Roger Nauyalis Interview

TRACI DRUMMOND: This is Traci Drummond, archivist for the Labor Collections at Georgia State University Library, and I am at the Winpisinger Center for Education and Technology, in Placid Harbor, Hollywood, Maryland, talking to Roger Nauyalis today. He is a retiree of the Machinists', and is going to do an oral history with us. Today's date is Tuesday, December 6th, 2011. Welcome, Roger.

ROGER NAUYALIS: Thank you very much, Traci.

DRUMMOND: We're going to get started with some background questions for you. Can you talk a little bit about your family background, your parents -- where they were from, and the kind of work that they did?

NAUYALIS: My mother and father were the parents of farmers, both of them. We grew up on a farm of about 200 acres, where we had eight children in our family. Back then, my father was able to make a living for eight children and the two 00:01:00parents. We raised hogs and cattle and corn, and other grains, and I went to a country school originally.

DRUMMOND: What was that like?

NAUYALIS: (laughter) Very interesting -- a one-room schoolhouse with four grades in the first school, and two grades in the second school, but one teacher, one-room schoolhouse.

DRUMMOND: About how many students?

NAUYALIS: I would say in the total school, probably 25 to 30.

DRUMMOND: And they were your brothers and sisters, and other kids in the area that-- whose parents had farmland.

NAUYALIS: That's correct. I think it was fifth grade when I finally went to -- yes, fifth grade, I went to a school in town.

DRUMMOND: And, were the kids -- and I suspect you all were -- expected to work the farm?

NAUYALIS: Oh, absolutely -- you did your chores in the morning, you did your 00:02:00chores in the evening, and on weekends, you did your chores all day long.

DRUMMOND: What kind of chores did you have?

NAUYALIS: Got up in the morning, fed the chickens, watered the hogs, spread a little grain around for the cattle in the morning, and in the evening, basically the same thing, but during harvesting season, when the equipment would come in, then you'd grease the pickers, and grease the plows, and, as I got older, some nights I was out plowing the ground until 8, 9, 10, 11 o'clock at night.

DRUMMOND: Wow. And, worked harder through the spring and summer into the fall for the harvest?

NAUYALIS: Oh, absolutely, yeah. That interfered with my opportunity to do sports in high school. I was able to play basketball in high school, because during the winter, we didn't have that kind of work on the farm. But, no football -- that was corn picking time, and no track, because that's soil turning time, and 00:03:00planting the crops.

DRUMMOND: So even after you were able to go to a more traditional school, you still had all your chores to do.

NAUYALIS: Oh, absolutely.

DRUMMOND: Did you all have a bus come out?

NAUYALIS: We rode, I rode a school bus. I'd get on in the morning at 7 o'clock in the morning, when I was in town school, and I'd get home at 4:30 in the evening off the bus. My last year of high school, I did buy a car -- a '57 Chevy, which I wished I still had.

DRUMMOND: Uh-huh?

NAUYALIS: So it made it a little easier getting back and forth to school.

DRUMMOND: So, of your eight brothers and sisters, can you tell us a little more -- how many girls, how many boys, and where do you rank?

NAUYALIS: Well, I was the best-looking one of the group.

DRUMMOND: Oh, I see. Were you the oldest, the youngest, the middle?

NAUYALIS: No, I was right in the middle. I had three sisters -- there were three sisters and five boys, and I was third from the bottom -- third from the youngest.

DRUMMOND: Did the girls and boys have different chores?

NAUYALIS: Actually, the girls usually didn't have chores outside. They would help Mother on the inside; boys always did the work on the outside. And, the chores kind of progressed. As you got older, you did different chores.

DRUMMOND: Did your parents retire as farmers?

NAUYALIS: Yes. My father retired -- well, that's not true. He retired from the farm, but he still went to work. He'd become a carpenter for a home builder until the home builder got too fussy about the windows being too square, and my father couldn't stand it, so he finally took a maintenance job at a local independent telephone company, because my father was very handy. He could, he was a jack of all trades.

DRUMMOND: But the farm, you said early on the farm earned a living for the family. So, maybe later on that changed?

NAUYALIS: It did change. My father wanted to purchase the farm. My grandfather who owned the farm, my mother's father, didn't want to sell it to him, because he didn't want to get out of farming, and my father (laughter) told him, "If you don't sell it to me, I'm going to quit." Well, he didn't sell it, my father quit...two years later, he didn't know what to do with the farm. He finally sold the farm. My father was very disappointed. It was a very, very difficult day for my father to sell all of his equipment, and machinery, and everything. He had a real tough time to do that. But he found another job, and went to work.

DRUMMOND: OK. And did your Mom -- once your Dad was no longer on the farm -- did she continue to work at home, or did she ever have a job outside of the house?

NAUYALIS: My mother continued to work at home, except for where there was a period just before we left the farm that she found a job at a small little egg 00:06:00factory where they candled eggs. But it wasn't long after they left the farm, my mother became very ill, and passed away within about three years of colon cancer.

DRUMMOND: So, at what age were you when that happened?

NAUYALIS: Oh, I was about twenty -- nineteen or twenty.

DRUMMOND: OK, so you'd already gone through school and graduated. And, going through school, what were the options for somebody that had been raised on a farm, and then had working class parents -- so, what were your options? Going through high school, what was going to happen for you when you turned eighteen and graduated?

NAUYALIS: Well, where I had lived, the Quad City area was farm implement capital of the world. We had John Deere there, we had J.I. Case there, we had 00:07:00International Harvester there, and most of us would leave high school and go to work in what they call the shops. And that's exactly what I figured I was going to do. I really had good enough grades, I could have went to college. I had put enough money away, because I worked a lot of summers, to go to college. I was not a school kid. I just didn't like school. I was pretty good in school, but I didn't like it, so I decided to go to work at one of the farm implement companies, J.I. Case. I also did take some vo. tech. schooling in electronics. They had a pretty good size electronics school there, and at night I did some schooling there, which helped me down the road.

DRUMMOND: And your brothers and sisters, sort of having the same background as you, where, is there a big variety in jobs taken after high school? Did any of them pursue college, or -- ?

NAUYALIS: No. None of the kids ever went to college. My oldest brother, he ended up joining the Navy. He would have been about -- he did take, I think, a semester at a community college. But that wasn't for him. He joined the Navy at an early age, and then he just became a broker, commodities trader on his own, and just kind of ambled on in life, really never had much of a future -- the oldest brother. My other brother, he did the same thing I did -- followed myself into the shops, and ended up working...retiring just recently -- retiring from a military installation there in Rock Island, Illinois. The other sisters just found menial jobs, and got married, and just had families, and continued to have menial jobs, as life went on.

DRUMMOND: What did your family know about unions, growing up? Or, did you all have – was there, were there lots of unions in your area, or in the shops, as you said, or did you not really know what they were -- ? What did you know, growing up?

NAUYALIS: My family had no background whatsoever about a union. My father was -- I think I figured this out eventually (laughter). I think my mother and father canceled each other out at the polls, always. My mother was a Democrat, and my father was a Republican. And uh, so, unions was not in my father's background at all. And, as a farmer, when I was growing up, they were beginning to develop the National Farmers' Organization, and my father never joined it -- didn't want any part of that. He was very independent, very conservative, so, he never really, I don't think, ever understood why I needed to belong to a union, because he never did.

DRUMMOND: OK. Well, this has -- we've gotten you as far as graduation, so let's talk about that first job at J.I. Case. 1964, you graduated high school.

NAUYALIS: Right after I graduated from high school.

DRUMMOND: And, what was the work you did at J.I. Case?

NAUYALIS: I was a machine operator there. I ran what they called an I.D. Broach, and an O.D. Broach. And, they cleaned up gears on the inside -- a gear that would slide on a shaft -- make sure they were nice and smooth, or they'd put a keyway on those gears, or on a shaft, so that the key would hold the gear to the shaft. But, I wasn't in that shop -- well, it was interesting how I got the job, truthfully. They were kind of hiring, and weren't hiring, and if you were there at a time -- the word was, if you were there at a time when they needed somebody, they would hire you. I spent, I think, seven days in that office, and --

DRUMMOND: Going back to see if they were hiring?

NAUYALIS: I was there every day. Every day. The HR guy -- I don't know what they called them back then -- came out one day and he says, "Roger, we said we weren't hiring." I said, "You said you weren't hiring when I came in." I said, "I don't know that you won't be hiring this afternoon." And after about three days, he looked at me and he said, "I guess the only way I'll get rid of you is I'm going to have to hire you." I said, "That's probably right," and I did get hired about two days later. He kind of liked me, because it was J.I. Case, and I kind of mentioned to him that we actually had some of their equipment on the farm. So, I probably brown-nosed or sucked up a little bit to the guy -- that's how he remembered me. But, I was only there about 60 days and they had a wildcat strike, and I'm already on the street with all my...well, it wasn't all of my coworkers. Some of them went out, some of them 00:12:00didn't. Well, (laughter) I was one on the street with them. I figured, if they're going out, we're all going out.

DRUMMOND: And it was a -- so, it wasn't an organized shop; they just -- the employees decided to walk out.

NAUYALIS: Well, it was an organized shop.

DRUMMOND: Oh, it was -- OK. Who was it --

NAUYALIS: But this was in the middle of a contract, where you weren't supposed to be on strike.

DRUMMOND: And it was a machinist shop?

NAUYALIS: No, this was a United Auto Workers shop. I belonged to United Auto Workers during that time. I guess there were problems up on the assembly line, and those guys walked out. They weren't coming down. Look, if we don't all go out, we're not going to settle the problem, so 90 percent of us went out. And, I was on probation, and they knew I was out there, but I still had my job when I went back.

DRUMMOND: OK. How long did the strike last?

NAUYALIS: About six or seven days.

DRUMMOND: Six or seven days. And with it being a wildcat strike, there was probably no strike fund to help people out that week, and --

NAUYALIS: Oh no. You were on your own. You were on your own. It was a new experience for me.

DRUMMOND: Yeah, was it exciting? Kind of exciting?

NAUYALIS: Yeah, I kind of enjoyed it, myself.

DRUMMOND: Do you think it was the solidarity, or the taking a stand, or --

NAUYALIS: Both.

DRUMMOND: Both?

NAUYALIS: Both. The message was, they had problems on the assembly line, and the only way to fix them -- nobody was listening to them -- they hit the street, and if the rest of us don't stick together, they're going to break them. So, the rest of us went out with them. So, they had an issue, and solidarity -- stood together, and they fixed the problem.

DRUMMOND: OK. And you said there were a few folks that stayed behind.

NAUYALIS: There were -- because I worked in the state of Iowa, right across the river, and the state of Iowa was an open shop state where you don't have to belong to the union to work there. You're not required to. And uh, typically, 75, 80 percent of people did, but it would be those that didn't pay their dues that didn't want to go out. I paid my dues, from day one.

DRUMMOND: OK, and you were only there about a year?

NAUYALIS: Yeah, only there about a year. It wasn't my kind of work.

DRUMMOND: OK, OK. And you moved on to Geneseo?

NAUYALIS: Geneseo, Illinois -- they had their own electrical system in that town. They generated their own electricity. They had their own electrical plant.

DRUMMOND: Did you belong to UE, or IBEW?

NAUYALIS: At that time, that municipality did not have a union. Very small town, 5,000 people, and I took up an apprentice linemanship, at that time. And from there, there was a local electrical contractor who did a lot of rebuilding work throughout the state of Illinois, rebuilding transmission lines. And, he said -- asked me one day if I'd go to work for them. And, it was an opportunity to do a little traveling, so I said sure. So I went to work for them as an apprentice lineman, and joined the IBEW at that time.

DRUMMOND: OK. And you would have been about twenty?

NAUYALIS: Yes, I was about twenty -- yeah, I was, because I stood right in the bars in Champagne, Illinois, and nobody carded me. I worked hard during the day -- I went in, and had a couple of beers, and, of course, I went in with my lineman's clothes on and looked a little grubby, so nobody -- and I was always a good size, so they figured I was 21.

DRUMMOND: And were you married at this time?

NAUYALIS: No.

DRUMMOND: And you enjoyed the travel, and you joined IBEW, and, how was being part of that union different from being part of the Auto Workers'?

NAUYALIS: Oh, it was a lot looser run operation -- these were construction workers. You didn't have a local union office that you could go to. I think the local union office that I, the local I belonged to, the office was several hundred miles away. So you really were just a dues paying member, when I worked 00:16:00for the IBEW.

DRUMMOND: Being that disjointed, though, from other members and from a local office and from officers, when it came time for negotiations, how did, did you feel out of the loop on that?

NAUYALIS: Truthfully, I was there such a short time period. We were in the middle of a contract, and, I just uh, we didn't go through negotiations at all.

DRUMMOND: OK, so you didn't -- never had that experience.

NAUYALIS: Did not have that experience.

DRUMMOND: OK. And, you shortly thereafter moved on to Edwards Electrical.

NAUYALIS: That was Edwards Electrical.

DRUMMOND: That was Edwards Electrical. So, then, Eagle Signal.

NAUYALIS: Well, actually, Automatic Electric was in between. I was climbing high-line poles in the country. These are 60, 70 foot poles, when I was with the IBEW, and my feet -- I just couldn't do it. It just bothered my feet, even with 00:17:00the good boots that they had you buy. It just wasn't my cup of tea. So, I thought, well, I'm going to try to use the electronic background that I had the schooling in, so I went to work in Genoa, Illinois, at Automatic Electric, and become an electronic technician over there.

DRUMMOND: OK. Still with the IBEW?

NAUYALIS: No. They were non-union in the front office at that time.

DRUMMOND: And, you mentioned earlier that you went to trade school and got a little tech -- trade school training, or tech school training, on electronics.

NAUYALIS: Electronics, yes.

DRUMMOND: And, when was that?

NAUYALIS: When I was working at J.I. Case. I did that --

DRUMMOND: OK, so that was very early on.

NAUYALIS: Yes, very early on. I was on the first shift for a while, second shift for a while, and luckily, the trade school had classes in the morning and at 00:18:00night. So, I was there probably a good year in that trade school.

DRUMMOND: OK. And Automatic Electric, you said earlier, you weren't there very long. And they didn't, they were, they didn't have a union, they were anti-union, and, was it -- important, or did it become clear to you that you would rather be in a union shop at that time? Like, did something happen that made you go, "Oh, I need a little more," or, "I would like a little more, uh, support," or, "I would like the opportunity for collective bargaining."

NAUYALIS: Absolutely. I was there probably three months, I think. It was the end of my probationary period, and I was ready for my interview, which should have taken me out of my probationary period, and hopefully got me a wage increase, and my immediate boss said to me, "Well, we're going to do your interview today." And I said, "Oh, OK, fine." He said, "But I'm not going to do 00:19:00it." He said, "My boss is going to do it." I said, "Really, your boss is going to do it? Yeah, your boss don't even know me, I don't think," but I didn't know for sure, so.... He sent me up to the front office, and I walked into his boss' office, and the guy asked me who I was, and I told him. And he said, "Oh, OK," and we had a little bit of a conversation -- I'm saying to myself, "This guy doesn't even know my name, doesn't even know who I am -- what kind of an interview is this going to be?" And I told him we weren't going to do the interview today. He said, "Oh, yeah, yeah, you have to do it today!" I said, "No, we're not doing the interview today." I left. And, I took a couple of days off, and I went and found me a job that somebody really (laughter)--I was hopeful that would be appreciated, the work I'd been doing already. And that's when I went to work at Eagle Signal, where they did have a union.

DRUMMOND: OK, and that was your first opportunity to join the Machinists' union.

NAUYALIS: Yes, that was my first shot to join the Machinists' union.

DRUMMOND: OK, and talk to me about the work you did there.

NAUYALIS: I was an electronic technician at Eagle Signal, also. Eagle Signal made traffic control systems, stoplights, automatic stoplights, and industrial timers of all kinds. And I was there for a while, and then, they opened up a little clean room, and was a very small subcontractor for North American Rockwell in developing and building the Apollo space lights.

DRUMMOND: Oh, wow.

NAUYALIS: And, I worked in the clean room, where I -- we built very small timers, about the size of a cigarette pack, that went in the Apollo space flights. There was only one electronic tech in there, and that was me, and we had two ladies in there that did the soldering and putting them together, and I did the testing of them, and those products went into the Apollo space capsules.

DRUMMOND: When you mention the women -- so let me ask you a few questions about this shop. How big was it overall? How many members did you have there?

NAUYALIS: Well, we had two locations. One was in Moline, one was in Davenport. I was in the Moline shop for about six months -- they were only -- they were in the process of closing and moving it. There was only about 35 of us in total there. We had such a rotten supervisor there that when they moved the whole facility over, they left him at his desk. They never took him. That was an eye-opening experience for me. They didn't want him.

DRUMMOND: And was it a closed shop? Was everybody in the union?

NAUYALIS: No, because the contract was actually in Davenport. It was, again, an open shop situation, where you uh, not everybody had to belong -- even though some of us worked in Illinois, the contract really was in Davenport. But we moved over to Davenport, and was folded into the rest of the unit. But at our plant, we would run 92, 93 percent membership.

DRUMMOND: Oh great.

NAUYALIS: Oh, yeah, because we worked hard on it. Oh yeah. Those women -- it was predominantly women, because it was a lot of assembly work -- I can tell you, if you worked there, and you didn't belong to the union, those women raised hell with you. I mean -- and they were integrated lines -- you just couldn't virtually work on a line and not belong to a union. They would run you out the door. They knew how to handle a situation.

DRUMMOND: And so, coming from this very -- when you were with IBEW, but it was very loose, and you didn't have a local --to having no union, to this -- how did that affect your quality of life at that point? Can you talk a little bit about that?

NAUYALIS: It made my life a whole lot easier. There was a structure. We had a contract. I'd become the chief steward in the plant very quickly. I was elected chief steward real quick -- actually, I was a chief steward before I was a steward. The girls liked me, I guess. But, everybody knew what the rules were. 00:23:00You knew you had to come to work, you knew what time you left, you knew what you were paid, you knew what your vacation schedules were, you knew what your holidays were -- I mean, it was very structured, and people liked it. People liked it.

DRUMMOND: And, did you all have a good relationship with management?

NAUYALIS: Eh -- it was up and down. Overall it was decent, but we had some supervisors in there who were very difficult. I think it was a couple of years into the place, we ended up on I think almost a nine-week strike. We got a new personnel manager.

DRUMMOND: Was it a strike –- Okay so --

NAUYALIS: Well, we got a new personnel manager who truthfully got misled by his own people. His own people wanted to make a number of changes in the contract, and they had this attitude that, "these women would go out for a couple of 00:24:00weeks and they'll come back to work, and we don't have to worry about it -- we'll get the changes we want, and that's the way it was." Well, I don't know whether it was me, or who, but that did not happen. We planted a school bus on their parking lot, and they were dumb enough to let us park it there, and their janitors, who weren't part of the union, even cleaned it for us, and I'm telling you, we took them on, and they did not get what they wanted to get.

DRUMMOND: And it was over benefits, and overtime, and seniority -- like, the basic things that go into a contract? Or was there a special issue?

NAUYALIS: No. It was over a major issue which should never have been a major issue. They had the right in our contract to transfer us for a day, no questions asked. If they wanted you to sweep, you did this, you did that, whatever. But from time to time, they would penalize you. Now, if they really needed someone 00:25:00for more than a day, they'd come to the union and say, "Hey, we got a problem over here," we'd work with them. We did. But we had a few supervisors in there who would use it as a penalty, and they wanted the right to transfer us temporarily for 30 days, and we said, "No way in hell. The way you've treated us before -- no. We've given you carte blanche, extra time whenever you needed it, you've had justification for it -- you can't show us one time we haven't agreed to do it, unless there wasn't justification. We're never giving you 30 days. We don't trust you." And that basically was the strike.

DRUMMOND: And you said the strike lasted nine weeks.

NAUYALIS: I think it was nine weeks. It wasn't until corporate finally came to town, and we settled the strike in one day.

DRUMMOND: OK, because they were like, "We've got to get -- this is -- our company shouldn't be asking for this."

NAUYALIS: Absolutely.

DRUMMOND: They felt very strongly that --

NAUYALIS: We explained to corporate what was truthfully going on, and they were dumbfounded, truthfully. As a matter of fact, it was very interesting at the bargaining table. We came into the room, and the corporate guy came into the room --

DRUMMOND: And being chief steward, were you part of bargaining, were you part of negotiations?

NAUYALIS: Absolutely. I was at the bargaining table, with my business agent. And the corporate manager started the conversation off, but he didn't understand what the problems we had, and -- their typical boilerplate stuff, and my director said, "Well, if you don't understand what your problems are, you just need to look around the room. If you look at my side of the table, all of my committee is sitting here at the table. If you look around your side of the table, you can't even get along over there because you got one guy in one corner sitting over there, one guy in another corner sitting up -- they're not even with you up here at the bargaining table, because they can't get along themselves." The corporate manager -- he didn't realize what was going on. He turned around and he looked, and he just screamed, "Get up here at the table, 00:27:00every one of you!" And then we got into an issue about something in the contract -- we hadn't got to the temporary transfer thing yet -- and the corporate manager didn't under tand the language in the contract, and he turned around to the personnel manager who was handling the negotiations, and he was the spokesperson for the company, and he said, "Well, let me see the contract." The personnel manager didn't even have a collective bargaining agreement in his hands. He said, "I left it down in the room." I mean, he just jumped -- my director reached across and said, "Here, borrow mine." "I won't borrow yours -- if we're here at the bargaining table, we need one" -- and he just screamed at him to go down and get one. He saw the problem right off the bat, and he said, "I got a 2 o'clock plane to catch this afternoon." Well, [Carrol] -- he was a man, said, "I don't think you'll catch that. If you can do the right things, we can probably finish this today," and we did. We did. But it took somebody from their side that looked at the real picture of 00:28:00what was going on. And you know what? The personnel manager and I developed a very good relationship after that, uh, negotiations. We did. I think he learned the lesson. I think he learned he couldn't even trust his own management, because they really did lead him down the path. Yeah.

DRUMMOND: And you said it was a nine-week strike.

NAUYALIS: Nine-week strike.

DRUMMOND: Can you talk a little bit about the strike fund at the time? What kind of benefits were you guys getting from that?

NAUYALIS: At that time, I believe, we were getting $25 a week strike benefits. $25 a week didn't go very far, so some folks would pick up some part-time work. Or, it was interesting -- if somebody had extra food, or they'd go to food banks -- but we utilized food banks, we utilized plant gate collections from other companies that we had under contract that would help us out, and we had a good number of local businesses that helped us out. But, a lot of these were women 00:29:00who had spouses that did work, also, so that helped them a lot. But it was tough for the people.

DRUMMOND: Yeah, so in your community, were you sort of an anchor? Was your company sort of an anchor in the community? I always like to find out what the communities felt about the union, and, you know, strikes, or other things.

NAUYALIS: I don't -- wouldn't say we were an anchor, but we were a fairly good-sized plant -- I think we had about 300 in the union. In the bargaining unit at that time, probably another 150 in management. So we were fairly good-sized for our area, but the farm implement companies who were right there were the big anchors. Yeah -- we were just a little flea on a dog, really.

DRUMMOND: In general, did unions have a lot of support in that community?

NAUYALIS: Yes. Yes, in general, the Quad City area was heavily organized -- a lot of unions in that area, a lot of union membership in that area.

DRUMMOND: And so a nine-week strike -- were there any other strikes at Eagle?

NAUYALIS: No. I think management learned their lesson after that nine-week strike. But, unfortunately, I left later down the road to become a business agent, and then about three or four years later, they got this song and dance to move to Austin, Texas, and got sold to Bella Goods to move to Austin, Texas, and they did, and it was the beginning of the end of the company, when they did that. They just never put it together when they left Davenport, Iowa and went to Austin, Texas.

DRUMMOND: And, at this time, you were becoming more active in the union -- you were part of the bargaining unit, you were a steward, and you said that your Dad never really understood -- maybe never understood your need to be in a union. So, when you would talk to your parents during this time, and tell them what was 00:31:00going on, what was the reaction? Or, when you talked to your Dad, I guess.

NAUYALIS: Well, my father just always thought, "Why don't you just go in and talk to the boss about your problems?" He just never really understood that you didn't have any real power without that contract. And he never could understand that you just couldn't go talk to him. My father was a good old boy -- shake your hand when you had a deal. You didn't need it in writing. My father finally learned a little more about that, though, when he went to work as the maintenance person at that telephone company. He had a good boss, but he also saw when a few folks got let go, because of problems at work -- he said, "I guess I understand why maybe you need some help from time to time," because he did see one guy in particular get let go when he should have never been let go. But it took my father a long time to really understand that, yeah.

DRUMMOND: Well, so at Eagle Signal, you have talked about being part of the bargaining unit for Local Lodge 2045, which was in East Moline.

NAUYALIS: The local was in East Moline, and it was an amalgamated local. We had five or six different companies -- all of their members were in the same local. So it was what we called an amalgamated local.

DRUMMOND: OK. So, and you were a steward, and you were a chief steward, and so as you were there, did you ever move up higher in the officers? Did you ever run on an election ticket?

NAUYALIS: Yes. I was an auditor in the local. I was a trustee in the local for a while. I'd become vice president of the local. I didn't run for the presidency, because we always had an understanding -- the older fellows got those jobs. And 00:33:00I wasn't around that long before I left to become a business representative. And I was also active in my district lodge.

DRUMMOND: You were, concurrently?

NAUYALIS: At that same time.

DRUMMOND: And did you feel like you really took to more, I guess, administrative leadership roles in the union? Did that, was that very satisfying for you?

NAUYALIS: Yes, yes. I really enjoyed serving as a chief steward. I did enjoy the positions in the local and the district, that you could really see how the union really operated from the inside, and what it could really do for the workers and the members that we had. I did enjoy that.

DRUMMOND: How um -- And so you were concurrently doing stuff with Local Lodge 2045, and District Lodge 102, which is the district that represented -- so what kind of positions did you hold with District Lodge 102?

NAUYALIS: I was a trustee in the district, and I was vice president of the district. And at the same time, while I was working at Eagle Signal, I was doing some organizing for the district in the evenings.

DRUMMOND: For other --

NAUYALIS: For the companies.

DRUMMOND: How big was the district? What did it cover?

NAUYALIS: Our district covered -- we were a bi-state district -- we had in Illinois and in Iowa, from the Quad City area, we had about a 50-mile radius. At one time, we had eight to nine thousand members, probably 30 contracts, 35 contracts -- a couple of very large companies, a lot of small companies.

DRUMMOND: And um, was it mostly farm equipment and machinery, followed by a smaller electronics shops, or, what were the range of represented shops there?

NAUYALIS: Well, we were vendors for farm equipment. We would build equipment, or make parts, so to speak, that would go in that equipment. We had a couple of electronic locations. We had a couple of companies -- one built refrigerators, and freezers -- Maytag Corporation. We had a boat manufacturer and a lawnmower manufacturer -- it was one and the same. They were both very good-sized. They had about 1,800 members, and the refrigerator and freezer company had right around 16, 18 hundred people.

DRUMMOND: And, so you said, for District Lodge 102, you were organizing other shops at night while you were working in your shop during the day.

NAUYALIS: That's correct.

DRUMMOND: And were they in the same area? Were they down the street, were they folks you knew and saw regularly -- ?

NAUYALIS: These were companies that were in our district area. One was about 30 miles away, where an AFL-CIO representative was running an organizing campaign along with one of our business representatives, and they needed some extra help, and at night I would go down and attend meetings with them, do some house calling with them. We had a couple of little campaigns right there in the Davenport area, where I would do the same thing -- house calling evenings, weekends --

DRUMMOND: OK, and what kind of response did you get from those? You said that there was a lot of support for labor. So, when you would go out, what were those sorts of responses you were getting?

NAUYALIS: From the workers we were trying to organize?

DRUMMOND: Yeah.

NAUYALIS: It was a good response. We won a couple of campaigns. The larger one we really wanted, we were not successful in. It was a very conservative area. People were fairly well taken care of, but the message we tried to deliver to them was, "You just never know when you're going to need your help, and it's 00:37:00too late if you're already on the outside," but, just never could seem to dent -- but that company was very good at keeping the unions out by providing them with decent wages and decent fringe benefits. They tried to stay fairly close to what the union contracts were in their area. One thing they could not give them, though, was the grievance procedure, and some serious opportunity to handle disciplinary or discharges. And that was our message that we delivered, but I guess it's like people that don't buy the insurance for their house until it's too late, and that's -- we tried to make that point with some people, but we weren't able to be successful in the two that we were really after. One was a pretty large employer.

DRUMMOND: OK. And, during this time, sort of moving up in terms of your responsibilities for the union, were you still maintaining your shop work during 00:38:00the day?

NAUYALIS: Oh, yes. I had to pay the bills.

DRUMMOND: You had to pay the bill, but then, you must have had an extraordinary amount of energy, to --

NAUYALIS: Well, I was single -- I was young, single at the time, wasn't married, and I could survive on a lot less sleep back then -- but, actually, the one evening I'll never forget -- there was a new rep that came to town, and we finished up for the evening, and he said to me, "Hey, how about meeting for breakfast tomorrow morning?" "Well, what time do you want to meet, about 5:00?" "No," he said, "Let's meet about 7:30, 8 o'clock," because I got a job to do. He had no idea that I was still working in the shop. He had just come to town. I said, "I got a job to go to." He was quite surprised that I was willing to come out, and work in the evenings -- but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the challenge. I really do.

DRUMMOND: Did you meet anybody about that time that sort of served as a mentor 00:39:00or an influence for your work, and for getting -- for getting -- having this kind of energy, and excitement, and then just having somebody that you could really use as a point person when you needed advice, or had a question, and you knew they had no agenda -- so you had somebody like that? That's great. Can you talk a little -- can you tell us?

NAUYALIS: The director of our district was a man by the name of Carrol [Wright]. Carrol was a little, short, pudgy guy, smoked a cigar -- just a wonderful individual, and had really quite a way about him, of accomplishing the goal that he would set out every day. Carrol would come in and handle grievances at the [third step level?] in our plant, and he just had a way about him, of getting them settled. And he and I became very good friends. Of course, I was always pretty meticulous, pretty thorough -- When he came to a grievance meeting, he had all the facts laid out there for me. Actually, I used to tell him I did all his work for him. And he used to chuckle -- he'd say, "Yeah, you did!" And, 00:40:00yeah -- Carrol was someone I could talk to, and call on, and -- Carrol was one that really didn't want me to become a business rep, because he didn't want me to leave the shop. I did such a good job for him that he didn't have to worry about that shop. But he was one of my big supporters, once he finally said, "All right, it's time for him to move on." But, yeah, Carrol Wright was someone that I could count on.

DRUMMOND: So, there was the one nine-week strike you talked about, at Eagle Signal. Did you all have any more strikes?

NAUYALIS: Not there.

DRUMMOND: When did you -- did you make a break from being part of the local to, you said, being a business rep for the district?

NAUYALIS: Yes.

DRUMMOND: And that's when you quit your shop work?

NAUYALIS: That's correct.

DRUMMOND: Is that the last time you held a job in a shop?

NAUYALIS: That's correct.

DRUMMOND: What year was that?

NAUYALIS: June of 1972. There was an opening in the district -- it wasn't a normal election time, it wasn't a cycle, and two of us were slated to run for the position, and I was elected by the district delegates to take on that job.

DRUMMOND: And, what was it like for you making this big transition, from being someone who had a full-time shop job, and did all this other stuff at night, but maybe it was something you were more helping with, and it was – it wasn't your sole responsibility, in some cases, to moving away from this routine that you had, to having more responsibilities, and bigger responsibilities, across the board?

NAUYALIS: Well, (laughter), when I took on this job, I had just gotten married, just before this. And, with a new family, a new wife, and a new house, and then 00:42:00the job come available, I couldn't pass it up. It was a change in my life, I can tell you that. And, it was probably more than my wife was ready to accept, to be honest with you, because we worked a lot of weekends, a lot of nights -- but I enjoyed it. I really did. It was the opportunity to really help develop the union, and to help the workers, from a different perspective.

DRUMMOND: And did the district lodge stay pretty small? I mean, I know there are some districts that are huge, and cover many states, or coast-to-coast -- but you said this was just in this Quad City area, pretty much.

NAUYALIS: No. This district, up until recent times, stayed within the Quad City area, the 50-mile radius.

DRUMMOND: So, perhaps you had a lot of travel, but it wasn't as extensive or as far away as some folks might have traveled.

NAUYALIS: Yeah, rarely -- there may have been only a couple of instances where it'd be an overnight stay. If you were caught in negotiations until 3 o'clock in the morning, you might have stayed overnight. Sometimes you didn't even do that -- you drove home. But you still were gone a lot. We had a lot of local lodges with a lot of night meetings, and some of them had meetings on weekends. So, yes, you were gone a lot, but you didn't have extensive travel.

DRUMMOND: And, for the business rep, what were the basic duties you were hired in -- I mean, I'm sure you did a lot more than that, but what were some of the basic things you were hired in to do at that time?

NAUYALIS: Well, the basic things were servicing your contract -- helping the stewards and your committee people settle grievances. If they couldn't get them settled at their level, you would go in at your level and help settle those, or if you couldn't get them settled, you had an arbitration case to deal with. When 00:44:00the contracts rolled around every two years, or three years, it was negotiating a new contract. In between those things, which was always ongoing, you were always looking out for organizing leads to develop some more, organizing campaigns. So, those were basically the things that you were trying to -- or, that were your responsibility. The other thing, too, Traci, is attending local lodge meetings, and making sure that the local lodge meetings were run properly, and in conformity with the constitution and their by-laws -- making sure that the officers and the members did the right thing under the rules of our organization. And that was a big responsibility.

DRUMMOND: Did you ever have to close a local? How long were you the business rep? So, from '72 until--

NAUYALIS: February of 1978.

DRUMMOND: OK, so you were there for a good, long time. And did you ever have to close a local?

NAUYALIS: Yes I did.

DRUMMOND: Can you talk a little bit about that, and what that's like? Both in terms of the administrative responsibility, but morale-wise, too, if you could speak to both areas.

NAUYALIS: Well, and it was one of our major contracts, where there was a big fight whether or not they wanted to stay in the IAM, or whether they wanted to go as an independent union. And the employer did the independent union a big job -- they hired about -- there were about 1,600 folks working at this plant, and the employer went out and hired about another 500 people right at the end of the contract, and of course, these were brand new people, they were listening to the people on the inside of the facility, and we had some terrible leadership -- they were duly elected, but they just were terrible leadership, couldn't settle problems, and they thought they could do better -- years ago, they were 00:46:00independent, they came with us, and they thought they could go back and do better as an independent. So, we had a decertification election, and we lost the election, and once you lose the election, we had to close down the local. It was horrible, because we had some very good friends in there. The sad part of it is, this was one of the best-paying facilities in that city, one of the best-paying facilities in our district. They went independent, negotiated their first agreement. Two years later, the company said, "We're not putting up with it anymore," picked it up and moved it all out of town.

DRUMMOND: They just didn't have the strength, you think -- the bigger union behind them to -- ?

NAUYALIS: Well, once they went independent, they didn't have a structure to really, really settle the problems, and the problems just got worse in there. They wanted to do it on their own, they hired some lawyer who gave them some terrible advice, and they had this grand plan that they could save all this dues money, but it cost all of them -- well, at that time, almost 2,000 members -- it 00:47:00cost all of them a very good-paying job.

DRUMMOND: Do you remember the city and the company?

NAUYALIS: Oh, sure -- Galesburg, Illinois, Outboard Marine Corporation. Gale Products, which was part of Outboard Marine Corporation. They built parts for Johnson Motors, and they built the Lawn-Boy lawnmower there. Building the lawnmower -- this was in the early '70s. Building the lawnmowers, these people were making six and seven dollars an hour. Very high-paid shop, great benefits -- they were really pricing themselves out of the market, but it was worse than that. They could never solve problems. They didn't know how to settle grievances. And the company just got tired of it.

DRUMMOND: So once they decided to be an independent union again, what was it like for you going in and having to close the old --

NAUYALIS: Terrible. Terrible, because we had some really good friends in there, and we had to look them in the eye and tell them that it's over as far as the IAM goes. We had to go in and get all the paperwork, and close down the offices that they had, and -- it was a very close election, but, the new people who came in who were really misguided made the difference in that election. And our, our -- The folks supporting us unfortunately weren't willing to work as hard to influence those folks as the opposition was, and that's what it came down to. That's what it came down to. But it was hard. It was hard to do.

DRUMMOND: And so, a couple of years later, the company just shut down the plant --

NAUYALIS: Shut it all down.

DRUMMOND: -- moved it somewhere else --

NAUYALIS: -- broke it up, moved it back to Waukegan, Illinois, and moved it to, I think Mississippi, to build lawnmowers.

DRUMMOND: And chances are in Mississippi, there were no unions.

NAUYALIS: Oh, no. (laughter)

DRUMMOND: There are very few.

NAUYALIS: No, no, no.

DRUMMOND: So you were a business rep at District Lodge 102, from '72 to '78, and I suspect --

NAUYALIS: Can I give you an example of not settling problems?

DRUMMOND: Sure, absolutely.

NAUYALIS: They had a chairwoman that was there, and this was really crazy. I went over to Gale Products to handle a bunch of grievances one day, and just to give you an example of what happened, we had a grievance on the table -- and I don't remember what the issue was at this point, but, I just looked at the personnel manager and I said, "Now, look. Damn it, you know you're wrong, you know this is what you owe, and this is what you're going to have to do or we're going to arbitrate the case." And he looked square in the eye at me and said, "You know what, I'd make you that offer. But the chairman of your committee won't settle the grievance on that offer." I said, "You're willing to make 00:50:00that offer?" He said, "I'm willing to make that offer, if you can tell me you can settle the grievance." So I said, "Let's have a couple minutes," and I took the chairwoman out in the hallway and I said, "Now, wait a minute. This is what you're asking for on the grievance. This is what I believe he's willing to give us." "Well, you have to understand, there's more to this grievance than that." I said, "There is?" And she had this other convoluted story about what else they had -- I said, "None of that is in the grievance. You didn't ask for any of that. You're not going to get any of that." "Well, we're not settling on that basis." We went back in the room, and I said, "I'll be in touch with you." No, no -- what I said was, "Will you put that in writing?" And he said, "I'm not putting anything in writing for her." And I said, "OK." So we moved on, I went back to my office -- I prepared a letter, to him. And the letter basically said, "As a result of the grievance meeting, it's my understanding that you've offered to settle this 00:51:00grievance based on A, B, C, D, E, and F. If you're prepared to settle it on that basis, we are too. I'm signing this document. If you'll sign the bottom of the document and send it back to me -- it won't be a letter to the chairperson, it's a letter to me -- we'll settle the grievance." I sent it over, he sent it right back. We settled the grievance. She was infuriated. That was the kind of problem that we had in that facility.

DRUMMOND: Did the people under her -- directly under her -- understand that she was -- I mean, were they just sort of stuck and not able to do anything?

NAUYALIS: She was a very powerful individual personally. She just had a way of -- she was a cult leader. That's the way I would put it. Her committee was just not willing to take her on. I was. But unfortunately, she won the war -- we won the battle, I guess, but she won the war. But, it was just the wrong things to do, and of course, she would go back out in the facility and she'd tell her own 00:52:00story, and she's in there eight hours a day, and sometimes on two different shifts, telling people -- well, I couldn't spend that kind of time in there. But yeah, that was just one example of the problems we had. Sad -- it was really sad.

DRUMMOND: And I think that's probably an example of problems -- not just for you, but for business reps all over -- that there's always someone -- not always, but often -- just different personalities and egos, and even though you've got this really incredible structure, if you don't have someone who's willing to work within that -- you know.

NAUYALIS: Yes. If you have a personal agenda of some sort, you're not going to survive as a leader, and you're not going to lead the troops where they need to go, because you're only interested in yourself, and that's really what she was -- she had a personal agenda. She hated our union -- I don't think she ever wanted to be part of a structure. She liked the old independent. She hated the 00:53:00company. But that hate drove them right out of town, and believe me, at meetings --

DRUMMOND: So, she was specifically at the company you just talked about, that closed -- OK, OK.

NAUYALIS: Oh yes. Oh yes. And as a representative, you run into that from time to time, and sometimes you can get around it, and work around it, and fix the problem -- sometimes you just can't. You just can't do it. And you do the best you can.

DRUMMOND: Do you know what became of this particular woman?

NAUYALIS: Don't know, don't care.

DRUMMOND: OK, fair enough. Fair enough.

NAUYALIS: I really don't.

DRUMMOND: And, I guess once the company left, everyone lost their job.

NAUYALIS: Oh yeah. Yeah, they all did.

DRUMMOND: What were communications like back then? Because it occurs to me that if you were running around -- like, all the different unions had meetings, maybe different nights of the week, and you were trying to keep up with what everybody was doing, and make the weekend meetings. What were communications like at that 00:54:00time? We have e-mail now. We have cell phones. And we have text messaging, and websites for people -- meetings can be posted, and you can go get information -- so, can you talk about some of the, maybe, struggles you had with communications at that time?

NAUYALIS: Well, you really had to operate from your district lodge office, where you had a secretary. Your committees knew -- and your members knew -- if they really wanted to reach you, I mean, they had my home phone number. But, really, they would call the district office and leave a message for you. As a business agent, you carried a lot of dimes in your pocket -- I think it was only ten cents for a phone call then -- because you had to call the district. If you were out on the road, and going to be gone for the day, you'd call two or three times a day, just to see if you had any messages. Most people, if you were tied up, understood -- a phone call the next day was fine. But no, there was no instant 00:55:00communications like we have today, and, you know? We did pretty well back then. We stayed in touch with each other -- and nobody really complained. I honestly got very few phone calls at my home, from my members. They would call the office and leave a message, and she would say, "He's gone for the day." "Fine, could he call me tomorrow?" "He probably will." And I was always good about returning phone calls. Some I did not want to return, but I returned them. I don't think anyone could ever say I never called back, but -- communications was -- I'm not going to say more difficult. It wasn't as efficient, maybe,

DRUMMOND: -- It wasn't as immediate.

NAUYALIS: -- Depending on what your interpretation of efficiency is.

DRUMMOND: Yeah, yeah.

NAUYALIS: But we got by fine!

DRUMMOND: OK.

NAUYALIS: We got by fine. You carried a lot of change in your pocket.

DRUMMOND: (laughter)

NAUYALIS: You knew where the pay phones were.

DRUMMOND: OK. OK. While you were business rep for District Lodge 102, were there any strikes that came along while you -- or any big negotiations, collective 00:56:00bargaining issues, or anything like that that you can speak to for that?

NAUYALIS: We only had a couple of strikes -- other strikes, other than the Eagle Signal strike. I was jointly working on a contract with a new director that took over after Brother Wright retired. Bill Keller was handling the shop up in Clinton, Iowa, and we went out on strike there. We were absolutely shocked. (laughter) It was not a good agreement, it was not something we were really proud of, but we could tell this was the best we were going to do with this company. Again, this was a shop that we did not have great membership in. We were only running about 60 percent membership. The rest of them didn't pay dues, of course. And we went to the ratification meeting that day (laughter), and we weren't real happy with the agreement. And, we had a pretty decent committee -- had an old fellow on the chairman of the committee -- very understandable guy, nice guy to work with, and, it was a recommended settlement from the committee 00:57:00and the business agent, myself and Bill -- be god darned if they didn't turn us down. We were shocked. So, your next step is to take a strike vote. Well, a strike vote has to carry by two-thirds, not just as a simple majority. And we took the vote, and I'll be damned if they didn't give us a two-thirds vote. We were on strike.

DRUMMOND: Wow.

NAUYALIS: I looked at Bill, and Bill looked at me--

DRUMMOND: Bill who?

NAUYALIS: Bill Keller, my new director -- I said, "Bill, did you bring the strike signs?" He said, "No." He said, "Did you bring them?" I said, "No." And we both -- there was no way we were going to hit the street! Neither one of us believed -- we thought maybe what would happen was they'd turn the contract down -- we'd never get a strike vote. Well, we jumped in our car, and we drove 30 miles back to the union office, we picked up the strike signs -- we had them within an hour. But, we were shocked. It only lasted about a week, 00:58:00because we would have lost the entire operation.

DRUMMOND: And what company again?

NAUYALIS: Central Steel and Tube. Yes. But, yeah, we were very surprised -- we'd never thought this was going to happen. The chairman of the committee didn't think it would happen -- none of us did. But, we never went to another ratification meeting without strike signs.

DRUMMOND: Really? (laughter)

NAUYALIS: Yeah. (laughter) We came prepared, no matter what we thought. We came prepared. Just, some things you don't –- you can't forecast.

DRUMMOND: Anything else about your time as business rep you want to mention, because we're going to move on to the Grand Lodge.

NAUYALIS: No, not really. It was a rewarding time, and I learned a lot from a lot of different guys. I worked with a lot of Grand Lodge reps, as a business agent, and -- I always learned two things: some things to do, and some things 00:59:00not to do, from some of these fellows. But, you have to sort those things out. But, it was a good experience -- but I was looking forward to going on as a Grand Lodge rep.

DRUMMOND: Right, so at this time, the six years in District Lodge 102, as the business rep, really sort of prepared you, and certainly you were catching the eye of folks higher up.

NAUYALIS: Yeah.

DRUMMOND: OK, and you were still out in Illinois.

NAUYALIS: Yes.

DRUMMOND: But, when you -- I guess the special Grand Lodge rep?

NAUYALIS: When I was a special Grand Lodge rep--

DRUMMOND: That was your first step into being a Grand Lodge rep?

NAUYALIS: That's correct. And I was divorced at that time.

DRUMMOND: OK, so you had pretty much in the last--

NAUYALIS: That six years took a toll on the marriage. It really did.

DRUMMOND: OK. So um, but when you came on the special Grand Lodge rep, did you stay in your area, or did you make a move?

NAUYALIS: No. I was left in my area, with the complete, clear understanding that 01:00:00that may not last.

DRUMMOND: OK.

NAUYALIS: Oh yeah. Brother Tom Ducy -- he called me up one morning, and he says, "What are you doing?" And I said, "I just finished the dishes -- I just had breakfast. Why?" It was a Saturday morning. And I was shocked that he called me. He said, "Well, I need to meet with you this afternoon." I said, "Oh really?" I thought, oh boy, this is -- I had no idea where this was going. So we met that afternoon, and he offered me a job, but he made it very plain: "Because you're going to be doing mostly organizing, and you'll be traveling throughout our territory," and, where I was located was pretty central to our territory, the Midwest territory. He said, "And you got transportation in and out, you've got an airport," so he said, "I'm going to leave you there for now." But he said, "I want you to know very plain, I may not leave you there forever, so if you don't want the job with the understanding that you're going to move, don't take the job." I took the job. You always had 01:01:00that understanding. You may not get to stay where you're at.

DRUMMOND: Right. And how long were you a special Grand Lodge rep?

NAUYALIS: Well, I went through the steps and the structure -- I think that's three years, and then you move up to a Grand Lodge rep.

DRUMMOND: So '81?

NAUYALIS: I guess it was about '81, yeah.

DRUMMOND: OK, all right. I'll put that down as a point of reference.

NAUYALIS: OK.

DRUMMOND: So then, what --how did your work change, once you became a special Grand Lodge rep?

NAUYALIS: Well, early on as a Grand Lodge rep, most -- almost all my time was spent in organizing, throughout the nine-state territory.

DRUMMOND: OK, OK. And what are the states?

NAUYALIS: The states, at that time, were Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, 01:02:00North and South Dakota, Kansas, Missouri. I hope that's nine.

DRUMMOND: Big states. Lots of ground to cover.

NAUYALIS: Other than North and South Dakota -- they didn't have a lot of members there, but they had a lot of members in all of those -- well, except -- well, Kansas we did. We had heavy membership in the aerospace, in Wichita. Yeah.

DRUMMOND: OK, OK. So, lots of organizing.

NAUYALIS: Lots of organizing.

DRUMMOND: Can you talk about some of the bigger campaigns you had at that time?

NAUYALIS: Oh, yes.

DRUMMOND: Or maybe small, but difficult -- just, new challenges?

NAUYALIS: I worked with a couple of other Grand Lodge reps early, in '78, but later in '78, I went to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and headed up a campaign of 1,000 people -- the [Allman?] Corporation. Big district up there -- I think we had three Grand Lodge reps come in there. It might have been '79 -- actually, 01:03:00four Grand Lodge reps came in there, but I was the young pup on the totem pole, and they wanted me to head this thing up. It was a very interesting campaign -- a thousand people. I mean, how do you get your hands around this? And we really did. And this was the time when--

DRUMMOND: And what kind of work was it?

NAUYALIS: They were building, I believe, generators -- small generators, large generators. And this was a time when what we call the union-buster was coming on the scene.

DRUMMOND: OK, yeah -- yeah, yeah.

NAUYALIS: Companies that were devoted their entire corporation (laughter) to breaking unions, or defeating unions and organizing campaigns, and this was one of the first ones we got faced with -- major, major -- 3M--"Modern management methods"--came in there. And they literally moved their people, their crew, 01:04:00into this facility, took over the offices, and -- they really took us on. But, we devised a program in there -- we actually were able to identify, within 25 people, every person in the bargaining unit before we got the voting list, which you typically -- you can get later on during a campaign. And we broke up the plant -- a four by eight sheet of plywood with maps on it, and -- we really did a nice job. But they beat us. They spent over a million dollars in there at that time -- and that was in '78. And we were faced with some just major (laughter) stiff opposition. But that was my first experience on a major campaign. But it was tough, very tough.

DRUMMOND: Mm-hm, mm-hm. And you learned a lot.

NAUYALIS: Oh, I learned an awful lot -- how to really touch base with people. And we did, we did.

DRUMMOND: And what was that like for the folks that were trying to organize, or 01:05:00that you were trying to organize -- the people that would have been members? What kind of relationship did you have with those folks during this time?

NAUYALIS: We developed a really good relationship with them. We had weekly meetings with them. They were shocked when they would come over to our office -- we actually had opened up this storefront office -- and was able to see how we located a thousand people on this board. And we did -- we had little pins exactly where Traci was working, or where Roger was working, in this facility -- floor plan -- the pins were color-coded -- which shift you were on, and your name, was on that board someplace. They could see that we were a professional organization. They could see that if we were successful at this campaign, these guys could really sit down at the bargaining table and negotiate a contract. So, it was the folks that -- our team, or committee, that uh, was highly impressed, 01:06:00I think, with the job we did. Unfortunately (laughter), they weren't able to convince enough folks to come with them. It was not a close election -- we got beat fairly heavy, but --

DRUMMOND: And so it was just a tougher area to organize?

NAUYALIS: No -- Minneapolis, Minnesota is a union area. We had a lot of contracts, it was a big district at that time, but when you're faced with six to eight people that Modern Management Methods brought in, located them full-time in this facility, spent -- we know, over a million dollars -- that was major opposition. They actually -- they described -- some of the fellows described to us about a person in their personnel department -- I never will remember his name, but real gentleman -- real nice guy. Everybody loved him. And they 01:07:00actually took this individual and turned him into a puppet for them. And he held individual captive audience meetings, and would cuss, would holler, would scream -- then he would become real nice. And they said, "This isn't the same person. This isn't the guy we knew." They actually developed this individual from their own people. That was part of their scheme, part of their program.

DRUMMOND: OK.

NAUYALIS: Very successful for them.

DRUMMOND: So, the company had a lot of people in place to fight the union and to, I guess, send out information to the people that were trying to organize -- was it scare tactics?

NAUYALIS: It was. Absolutely. Absolutely. They have their captive audience meetings, and they made things very plain what was going to happen in them. Yeah. It was (laughter)-- it was something that prepared me for my next 01:08:00assignment, which got even worse.

DRUMMOND: The next assignment while you were still special Grand Lodge rep? OK. And what was that?

NAUYALIS: Well, I spent all winter in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and then I spent the next summer in Coffeyville, Kansas. So I went from the freezer to the oven. Oh, my God was it hot down there. And we took on a company called Funk Corporation, and a Halliburton Corporation down there. Very non-union. We already had a local guy on-site at that time, and a Grand Lodge rep.

DRUMMOND: And what were they making? What were they doing in the -- you said Funk?

NAUYALIS: Yeah, Funk was kind of a parts supplier, made a lot of different parts for different employers, and Halliburton was in the oil industry. And, I got assigned to go down and take over that campaign -- and both of these were very good-sized campaigns. One was 400, and the other one was 600, I think.

DRUMMOND: Wow.

NAUYALIS: The best way to describe the environment that I was getting into, and understanding the people -- I drove into town, and they were having a meeting in the back room that night, and I was studying at the desk -- I didn't want to go back. I was studying at the desk, and one guy came out -- Rick [Greenfield]. I'll never forget him. Rick Greenfield came out, and he looked at me, and he said, "You must be the Chicago guy." Well, I introduced myself to him, told him where I was from. And his next words out of his mouth were, "Do you believe in gun control? Do you believe in us having the right to own a gun?"

DRUMMOND: Apropos of nothing!

NAUYALIS: I mean, I didn't even know this guy, and I said, "Well, Rick, everybody's got rights and we all know what the Constitution is." I said, "I was a hunter, born and raised on a farm, hunted pheasant, hunted rabbits, hunted 01:10:00squirrels, hunted ducks." I said, "Now, what do you think my belief is?" "I want to know. Would you today believe -- " And I dodged the question for twenty minutes. And I never did dodge it. And I finally said, "Oh, yeah -- I believe in it." I had no choice but to answer -- he was not going to let me go. And we became good friends, in these campaigns, but Rick made it very plain where he was from. I mean, every pickup out front had a gun rack in the back of it, whether it was a shotgun or a rifle hanging in it.

DRUMMOND: May I venture a guess that these were largely white communities trying to organize?

NAUYALIS: Primarily. There were some African-American groups that was in these facilities, but most of these were white Caucasian individuals. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.

DRUMMOND: OK. And what was it like fighting Funk and Halliburton?

NAUYALIS: Horrible. Absolutely horrible.

DRUMMOND: And it's a completely different, I think, mindset, once you get further South, about how to think about unions.

NAUYALIS: I probably don't have this exactly right. You're right, Traci. But before I had gotten there, there was also another campaign there by our organization. It got so bad, from what I'm told, that the police department was called out to the plant to patrol the parking lots -- several times a day. Phony calls would be made to the police department about the union organizers are out there destroying cars, doing this, doing that -- harassing the people, whatever. Our organization actually took the City Council on, and the mayor, and everybody, and sued them. We used a lawyer that was involved in the J.P. Stevens strike. And we went down -- and there was actually a settlement agreement that 01:12:00they would not be involved in that again. I mean, I forget exactly what the agreement said, but they had to call us before, and give us an opportunity to fix whatever alleged problem there was -- I mean, it was horrible what was going on. And, this campaign just took on a life of its own. We never got it off the ground. One Grand Lodge rep that was there kept believing there was a silent majority, but I got news for you. There was no silent majority. There were two locations of Funk. Really, I was involved in the Funk campaign more than any -- You know what was interesting there, too? We did a lot of house calling in that town. A lot of house calling. Now, we didn't have computers back then. So, we had five Grand Lodge reps come to town. Now, you can't send everybody all over town, so I'm in the office one day, and I took all of the index cards that we had everybody's name on, and I broke the town up into four squares, and I just 01:13:00was throwing cards in piles, wherever somebody would live, so when you came down to do house calling, you at least stayed in one area of town. The computer made it a whole lot easier down the road, but this was the best we could do. It was interesting -- I remember one Grand Lodge rep came in after he'd house called that day, and he was so damn mad, so frustrated. "Why did you give me this area of town?" Well, I didn't know -- it was the richer, the better part of town. And he was house calling -- actually, workers that were still living at home with their parents, who were maybe a lawyer, or -- the upper crust of the community, and it was just terrible. He was so frustrated. So I switched him off and gave it to somebody else the next day. I mean, he was ready to go home. But, on the day of the election at Funk, two different plants -- I went to one plant, 01:14:00and I typically would wait outside the plant for the board -- a National Labor Relations Board agent to show up. It was easier to get into the election area that way, otherwise you always had a fight. Well, we couldn't get in -- the doors were all locked. And so, to get to the office, you had to go back out and go into a different parking lot. Well, they had locked us all in the parking lot, wouldn't let us out of the parking lot. Now, the federal agent was getting really hot, and they were beating on the door, and they finally opened the door to let us in. But it was all part of the control process. So, we opened up the polls there, and we thought that was bad. We drove up to the other plant -- and, of course, the agent stayed there to run the poll. We drove up to the other plant -- it was the damnedest thing I'd ever seen in my life. Inside this facility -- just inside the gates -- they had patrol cars, police patrol cars setting there, with riot gear on their patrol officers, shotguns, and dogs. It 01:15:00was really interesting, because in that area, as you drove in, the workers were going by all these patrol cars as we're hand billing them. You could look up, and there was the loading dock. From the loading dock, you could see out here, and that's where they had started to set up the polling site, until our guys went inside, and said, "No. No. You're not setting a polling site up here, where they've got full view of these police cars out here," and including overhead mirrors that are right above the polling area where [you were on photo?]. Well, the federal agent finally moved the polling scene, but that's what you were faced with down there. It was just terrible.

DRUMMOND: It was in the culture.

NAUYALIS: Oh, it was the culture.

DRUMMOND: And I'm guessing you were in a smaller town -- Coffeyville is not --

NAUYALIS: Yeah, probably four or five thousand people, at the most.

DRUMMOND: Right, so everybody knew each other.

NAUYALIS: Everybody knew each other. And they were the major employers. I mean, if you didn't work at these two places, you didn't have a job. So --

DRUMMOND: Right. Well, in talking to the folks who did want the union, I guess, if you had scouts go down and sort of feel them out, and talk to folks about starting the union --working with them, did you find that there were any big differences working with Southerners, versus working with Midwesterners?

NAUYALIS: Yeah --

DRUMMOND: Can you talk about your experience and the differences?

NAUYALIS: There was a difference. There was a major credibility issue there -- a trust issue there. No question about it. They weren't familiar with unions. They thought, "Listen, this is my only job in town. If I lose this job -- " There was major fear in that plant. "Either I'll get fired, or they're going to close the facility. If it becomes union-run, they're going to move it. We won't have any job." So, it was really -- people were fairly warm, and you'd go out and knock on their door, but -- some of them wouldn't let you in the door. Some 01:17:00of them would talk to you at the door. It just was a real educational gap in what unions were all about in that part of the country, and a major fear factor. Major fear factor.

DRUMMOND: And you mentioned J.P. Stevens, so I'm wondering if some of the information about the J.P. Stevens campaign, or about the practices of J.P. Stevens, had permeated the town before you got there.

NAUYALIS: I don't think so. Probably --

DRUMMOND: Not too many textiles around there?

NAUYALIS: There's no textile mills in the area. They'd have had to been readers of newspapers, which I don't think they were.

DRUMMOND: OK.

NAUYALIS: Yeah, but it was very, very difficult. Yeah. As an organizer, I gotta tell ya, there were some nights you'd ask, "What the hell am I doing here?" You really did. But you tried. You tried.

DRUMMOND: And, so, Funk and Halliburton, none of the shop -- you were not able --

NAUYALIS: No.

DRUMMOND: -- to get folks. And then, your next -- so I guess, was that part of your district, or your territory, or was that your first travel outside of the Western territory?

NAUYALIS: No, no -- at that time, Kansas was in our next territory, at that time.

DRUMMOND: Or that was part -- OK. And then -- anything else you want to talk about, being special Grand Lodge rep?

NAUYALIS: Well, most of my time was in organizing. In about '86 -- it was '86 -- the IAM decided to set up a national organizing program, where we would have a team that worked across the country, strictly doing organizing.

DRUMMOND: OK, so pulling that responsibility off of the Grand Lodge reps.

NAUYALIS: No.

DRUMMOND: No?

NAUYALIS: No, it would still be part of their responsibility, but there would be 01:19:00a group of them that didn't do anything else but.

DRUMMOND: OK.

NAUYALIS: Didn't do anything else but.

DRUMMOND: So it was just a more coordinated effort.

NAUYALIS: Absolutely a coordinated effort, and we were going to headquarter out of the Grand Lodge. A vice president, Jim Malott, was assigned to take on that responsibility. He was the vice president of the Northwest territory at that time. Jim came from the Midwest. I worked with Jim, for a number of years, and Jim asked me to join that team. And some other folks had asked me to become a part of that organization. I was reluctant at the time, because when Jim asked me, he wanted me to become his administrative assistant, which means I move to Washington, D.C. And I'm just a kid from the country -- I was born and raised on the farm. I mean, what the hell do I know about Washington, D.C.? But, I talked to some folks, and I finally agreed to do it, so, the department actually -- I 01:20:00think it probably opened up January 1 of '87. And--

DRUMMOND: Well, you've moved a little forward, because -- finish your thought, but I want to go back, because you've moved forward to '87.

NAUYALIS: Well, it was '86 when Jim came to me, and I actually went to work for him at the end of '86, and January 1 was the official opening of the department, of '87.

DRUMMOND: But, your special Grand Lodge rep time was '78 to '81, and that included the Funk and Halliburton efforts. So, then you moved on to Grand Lodge rep --

NAUYALIS: In '81.

DRUMMOND: In '81.

NAUYALIS: In the Midwest territory.

DRUMMOND: In the Midwest territory. And I have to ask you -- '81 was a big year for labor in the United States, with the PATCO strike. And -- and there were a lot of differences there, because they were contracted to the U.S. government. And the late '70s sort of saw, under W.J. Usery, codification of regulations for 01:21:00union members who worked for the U.S. government. [They didn't receive?] -- but I still think that PATCO had a huge impact on, even private sector organizing. I mean, I don't think anybody will disagree with me on that.

NAUYALIS: Oh no, it did.

DRUMMOND: And so, can you talk about, as you were moving into Grand Lodge rep -- were you in the Western territory?

NAUYALIS: No, I was still in the Midwestern.

DRUMMOND: You were still in the Midwest territory.

NAUYALIS: Until '86 -- the end of '86.

DRUMMOND: Until '86. Can you talk about maybe Machinists' reaction, or sort of the feeling -- as somebody doing a lot of organizing, and somebody with this responsibility, looking at PATCO -- do you have any reflections on how that affected your work, or how you thought about your work, or -- ?

NAUYALIS: It did have an effect. You'd go out and try to organize people -- I was doing a lot of organizing then. And you'd tell people about getting them a contract, and how you're protected, whatever, but -- PATCO showed that that protection may not last long. Now, we always knew what the law was. But, it just appeared that it had become much, much easier to discharge somebody if you were involved in a union.

DRUMMOND: So then that made your work harder?

NAUYALIS: Oh, it made it very difficult. Absolutely difficult. During that time period, I was successful in organizing a couple of independent unions into our organization, but small organizing campaigns were very tough to win then. The union buster had come along then -- they were using them all the time on campaigns. The PATCO strike hit then. People were scared to death. We never saw this kind of money spent against unions and organizing campaigns until it hit in 01:23:00the '80s. So it was really tough. Very tough. But we still won some organizing campaigns. In the Midwest territory, I don't recall any real large campaigns during that time period. But we were winning 100, 150, 50 person campaigns. But it was very tough. You really had -- the PATCO thing was always on people's minds. They saw that you can lose your job.

DRUMMOND: Right, right. Yeah. So, going from special Grand Lodge rep into Grand Lodge rep, did your duties change a lot?

NAUYALIS: No.

DRUMMOND: It was just more of a title change?

NAUYALIS: More of a title change.

DRUMMOND: And, who were you working with at that time, and what was going on in your --

NAUYALIS: In the '80s?

DRUMMOND: Yeah.

NAUYALIS: Well, I was working with other Grand Lodge reps, and Jim Malott, when Jim was still in our territory, before he'd become a vice president. But yeah -- 01:24:00we had eight or nine Grand Lodge reps during that time -- probably six or seven, strictly organizing. That's all we did was organize, throughout the nine-state territory.

DRUMMOND: And you all were also heading toward your hundred-year anniversary at this time, too -- and were you sort of looking -- the union overall -- were you sort of looking to that as sort of a (pause)-- you know, like having a goal of -- a renewed interest or renewed vitality in the union, sort of heading toward the hundredth anniversary?

NAUYALIS: Well, those of us that were out -- it's interesting. When you're out doing your organizing, you're a little bit removed from what's going on in the organization. You really are, because you're not in the office, you're not in the day-to-day contact with the vice president, or districts, or locals, and what their activities are -- the administrative part of the organization. You're out there in some little town of two or three hundred people, or maybe two or 01:25:00three thousand people, trying to organize a group of non-union workers. You really lose a little touch with what's going on in the organization. So, what was leading up to that hundredth anniversary -- I was really remote to that, to be honest with you. I was in towns that -- we had to go through the switchboard to make a phone call.

DRUMMOND: Oh, really -- still in the '80s?

NAUYALIS: Oh, yeah.

DRUMMOND: Oh wow!

NAUYALIS: [Polo?], Illinois. And I could never trust making them phone calls. I'd have to find a pay phone, because I used to -- a little town of 1,500 people, and you had to make your calls before 10 o'clock -- the switchboard closed.

DRUMMOND: Well, you know, early on, the Machinists had a code, that when they would -- either, I guess -- yeah, call, or send signals to one another, they would use this code, and they would -- like, you could say one thing but it meant something else, and so of course the person on the other end could write 01:26:00down what you said, and then decipher everything that was going on, so that anyone listening in, or that might have access to your conversation, wouldn't know exactly what you were talking about.

NAUYALIS: That's before my time, Traci. (laughter)

DRUMMOND: No, no -- I know, I know that, but I just think it's interesting that was still an issue in the 1980's, that you still found places where you had that lack of privacy.

NAUYALIS: Oh, in this little town, little motel -- only motel in town -- the company was there -- if anybody had come in to visit that company, they needed to stay overnight, they had to stay at this hotel, so there was an allegiance from this hotel operator to the company. They provided them business. I wasn't about to trust that maybe somebody was listening on the other end of that telephone. And my committee that I worked with was told clearly, when you called me at that motel, if you get me, I don't want you to say anything over that telephone. You just find out I'm there and come out and meet with me, or let me know where you're going to be, where we'll meet somewhere. Oh, yeah, I didn't 01:27:00trust them. I did not trust them. I was shocked when I got there that it was still a switchboard (laughter) operation. But, yeah, that was in the early '80s. Well, about '83, '84.

DRUMMOND: OK. So, what were some of your big organizing campaigns, through the '80s?

NAUYALIS: Well, mine were some independent unions, a couple of independent unions. I picked up one up in Wisconsin, about 60 people -- it was just the company independent union. I was able to pick one up in Joliet, Illinois -- about 300 folks, that we've still got today. Won a small little campaign in -- my God, I can't remember where it was, now. But, we didn't have a lot of success in that time period. Not a lot of success.

DRUMMOND: Just -- lots of issues?

NAUYALIS: Lots of issues. Well, actually, I spent -- we had a major issue up in 01:28:00Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, a company called Giddings & Lewis. And that was in the '80s -- where we had them for years, and we'd lost them over a strike, and I got sent back up there to see if we couldn't rejuvenate it. I was in and out of there for almost three years. We kept the local going. We lost the first campaign. I won the second campaign with some help, by a couple of votes. But, here again, they spent just all kinds of money, and we had a lot of scabs that were in the plant at the time. But, we did win the campaign. Tough time getting that contract, and never got union security in the contract, and of course the district took it over to negotiate the agreement, finally got an agreement, but people really never supported this, and we -- I think we, well I know why we eventually in a few years later walked away. But, it was a very difficult campaign because of the old strike. And, we knew we was going to lose the first 01:29:00one. We ran the first campaign because the attitude was, "We're going to show ya." So, they kicked our butt, and we just stayed with it, and two years later, we finally won it. But, that was -- I spent a lot of time up there.

DRUMMOND: And so, then, moving on to '87, we talked a little bit about that earlier. Tell me your new position in -- ?

NAUYALIS: I became the administrative assistant--

DRUMMOND: To?

NAUYALIS: They call them now Chief of Staff -- to Jim Malott, in the new organizing department here in the Grand Lodge.

DRUMMOND: OK. So that's when you moved --

NAUYALIS: To Washington, D.C.

DRUMMOND: And that was the first time in a long time you hadn't had to travel extensively.

NAUYALIS: Outside the territory.

DRUMMOND: Outside of the territory, OK. What was that transition like?

NAUYALIS: It was new. I mean --

DRUMMOND: You have a great story about getting to town, and it being --

NAUYALIS: Well, yeah, the snowstorm. But, helping to set up the department, becoming part of the hierarchy at headquarters, was just a new experience for me. We actually took over the offices that the National Football Players' Association rented from us, and I ended up in Gene [Upshaw]'s office. That was cool. I met Gene. They hadn't quite moved out yet. He said, "You're going to be throwing us out of here." I said, "The size you are, I can't throw you out of anyplace." Really a nice gentleman -- just a nice individual. But, yeah, that was a whole new experience for me -- relocating to Washington, D.C., buying a house, setting up that department, hiring staff, transferring staff from other territories to come on to our staff -- I enjoyed it, but it was a new experience for me. Yes.

DRUMMOND: Who were some of the people you were working with, as you were establishing the department?

NAUYALIS: Well, within our own department? Well, Gary Will, [Franz Ortloff?], [Jerry Rowlings?], Smith -- oh, gosh, can't remember his first name now. I'll think of it -- Kenny Walsh -- those were some of the initial folks. And then we kind of -- we developed a program that we started to hire -- well, we debated what we'd call it -- but they were like apprentice organizers, that we'd hire some people for a while to mentor them, and to hopefully train them, and develop them into organizers. And, that seemed to work for a while, but the organization eventually went through a real, full-scale apprentice program, which they still have today. But it kind of started there.

DRUMMOND: OK. And the um --

NAUYALIS: Now, of course, this department really headed up campaigns throughout the United States, coast to coast, border to border.

DRUMMOND: But your work was in D.C., sort of working with people to give them the support they needed to go to these other places, and to organize there.

NAUYALIS: That's correct.

DRUMMOND: OK.

NAUYALIS: I would fly out to the field from time to time to see how things were going, if there were problems, to go out and try to resolve those kinds of issues, but primarily, my responsibility was more the administrative role at that point.

DRUMMOND: And, I know that the Winpisinger Center for Education and Technology had just had -- had maybe been purchased not even ten years prior to this, so did you all also start looking at a curriculum to start teaching here, for classes -- so that was part of what you were doing?

NAUYALIS: Well, that curriculum was already in place.

DRUMMOND: Oh, OK, OK.

NAUYALIS: When the Winpisinger Center opened up, part of that was organizing. 01:33:00That curriculum was in place already. We had all been through two weeks of training. I'm sure you've heard about that. Phew. (laughter) That's when we didn't have the beautiful dorms, and we stayed at the Belvedere Hotel.

DRUMMOND: Where was that?

NAUYALIS: You're not aware of that?

DRUMMOND: I don't know about what happened here before --

NAUYALIS: Oh really? Yeah -- when they opened up the Winpisinger Center, every representative, Grand Lodge rep, business rep in the organization came here for two solid weeks. You didn't leave. And we met in a little room where the dining hall building is. That was the only building here, and a little shed next to it was here. We had -- they transported us from here to the Belvedere Hotel in Lexington Park to stay overnight, and we'd come back the next morning for class. Two weeks we were here, training. Part of it was learning about organizing, and part of it was just learning to be a rep. But, oh yeah -- that was the days when 01:34:00a little classroom -- smokers, non-smokers, wintertime, open the door, close the door, get the smoke out, it's getting too cold -- I mean, how we survived two weeks -- I mean, right on through the weekend. Most guys, they weren't happy about being here, but they finally caught on. But it was a tough time.

DRUMMOND: Right, right. Well, I'm sure there was a lot of camaraderie, too, and sort of like fellowship, and morale boosting, and -- I would like to think that you were, like, "Oh, I'm not in this alone -- these folks are going to go back to the other parts of the country, and we are all facing the same struggles."

NAUYALIS: And that is true. That is true. And that's part of what coming to the Winpisinger is all about, is you come here, and you spend a little time, let the feedback in, have a couple of drinks with somebody else -- you think your problems are bad, you ought to listen to Mary, or Sally, or Roger, or whoever. And you learn from them, things that they did, how to fix problems, too. So, the 01:35:00Winpisinger Center has been a great tool for us. But, yeah, we'd begin to utilize classes coming down here, and we were tweaking the program a little bit, but the program had been in place.

DRUMMOND: OK. Was there a marked improvement in the way organizing happened in the Machinists' after the department was established, and there were these more focused, top-down guidelines, or support, for people out in the field? Did you all see an improvement in organizing? Or, even if it's just the way it was handled, versus actually winning places.

NAUYALIS: I think that's probably a question that could be debated heavily. But, I believe, at least from my perspective, I believe we were more structured on campaigns. I believe we understood the campaign more. I think we understood the 01:36:00employer better. I believe we were more focused on the people on the inside. We developed programs that -- we knew who was inside that facility before we really opened up an organizing campaign, in those cases. Yeah -- I think it had become much more structured. We were moving into the computer era already, and we had the computer organizing program on there -- great program. I know some folks thought it was a waste of time, but the computer saved you a tremendous amount of work if you used it properly. It never organized anybody, but it became a good file cabinet, to really dissect your campaign to see where you really were. I think that was the best thing we ever did, quite frankly. If you were going to expect it to do your job for you, the house calling and that, no, it didn't do that. It just tried to keep you focused on where you needed to spend a better 01:37:00effort in the campaign, whether it was more on women -- whether you were light in support of the women, African-Americans, second shift, a particular large department that you didn't have a lot of support in, you needed to start concentrating on -- yeah. It did a lot -- and we really, in our department, we focused heavily on the computer to make sure you knew where you were going.

DRUMMOND: How long were you an administrative assistant to Jim Malott?

NAUYALIS: Well, until he left, and then Larry Downing came in, and that would have been, oh, '90, in the mid-'90s, I guess. Well, actually, early '90s, because I left here in July of 1990 -- went back to the Midwest territory, and went back as a Grand Lodge rep.

DRUMMOND: Okay um -- so, then you were here -- you were in that job, and then 01:38:00from '87 to '90 --

NAUYALIS: Right.

DRUMMOND: OK. And you went back to be a Grand Lodge rep for the Midwestern territory, and after your three years here, what were you -- did you go back as Grand Lodge rep to continue organizing? Was that still the -- ?

NAUYALIS: Just for a real short time. What I really went back for was to handle the labor board work for the territory. There was going to be a retirement, and I was asked to start handling the work that we do with the National Labor Relations Board.

DRUMMOND: OK. And so you were able to go back to the territory, but maybe not travel as much, or did you still travel?

NAUYALIS: Well, I would travel -- not quite as much, but -- I worked out of the office, but we had labor board offices in about six -- about five cities at that time in the territory. And, you would have to go out and handle hearings, interview your people, get ready for hearings, settle unfair labor practice 01:39:00charges -- but, I primarily was working out of the Midwest office at that time.

DRUMMOND: OK. And -- so that was a big change for you, because you had done organizing for so long -- for, gosh, ten years or so -- and--

NAUYALIS: But it was good experience for me--

DRUMMOND: -- the labor board --

NAUYALIS: --to have the organizing background, to have the servicing background as a business rep, to understand those things, and then to do the labor board work -- I understood, when an organizer had a problem on a campaign in an unfair labor practice charge, how it was going to affect him. I understood, when a business rep is calling in and couldn't get a contract, because the employer was violating the law -- that kind of background really helped me in doing the labor board work. Yeah. And I enjoyed doing the labor board work. A lot more research, 01:40:00a lot more office work -- but, I thought I did a good job, and I enjoyed doing it.

DRUMMOND: OK. Did you retire from that position?

NAUYALIS: No.

DRUMMOND: No.

NAUYALIS: I retired as an administrative assistant.

DRUMMOND: So you came back to D.C.

NAUYALIS: No.

DRUMMOND: No.

NAUYALIS: When Phil Gruber became general vice president of our territory.

DRUMMOND: OK. So, and that was the -- you started doing a lot of labor board work in July of 1990. And how long did you do it?

NAUYALIS: Until I became the administrative assistant.

DRUMMOND: OK. And what year was that?

NAUYALIS: That had to have been -- let me see, I retired in '10. That had to be about 2006, 2007. Yeah.

DRUMMOND: Oh, wow. OK. Oh, wow. (pause) So, you became an administrative assistant again in 2007 -- or you retired in 2007.

NAUYALIS: I retired in 2010, on January 1 of 2010.

DRUMMOND: Oh, so you're a very recent retiree.

NAUYALIS: Oh, yeah.

DRUMMOND: OK, I didn't realize. OK.

NAUYALIS: In two years -- two years come January.

DRUMMOND: OK. And then you um, So then you were --

NAUYALIS: The administrative assistant for vice president Gruber, Phil Gruber.

DRUMMOND: From 2006 to 2010 when you retire. OK.

DRUMMOND: OK, so in 1996, you became the administrative assistant under vice president Gruber.

NAUYALIS: 2006.

DRUMMOND: I'm sorry, 2006. Did that bring you back to D.C.?

NAUYALIS: No, I stayed in Chicago, in the Midwest territory. That's where Phil's responsibilities were, and I moved up to team with him, to run the territory.

DRUMMOND: And you'd been working -- moved away from organizing, and done more labor board work. Did that continue in this new role, or how did your duties change?

NAUYALIS: No, absolutely not. I'd become more of an administrator, at that point. I didn't have the day-to-day responsibility of servicing, and that kind 01:42:00of thing. As an administrative assistant, I did go out and help negotiate a couple of contracts. One of my final agreements that I helped put together was right at the end of my tenure -- they were very difficult negotiations up in Wisconsin. We almost lost a unit of a thousand people up there.

DRUMMOND: Oh, wow. What company?

NAUYALIS: Mercury Marine.

DRUMMOND: OK.

NAUYALIS: The boss called me one night -- I'm out with a couple of my other buddies, and asked me what I was doing the next morning. I said, "I guess nothing on my schedule, based on this conversation." He says, "You're right." So I headed up to Wisconsin, and helped negotiate a very, very difficult contract -- saved a thousand people, and probably, while it has brought in a couple hundred -- three or four hundred more -- they're going to -- they ended up closing -- promised to close, and they have closed. They still want to (inaudible) operation, and it's going very well up there, but we were 01:43:00able to save it. But typically, administrative assistants don't do that. But, in this case, I was the guy to do it.

DRUMMOND: OK, and your other day-to-day stuff?

NAUYALIS: Watching the territory, making sure the officers run it smoothly, working with the support staff that's out in the field to help them wherever they need some help, assigning them to do different responsibilities.

DRUMMOND: And was this the first time you moved to Chicago?

NAUYALIS: I'm sorry?

DRUMMOND: Was it the first time you had moved to Chicago, or lived in Chicago?

NAUYALIS: No, I lived in Chicago during the labor board work.

DRUMMOND: Oh, OK, so you'd be there a while, and just--

NAUYALIS: Yeah, I was already in the office when Phil asked me. I just changed offices.

DRUMMOND: OK, and you retired from that position in 2010.

NAUYALIS: December 31st, 2009. January 1, 2010, I was on the retirement roll, and I've loved every minute of it -- it's the best career I've ever had.

DRUMMOND: The retirement part of your career? (laughter)

NAUYALIS: Absolutely.

DRUMMOND: The easiest?

NAUYALIS: Well, not always the easiest, but my golf game's improved a little bit, and, I just -- I still work with retiree groups, in the Chicagoland area, and I've been working with Charlie on establishing some retiree groups, but, I'm retired. I stay out of the business.

DRUMMOND: All right. And if that's the easiest job, you said the toughest job, earlier, was organizing.

NAUYALIS: In my opinion --

DRUMMOND: In the whole union, that the toughest job --

NAUYALIS: In my opinion, in this union -- and probably any union -- the toughest job is organizing. It really is. You don't have many victories. Victories come far and few in between. If you're a servicing representative, a business rep, or a Grand Lodge rep, special rep, and you're servicing, at least you've had some satisfactions along the way. You settle an issue for a member, you settle a grievance, you win an arbitration case -- you have a somewhat successful 01:45:00negotiation, so you have some successes along the way. Organizing, it's up and down. If you don't win campaigns for two or three years -- and that happens -- that's pretty tough to take. If you're not the right person, it's pretty tough to take, getting folks to tell you "No, no, no," when you're out house calling. So, your successes, your victories, are not very many in that role. So, you gotta have a pretty good hide to be able to handle that. Otherwise, you should move on to something else. And I'll tell you the other thing about organizing, too. There's no shortcuts in organizing. There are structures in organizing. If you don't cross the T's and dot the I's, I guarantee you, you're going to lose. And even when you cross the T's and dot the I's, that isn't a guarantee of a win, but there is a guarantee of a loss if you don't do it. So, 01:46:00you have to have a good frame of mind to organize -- and you gotta like it. If you don't like it, you won't be successful at it. People see it in your eyes, they see it in the way you go about your business.

DRUMMOND: OK. What is, for you, has been -- well, let me ask another question first. Are there any other work experiences that you would like to share that maybe we didn't touch on, sort of going over your career? Or, and it can be sort of just an overview -- it doesn't have to be about a particular issue or event.

NAUYALIS: Well, I stole my wife from the IAM. She used to work at headquarters. She worked for many years in the legal department as the executive secretary, and then she went to work for Tom Buffenbarger as his secretary, and then I stole her from Tom, and we've been married since 1991. I guess that was the best 01:47:00thing that I got coming to Washington, D.C. But other than that, no -- I had a very good mentor early on -- Tom Ducy was really a guy that took me under his wing, and gave me an opportunity to grow in the organization. I recall one time with Tom -- and Tom's just that kind of guy, he loved a hamburger and a beer -- I guess I talked to the wrong person at headquarters, and I was out on a campaign. We needed some material, and I called in to get the material, and somebody asked me how the campaign was going -- this was the battle between us and the Steelworkers -- I told him what I thought was the right thing, and I guess for us to hold on to the campaigns from the Steelworkers, Tom was telling them a different story, and we weren't doing quite as well as Tom embellished on it a little bit. But then I had a meeting with Tom and some other folks one morning, and he made it very plain to me that if there's any reports going to 01:48:00Washington, D.C., they'll come from him and nobody else in this room. Believe me, I understood that very quickly. And he was the kind of guy -- we got all done with the meeting, we went and had a hamburger and a beer, and you never heard about it again. And, he was that kind of guy. If there was something wrong, you knew it, but that was the end of it. He was just really good to work for. I really enjoyed working for him. Yeah. And I went through -- I think I worked for seven different general vice presidents in my time (inaudible). So I got a flavor of a lot of them.

DRUMMOND: Yeah. Different leadership roles. Different leadership styles.

NAUYALIS: Tom was the best. Tom was the best.

DRUMMOND: OK. What has being in the union meant to you? I mean, looking back over your life -- you're retired now. What has it meant to you -- not only in terms of security, but maybe also how you feel about yourself, and your -- I don't want to be too touchy-feely, and say self-esteem or self-worth, but what 01:49:00has the union meant for you?

NAUYALIS: Well, security of course is number one. Even working for a union, as a representative, I had a contract -- I had a collective bargaining agreement that I worked under. And that was good, because it's not always a perfect situation when you're working for somebody, and I've had some of those experiences. But, as an individual, it made me grow up, I think. It gave me -- I don't know how to say this, but it gave me a feeling that I could go on and do a job. I don't have a problem walking into a politician's office, a representative's office, anybody, and I'm going to share with them what I really think. It gave me some backbone, maybe, to stand up and be counted. And it also taught me to be a good 01:50:00listener. You know, I've shared this with a couple of people, and, I had to serve as the deputy or the overseer of a major local here a few years ago, and I hired a new representative. He was an organizer. I made it real plain to this guy. One of the problems I had with him -- and he better learn real quick as long as I'm here -- is that the good Lord gave you two eyes, two ears, and only one mouth. And, you might want to think about that, I told him, because there's a reason that we were born this way and develop this way. And, I've had to learn that. I've had to learn that. And I've also had to learn how to compromise. So, it's really been a great experience -- and I don't think the experiences that I've learned, I could have learned if I'd went to a four-year college. I really don't. I'd have learned some other things, but not the kind of things that I've learned working for the union, how to deal with people -- I don't think they teach a whole lot of that in college. I may be wrong -- I have never 01:51:00been there, but -- and, you learn how to grow up real quick. So, I've enjoyed it. It's been a wonderful, wonderful life. It's been tough too. You do traveling, and I've been through marriages -- most of the staff have, not all of them, but -- it's tough. My daughter was born, a month after I became a business representative, and she'd be the first to tell ya, "I don't know where he was on some of these occasions." Well, she did -- I was working. But we stayed very close. We have a very good relationship. We used to fly her back and forth while I was in Washington, and she thought that was the cat's meow. But, yeah, it's been a good life. They treated me -- overall, I've been treated very well.

DRUMMOND: OK, all right. Well, anything to wrap up the interview, anything else you can think of?

NAUYALIS: No, not really, unless you've got something.

DRUMMOND: I think I'm done.

NAUYALIS: Good.

DRUMMOND: Thank you so much for sitting for this interview. We appreciate it.

NAUYALIS: You're very welcome, very welcome. I've enjoyed it.

DRUMMOND: Thanks.