Charlie Key oral history interview, 1995-10

CHRIS LUTZ: Chris Lutz, interviewing Charlie Key, in Atlanta, Georgia. October 1995.

CHARLIE KEY: [inaudible] nineteen hours and take him and sit on the witness stand and [inaudible] anything like that?

LUTZ: [laughter] I know. [inaudible]. Charlie Key, can you tell us when and where you were born?

KEY: I was born in Anniston, Alabama, October 25, 1944.

LUTZ: Okay, now let's see here. (break in audio) Um. And, um. Tell me a little about your mom and dad.

KEY: Dad was a molder in the Molders' Allied Workers' Union. My mother was a homemaker most of her life. My father and two of his brothers married my mother and two of her sisters. So, I have one cousin that's -- we thought we were first cousins because we're first cousins on both sides of the family. 00:01:00All of dad's brothers and his father were members of the Molders' Union. His father was working pipe shop. That's when the union was first born.

LUTZ: Did they want you to be in the Molders' Union too?

KEY: No, they never actually expressed any real desire for me to work in the pipe shops, thank goodness. Ah, the…all the…all the family worked there, all dad's brothers and some of my mother's worked there. None of my brothers worked in the Pipe Founders, and most of my cousins haven't worked there, just a couple of them. I really suspected that foundry work has something to with the, uh -- My father's early death, and the early deaths of his brothers. Um, so far, no male member of my family exceeded the age of fifty-nine. My oldest living uncle is now fifty-nine years old. Uh, he worked in the foundries when he 00:02:00was young. Then became a union rep, yeah, representative, staff rep., for the Molders' Union later. He didn't spend as much time in the foundries as the rest of the family.

LUTZ: Do you think it's a chemical they work with or dust in the air?

KEY: Dust, yeah, silicon dust, sand. You know. They use, of course, molted iron, use sand to make them in the molds. [inaudible] Terrible places back then in the 50's and 60's. The foundries that are left over there have cleaned it up some.

LUTZ: Were they forced to? Did OSHA make them clean up? Or…

KEY: EPA, OSHA everybody like that.

LUTZ: So, where did you go to school?

KEY: [inaudible] I started school at the Armenmill School, grades 1-12. One of 00:03:00the few times I was going to school. All my brothers and sisters, I had two older brothers, two older sisters. Went there for eight years. We moved to the city, moved to Anniston, back to Anniston, I guess. My father went to Germany the day I was born.

LUTZ: Oh, because of the war.

KEY: Yeah. Because of World War II. He left for New York Harbor the day I was born. I was almost two years old before I ever saw him. He came back from Germany, and we moved out to Heflin, Alabama out in the country and he tried farming a bit. Finally he gave up on that idea, and we moved back to the city in the summer between my third and fourth grade year. Then, I went to Pine Street Elementary School, two years. Been to Noble Street Elementary School for a year.

LUTZ: You got kicked around. [laughter]

KEY: I used to kid a lot about we used to move every time the rent came due. 00:04:00We did move a lot. Went to Johnston Junior High for my junior high school, and almost one year at Anniston High School, and I dropped out. High school dropout. Im not…I'm not proud of that, but that's part of what I am.

LUTZ: You later went onto to be a Georgia State graduate, though.

KEY: Yeah. Sure.

LUTZ: You're famous [inaudible][laughter]. We'll get to that, but, um, when you dropped out, what did you then do?

KEY: I was already working in a local drugstore, doing janitorial kind of work. Cleaning, washing windows and waxing floors. I continued doing that for a while. Then I went to work in several different restaurants, I worked. First job I worked in a restaurant, I worked from 4:00 in the afternoon to 4:00 in the 00:05:00morning. Every day, some days I worked more, but it was 7 days a week. The pay was a grand twenty-one dollars a week regardless of how many hours I worked. Big money. [Laughter]

LUTZ: About that time you're thinking, why did I drop out of school? [laughter] Were any of your restaurant jobs or any of these early jobs union at all?

KEY: No. I worked all those jobs. Restaurants in Anniston were not organized. That's one of the things my Unce tried to do is organize the restaurants, he was not successful. He wanted to do a hiring hall kind of thing for them -- folks really thought that was really strange. And…

LUTZ: Sounds like a good idea.

KEY: Yes, actually if you think about the way restaurant workers move around, and it's kind of like construction workers, it makes sense.

LUTZ: Well, why don't you all do [inaudible] the Olympics [laughter]

KEY: There are folks now on the national level talking about that method of organizing restaurant workers now, a hiring hall. I worked in -- it was a restaurant bakery. I washed dishes from four in the evening until the restaurant closed at ten o'clock. Then I helped the bakery folks there until four in the morning or whenever I got away from it. Worked in a couple of drive-in restaurants.

LUTZ: Were you a carhop?

KEY: Yeah. I was a carhop. Lee's Drive-In Restaurant, right across from the North Gate of what we call Atlantic. Two locations: North Gate Apartment, one's just North of downtown Anniston. Part of the time, I also made deliveries to the Post [?].

LUTZ: What did you do as a car hop?

KEY: It was a real modern drive-in restaurant. We had the telephone system, so I didn't have to go out and take orders, I just had to deliver them to the 00:07:00vehicles. That was probably real good math training. I learned to calculate bills and add them up in my mind and give change and all that stuff so that kept me sharp. Math, it was always a good subject for me anyway. I think it really helped me.

LUTZ: Were you living with your parents still?

KEY: My parents divorced when I was in the summer between 7th - 6th grade. I started living with my mother.

LUTZ: And so did you help support her or did she really take care of you?

KEY: Well, we, uh, everybody contributed, my brother, Ronald, who is still at home. He and I and all contributed to it. The family income.

LUTZ: Were you the baby?

KEY: I was the baby, yeah. That's right. I'm still momma's baby boy.

LUTZ: Good swat across the head at some point, I bet.

KEY: She still would, if she thought I deserved it.

LUTZ: It's the problem being the baby boy or girl, isn't it? Um.

KEY: She'd still swat the oldest one too, if she thought he deserved it.

LUTZ: When did, um, when did you first get a union job?

KEY: I got my first union job in 1968. I, um, go back briefly to working in restaurants. One of the guys up there at Lee's Drive-In, I worked for - His father-in-law owned a bowling alley. So I went to work for his father-in-law. I worked in the bowling alley, worked on his farm, worked in some houses he was building, cleaning up and all that. And the bowling alley burned. While I was working there, I worked bowling leagues, and met Johnny McElroy, owns McElroy's Plumbing. After the bowling alley burned, he offered me a job. So that was my first job in plumbing. We did plumbing, and we did HVAC work. I 00:09:00worked for him for three years or so. And got laid off when the work was tight. Construction work always is. Ah, [inaudible] layoffs and said 'come to Atlanta.' Spent my first night in Atlanta in my car parked behind the Krystal Restaurant at 14th Street.

LUTZ: Ew, [inaudible][laughter]

KEY: I won't do it now. There's a dry cleaners there now. My second day must have been in my car on a job site in Chamblee at the Golden Garden Apartments. I'd gotten a job the first day. And they'd sent me out there, spent the night in my car there. And the next day, end of the day my new boss came out and carried me to a boardinghouse and paid my first week's rent.

LUTZ: Pretty nice. [laughter]

KEY: He's a nice guy. He's now working for one of the union, the council contractors. He's non-union running the non-union shop with the family. He's now working for one of those union contractors. I saw him recently and I told him, I said look all the folks in this room, there was a lot of folks, 'you're probably the one most responsible for them being here today. [laughter] For two reasons: the other reason is that [inaudible] joined the army. Volunteer for the army, and then Jack Daniels tried to talk me out of it. They were successful, I guess. So I reminded him of that.

LUTZ: Okay, you ended up in mid-town Atlanta, exactly when the strip was a sort of hot bed of hippiedom and radicalism.

KEY: I'm older than all of that. That was in '64.

LUTZ: You still are a young man in the South of segregation.

KEY: I went to segregated schools. I had a teacher who had been a good teacher, I thought, who quit teaching because of the integration of the schools. I ran into him later. He was selling building materials.

LUTZ: Huh. What a comedown.

KEY: God punished him. Yeah.

LUTZ: Um. How…how did you see segregation when you were a kid? Was it just something you took for granted?

KEY: I think in a lot of ways it was. My, uh, my father worked in the -- of course, his work environment was…was integrated. Not as much as it probably should have been. But some of his co-workers would come to the house and visit, black co-workers, and that was really unusual. That's when we lived out in the country, going away from the city. We were one of two families in a black 00:12:00neighborhood. Two white families in a black neighborhood. We lived in company housing which was owned by the foundries where we worked. We lived there a couple of years surrounded, you know, by black families. We would talk and be respectful. Never really questioned the fact that we didn't go to school together. We played with the black kids. We visited the black families; they visited us. We just didn't go to school. Some of the black kids walked past our school, we walked past one of their schools. I still remember the Sears store there in Anniston. It had the men's, women's and colored restrooms, and the drinking fountains were divided by color. I look back on that, 00:13:00thinking, my, you know this is really – and sometimes I feel, you know, as a kid at the time still feel guilty because I said [inaudible].

LUTZ: My classes now, I teach Freshmen, and they all are just astounded by the word as I am. What on earth were they thinking? Okay, well you're not that young man [inaudible] '69 [inaudible]. The civil rights movement was already under way. How did that strike you?

KEY: I thought it was needed. One of the things that was a problem, I went to work for a company here in Atlanta and they transferred me to a job in Athens. I was eighteen, nineteen years old, they hired a black man to work for the 00:14:00company. He was helping me. He was real good at what he did. [inaudible] I asked him, 'George, when are you going to become a plumber?' He said, 'Charlie, they'll never let me become a plumber.' And I, and I thought, that's not right. 'George, you can do this, I know you can do this.' He says, 'black man can't be a plumber.' So, anyway, that's exactly when I first realized it really came home to me, something wrong with the system. I know the unions get a lot of blame for that. This was a non-union environment. And I had just….that was about in 66-67. And I changed companies. Worked for 00:15:00a different company. I actually quit that company [inaudible] -- and I was working for a company out of Albany. Gay Plumbing and Heating.

LUTZ: Gay Plumbing and Heating?

KEY: Yeah. Did a lot of work at the University of Georgia. Worked on the addition of Sanford Stadium in '67. Got to watch the Georgia Bull Dogs playing the Mississippi Bull Dogs in the opening game. But they were actually the first company that I worked for that was making some attempt to integrate the workforce. They were trying to set up an apprenticeship or a least some kind of training program right before I left, and they asked me to teach. I thought it was kind of a bad. If I was the most talented one they had, they were in trouble. 'Cause I had no formal education in plumbing. I was real 00:16:00fortunate that Johnny McElroy, the first guy I worked for initially, had given us some real good advice. He said, do anything to do to please yourself, and be hard as hell to please. That's good advice. He gave me the books that he accumulated over the years to learn plumbing, so I studied at home. And I eventually took an international correspondence course.

LUTZ: Where you married at this point?

KEY: I got married in 1964.

LUTZ: Wow.

KEY: I was married in [inaudible].

LUTZ: And you have three children, is it?

KEY: Four girls .

LUTZ: Four girls?

KEY: And two granddaughters.

LUTZ: Wow. You are older than I thought. [laughter] Um, you know, we are the older generation now. Um, well, okay, so let's launch you off to unions now. What's the first local that you joined?

KEY: Local 72, Atlanta, Georgia.

LUTZ: And you later rose to be president of that local.

KEY: Still president of the local.

LUTZ: Oh, you're still president? Um, well, tell me about your time in local 72.

KEY: I joined the local in '68, actually it was part of an organized effort. Marion Lee, who is now our general secretary treasurer and Bob Copeland, who is now retired -- Bob Copeland and I were honored with labor awards the same year. They were trying to organize Gay Plumbing. Me and five of my co-workers were involved in the organizing effort. Out of the six, two of us eventually became union members. I was initiated December 17, 1968.

LUTZ: Why did you join and that other fellow and not the other four?

KEY: I joined, and the other fellow, really in time partially because I knew that things would be better in the union, partially because I was ready to change jobs. My foreman was a real jerk. He was an ex-member of the Albany 00:18:00Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Local. I told him that I was contemplating joining the union and asked him what he thought about it. He just went on a rage about how awful the union was. He had a huge fine against it. I told him, 'If you think it's that bad, it's gotta be all right!'

LUTZ: I bet he thought again about saying it to someone. And then you became active in the union? Why?

KEY: I was initiated December 16, I was working at Northside Hospital. It was my second union job. My first was the Avon job that is now at the building of the first Baptist Churches, founded by [inaudible]. One of my co-workers was there and I asked him about going to a union meeting. He said, 'No need to go to that union meeting. Fifteen to twenty people in the local.' I was just kidding really when I said, 'I'm going to be one of the twenty.' What got 00:19:00me involved was the first time I was there, we had a nomination for an election. When they got down to the offices that a lot of folks considered to be the lower end of the spectrum, there wasn't enough people nominated to fill the offices. And by that time, I had gotten a dollar an hour raise when I joined the union. And I got health care benefits and started building a retirement. When my first baby was born, I had no insurance. I had all my teeth done, no insurance. And so when my insurance became effective, my second child and my wife, and it paid for it. I got money back from the doctor that I had already paid because the insurance became effective. So I really felt that I owed something to the organization. That and one other thing I forgot to mention was 00:20:00that the night that I was sworn in -- not the other person that came in with me from Athens, but two other people, Virgil Parker, that was our Secretary-Treasurer at the time and has been around for a long, long time, one of the numbers of a local was just raising a fuss at Virgil about him takin' folks in. I see you are looking at me kind of quizzically, but - building trade unions -- when I first inquired about becoming a member of the Plumbers' and Pipefitters' Local, I was told by one of the folks I work with that if my grandmother wasn't a union [inaudible] I could forget it. It was just that difficult for folks to get into the unions, in the trade unions, building trade [inaudible] because they start acting like a deal. Or, you know, the way you're supposed to get in is to first come through the apprenticeship. You are supposed to get in the apprenticeship 'cause your daddy was in it. That kind of stuff. This guy was fussing at Virgil about [inaudible] the local, Virgil said, 'I bet you these guys will make us better union members than most 00:21:00of them that come through the apprenticeship program.' So I felt like I had a challenge to live up to. Found out later that Virgil didn't go through the apprenticeship program either. That's also something till my last election every time I had run for office in the local union, I had heard the feedback during the election -- Charlie Key didn't go through the apprenticeship program. What I tell people now if I hear that or -- I say I didn't go through the apprenticeship program. I probably would have been a better plumber if I had. I think I'm a good plumber, but I probably would have been a better plumber. But I'm one of the few people in the local that have been through the union leadership apprenticeship program because of my Georgia State connection.

LUTZ: Yeah.

KEY: And that's true. That's what I consider that. That's my apprenticeship for leadership. So, long way to get to where we were going.

LUTZ: Oh no, this is your story. It's okay for you to be long winded. Um. And 00:22:00so Virgil brings you in, and you see that there's room for someone to be active.

KEY: Yeah. Meeting a challenging enough. I saw what I thought was a need, so the next election that we had, I decided to run for the examining board. That was one of the positions that almost went unfilled the election before. In fact, I think this was a special election created when Marion Lee got a job with the International Union. So, the guy that was vice president of the local resigned to run for that job. Everybody else moved up, and folks with the examining board resigned and run for the executive board. So, I was nominated, along with four other people for one vacancy. We started the election on the 40th day and was about 3 hours into it. And there was a ballot deficient 00:23:00problem. [inaudible] They actually used ballots in the machines, voting machines, even back then. And there was a problem with the ballot lining up. They called the election off. The reason I'm telling you this -- I really think that if the election had proceeded that day, I would have won because the other three candidates weren't even there. Took them to a party that day, I was the only one there with the department. So, then we put the election off two weeks, until two weeks later when we had the election, everybody showed up for politics. I came in, out of the four people in the race, I came in third.

LUTZ: Oh.

KEY: The other two guys -- I had been in the local just barely long enough to be eligible to run. The other two guys, had between them about forty years of membership. I didn't really feel bad about it. At that time, I was still thinking, well, I just wanted to do something for the local union. Bob Jones was 00:24:00elected president, he appointed me to serve on the bylaws committee. That was my first actual union position. And he would always -- when we held union meetings, we used to have a position, I don't know -- past president participating in opening the ceremonies meeting. Still very old fashioned in the way we run business. We didn't have a past president who'd show up for meetings, so Bob always asked me to sit over there. It helped me out a whole lot, made me talk before a group, and that is something I always hated to do. Tell you a little bit more about that later. Remember, my mother should have slapped me. [Laughter] That got me more involved and gave me a chance to get a little bit over my shyness, and gave folks a chance to get to know me in the 00:25:00long run. So the next election came up, and I ran for the finance committee. And I…I was advised not to because our apprentice committee was comprised entirely of retirees. [inaudible] Our retirees still vote and participate in the local, and folks are compensated for their service on the finance committee. It just developed into one of those things the retirees did. Um, and there was four people running for three positions, and I came in fourth. One of the guys that was running for the finance committee was also on the election committee -- to the violation of our bylaws. [laughter] But I didn't raise that issue, and somebody told me, "You can protest that election." I said, 'No, I think that those guys are honest' and I really do. I don't think there was anything morally wrong with what they did. It just didn't quite get the letter of our bylaws, that's all. And I didn't protest, and I think folks 00:26:00appreciated that. I didn't…I still think it was a fair election. So I just kept at it -- kept running. Ran three years later for the finance committee, and I won.

LUTZ: They figured you were a good loser. [laughter]

KEY: They just wanted to see if I would be a good winner. To take all this time. [Laughter] I ran one other time for the finance committee before I finally won. We had a vacancy on the finance committee. In the election, Marion Lee….let's see…..In the election taker, Marion Lee had left. We had elected our first business manager into that position when it was created in 1973, approximately. Virgil Parker, who I had mentioned earlier, was one of the business managers. He had been finance secretary. I think he's one of the few folks held about every office in that local union. And he wanted to hold 00:27:00them all before he retired. He ran and Bob Coker ran. He beat Bob Coker. Then there was a vacancy occurred on the Finance Committee while Bob was out of office. And Bob and I both ran. Bob, -- I always considered Bob a friend and a supporter and such – so, Bob, I said, 'Look, If you want me to, I'll drop out. But I didn't know you were interested in running.' He was out of town a lot of time. I was out of town a lot at that time. We hadn't seen each other. He said, 'No, it'll do us both good. Stay in the race.' On election day, we were standing down there side-by-side chatting, campaigning, and this old timer comes up and asks Bob, 'Who is this son of a bitch running against you?' [Laughter]

LUTZ: [laughter] Did you tell him? There's this son of a bitch right here.

KEY: Yeah, I told him. He introduced himself. I think it did help me. Bob, he 00:28:00was planning for running [inaudible] again. In the long run, I think it did help us both. The next time I ran, I was elected. I served there for three years on the finance committee; and in 1978, I was elected vice president and re-elected in '81 as vice president. And started labor studies program at Georgia State in 1979. In '83 when the position became available here at the building trades, I was still a student at Georgia State. Didn't really…never really occurred to me to apply for the position. I ran into Ruth Stanley, volunteers of politics. She said, 'Why don't you apply for a job at 00:29:00building trades, I'm a few over that job. Elected chief -- still is an elected position even though we haven't contested an election in a long time.' I said, 'Never thought about it.' She said, 'They are going to have the election next week. You might could do it. I think you could get elected.' I talked to Tom Payne, he's our Business Agent of the local. He said, 'It's a great idea, let me get your name.' It was seven or eight candidates for the position. There were here in the course of [inaudible] we were all interviewed by the business manager of the various local unions. [Break] The business managers of all the building trades unions -- We went in 00:30:00and made our pitch. It was, I guess a campaign speech. It was also an interview kind of thing. They all sat around a table, called us in one at a time. We went in and told them, what we thought we could do with the building trades. The comment that Bob told me that most of them had about me was that I was too quiet. This is true. [laughter][inaudible] Also, with the one thing that I had going for me was that I was a student at Georgia State about to graduate from the labor studies. That's one of the things. The other thing, I think, was that three or four of the other candidates were ex-business agents or business managers at local unions. Somehow they didn't want a local union agent or manager as council [inaudible]. [laughter]

LUTZ: Whatever works.

KEY: Whatever works. That point that they were doing the ballot -- instead of voting for one person and picking the top go getters and having a run off, they had a strange way of balloting themselves. They voted, for I think, four candidates. I wound up in a tie for last place. They had a run-off between me and the other guy. He lost. Balloted again, I wound up in a tie for last place. Got another run-off, another guy lost. They kept on until I was in a tie for first place, and I won.

LUTZ: You were everybody's second choice. You can be consoled by thinking you were everyone's first choice citizen.

KEY: I wasn't very bright. Winning is not everything, but it beats coming in second. Strange way of doing it. I got the ballots.

LUTZ: [inaudible]

KEY: [inaudible] That was to fill out an unexpired term. I was elected January the 30th, I think it was, and I started work January the 31st, 1983. The term expired January 1984. I was re-elected January of '84, '88, '92 for that office.

LUTZ: Um, then '94 then?

KEY: Yeah.

LUTZ: Um, when you became a leader in the union and then on the council at exactly the time that unions were under attack, did you have vision on how you wanted to deal with that?

KEY: I did. That's one of the things, when I went before the business managers that day and talked to [inaudible]. That was right after the Associated Builders and Contractors had targeted ten cities in the United States for --. They said that they were going to break the union dominance in those ten cities. Our folks didn't take them seriously. I said -- that's what I said, 'the ABC's targeted Atlanta. I think that we need an organizing effort -- a coordinated organizing effort amongst the building trades to fight back with.' That was my program, that's all I promised them to do. After I was elected to office, I put together an organizing effort. We called it the 00:34:00Six Point Program initially, then we eventually called it the Phoenix Program -- the Atlanta symbol the Phoenix rising. I got a call from folks at Phoenix Building Trade about that, why I was doing that, using their name. The program involved political action, marketing kind of thing, grass roots organizing, top ten organizing, all those things. Then we established a public relations budget, hired a professional union consultant, PR consultant, Unions [inaudible] communications for Washington, DC. Mike Grace is now working for Marty Barr. Has been for a number of years. I don't know what Gregg expects of them, but they are very good. The Carpenter's International Union put four people into Atlanta to work with us. The Sheet Metal Workers International put two in here. 00:35:00Um, the International -- couple of folks. They don't do a lot of International reps. They collect from grants. They have got [inaudible] he worked with us. [Inaudible] a volunteer that was working for the Pipe Trade Workers.

LUTZ: Volunteer?

KEY: Volunteer. [Break] All right, we, uh, I went to the Building Trade's Department, organizing director's meeting in '83, again in '84 and made a pitch, support for the firm. Got that commitment; we've had a meeting over here in IBEW Auditorium. There's an organizing director for the IBEW at the time, sort of. He helped guide me through the process. Bob Pleasure that's 00:36:00now with the Phoenix Center that was the Carpenters' with the other person's international level that was leading it. It was kind of funny, there was a guy -- Jim Love with the Painters was also involved. Pleasure made the comment that one of the few meetings that he could be at that where they could bring us love and pleasure. They did -- they helped guide the process. We got all these folks in here. We had the electricians, the sheet metal workers, and the plumbers and fitters were primarily local leaders supporting financially. They were paying 4 thousand bucks a month. From the fitters, and the electricians, the sheet metal paying up to 25 hundred a month put a lot of money into that. We hired Dave Bentley, he's a member of IBEW 613. He's my assistant to help work on the program. Ronnie Angel of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters was director for 00:37:00the program. He named the Phoenix Project because it was supposed to be the resurgence. Here in the process of building support for this survey they worked in the Atlanta area a year before we started the program, four percent by dollar volume by working with the union general contractors –

LUTZ: 4 percent.

KEY: 4 percent. McDevitt-Street work all over town, Turner's non-union company that's doing work all over the place. The program lasted 22-23 months before it disintegrated. Part of the reason that it disintegrated, folks thought that we weren't producing. And I wasn't satisfied with it. It, uh, we were really doing a lot of things. We were making a lot of inroads with 00:38:00this little community development kind of stuff, making friends in the community, friends that the building trades didn't have, some of them had never made an effort to make friends in the community. We were developing political connections working with candidates, supporting the candidates, working with Mayor Young and Jean Young, the Green Jamboree and some other things the city had done. We took on McDevitt-Street as a target for organizing. We didn't organize them. They got six jobs when we started. They had zero jobs by the time the program was over. Turner's non-union outfit that had about eight jobs at one time had gone completely out of business -- not just in the Atlanta area, they had gone completely out of business all over. And the year that that ended, we had eighteen percent of the work by 00:39:00dollar volume that had gone to union general contractors.

LUTZ: That's a big jump.

KEY: A huge jump! Nobody, not even the folks that were working on the program realized how successful we were until it was too late. I tr…I thought and thought about that and tried to analyze what it was about us that made that fail. Or - for us to think --. One of the things -- that I really believe this now -- I talked to a lot of folks, and they agree with me -- all of us are building things, we're builders, and that's what we do. And we are used to seeing results. We all started our careers, we go out on -- most of the folks went through apprenticeship schools and made moves at measurable intervals. We go out on the job each day, and when the day is over we can see that we done something. Then, we get into these jobs, and we work and we work and we work, 00:40:00and we don't see the results. Being in the local union office, you can write the [inaudible] and send people out. But organizing, it is a long-term effort. The industrial unions know that. J. P. Stevens campaign lasted forever and ever [inaudible] eight or ten years. They are used to that, we weren't. That's really what I think it's all about. When you are building things, folks have to learn patience when we are involved in organizing. I had a guy in a meeting just the other day talking about, he had a case pending with the National Labor Relations Board. He said, 'It's been three months now, you ever heard?' Three months! Three months is no time at all. We've got one local union that has got a case since '88, so it must be kind of ridiculous. We don't expect things to last that long.

LUTZ: Do you think that you've learned patience?

KEY: Some. [Laughter] I am much more patient now than I was. I do realize that I think that the guys -- because I realize that I have been able to convey that more to the folks that we work with -- that we didn't get into this mess overnight, and that we are not going to get out of it overnight and if we get involved that we have got to do it for the long term, stay involved. We have got the only business manager in the building trades that was a business manager when I started is John Byers. Everybody else turned over. Ron Napty was an agent for 613 when I started, and he's still around. But everybody else -- I mean, it's new people. [inaudible] I think we are….right now we are not doing a whole lot about organizing. We need to be -- but we've got everybody 00:42:00working. We have got travelers in here. A lot of locals are -- and they are doing some organizing -- what Mike Lupus used to call draining the swamp, take one out and you hire all the non-union guys you can and bring them into the union. That's what we are supposed to be doing.

LUTZ: Yeah. In Atlanta, right today, are there still lots and lots of non-union working?

KEY: Yes, I would say that today that probably, overall, um, construction is probably 65 percent of it non-union, maybe a little more.

LUTZ: Mmhmm.

KEY: That varies from trade to trade. Plumbers, electricians, sheet metal are probably doing more, higher percentage of work, and some of the other trades are doing a lower percentage.

LUTZ: Is that something that's unique to the region or the city or the state?

KEY: Ahhh, no, I would say it's pretty common south of the Mason Dixon line. 00:43:00It's a growing problem even in the northern states outside the old core…hardcore union areas. Recently in Chicago, for the Building Trades Department Convention, of course they again had been bragging about their skyline being 100% union built. It is, and that is something great to brag about, and I wish we could do the same. But you can go twenty miles outside the city limits, and they have got the same problems there that we have here. This is a problem that I have described with several other areas in the country, a few years ago talking about how I thought these things had developed in Atlanta and how the problem had occurred. One of the things that folks used to say in Atlanta was that everything inside of the perimeter is union, which wasn't 00:44:00true, but they said it. It was kinda like the folks inside the Alamo saying everything in here belongs to us. [Laughter] It's, uh.

LUTZ: Um, when you say….why do contractors want to hire non-union labor? Let me get that straight in my head first. Then, union labor would be, theoretically anyhow, the most skilled, the most reliable?

KEY: Um....I talked to a developer in that, you know- I was a non-union plumber, and some of the non-union employment I worked with was very, very good. They couldn't get in the union because they didn't have connections or they didn't finish high school. As everybody knew, I didn't finish high school, and I could have gotten into the union apprenticeship program. I couldn't get 00:45:00in as a journeyman until they started organizing that. Even then they suggested that I join the union in Gadsden, Alabama, because Alabama was my home. I said, 'No, I plan on living in Georgia the rest of my life.' I couldn't see belonging to the union over there.

LUTZ: Wanted to kind of shoot you back. [laughter]

KEY: Wanted to shoot you back [laughter]. Not really [inaudible]. I talked to a developer in 1985 about building two buildings in the Atlanta area. One of them was probably 90 percent more union and the other was 90 percent more non-union. That's too fine a difference. And he says, 'One of the jobs in Vinings.' That was the one that was being built union. The other one was over off 285, close to Decatur being built non-union. He said, 'If I am building a cracker box, I'm building non-union. If I am building a building up that is going to 00:46:00be a landmark, I build it union.'

LUTZ: That's very interesting.

KEY: Compared to the old saying about the moonshiners, said they make their moonshine through the sale of their drink. There used to be good tax breaks for building buildings through where you make new money on the win or not. If you didn't make any money, you write them off on your taxes. And so there were a lot of people building buildings for the tax breaks. They didn't really care a whole lot about the quality just as long a light came on when they switch a switch or water came out of the faucets. They didn't care if the pipes were crooked or if -- it's all going to fall down in 10 years. Those tax breaks disappeared in '86.

LUTZ: Talking about the buildings that people buy with the tax breaks, 00:47:00couldn't do any more of these things.

KEY: Look, I said then, and I think I have turned out to be right, that it's actually helped us in that now folks build buildings because they build them to occupy. They are a little more interested in the quality. Our portion of the work has actually improved since the recovery. They don't build cracker boxes to rent now for a tax write-off. They still building rental buildings. For the long term, that is going to be good for the industry that we don't have a tax break any more. For the short term, it's bad because it really brought about a recession. The owners didn't care about the quality of the buildings; it didn't hurt the non-union contractors to hire less than skilled labor. I 00:48:00really hesitate some to come down too hard on the non-union folks for their lack of skill. Part of the lack of skill, the lack of educational opportunity -- an education that goes along with being a union member. But we can't expect to go out and organize the same folks that we've been bad-mouthing for being unskilled labor. We have got to bring them in and give them the opportunity to improve their skills.

LUTZ: Which reminds me too, you were talking about how black people couldn't become plumbers. Black men couldn't be plumbers. When did that change?

KEY: I think it started to change both in the union and the non-union sector in about 1970-1971. I think it was 1970 that the Atlanta Building Trades sent a volunteer compliance with the Justice Department, that's called the Atlanta Plan for integrating building trades. Interestingly, there were a couple of 00:49:00building trades that was exempted from the Atlanta Plan because they already had more minority members that was required under the Atlanta. Operating Engineers is one. That is one that somebody could perceive to be so hard to get into. Really could be a sort of retrograde about their admissions, but they were. Tommy Archer is deceased. I had a lot respect for Tommy. He was very, very intelligent, very aggressive, a good union leader. But a dinosaur in a lot of ways. He did do the right thing about the [inaudible]. That union integrated a long time before even the rest of them were. We had some unions, labors that were majority black. Uh, but they started integrating the local again under the 00:50:00Atlanta Plan. That's the company that I work for. The last one that I worked for was just beginning to try to set up a training program for the purpose of training minorities to become mechanics.

LUTZ: Was this all minority men?

KEY: Of course!

LUTZ: In other words, do women have something in the union?

KEY: Just last night we swore in 42 new members into my local. Out of the 42 there was one female. There was 8 minority males. Eight black minority, I think one was Hispanic.

LUTZ: Sounds like the history of the [inaudible] [laughter].

KEY: We, uh…when I got elected president the first time in my local, it was 198… I went into office in 1985, the election was 1984. I appointed our first 00:51:00female, our first black to office in the local. I appointed females to work at their delegates to read labor councilors building us building trades, forty black delegates to building trades and labor counselors and to other committees involved. One of the females that I appointed eventually went on to become elected recording secretary, which I thought was sorta good and bad, I think, because it was tied with a secretary. She beat the socks off of one of the good old boys. She didn't just walk into the job. There was three people running, and she won by a landslide and still could be there except she eventually left the local and went back to her home was in Pennsylvania. She went back to 00:52:00Pennsylvania. I served two terms as president, and then lost an election. And, so, the guy that succeeded me appointed no females, no blacks. Also, during that period of time, the secretary found I was elected two young black men to our [inaudible] board. He was the first elected black. She was the first black female. They were both folks that I had appointed positions in the local.

LUTZ: Why did you appoint them?

KEY: Okay. Two reasons, they were good, they both worked for the local. They were always there when we had some kind of activity going on. It was Jane, uh, Jane Newman, she later remarried and her name was Jane Weeke. And she always…when she graduated from apprenticeship school, started showing up at union meetings. [Inaudible] I felt that we needed to integrate the office of the 00:53:00local. Time to organize females and blacks. And I think…I felt we needed to make them feel at home like they were a part of it. And I…and I made an effort to do that. I didn't appoint just anybody that I could find because they were blacks and females. I found the blacks that I knew could do the job, and they did the job, real well. And I was real disappointed, you know, after I lost the election, the guy that replaced me didn't appoint a single black or female in a position. And, they, after that election, we didn't have many for three years almost three years we didn't have any black or female involved in 00:54:00any position in the local. We do again now, 'cause I got re-elected again.

LUTZ: Do you…do you think that your first not getting elected and then getting re-elected had anything to do with your stand on this?

KEY: No. Some of the retirees had gotten together and discussed my election, but I always had a lot of support from those folks. One of them came to me one day and said, 'Charlie, we have been talking about you. About how come you lost that election. We decided that you lost the election because you spent too much time doing your job and not enough time politicking.' There was never any comment made -- I think he would have told me if they had thought that was part of the problem, I think he would have told me. These were the old guys that had been around forever, retired in the local. If that had been a real problem, I think they would have said we, you know, if they hada, well, 00:55:00that's too bad. One of the guys told me one time when I was running for election -- one the retirees, [inaudible] he's a real good friend of mine. He said, 'You gonna get elected, you gotta act more like the folks that are already there.' I said, 'If I am going to be like them, no need to replace them, keep them.'

LUTZ: And, you know, even among the people who are, say, up here in the IBEW building, generally union leaders and figures in Atlanta, you are very young. I know you think of yourself as an old man, but you're actually very young. Is that difficult working with people who are considerably older than you?

KEY: No, I'm really not. I really am not. I was for a while. But most of the folks now that I am working with in the building trades are younger than I am.

LUTZ: Wow.

KEY: I would say that all the business managers of the local union except about 00:56:00three are younger than I am. We have got some new people. They got this one -- the guy that's business manager in the local now is about 36 years old. During the election campaign, I would call folks, they would try to talk to me about the business manager's race. They'd say, "That boy is too young to be business manager." I said, 'Well, that boy is as old as Tom Payne was when he got elected.' Everybody liked Tom, he's now international rep. He did a great job for the local. He was a young man when he got elected. He served several years, got some age on him and experience.

LUTZ: So, now you are one of the old goats, huh?

KEY: I'm one of the old goats, now.

LUTZ: I'm sorry, It's like finding out that your doctor is younger than you. Looking back over the years, who would you say was the biggest influence on you?

KEY: [inaudible]

LUTZ: Yeah. Who would you, who would you say is the biggest good influence on you. I'll get to the evil influences [inaudible]

KEY: It gonna have to be two. One is my -- Andrew Hollis Keel. He's the staff rep. for Molders and Allied Workers Union, and worked for the [inaudible] retail/hotel department store in the union, worked for the furniture workers, worked for CWA in his career. He was really gung-ho about me getting involved in the union. My aunt Betty used to say that he talked more about me than he did his own sons. He said that he was real proud that I'm active in the union. And the other was Marion Lee. Marion always encouraged me to get involved. He supported me, prodded me and pushed me. I was thinking about running for something in the local. I talked to 00:58:00Marion about it. And he….I was thinkin' about nothing and Marion pushed me along. Another person that helped in his own quiet way was Morris Fried, Director of the Labor Studies Program. It's kind of a delicate thing but, when I first ran for Vice President, Tom Payne didn't support me, we were political opposites. The second time I ran for Vice President, Tom did support me. The reason he did was because between then…those times when I was still in the labor studies program Morris Fried called me in his office. He said, 'Charlie," he says "are you thinking about running against Tom Payne?' I said, 'No, wouldn't dream of it.' He said, 'Well, don't you ever 00:59:00tell him that.' So I did, I've never thought about Tom 'cause he was doing a great job and he's real popular. He never seemed that he would have thought of me as a political opponent or political opposition, I've certainly have never considered it. I went and talked with him and told him what I was doing, really. And, um, being a student in labor studies really helped me appreciate more the job that our officers were doing. There are a lot of folks that are afraid of labor studies because they say it'll get folks to run against them, but I think what it does, it gives folks an idea how difficult the job is before they get it. It makes them not want to run against it. We appreciate that. So I talked to him, and I told him that all I want to do is just help. And, so, next time I ran, he was in my corner. He supported me for this job, he supported me when I ran for president. And he actually did do me in replacing the business manager of the local when he left. Losing that 01:00:00president's election threw that for me.

LUTZ: While you're mentioning the Georgia State program, what made you decide to do that?

KEY: It's kinda strange I guess in a way, I dropped out of high school, but I've been going to school for -- I did the ICS course, then when I got into the local I went to evening classes that the local offered for all kinds of things. I liked learning, I got interested in labor movement because of the local need was constant pressures and because I started attending the local and a lot of things I didn't understand. Clyde Jones sits in Local 72, student in labor studies. That's where we still have the Journal of Labor, then we feed some articles in there. It just seemed like something I wanted to do. I 01:01:00didn't really think about getting this degree. I just wanted to learn more. I had gone to night school in Athens and had gotten my GED. The GED coordinator -- I took my GED test at University of Georgia, and they tried to recruit me up there from a student. Ah, but, I had already joined the local, and was trying to move to Atlanta at the time. So first chance I got, I had been out of town to travel 10 to 4 to 78 I stayed on the road because the work was short and scarce at the time. I worked in Mobile, Alabama, Brunswick, Savannah, Augusta, south of Atlanta, Montgomery, and Birmingham.

LUTZ: Must have been very hard.

KEY: It was difficult. Basically maintained two households for four years. I 01:02:00was working -- had gotten back in [inaudible] working for [inaudible] started labor September '78 during the fall and winter quarter of that year. Stayed in there. Really I had planned on getting a four-year degree. What I really got is an associate's degree at Georgia State. But, I've got this job and really haven't made the time to go back. I could use the excuse that I haven't had time, but really I haven't made the time to go back.

LUTZ: It is time-consuming.

KEY: I got an award from the university for Mass Conversation fees, it's called the Night Life Award. You ever hear of that?

LUTZ: What is that?

KEY: I don't know if they still do it, but it's great. It's sports for the night students. I get a lot of kidding about it. I love it, it's something [inaudible]. I was taking enough classes to be considered a full time student, working in the daytime, serving officer in the local union, and going to the Masonic Lodge all at the same time.

LUTZ: You really had a night life.

KEY: The award was for folks that did good academically, was involved in the community, and doing well at work. Actually, that is one of the first awards I had ever won. I was on the dean's list several times. When they were giving out the awards, they were reading out the person's qualifications. I was standing there getting impressed, then I realized they were talking about me. I 01:04:00couldn't believe it. Dean [inaudible] tried to recruit me for the business school. [laughter]

LUTZ: [laughter] Like trading with the enemy. Um, if you look back, who would you say that sorta falls on your bad guy list? Who you really wish you had punched out?

KEY: Oh my! That's a great question. And I can't really -- I believe the guy who was my foreman when I . . .[inaudible] [laughter] I think I fixed him verbally by telling him what I did. Actually on that job, we…we wobbled that job. The non-union folks from that job actually set full set-down from that job 01:05:00three times.

LUTZ: Um, why? [inaudible]

KEY: The personal injury was so bad. They wanted us to [inaudible] huge pieces of pipe and do things that was not manly, humanly possible. [Inaudible] were dangerous. We just sat down and refused to work. In time, work was good and workers were scarce. That's one of the problem with a few -- I try not to carry goods that do anything so bad to the baggage and the load except add to the baggage and the load.

LUTZ: Where do you see yourself in ten years from now?

KEY: Retired. Actually, eleven years I plan on retiring. You know, probably if 01:06:00these folks want to put up with me, I'll be right here in ten years. I have flirted with the idea some about the office of the local union. Rick's doing a good job over there as their manager now. We have got a good former agent. They are working well together. Um, so, that…that avenue, while it may or may not be closed, I don't see any real purpose in challenging somebody that's doing a good job for the organization. I think the folks are fairly happy with me here. The unfortunate part about that in a way I guess there is no real room for advancement in this position. Building Trades Department does it. There's no regional directors, there's no building trade staff for the services. It's sorta a dead end job. But it can be a fun job, hard job, a 01:07:00frustrating job. [inaudible]

LUTZ: That's an interesting way to describe being the head of the Building Trades Council. It's probably never gotten that description before. Um, tell me exactly what the council does? Or tell the listeners. What type of business?

KEY: I had….when I first got elected, I think John Smith has described this job, and I've used his quote, and other building trades folks that I deal with around the country have picked up on it, it's a "Position of great responsibility with no authority." Will Mitchell with Georgia Power Company brought some of the Georgia Power folks over and introduced them to me right after I got elected. And, so, he said that my job was to do all the things in the building trades that the local unions didn't want to do. Those were the 01:08:00bad descriptions. What we do is coordinate activities for the local, sometimes organize it, as we did with the Phoenix Project. We coordinate some education programs most of the time with the labor studies prograThe Sheet Metal Workers now have a national program, they call youth [inaudible]. It is sort of in a lot of ways like a [inaudible] program. They take young men and women that are in their third year of their apprenticeship. For six months, they work for the local union. Not every local in the Sheet Metal Workers does this, but a lot of them do it now, and it's part of their constitution bylaws, international constitution, that they do it. They get involved in community service, 01:09:00organizing, political campaigns. That started because the training programs that we did through the North Georgia building trades with the labor studies. We set the program up they [inaudible] Johnson Dinwiddie invited the locals to send anybody in they wanted to. Pre-register them in a few days, few weeks before the event. We didn't have very many people signed up. We was with talking Mike Cannon in the sheet metal workers, and he says, 'Why don't we have our apprentices come?' Okay. It was a two day program, two nights actually. So the apprentices didn't show up the first evening there [inaudible] they're not in school. They're there worrying about having to be there. When they left, they were enthused, they had learned some things they didn't know. The next day they were out on the job talking to their journeymen about what they were learning, and they were back the second day -- 01:10:00vitality -- they were wanting to do something. So when we were finished with them, that's what -- they wanted to be able to put that knowledge to work. [Inaudible] Jim Hinkall, that's now the organizing director, working with the Phoenix project at the time. And between us we started to figure out, talking about ways to that they could utilize all this energy these young men and women had, mostly young men. But, um, so that precedes [inaudible]

LUTZ: That's a great idea.

KEY: Yeah. I mean, I think I don't take a lot of credit now to get a car loan. General President [inaudible] learned about it, liked it, he pushed it, he made it a national program. We've done some programs on safety and health, we have done some common training progra We…I think more than anything else, we are an information clearinghouse. We meet every week, managers and agents from 01:11:00the local union. We talk about the jobs that are going on, the problems that are developing. How to resolve those proble The one thing that we haven't done, that we really haven't done, that I feel like is a real shortcoming, we haven't done any long range stragetic plans.

LUTZ: If you could, what would you tell people? If you could tell people anything, what would you tell them that your strategy should be?

KEY: Grass roots organizing and politics. Those are the two areas where I really go after it. We as a council should work together and do. I am a firm believer that building trade unions were some of the -- folks say we never organized, which is wrong. We did organize, we were so successful at it we thought we didn't have to. That's…that's what happened. If you're 01:12:00here to do some reading, I'll share with you some of the speeches that I made to the locals in the building trades in Illinois and Indiana about how it all came about.

LUTZ: What would you target for organizing?

KEY: Who would I target?

LUTZ: Where -

KEY: Actually, my idea was that we reverse the process of how we lost it. We did, like I said earlier, like folks said, everything inside of the perimeter, it belonged to us. That was true to a point. Almost is true. Then folks started moving inside the perimeter. I suggested and I have gone up a long ways for about how we start. We select maybe the city hall and we draw a ring around that thing a mile in diameter and then concentrate on that ring, until we get 01:13:00everything within that ring, then we have a two mile ring, then a four mile ring until we are back at the perimeter, and then beyond. I say, this is not a five-year, ten-year fifteen-year program, this is a forever program. And I think that scares folks. Organizing is something that you always do. If you are going to be union, and we are going to represent workers out in the union, you should always, always organize. We should always be involved in politics, the same way.

LUTZ: How do you see the building trades getting involved in politics?

KEY: We have got the building trades because the way we are structured and the way we operate. It has got the greatest potential to be involved in grass roots organizing of any trade union organization. We stay in close contact with our 01:14:00members, because of our hiring hall. They come through the hall, we send them out on jobs, they do those jobs, they come back. Most industrial unions, and the service unions, they're traveling at the plants and the sites, they see them once a month. Maybe some of them or some other seem to be taking the rest of the time [inaudible]. What…what I have proposed to our folks, who….is that we establish a precinct-based organizations that we identify an active building trade union each precinct in this jurisdiction. Trying every fifteen [inaudible] to start with. And that we identify to them the other building trades or other union members, for that matter. In their precinct. That is a small geographical area. And that we communicate with that one person, the 01:15:00precinct Captain, the identified issues. We educate them on the issues for the political campaign or the issues campaign. Door to door, street to street political campaign. I think it can work, I think our members are ready for it.

LUTZ: That sounds good, why can't you just tell them to go do it?

KEY: Well, I can't tell them -- this is a voluntary organization. Position of great responsibility. That's one of the things that I just -- a lot of the folks outside the labor movement don't realize that you're not big labor bosses, especially AFL-CIO types in the building trades and labor kinds of folks can't order people to do anything.

LUTZ: Have you personally been involved in politics?

KEY: Yes.

LUTZ: Democratic party?

KEY: Uh, yes, member of Democratic committees, Cobb Democratic Committee, State Democratic Committee. I was involved in the…I was precinct captain in Buddy Darden's first attempt -- second attempt. First campaign, I was out there digging post holes for the signs for him. Involved in in field activities and things like that and a lot of other places putting signs, helping service commissions rates. The Public Service Commission affects us a lot, almost as much as it does the Communication Workers and the Power Company.

LUTZ: How so?

KEY: Folks put enough going to power bill for power house. It depends a whole a lot on what the Public Service Commission says and does. We have been involved in tremendous campaigns down there. Lobbying the Public Service Commission 01:17:00against Georgia Power. We have been involved in campaigns [inaudible] ever had. Over the same issue at once.

LUTZ: Are you a yellow dog Democrat, would you say?

KEY: No, I've always been a Democratic, but the reason that I'm not a yellow dog Democrat is that I believe that the labor movement can't conform to the -- with the Democratic Party because the Democratic Party has taken our vote for granted. The Republican Party said there's no need to fool with those labor guys, they're not going to vote for us anyway. The Democratic Party said there's no need to fool with those labor folks, they are going to vote for us anyway. Neither of them's doing anything for us. So, I believe in the 01:18:00Democratic Party. I will…absolutely refuse to be identified as a Georgia Democrat. I am a Democrat, I believe in the principles of the national Democratic Party. I had a terrible falling-out with our current executive director because he apologized for Nathan Deal leaving the party. He said that he thought that Nathan Deal leaving – he should…that he wished Nathan had stayed and had led the Democratic Party toward his philosophy. I said that I think we should have told Nathan Dean good riddance, you're not a Democrat, we don't need you, we don't want you. And we should do that to some of the other Democrats. And in fact, I raised that issue at the Cobb Democratic Committee meeting.

LUTZ: I bet that got a lot of support.

KEY: I did. I really – [inaudible]

LUTZ: People really thought so?

KEY: Yeah.

LUTZ: Son of a gun.

KEY: Yeah, I mean. The thing is that he started off his speech with talking about how people supported the ideals of the Democratic Party. I liked what he 01:19:00was saying. He was talking about our stand on abortion and our stand on civil rights. He seriously avoided any comment about workers' issues. But those issues that he talked about -- gun control -- really were things I agreed with. I thought, maybe the press release was misleading. You know, and maybe I got this guy pegged all wrong. Once he finished his speech and they took questions, I said, 'I really appreciate the remarks that you have made here tonight, and I hope that's the direction that you're taking the party. But it is confusing to me, when I read this press release where you say that you're sorry that Nathan Deal left the party, that we should move in that direction. What is your plan?' So then he gets -- you know, Nathan Deal shouldn't leave the party, and the National Democrats do need to move in that direction. I said, [inaudible] 'I joined the party of the New Deal, not Nathan Deal.' 01:20:00[Laughing] I may be a Democrat, but I'm actually will not recommend to the labor that we just blindly endorse a Democrat. I think the majority of the folks that endorse will be Democrats. I think we should listen and cultivate friends in both parties. Maybe someday the Democratic Party of Georgia will kick me out because I probably -- if it comes between a choice between my labor movement and the party, there's no choice.

LUTZ: Probably right now there isn't a huge choice.

KEY: They make it a lot easier when you have Republicans like Bob Barr, Newt Gingrich. There are Republicans in this country that I'da whole lot rather have than Sam Nunn. I don't think it's going to be a huge loss to keep sizing up the room.

LUTZ: Um, who's a good guy in politics?

KEY: Who's a good guy in politics?

LUTZ: Buddy Darden. Why did you support him?

KEY: Why did I support him? We had a choice. That was -- when Buddy ran – I s……I'm getting old, I can't remember names. The senator, third district Congressman that got killed in Korea.

LUTZ: McDonald.

KEY: Yeah, McDonald. McDonald's wife was running and there were some other reactionary -- they were all running as Democrats. Larry McDonald a Democrat, that's a joke. Buddy, he's relatively progressive. Buddy spoke regularly in Congress for 68 percent rights as far as labor is concerned. He was almost 100 percent wrong as far as I was concerned, but he was a whole lot better than Bob Barr. Buddy, he served as a district attorney in Cobb County, served in 01:22:00State Legislature -- he was, compared to the other candidates in the race, a very progressive -- and the first term that he served would give the OL -- I think he became confused at some point about this constituency. I really believe that if Buddy had voted more strongly, identified more strongly with the labor movement, that he'd still be 7th District Congressman. I think he lost because he tried to out-Republican the Republicans.

LUTZ: The Republican always wins.

KEY: Yeah. The folks going to vote for the real thing. I think that was a big deal. I still as a person, I think Buddy's a great guy. He'd still be good for labor, I would like to have him back up there, but I'd like for him to be there and understand his constituency.

LUTZ: Who else is good?

KEY: Who is good?

LUTZ: For labor.

KEY: Several years ago, somebody was talking about Georgia being a Democratic state and all those Democratic collector officials. I told them if they couldn't name me more than three Democrats in the Georgia legislature, true Democrats in the Georgia legislature, that I would kiss their hind ends on top of the steps.

LUTZ: Didn't have to do any kissing, did you?

KEY: No. Steve Henson, then Ora McCray -- They're good Democrats. David Poythress, I think he's in there on the phone right now; he's good. Republicans are -- I don't think they change. I don't think David would be a gung-ho labor guy. He's done a good job as Labor Commissioner. He's been 01:24:00supporting, he's been responsive, he's been open minded. That seems to be the most we expect right now. I really think that if this state is going to have a Democratic governor, after Zell, it would be David or Max Cleland. Max is a good friend. I talked with Max a lot about labor issues. Max will lead the parade for us. If we can get labor legislation passed, David or Max either one will sign into office. They are not going to beat the drum for us, but if Childers --

LUTZ: Lenny Childers.

KEY: Yeah. State-wide, we don't have any -- Wyche Fowler, he was about as 01:25:00close, other than Andy Young, about as close as we had to a real Democrat in the House of Representatives.

LUTZ: Whatever happened to Wyche Fowler?

KEY: The fire went out. You really do have to have that fire in your gut. I think that fire went out. Interestingly while Wyche was in the Senate, Sam Nunn's voting record for labor improved dramatically, and I think it's 'cause Wyche sorta ran cover for him. He figured, well, Wyche can do it, I can too. Now that Coverdell's there, he thinks that if Coverdell can vote against him, I can too. As for labor, his records have almost surpassed Coverdell's, while Coverdell was in there. When Fowler was in there, he was almost as good as Fowler. That's not leadership.

LUTZ: No. Well you won't have Sam Nunn to kick around much longer.

KEY: Ok.

LUTZ: He's gone.

KEY: I think we probably run a real risk having a Republican represent us there. 01:26:00Don't see how it's going to be a whole lot worse except for the possibility, and I don't know how real that possibility is of that number is getting kind of towards redeeming the chairmanship of some of the committees. I don't think nationally we were getting control of the Senate. So, I can't see it would be any loss to us as working folks. Only thing, as a state, it may get lost here sometime, every then once a month bring in the [inaudible] dollars that's not a real concern about losing.

LUTZ: Um, speaking of politics reminds me of local politics in the Olympics. Everywhere I go I hear you were a key in the agreement over the building trades in the Olympics. Would you tell me about that?

KEY: Oh, I don't know where to start.

LUTZ: Start at the beginning.

KEY: Ok. Well, you know during the campaign at the Olympics, I thought that most Atlantans with some doubt that we would get them in '96. Most cities don't get the Olympics on their first bid. With…I was here in the building one morning hearing all the horns blowing and the [inaudible] things going on. What in the world is going on? It was the announcement in Tokyo that we have been awarded the Olympics. At the time Mary Lou Romaine was interim President of the Labor Council. I went over and saw her and said, 'We got work to do. This is going to bring a lot of work to town.' Which, you know, I kept her up with what they were talking about. I saw some newspaper articles said we were going to have 80 thousand jobs and 20 thousand construction jobs in all. Knew that wouldn't be exactly the because I knew how many dollars they were talking about spending. I've worked on bigger construction jobs than the Olympics. We 01:28:00started to working on a plan about how to get [inaudible] we did that as a labor union, not just building trades, but all labor Communications Workers and stage hands. We met with Billy Payne. He was very cordial. Billy's a good politician too. Now if he's Democrat –

LUTZ: [inaudible][laughter]

KEY: I wouldn't be gung ho about that idea, but he could be elected governor if he was. He's sharp, he's really sharp. I gave him that. He didn't really know anything about labor. One of his chief advisors for the Olympics, 01:29:00Nick Pounds of Montreal. Canada. They are still paying for the Olympics in Canada. Uh, it's a fiasco. And Nick Pounds blamed organized labor. Ron Napty was in that meeting, Tom Payne, myself, and Mary Lou Romaine. We were having a fairly cordial conversation, and Billy says, 'Well, I know one thing for sure, the broadcasters in electronic work can't be used.' And…and Ron Napty came slapping out of his chair and just bump.

LUTZ: [inaudible][laughter]

KEY: Pounds had convinced him that he should that he [inaudible]. I've studied the situation with the Olympics because of that I asked the Building 01:30:00Trades Department council and candidates the information that they had on the Olympics up there and what labor involvement was. It was bad, some of it was. Everybody was to blame I guess, everybody. The politicians, the contractors, the developers. I mean, everybody had. The labor union, the one thing they did up there was they shut down an Olympics project because of the jurisdiction on the highway a hundred eighty miles away. You know that -- I told Payne and everybody else I talked to, you know, that that won't happen here. That was Canadian labor movement, they're different. This is the US labor movement, specifically, the Atlanta Labor Movement. I have been a member of the Union since '68, I have never been on a job except now because of jurisdiction, never. It was that kind of stuff that we have to battle. And, so, then Billy 01:31:00hired A.D. Fraizer who beat us in Chief Operating Officer, so Billy could continue to be the nice guy and somebody could be the hardnose. Um, and we started build working on the community base and working with the city council between past that -- they're responsible contractor resolution that's going on behind the revolution, revolution asking the Olympics can you go on responsible contractors do the Olympic work. Contractors provide healthcare and training, maybe, wages and all that. During all this process, of course leadership and labor counsel changed where Mary Lou and I left off. Continued 01:32:00the process, we have a big demonstration on the day the flag was coming in. You know, that was the second anniversary of the announcement, first anniversary announcement was this huge crowd down at Underground and all that stuff. And, so, they were expecting another huge crowd; they had Bush come in under the Dome Stadium. They had, they had to…almost eighty folks show up for that. I think that was a big surprise to the Olympic Committee and to Payne and the next day they were expecting a huge crowd at Underground and we had really publicized our event. Ah, and we had maybe 10 thousand people, one of the radio stations said we had 30 thousand of us. I truly don't think it was that many, I think we probably did have 10. We took over this end of town. We got more people here than they had at Underground. I really think that that was like, kid in the 01:33:00crowd, it says, the "emperor has no clothes." Everybody else was at that corner pretty much except one small group out in Dekalb County complained about the [inaudible] Nobody dared take over the Olympics' Committee; it just wasn't done. You know, all of a sudden folks realized that you could do that and you could make a point without being the bad guys. And Stewart and I met with A. D. Fraizer one morning about six o'clock. A. D. wanted me to meet him six o'clock in the morning and show us around -- how hard he worked and how tough he was. We spent about three hours listening to A. D. talk about how tough he was about how his mission was to get the job done. He had been trained in the US Army, you do the job first and then you worry about the people. He wasn't really interested in anything that we had. The training went about signing the contracts to give out.

LUTZ: How did you deal with this?

KEY: Well, next time that I saw A. D. Fraizer, I was in front of about a hundred people taking over the Olympics offices on December 22.

LUTZ: [laughter] He's a tough fellow.

KEY: We spent about three hours up there at his office with him -- (break in audio)

LUTZ: So we left you at Fraizer's office --

KEY: Yeah.

LUTZ: With a hundred people behind you. [laughter]KEY: Yeah, so, we spent three hours up there airing our -- this was on behalf of the labor movement and community groups. Most of the folks were labor, we had some folks -- River McDonald, some other community leaders, there was D. Ferguson. They all had their say and we had ours. We got a list of things that we thought the Olympics should consider – you know, one of them was responsible contractors, and another was issues about the parking in the neighborhoods, neighborhood disruptions, and all that. That evening at home I got a call from A. D. 01:35:00Fraizer. He said, 'You ruined my day.' I said, 'Well, you know, A. D., I don't like doing that, I really don't. But I'm going to do whatever I have to do to make sure we get as much as this work in to the folks that do it and it doesn't drive them away construction work in this town.' That was the turning point. A few days after that, we went out to Billy Payne's house and took pictures. Billy went berserk, from what I hear. I didn't actually see him. But they said that he really got upset and wanted to have us arrested. Harassment, intimidation. That's why we took pictures of his house. Stewart and I left our business cards on his mailbox, but we never went on his property. We didn't harass his children or his wife, we didn't even see any of his 01:36:00family. We wouldn't have. We took pictures because he wanted pictures for him building it undone. When it's tied with us it ain't.

LUTZ: [laughter] Um.

KEY: Because that was part of the thing, too, about displacing some of the homeless folks. We really did them a huge favor, they found out they had a security hole big enough to drive a whole truck through. They improved security, I'm glad they did, I am really glad they did. If somebody had really been going in there to do a terrible demonstration, they could have really caused some destruction. Our group, it was orderly, boisterous, but we weren't destructive. We didn't tear anything up, we didn't knock down walls or bust down doors. We just [inaudible] Finally did close a door and lock it. We didn't push on through it; we could have, real easily. Our…our point was made, we were there to let them know that we were serious about our 01:37:00position. Then of course this whole time they kept maintaining -- we don't have anything to do with construction, we are not doing any construction. And I kept telling them the same thing I told Andy Young years before. If you have got them by the wallets, their hearts and minds will follow. You all are footing the bill. You may not be managing the work, you may not even be controlling the work, but you are controlling the money, you have got influence. And they still take that same position today. We don't have anything to do with it. But they said, "You have got to take this up with the contractor, I'm staying here." We started…I started meeting with the contractor, me and Ron Napty, Dennis Nixon, Carpenters, it was a committee that was appointed from the Building Trades to meet with the construction managers were there. [inaudible] and Dale Henry and start talking about a project agreement for the stadium. And 01:38:00it became pretty apparent real soon they weren't going to sign the traditional project agreement. They were getting some terrible pressures from everybody else not to. The day before they were supposed to have the groundbreaking at the stadium, we planned a big demonstration for the groundbreaking a more militant demonstration than the one we had at…on September 18 when they had the flag ceremony, more like the December 22nd. Our our plans were to disrupt the groundbreaking, so they were real serious about wanting to get something resolved that day. We met here about 8 o'clock. Every business manager in the building trades I think except two was here. Dale Henry and Larry Guilderstein -- We stayed here all day, except for a brief lunch break. We finally decided we were all hungry and wanted to order pizza. Wanted to know if 01:39:00Larry and Dale wanted to stay with us. I said, 'No, we gotta back to office.' Well, they didn't go back to office, they went straight to ACOG headquarters. Straight as an arrow to ACOG. So, he convinced me that [inaudible].

LUTZ: Yeah, really, they were just going to accept that pizza.

KEY: Yeah, they had better pizza. So, they came back, and along about six o'clock that evening we finally hammered out memorandum understanding the sort of the project, memorandum understanding that set a minimum wage of $7.50 an hour on the job. It required all the contractors to have training programs, offer their employees retirement program, health and welfare provision. We signed it. We called off the demonstration the next day. It's not…not a real good agreement, it's the best we could do under the circumstances. I think, uh…

LUTZ: Were you happy when it got signed?

KEY: I was happy at this point. Um, I say it's the best we could do under the circumstances, and it was. I wasn't happy with the circumstances. [laughter] If folks would have been a little tighter, we could have got ACOG to agree to a regular labor project agreement, we didn't. We missed that opportunity. But what has come out of that, right now one of our points all along was about the response of the project. We got everything that we asked for as far as the responsible contractors. We publicly got a victory. We got a big win. We won a lot by the way. Right now they are doing a wage survey on the purpose of establishing the federal minimum wage in Atlanta. That project alone could tilt 01:41:00the scales on that. Because of that memorandum, if it tilts the scales at all, it will tilt them in our favor. The impact of it, memorandum and we have some of our members since, especially some of the guys that have been elected since then, discuss that thing to no end. But, um, the impact of that will be long lasting. The newspapers a few weeks ago said they have been most diverse work force of any of the Olympic projects. And it is the most union workforce of any projects, it's the most diverse work force, even with the strikes.

LUTZ: Were you proud…looking back, are you proud of that? Would you say that was what you gave the movement so far? Or, do you not want to…

KEY: I consider it a victory. That is one of my problems is that I'm never satisfied. A lot of leaders, union leaders, business leaders or political leaders, I think that's inherent in the character that you are never 01:42:00satisfied. I got it in a book, I don't carry now, but I carried it for years and years. It said a satisfied person never changed anything. And we don't. We really don't. So we made progress, the Building Trades Department, yeah, we had Bob [inaudible], Joe Maloney, Tom Donahue, they all came down and helped with this thing. The Building Trades Department has used that memorandum in some areas of the country where I guess the unions are even weaker than they are here, or have less work than they are. They use that as a model.

LUTZ: Yeah. [inaudible]

KEY: Yeah.

LUTZ: You sound like you had fun when you went to Fraizer's office. Have you been involved in any of the other sorta lively things going on? What did you think about the Gingrich Office State Building?

KEY: The first…when the labor movement took over Gingrich's office, I was 01:43:00out of work that day, had surgery [inaudible]. But we had taken over a couple of meetings at Grady Hospital, prior to that. And just shut the meetings down, beating on the walls, raising a fuss, chanting and singing, carrying on. I have been involved in others. That at the office there was the first on that I've led. Stewart is normally the hellraiser. He is more aggressive and more militant than I am perceived to be.

LUTZ: You have a reputation of being quiet guy [inaudible]

KEY: Yeah.

LUTZ: Um, so, what were you doing at Grady?

KEY: It was a similar problem. They were doing a huge addition to Grady, they were doing some of it non-union. We were trying to get through the board of 01:44:00Grady Hospital to adopt a position similar -- about responsible contractors. It makes sense, you're a healthcare provider, you hire contractors that don't provide healthcare so that your folks get sick you have to provide coverage free. Require these contractors to be responsible, require them to provide health care. And they said, "No way." That was our first meeting with the board. We started off politely, asked these things and raise these questions. So we did. The answer was no, so, the next time we had a board meeting, we went back, but this time we weren't quiet -- We started talking and raising issues, and they tell us we're out of order, set down, and we started chanting. And, they…they adjourned the board meeting, moved it to another room down the hall. It wasn't big enough for us to get into, so we stood out on the hall and beat on the walls.

LUTZ: Oh, good idea! How do…how do you react when people say, no no no that's not polite?

KEY: Well, um, we have been polite too long. Being polite didn't get us anywhere. I had a banker come in here one day. Great guy. He's retired now -- Brian Ball, he's a friend. He made the mistake one day of trying to tell me, 'Charlie, what y'all got to do is be friends with business. The businesspeople have to respect you.' I said, 'Brian, I don't care if every businessperson in the state of Georgia thinks I am the sorriest SOB that ever lived. As long as those construction workers out there respect me and think I'm doing a good job for them.' And I don't -- I really don't. This sounds like a contradiction. I actually believe in labor management cooperation. I am a member of the Georgia Atlanta Management Committee. And, um, the Building Trades Unions that have a cooperative relationship with their 01:46:00management and with their contractors are doing better than those that don't. So -- Labor management cooperation is a good thing. But I only believe in it to the extent when it is a cooperation born of mutual respect and where there is a fair amount of power on each side. You can't do it if you are a powerless labor organization. Cooperation's, you know, cooperation is not bending over and taking it. I think that we have to have a certain amount of militancy to regain the ground that we've lost. Being polite Nice Guy is not going to get it.

LUTZ: Looking back on your life, is there some part that you would live over again either because it was so great or because you would really like to do it over again?

KEY: The only thing that I would do over again is that I wish I hadn't…I wouldn't have quit school. My two youngest daughters tried to use that as an 01:47:00example. They were having difficulty in school. They…playing hooky, weren't going. We were preaching to them, you have got to stay in school, you've got to stay in school. They said, "Well, you dropped out, you did all right." I said, 'Well, yes I did. But if I hadn't what might I have done? [inaudible] I don't know, maybe I wouldn't have done any better. But I may have, and I probably would have. I said this earlier, I think I would have been a better plumber if I had went through the apprenticeship program. I think I am a good one or used to be. I hadn't done any plumbing in so long I probably isn't good anymore. That's the thing, I guess, one of the few things that I would have done over, is just to stay in school.

LUTZ: Would you put that in writing for my sons please? Um, let me ask you my Barbara Walter's question. Here you are standing on a stage and the audience is filled with young people who have just joined the union and you have a chance 01:48:00to tell thousands in this auditorium, um, give them advice on being union members. What do you tell them?

KEY: Give them advice on being union members or why they should be union members?

LUTZ: Oh, give them advice on being union members, let's say they just joined.

KEY: Be active in your local. That's where it's all happening. Nothing that goes wrong is international's fault. It's all local, it's all politics are local, all unions are local. And you are the union, you make it as good or as bad as you want it to be, but you are involved. Those young men/women there last night, they have got five years apprenticeship ahead of them, but I told them, 'I want you to be here, if you are not in school or meeting, I want you to be here.' When Tom Payne was business manager, he and I started a training program effort for the apprentices, we would have them either go to school or have them over to the hall. When we got a new group in. 01:49:00And we had this young man over there. Toward the end of their probation period. We'd…we would discuss things. He'd hop up and he'd ask questions, they were good questions, I thought. And I…Our secretary-treasurer was sitting on my left, and Tom was on my right. And Tom was fielding most of the questions. In the building trades, the business manager is the chief executive officer. Being president doesn't mean a whole lot; you conduct the meetings, [inaudible] but it doesn't mean a whole lot. It's important. [inaudible] the greatest presidents, but the business manager is the chief elected officer. So he was fielding the questions, and he should. This guy kept asking-- our secretary treasurer, said, tell Tom to ask him what he is planning to run for. And, so, I leaned over to Tom. I said, 'I like to see this. This guy we should cultivate!' The next time this guy stood up and talked, Tom said, 'Young 01:50:00man, I want to commend you on your involvement and your interest in [inaudible]. I want to encourage you to continue doing that. Keep on asking questions.' And that's what we should be about. Ask questions if you don't know, don't be…don't be bashful about it. Don't feel like you don't have that right. So that's what I would like to tell them.

LUTZ: Okay.