Jack Battuello Memoir #1 - University of Illinois Springfield

Jack Battuell-o 5 5
United Mine Workers during their strike, which stinks, that's not
only compromise that ' s col,l.abnration with a vengeance, We 've got
the DuQuoin boys out, we've emulated some of the working conditions
in or through our organization of unity during this interim, what do
you say now?" I kept asking them with my eyes and I. wanted to know.
I never got an answer from them. Never an apology at that poiat.
Not a apology. And later 1 got rit from the rank and file but not
from them.
Q. Now is Percy still in?
A. Percy's dead, now.
Q. The president could only be in two years and then he could be in
another office for two years.
A. Yes. Be couldn't succeed himself, And 1 wrote the fifst constitution,
I was a member of the constitutional committee addressing the
first constitution.
Q. But Percy was the president at the time of the DuQuoin case?
A. Yes. And Kep wa.s later. See they alternated. Kep was president
and then Percy was president, Kep was secretary, Kep was president,
Percy was international secretary, you know, and then when they run
out of state offices then they became international. They created
an international paper organization, we didn't have ten cents worth
of dues coming in. They c.reated an--and then Joe Ozanic became the
international president and didn't have om dues payment. N0.t once.
And then the conventions.
Q. That's when you wrote thc constitution, that's what you thought
you'd guarded against, wasn't it? So they fell into the same trap
as the United's did,
A. And part of it is my fault, too. Because when the Progressive
Miners were formed I was pretty active in number one. As a matter
of fact number one was the Progressive Miners for all practical purposes.
Number one I.ocal was the Progressive Miners.
Q. This is scholastic?
A. Yes. And I served as prcsidcnt for two terms, They elected me
to the convention, every year. And Progressive Miners without local
number one would not: have been. When they run out of the state
officers they created an international union and they ran for international
president and international secretary. That was the biggest
Caddamn joke that was ever formed on the poor coal miners. And, of
course, I'm up there in a vanguard always critical about how you
justify how do you explain, how do you defcnd the establishment of
an international union when we're confined to three little counties
Jack Battuello Memoir -- Archives, University of Illinois at Springfield