Abstract
Joan Yarano has worked for unions since 1953. She began with Local 217 and in 1955 began working for the Cleveland Industrial Union Council. In this 2012 interview she describes her work for the unions and some of her experiences. Yarano was also a member of a union herself, the DALU 1794, which was a union for secretaries who worked for unions. She describes her role within that union and some of the difficulties the union came across during her time in it.
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Interviewee
Yarano, Joan (interviewee)
Interviewer
Kocian, Stephanie (interviewer)
Project
History 695
Date
3-12-2012
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
37 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Joan Yarano Interview, 12 March 2012" (2012). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 695003.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/169
Transcript
Stephanie Kocian [00:00:01] Today is March 3, 2012, and the interview is with Joan Yarano. And what is- Please give me your name.
Joan Yarano [00:00:13] My name is Joan Yarano.
Stephanie Kocian [00:00:16] Okay. And- All right, we’re going to start. We’re going to talk about when you worked for the unions. What is the first union that you went to work for?
Joan Yarano [00:00:26] I worked for Local 17, 217. United Auto Workers, back in 1953. And I worked for them from 1953 until 1955. Basically, I was the secretary there and did their typing of their contracts and general office work.
Stephanie Kocian [00:00:50] And then after 1955, who did you.
Joan Yarano [00:00:52] Go to work for in 1955? August of 1955, I went to work for or what they call the Cleveland Industrial Union Council, which was an organization composed of all CIO unions at that time.
Stephanie Kocian [00:01:12] Okay, and you began August. So in August ’55. That was right before the mergers, then.
Joan Yarano [00:01:19] The national mergers first. They did not merge locally here in Cleveland until 1958. Okay.
Stephanie Kocian [00:01:30] Okay. So working for a union was that different than working for other employers?
Joan Yarano [00:01:40] I can’t basically give you a whole lot of judgment. My first job, when I graduated from school, I worked for a novie Company and 20th Century Fox, and they really did not have a union there. And yes, it was different. I have to say it was different because they had strict hours. And if they didn’t like you, you came in one day and they didn’t like the way you looked, they could fire you right off the bat, which is what they did to one girl. And when you worked for a union and you joined a union, you had protection.
Stephanie Kocian [00:02:22] Okay, so that’s how it differed. Okay. What did your daily work involve at the CIUC?
Joan Yarano [00:02:32] Mainly, I took care of their books and then did typing and went to their meetings, answered the telephone, basically whatever was needed. And every day was not the same. Every day. Every day was different because you never knew what was coming up. If there were problems, you tried to help with the problems or brought it to the attention of the executive secretary. And if there were strikes, then there was added work individually. So it wasn’t the same every day.
Stephanie Kocian [00:03:11] So who was the executive secretary of the CIUC before 1955?
Joan Yarano [00:03:18] Al Dietrich.
Stephanie Kocian [00:03:19] And how about after the merger.
Joan Yarano [00:03:23] In 58? Yeah. Well, they took two from each side. They took two from the AFL side and two from the CIO. The AFL side was Bill Finnegan and John McGinty. The CIO was Patrick J. O’Malley and Louis Ivan.
Stephanie Kocian [00:03:44] Now, you joined. You belonged to a union yourself, and yours was a very specific union. What was your union?
Joan Yarano [00:03:50] I belonged in 1953 when I first started working for Local 217. I joined the DALU 1794, which was a directly affiliated local union with the national AFL-CIO.
Stephanie Kocian [00:04:05] Okay. And the directly affiliated local union, the DALU, that was a union of basically-
Joan Yarano [00:04:13] It was a union of women who worked in union offices at that time. That was what the union was composed of.
Stephanie Kocian [00:04:23] Was joining mandatory and did you mind joining?
Joan Yarano [00:04:28] No, I didn’t mind joining. Because you got the benefits and. No, it wasn’t. No, it was not mandatory.
Stephanie Kocian [00:04:38] So you voluntarily joined this unit?
Joan Yarano [00:04:40] Yes.
Stephanie Kocian [00:04:41] Okay.
Joan Yarano [00:04:41] And my employers had no objections.
Stephanie Kocian [00:04:45] And that would be the UAW?
Joan Yarano [00:04:46] That would have been the UAW.
Stephanie Kocian [00:04:48] When you work for the CIUC, was there any objection?
Joan Yarano [00:04:52] The CIUC had a contract at that time and yes, you had to join the union.
Stephanie Kocian [00:05:00] Okay. And then after the merger, how.
Joan Yarano [00:05:02] How did that work after the merger? We still joined our union, which was a DALU still at that time, but it was not mandatory. The woman from the AFL did not belong to the union.
Stephanie Kocian [00:05:18] Okay, did she belong to any of the other unions, like the office?
Joan Yarano [00:05:21] I believe she belonged to one of the building trade union, but I honestly can’t tell you for sure.
Stephanie Kocian [00:05:29] Okay, so when did you become an officer of the DALU?
Joan Yarano [00:05:37] Probably I became a secretary, probably back around in the early, the late ’50s. And then I, from secretary, then I became president, then I became- Then I went ran for vice president. And so I served as president, vice president, secretary and treasurer. In the treasurer I held for over 13 years in that union. And then I also ran for the negotiating committee. And I was on the negotiating committee for about 13, 14 years.
Stephanie Kocian [00:06:22] Do you recall how many members you had back then?
Joan Yarano [00:06:26] Probably about 20 some members.
Stephanie Kocian [00:06:28] And then how many was the maximum members, do you think?
Joan Yarano [00:06:31] When I left, which was in 2003, they had probably 163 somewhere around there, I think maybe more.
Stephanie Kocian [00:06:42] Did they ever have more? And you, did you ever expand your membership to include men?
Joan Yarano [00:06:50] There were no men who were secretaries at that time, except when we started organizing credit unions of unions. There were men. And yes, we had the men in the union.
Stephanie Kocian [00:07:07] Now, when you were organizing, do you remember any resistance to having the office and clerical workers of other unions? Was there any resistance from, like, did other unions not want their secretaries to.
Joan Yarano [00:07:21] Be part of the union, our union? Mm, yes.
Stephanie Kocian [00:07:26] And how much resistance did they give you?
Joan Yarano [00:07:28] In some instances, quite a bit. And in some we had no problems at all. They gave us whatever we asked for and there was no resistance.
Stephanie Kocian [00:07:36] So places where they did give you Resistance, what type of things would they do? What type of tactics?
Joan Yarano [00:07:45] Well, on a couple of them, they were very, very adamant and for some reason they just didn’t feel it was necessary for their employees to join a union because they felt they were giving them everything they wanted, which was not true because they would get a raise from the plant. And if the women without the union would ask for a raise, they were met with resistance. And that was why a lot of times the women in there chose to join the union. Because without having anybody behind them, which is what a union does, it gives you force. If they were told, no, you can’t have raise, you either take what we give you or you’re fired. And they could do it. Sometimes the women, if the guy didn’t like the colored lipstick she wore, they could be fired. If they started patting him down and they didn’t like it, they could be fired. And once you had a union, they that was no longer in place. And they did that too.
Stephanie Kocian [00:09:02] So do you remember writing the anatomy of union busting?
Joan Yarano [00:09:10] No, it’s been so long that I really don’t.
Stephanie Kocian [00:09:14] Okay, so how did. So it’s very good. By the way, how did they go about trying to bust union? What kind of pressure did they put on the women, their offices?
Joan Yarano [00:09:27] Well, myself not ever being exposed to that. We had no problems in the office that I worked for. The men were very, very union minded and respected unions. So I had no problems when we would go to organize. Sometimes they just felt, I guess that since they were union that they were giving the union what they thought they should have. And so that. I really don’t know how to explain this. Some of the resistance came because we asked for things that maybe they did not have in their contracts. And this is sometimes where the biggest problems came in.
Stephanie Kocian [00:10:22] What kind of things were that?
Joan Yarano [00:10:26] Vacations maybe we would have asked for more vacation days than they got in their plants or raises, pensions, working hours. Most of our unions were on a 45-hour working basis, not 48 or 40 hours. Some of them had paid lunch hours and some contracts were tied into. If they got so much percentage of raises, the girls got it. So I mean, but these were mostly the things. If they didn’t have it in their contract is where we met most of the controversy. Then they did not see why the women who worked in their offices have it in some instances. I will say though, if we got it in the girls contract and they did not have much an objection, they then like we used to tell them, you can take this contract and show it to your employees, employers to let them know this is what you give your people, and they would be more receptive maybe to giving it to you. And in some instances, they did that. I’m getting all excited because I’m getting mad.
Stephanie Kocian [00:11:59] When you go. You were part of the negotiating teams?
Joan Yarano [00:12:02] Yes.
Stephanie Kocian [00:12:03] When you went to negotiating, did they give you resistance negotiating on the teams because you were a woman at all?
Joan Yarano [00:12:12] Yes.
Stephanie Kocian [00:12:13] You want to tell me about that, Please.
Joan Yarano [00:12:15] Yes. We were in one, especially one. We did have a being directly affiliated, local union. We did have a gentleman who came, Mr. Schroeder, who was from the national and on loan to us to help us negotiate or any problems if we had grievances and things like that. We had gone to one place, and I was in the habit of taking notes. This was a very young group of employers. They were union men from the plant, very young, in their early 20s, and I don’t think knew a whole lot about unions. But anyway, Mr. Schroeder started out with the negotiations, and I was taking notes until I found a couple things that needed to be answered. And I asked the gentleman who was in charge over there on the other side across the table. You said this, and we told you no, and you agreed to it. And I initialed it, and he told me. He pointed his finger right in my face and said, you. You cannot talk. You talk through the gentleman. And so I told the gentleman on my side, let’s get up and leave, which is what we did.
Stephanie Kocian [00:13:44] And how did that turn out?
Joan Yarano [00:13:47] About two weeks later, we got a phone call saying, we want to set up a meeting and renegotiate.
Stephanie Kocian [00:13:53] And how did those negotiations go?
Joan Yarano [00:13:55] Much better.
Stephanie Kocian [00:13:57] Much better. Okay, so did you do direct organizing or how did you throw about orient.
Joan Yarano [00:14:10] Getting most of the time because of the situations? It was. They approached us. They approached us more so than we approached them, because most of the offices at that time were either one employee or two employees. And so what would happen is that the employee would have a problem and could not resolve it herself, and then would call the union and she had to sign a card to join the union, and then we would go in and negotiate.
Stephanie Kocian [00:14:52] So how about after you started taking in the credit unions and there were more women in the offices of the credit unions, how did that organizing go?
Joan Yarano [00:15:01] Credit unions were harder to organize and had more problems because they had many more employees. And the employers, for some reason, were not as union-minded. Even though we had problems with the locals sometimes, they were much, much harder to negotiate with.
Stephanie Kocian [00:15:25] Now, your Credit unions were credit unions of the unions.
Joan Yarano [00:15:29] We’re set up by the unions for.
Stephanie Kocian [00:15:31] Members and their boards are made up of union members. And they were less likely.
Joan Yarano [00:15:37] Yes.
Stephanie Kocian [00:15:39] So how did you organize? Do you remember anybody going out on strike?
Joan Yarano [00:15:44] Yes, the one in Lorain was out on strike.
Stephanie Kocian [00:15:47] And how did that get. How long did it take to resolve that?
Joan Yarano [00:15:51] Oh, gosh, I can’t remember. It’s been so long. But I think probably they were out maybe two weeks or more. And even the men from the plant were not at that time amenable to settling it too well because I myself almost got run over, but.
Stephanie Kocian [00:16:17] Got run over by who?
Joan Yarano [00:16:18] By a car from one of the. From one of the union guys coming into the plant.
Stephanie Kocian [00:16:27] Wow.
Joan Yarano [00:16:28] Yeah.
Stephanie Kocian [00:16:30] And that didn’t go over too well.
Joan Yarano [00:16:32] No, but I mean, it’s standard routine. Sometimes on a picket line, you know, you take your chances.
Stephanie Kocian [00:16:40] How many picket lines were you on?
Joan Yarano [00:16:43] We were on one in Bardstown and I can’t remember the one. The one in Lorain and then another one was on. Geez, I can’t remember that. Now that’s where. That’s where I saw the accident while I was on the picket line. An accident? They had an accident while I was on the picket line and I can’t remember that.
Stephanie Kocian [00:17:18] No. So now were you guys, I have to ask, were you guys affected at all by the McCarthyism movements or the civil rights movement? Did you have. Did you have to have Black- Did you have Black union members in your union?
Joan Yarano [00:17:42] Yes. Yes. And actually we didn’t have too many problems. We had the other. My co-worker was Black. Now when she first started, she was in the union much longer than I was before I was even started working there. And she met with some resistance. But I can’t tell you exactly what it was, but she handled most of the political area in our office, which she was very good at. So she would have known more about the political avenue. Okay?
Stephanie Kocian [00:18:18] You said earlier that you belong to the Coalition of [Labor] Union Women, CLUW?
Joan Yarano [00:18:23] Yes.
Stephanie Kocian [00:18:24] I can’t remember what the organization of the National Organization of Union Women working to organize and Better through organized women. Better through union. They work with the feminist movement. So just tell me your experiences of working Overall. You have 48 years of experience working for a union. Tell me what it was like. [00:18:50] Just go ahead, just talk.
Joan Yarano [00:18:53] Well, basically there’s a lot of changes. When I first started there, it was strictly the industrial unions, the UAW and plants machinists and things like that. But then later on when they merged, then we had the building Trades who came in, which was totally different than when we first, you know, when I first started there. And there was a lot of organizing back then. And during the ’50s, there was organizing plants and even organizing building trades, doing some organizing. Very little women organizing was done either in the plants. I mean, there were not very women, not very many women that held high offices in the local unions and, or especially in the building trades. Then the UAW dropped out, and then the UAW came back in. The Teamsters joined for a short time with the AFL-CIO. And then during the. I can’t remember the year that they dropped out again. They had a problem with the national AFL-CIO and so they dropped out. Or the national AFL-CIO expelled them, let’s put it that way. But there seemed to be a lot more organizing at that time. There was not as many. How do I put this? Social projects going on. At that time, when I first joined the union, it was strictly take care of the members or the benefits of the members. Their working benefits, hours, wages, vacations, making it better for them to raise their families. And then little by little, more of the social programs came in, which were a benefit. And then the organizing kind of dropped down when the unions kind of reached a peak and organizing dropped off. And it was more of the political programs that came in. So then it kind of shifted from that to the political area, which was a benefit also. So.
Stephanie Kocian [00:21:35] So what did you do when there was all this organizing going on? You had to have some kind of role in your office. What was your role?
Joan Yarano [00:21:47] Our office, mainly the organizing was done by the unions themselves. What we did was give them backup support. In other words, when they were organizing, if they had a problem or if they had a strike, then our office would get to the other unions to give them support on the picket line. Monetary just being there to give them support. But we didn’t actually. We were not allowed to actually get involved in the negotiations. There was a rule against us getting involved in direct negotiations. But any other way we could give them support is what we were there for. And we would call if they had a strike. They had. The union that was on strike had the ability of notifying our office. And then we would in turn notify all the rest of the unions that belong to our CIUC and or later on the AFL-CIO. And then we could call on them and they could help with picket lines. They could just give them any kind of support they needed.
Stephanie Kocian [00:23:04] So when you learned a lot about organizing from working for the units, did you use that when you had to organize and negotiate for the DALU.
Joan Yarano [00:23:18] Actually, I learned from the people who were already negotiating for DALU, which was Angie and Mike, and Mr. Schroeder learned a lot from Mr. Schroeder.
Stephanie Kocian [00:23:35] Is there anything else you want to tell me?
Joan Yarano [00:23:39] I can’t think of anything right now. I probably can think of some things later. We can, if we can add on to this.
Stephanie Kocian [00:23:52] This is a continuation of the interview with Joan Yarano on the women’s union. And it’s March 4, 2012. Okay, so I know you had some more that you wanted to go ahead and talk about, so I’m going to let you just go ahead.
Joan Yarano [00:24:11] Well, I think, because I didn’t explain really the office that I worked for, which was to start with the Cleveland Industrial Union Council and then after the merger became the Cleveland AFL-CIO. That office really was not like a local union office that we organized. Their work was somewhat different than we did. Our organization was composed of the unions themselves. The unions affiliated and paid an affiliation fee to belong to the union. And at the time I started, there was probably maybe like 100,000 members that belonged to the Cleveland AFL-CIO. And as it grew, when the UAW came in, and then later on, at the point when the Teamsters came in, we probably hit a membership of around 200,000. The function of the Cleveland AFL-CIO, which is what I worked for, was to assist local unions. We were a very political organization, so we were concerned with legislation that affected unions, legislation that would affect working conditions for members and during their strikes, that they didn’t feel they were alone because local union by itself, if it had 20 members, they only had 20 members belonging to the AFL-CIO immediately, they had thousands of members behind them who could back them up, who could assist them on the pickup line. And that was the function of the Cleveland AFL-CIO. So in working at the Cleveland AFL-CIO, when we dealt with the local unions, who the members were our delegates in that when they came, the women that worked for the local unions didn’t know where to turn at sometimes when they were having problems until someone else who had already belonged to DALU would tell them, why don’t you join the union and get some protection? And that is mostly how the women in our union became members of dalu. It was by word of mouth. When they were having problems. Most of these women were exposed. Mm. So most of these women that worked for local unions would call our office and let us know that they were having a problem. The problem Was that they were, at that time, mostly industrial unions that we organized. The organizing of the trade unions did not come into being until much later. But the women who worked in the industrial park were exposed to members who worked in a plant. Their theory was why it was hard to organize. Their theory was they worked in a plant all day long. And in their minds, they were mostly men. Of course, there were very few women. And mostly we dealt with the men. There were, to my recollection at that time, no women on the negotiating committee from the side of so called, what they would become management, being the local union officers. So their theory was, well, these women come in and they sit around all day long and they type and they do a little bit of filing and whatnot. We’re in the plant having to work our tails off. And so when they came in, they took a management position and they could not understand why a woman would need protection when they worked for a union. And they needed protection because, number one, a lot of the women were exposed to members coming in from the plant and they were exposed to sexual harassment. And they would complain. And the guys, of course, working with these men in the plant didn’t take it seriously, or they felt, why do they need a raise? They’re working for a union. And could not understand the theory behind women needed protection. And so that was where most of it came in. And some of them realized that they now were not alone. They would go in and complain to their boss, or so called, what we now would be management. They would complain, but they were alone. Once they joined a union, they had someone behind them. And that was a whole different story for them. And as I said, there were not very many women on the boards on the negotiating committee from the management side, which in this case were union members that worked in the plant. And some of them were not, did not have full time officers. Therefore, the men would come into the office after they finished work, which like 4 or 5 o’clock, and expect these women who had been working like they had all day long, to stay and assist them at no pay. And so this is why a lot of them called and said, we need some organizing done. And then later on DALU, which I belong to, we had, when we would go in to negotiate and we would call and ask them for meetings, of course, they were just women on the negotiating committee. So we would go in and they treated us like dummies, some of them. Some of them, I have to say, were very nice. We went in and immediately they recognized, yes, these women should belong To a union. They’re working for a union. They should belong to a union. Others, no, they couldn’t understand the theory why a woman or girls, like everybody was called in those days. Why they should have a union when we give them everything they need was their theory. And so when we would go in and there was no one there except the women, we had tough times. They didn’t want to deal with it. And that time we had to us, the national AFL-CIO being a directly affiliated union, a gentleman who was on loan. And when we had a problem in negotiation, we could call the national and they would have him come in on the negotiating committee with us. When that would happen, the tone on the other side changed because there was a man across the table. And so they would sit down and negotiate, mainly talking to the man, until at times we women opened up our mouths. And when they found out that maybe we knew a little something and we knew a little something about why these women needed protection, they were very adamant. And we had- That’s where problems came in. We had strikes, and we did strike a couple local unions, and we did strike some of the credit unions or local unions. And then by and large, when we became larger and people realized that maybe these women knew something and maybe we ought to treat them like adults and maybe we need to deal with them because we can’t get around them. And so things got a little bit better. Not saying that they were not adamant and took a management position, which was natural. They were management at the then at that point. And so we still had problems, but problems were resolved. Grievances were resolved. There were grievances in local unions, but by and large, no, they did not treat. When they found out we were all women, did not like it too well, let’s put it that way. So. So can you.
Stephanie Kocian [00:32:25] Do you have any specific cases, aside from the one yesterday where you got. Where you walked out, which. The different cases where negotiators wouldn’t be persuaded to talk to you?
Joan Yarano [00:32:39] No, mostly they would talk to us, but they mostly talked. When we had Mr. Schroeder, who was from the National AFL–CIO, they talked to him. And then he, of course, knowing that we were the ones that had the final say, so would turn it over more or less to us. And when they got used to the idea that they had to deal with us or they might have a strike, then it became a little bit easier. They were not pleasant. They still had a very attitude about women across the table from them because there were not any women on their side of the table until later on. Later on they did have some women who eventually became members of their board. And mostly the other side was like their executive board would deal with us, our negotiating committee. And so things later on and later on when they realized and we. They knew a little bit about our union background and the organizing we did and they dealt with us, let’s put it that way, they were not happy. In some instances. In some instances there was no problems. But in some instances, when there was an attitude about them, they realized they could not get around it.
Stephanie Kocian [00:34:08] So were you ever surprised by their- Not by the union’s offices not wanting to negotiate? Not wanting to negotiate, or did you think that was going to be a commonplace thing?
Joan Yarano [00:34:25] No, actually, my first time going out, when I first started going out, of course I didn’t say anything until I learned, you know. But yes, I was surprised because I had always. My father was a union member, my brother was a union member, and we would go to my father’s, all the union doings. So my exposure at that point was a good exposure. And so yes, I was surprised that these people who belonged to unions and formed a union and or joined a union because they needed protection or when it came to getting raises, working hours, working conditions, that they needed the union behind them could not understand why their office workers were not entitled to that same protection. And in a lot of instances they didn’t have that protection. In some instances the men did give it to them, but in some instances, no. And they needed a union behind them.
Stephanie Kocian [00:35:28] So I get a sense that some women might have been just as surprising. Was that the case with a lot of women or did they just think it’s the same old office kind of mentality?
Joan Yarano [00:35:40] I think to begin with it was the same because back then it was, like I said, most of the women we dealt with, and I’m talking back in the ’70s, were that. And it wasn’t just in unions, it was everywhere. You know, women who worked in an office at that time, I don’t care what kind of an office, a business office, wherever you work, you go to work and you sit and you type all day long and maybe you talk to your co worker and you do some filing and maybe you do some book work, take care of the books or accounting or something like that. So you’re sitting there all day, you’re not really working, you know, so they.
Stephanie Kocian [00:36:21] Perceived your work as not work.
Joan Yarano [00:36:23] Right. I mean, they perceived it as work, but not important work. Although if they didn’t do that type the contracts, keep them when the deadlines were due, remind them about these things, take the dues from the members and make sure all the membership dues was correct. Where would they have been? But it’s still the typical thing back then. And as I’m saying is. And it wasn’t just unions, the typical theory back then for office workers was they go to work all day long, they sit around, they talk, they have coffee, they do a little bit of typing, and that is their function. And that was it.
Stephanie Kocian [00:37:03] So you think you changed their minds?
Joan Yarano [00:37:05] Yes. They had a lot of respect for it. And even, as I said later on, when we went to organize a place or a woman called us up and said she wanted to join the union and we went out to organize, they knew what they were dealing with.
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