Leland J. Kennedy Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

A: Well I joined the union July the first, 1933. We never had payroll deductions when I
was in the union.
Q: Oh?
A: Never did. Now they have it now, but we only paid maybe a dollar or six bits a
month. But we had to pay that ourself. We got fined if we didn't. I want to show you
that. (proffers card) 1 guess you'll get some notes later on from me, but I think
there's . . . when I joined the engineers, I think right there.
Q: Oh. Let's see. (reads) "Leland J. Kennedy . . ."
A: August the first, 1933.
Q: Yes sir
A: I think that's in the 1947 book. Let's see. (picks up and looks through book) I see that
I didn't attend many union meetings. I got fined a dollar and eighty cents. That's what
we got if we - that was our dues a month, and if we didn't go to a meeting - they had
two meetings a month - we had to pay a dollar eighty cents. That's what that was.
Q: Oh? (chuckles)
A: I was shop steward for a while when we first started. We didn't call them shop stewards,
we had grievance men. And I was a griever, as I was called, but I didn't particularly care
for that. I always carried a union card and I'm proud to have been a union member, but
I never aspired to be in the leadership of it. 1 don't know why, 1 guess I wasn't rough
enough I suppose. I don't know whether I was rough or not. That's a kind of a bad word
to use, but I just didn't aspire to it, that's all.
Q: Do you remember some of the grievances that came up at that time?
A: Oh most of them were minor. We had an overtime list you know, and maybe if Joe Doe
got more overtime than Bill Doe, why, the other guy would grieve about that. And some
of them were very important, rcgarding safety. And they have safety rules and they have
grievances. Maybe a pipefitter might want a permit to work on a line and the operator who
had that particular piece of equipment as his responsibility, the pump or the section of the
area where they were, why, he may not have cleaned it wcll enough or the pipefitter didn't
think he cleaned it well enough, he might just grieve for just orncryness, or something like
that. Grievances were - oh some of them were major.
We had several strikes out at Shell, but this was a departmental grievance. I was only a
griever for two years I think, and J can ncver recall having to take one to the union floor.
You could generally work it out between the shift foreman arid the department head because
we were a small department, and as I said the most men we ever had was I think forty-four
and mayhe a couple in the office and the department manager. And never reached fifty. We
could generally settle our grievances. 1 don't ever recall going above the department heads,
going over his head with a griwanct..
We were a good union, and the company recognized us and we got along and we never had
any - oh, they had a big strike out there in 1962. But the departmental grievances didn't
bring it up. The refineries were automating, twenty years ago, thirty years ago you know,
and you could see it coming because they were going to cut some jobs and staff and departmental
personnel and in maintenance, that's all. And it was a strike that just, I guess, had
to happen because they gave a lot of fellows that were in the age category, twenty years
ago, 1962 - well, I was fifty-four, they didn't go that low. But they gave a lot of fellows
what they called the golden handshake. They gave them severance pay. We called it the