A third-generation union member whose grandparents emigrated from Lebanon, Mr. Yokich did not finish high school.
Terrorized by flop sweat the first time he gave a union speech 30 years ago, he recalls that he was initially no prize as a third-generation union activist, either.
Santana asked me, "If I can't trust the brother to my left or the sister to my right, how the hell do I go to work in the morning?" The president of USW Local 13-1, Lee Medley, is a big man, a fourth-generation union member, the descendent of coal miners in West Virginia and Pennsylvania who followed work after the Great Depression down to refineries and plants in South Texas.
Mr Blair was not interested.If the government is so determined to keep the unions firmly at arms' length, then it is not surprising if a new generation of union leaders feel the same.
Brett was considered one of the best and brightest of the new generation of union leaders.
Moreover, a new generation of union leaders has started to adopt a more vigorous approach to industrial relations, in part because of pressure from the shopfloor.
The conference comes at a time when thousands of districts are facing their most severe budget cuts in a generation, and union contracts calling for layoffs based on seniority could force many districts to dismiss their most energetic young teachers.
The youngest generation of union members is hardly familiar with the process because labor has not shepherded its flocks to the caucuses since 1984, the last time the A.F.L.-C.I.O.
His observations point to the war's political effects in radicalizing a generation of "Union men," whose votes saved Lincoln's re-election in 1864 and propelled Radical Republicanism after the war, making citizens of the freedmen through the 14th Amendment and enfranchising them with the 15th.
An entire generation of union miners got used to comfortable middle-class living, and their money boosted economic growth that everyone thought would last forever.
