inflict­ed on his grand­par­ents, Fred Red­mond has sought to ensure through col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing that work­ers receive fair com­pen­sa­tion for their labor and that every work­er gain entrance to the mid­dle class.