Last week, I was startled to read in New Jersey’s leading journal, the “Star Ledger,” that the deposed head man of Lucent, Richie McGinn, got a going away present of 12 million dollars. His Chief Financial Officer, Debra Hopkins, who had only a year of service with Lucent, got pretty close to 4 million dollars. I had reason to be startled as both were fired. They were discharged as in dismissed. There was no camouflage about the separation such as a leave of absence or special assignments. They were simply fired. On the way out the door, Richie McGinn put $12 million in his pocket. Ms. Hopkins found her purse heavy to carry as it had an extra $4 million in it. Now do you wonder why in a year, Lucent stock has dropped from $78 per share to its current state of trying to stay near $6 per share?
Well naturally, this brought up a memory of my departure from an organization that I had been closely associated with. That would have been Local 5 of the Long Lines Telephone Workers which became Local 6350 of the Communications Workers of America a month or two before I left. I was not fired. I left the Union with handshakes all around and a couple of drinks. I simply took a management job that made me ineligible to participate in Union work. So as I left the Union, there was no severance pay because my job as Local President was unsalaried. The same goes for my job as Union negotiator in national contract bargaining. We just had the handshakes, a drink or two and a well used briefcase. I’ll tell you a little more about the old briefcase, which is the reason for this essay.
I was discharged from the Army on November 8, 1945. About the 15th of that month, AT&T said to come back to work. The job that the Company had cobbled together was simply a make-work effort. In spite of the fact that the Company had plenty of advance notice, the jobs provided to returning service men were largely meaningless. The Company had failed to think through its work operations so the returning veterans were left to twiddle their thumbs. No one ever asked us what we would like to do upon returning to work. And curiously, management continued the wartime practice of four hours overtime on three nights of the week. So we had lots of time on our hands.
During that winter of 1945 – 1946, I had my share of health problems. I had just turned 23 years of age but I felt like an old man. Malaria was a constant companion. I spent two weeks in the Veteran’s Hospital at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri for pneumonia. On top of all that John Lewis, the boss of the Miners, was threatening more strikes. Most houses or flats or apartments in St. Louis were heated by coal, so a strike by the Mine Workers was a serious threat. During the war, John Lewis had threatened or had struck coal mines. Largely because of Lewis, I was down on unions and did not belong to the telephone workers union.
Then in the spring of 1946 came a wake up call. In calculating where returning service men were to be on the wage scale, the Company made what it called an “inadvertent error.” None of us believed the inadvertence story. In any case, each of us was short a few hundred dollars. Later, the Company paid the money while admitting no fault in its withholding.
As soon as I returned to work, union people tried to get me to join the union and to run for office. In all candor, the candidates needed to run with a veteran. So after the Company’s “inadvertence” in the wage scale calculations, I said “sign me up.” I believe my first elected office was Chief Steward but that soon morphed into the Local Vice President’s job. In 1948, I ran for the President’s job and was elected. In 1950, I was re-elected without opposition.
So now about the briefcase. Sometime in 1946, the Union decided to give two of its officers Rexbilt briefcases. They cost more than the Local could really afford but they were good, quality briefcases. They had handles and a lock. They sat on the floor and were opened from the top. And they could carry lots of important papers. Sometimes when the occasion called for a drink, the briefcase carried a bottle or bottles of whiskey.
A small digression about whiskey. The Local in St. Louis had responsibility for all the Construction Gangs in Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. I made several field trips to meet with the Construction Gangs. These men were at the bottom of the pay scales and in the Company’s affections. Most were poorly educated. They often lived in rooming houses that could be considered flophouses. They were away from home from five to seven days per week. They ate in greasy spoon cafes. These fellows drove the Caterpillar tractors, the cable plows and the bulldozers. They handled the jackhammers. In short, they did the most miserable jobs in the Company for less than adequate pay. And much of their work while I was there took place in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas – either completely dry states or at best, subject to local option liquor laws.
It would be unthinkable in the late 1940’s for a fellow from St. Louis, in a wet state, to go meet with Construction Gang men in say Enid, Oklahoma or Madisonville, Texas, without offering a drink or two. The drinks came from that famous briefcase. If the bottles were shaped properly, the briefcase could hold three fifths or quarts. The papers that might have been carried in the briefcase were carried under the arm. First things first. So you see, that old briefcase bought salvation and redemption to the thirsty in the southwestern part of the United States.
I had the briefcase during the national telephone strike in 1947. It made several trips to New York to pursue bargaining with the Company on contract matters. It made several trips around Local 5 territory in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas. And it accompanied me to national conventions in Chicago, Grand Rapids, Cleveland and other places. In short, the old leather briefcase showed its nicks and scratches but it still got the job done.
So it was in July of 1951, fifty years ago, Vern Bagnall, the Western Area General Manager, summoned me to Kansas City and offered me a management job. The pay was $470 per month. I thought that was miserly but after a while I took the job. I called back to St. Louis and asked Gordon Sallee, the Vice President of the Local, to hold a meeting of the Executive Committee that evening to accept my resignation. I went directly from the St. Louis Airport to the Union’s office. The union office was an ordinary bedroom, without the bed, at the Claridge Hotel on 18th or 19th Streets in St. Louis. When I walked in the office, every one was there. Gordon Sallee, Stanley Bare, Ann Schiffer, Gloria Gilson, Ed Ward, Johnnie Watters and Art Ford. There was no place to sit, so I expressed my thanks for the opportunity to serve the Union standing up. And then I returned the old briefcase apologizing for its scratches.
Gordon Sallee made a few well-appreciated remarks and took the old briefcase. I shook hands all around and then Gordon said that if I retired to the lounge on the first floor, some of the participants might later like to have a drink with me.
So I went to the bar and ordered a drink. As I recall it, ordinary bourbon was 50¢. Fancy stuff like Jack Daniels was 65¢, and scotch, which I drank, was 75¢. Before I finished my drink, the whole Executive Committee joined me in the bar. After some hemming and hawing, Gordon Sallee said they had a present for me. He reached under the table and presented me with my old briefcase. It was not wrapped, of course. Gordon Sallee said it came with the sincere best wishes of the officers and members of Local 6350 of the Communications Workers of America. I was very grateful for the present and what it represented.
I used the briefcase until it couldn’t be repaired anymore. I think an argument could be made – and I will make it – that receiving that gift from the union members in St. Louis may have given me as much pleasure as Richie McGinn’s $12 million. I never had $12 million or anything like it, but at least those folks in St. Louis didn’t run me off and I believe, would welcome me back into their ranks if I ever needed to go back.
I know that time goes on. As I said, it has been 50 years since all the events in this essay happened. In that span of years, every person on the Local 6350 Executive Committee has died. I know that in 50 years people die, but to me, the briefcase incident seems like yesterday. And my memories of those people are all still fresh in my mind.
E. E. CARR
August 20, 2001
~~~
Here is, I’m pretty sure, the briefcase in question:

I believe that this is was also the briefcase used to tote watermelons in the recent essay “ON TO MOTHER ENGLAND AND THE U S OF A.”
I like to think that the booze was more useful in negotiations than any paper ever would be, and it makes me smile to think about Pop running around the country with a nice briefcase full of liquor (and the occasional melon). It was also sweet of the union to give it back to him at the end of things. Definitely a classy move.