Name Edward Sadlowski | Role Activist | |
 | ||
American labor activist Edward Sadlowski Died at 79
Edward Sadlowski, born 1938, also known as "Oil Can Eddie", is a United States labor activist and a past Director of United Steelworkers of America, District 31.
Edward Eugene Sadlowski was born in 1938 in Chicago, Illinois. He left school in the eleventh grade and, after serving in the U.S. Army, started work as a machinist's apprentice at age 18 at U.S. Steel in Chicago which was represented by Local 65 of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA). He got his nickname "Oil can Eddie" because he would walk around the machine shop with an oil can talking with the guys. Sadlowski was elected shop steward of his plant in 1960 and grievance representative in 1962. The following year he was elected president of Local 65, at age 25 the youngest person in the union to hold that office. In 1967 he was re-elected to that position.
In 1972 long time District 31 Director, Joe Germano, announced he was retiring. District 31 was the largest USWA district covering the Chicago Gary, Indiana area with 130.000 members. Sadlowski announced he was running for Director. He said:
I consider democracy within the union to be he most important single issue. If the steelworkers had been consulted they never would have agreed to an International Executive Board which excluded blacks, Latinos, and women. If the steelworkers were consulted they would insist on their right to vote on union contracts in the same manner other unions do. They rightfully feel they are not running their own affairs and are not being represented on the district level.His opponent, Samuel C. Evett, had the support of the International Union with I.W. Able as its President. There were 288 steelworker locals in District 31 and Sadlowski needed nominations from 29 of them to get on the ballot. Sadlowski conducted a street campaign which was conducted at plant gates and coffeehouses, bars and restaurants. The International refused to give the Sadlowski campaign a list of the locals but eventually Sadlowski got the nominations of 40 locals. During the campaign the Evett forces said Sadlowski was supported by Communists and charged he was a long time opponent of the Vietnam War. The night of the February 13, 1973 election Sadlowski was winning by about 3500 votes when the votes stopping coming in around midnight. When votes starting coming in again Evett had the margin and he was declared the winner of the election by 2,000 votes. Sadlowski protested the election and sued the union. As a result of the suit the U.S. Department of Labor investigated and found massive fraud. They found the official union leadership at the Gary Works U.S. Steel local, one of the district's biggest, had faked the ballots. A federal court fight followed and Evett agreed to a new election in July of 1974. This election was held November 12 through November 15, 1974. Sadlowski won by 20,000 votes, a 2-1 margin. An organization known as Steelworkers Fightback was born during this campaign.
After Sadlowski won the District Director election he traveled around the country talking to steelworker groups about whether to run for International president. The International offered Sadlowski a deal. They would give him the staff he wanted in his district and would stay out of the political affairs of the district. In return they wanted Sadlowski to stay out of International union politics. Sadlowski rejected the deal. Sadlowski commented: (Steelworker President) Able hated me with such a vengeance he wouldn't even say hello. Once in San Francisco I got in an elevator and it's just me and Able. He starts pressing buttons to get off. At the convention center I went into the men's room to take a piss, and he's at the next urinal going through gyrations just to get out. Sadlowski became a candidate for president of the Steelworkers in 1977, running at the head of a reformist slate (Steelworkers Fightback). During the campaign he liked to say, "There is a fire in the steelworker union and I'm not going to piss on it."
During the 1977 election, Sadlowski ran against Lloyd McBride, who received substantial support from union officers and staff. Since the Steelworkers Union represents many jobs which are not steel related Sadlowski sent union activists from Chicago around the country to help campaign at many of these locals. The International would not allow Sadlowski to have any membership lists. During the campaign Sadlowski gave a controversial interview with Penthouse magazine. Sadlowski said he would not want his children to work in a steel mill. He said:
Working 40 hours a week in a steel mill drains the lifeblood of a man. There are workers there right now who are full of poems and doctors who are operating cranes. We've run the workers into the ground. Ultimately, society has nothing to show for it but waste. A doctor is more useful that a man with a capacity to be a doctor spending his life on the crane. Such men are kept from functioning at their best, not only by U.S. Steel but by doctors themselves. I advocate putting people who work in the steel mills into medical professions. They have the brainpower to become scientists, yet the system sells them short. There's no open marketplace.About 580,000 of the union's 1.4 million members voted. McBride won with 328,000 to Sadlowski's 249,000 but Sadlowski beat McBride in the large steel locals. He also won in the United States based locals but the vote in Canada was overwhelmingly for McBride (McBride had a Canadian, Lynn Williams, running on his slate for International Secretary). Canada also did not have labor law fraud protections that exist in the U.S.
Sadlowski had raised donations from both inside and outside the union. Sadlowski's enemies had seized on this during the campaign and charged that if was elected outsiders would run the union. Sadlowski had not responded forcibly to the charge and it may have cost him many votes. The USWA at their 1978 convention outlawed such donations. Sadlowski sued to overturn the union rule on First Amendment grounds. Although he initially won his case at the federal district and appellate court levels, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the rulings in 1982.
After the 1977 election Sadlowski became a subdistrict director in the South Chicago area. His organization, Steelworkers Fightback disintegrated. He never ran for elected union office again. He retired from the union in 1993.
Sadlowski was featured in the first chapter of the novel "Never a City So Real: A Walk in Chicago," as well as the history "Homestead," and memoir "Which Side Are You On?" He is currently a member of the advisory board for the Association for Union Democracy.
In 2015, his daughter, Susan Sadlowski Garza was elected to the Chicago City Council serving the 10th ward.