Interview with Fred Royal, Jr., June 25, 2015, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Destiny Griffin: Okay, today's date is June 25, 2015. It is 11:14. I am Destiny Griffin, the interviewer. The oral historian is Fred Royal. And this project is titled oral historians on plant closing in Milwaukee. Okay, so I first just want to start off by asking you where you were born and raised, and the names of your parents and your siblings.

Fred Royal Jr.: Yeah, I was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My father was Fred Royal Senior [assumed spelling] and my mother was Alexandria Royal [assumed spelling] I have a -- the eldest sister, Roberta [assumed spelling] and the middle child as she likes to be referred to, Dawn Marie [assumed spelling] and of course myself, Fred Royal Junior, being the youngest of the three.

Destiny Griffin: Okay. And what were the occasions of your parents?

Fred Royal Jr.: My father was a machinist at Ladish. My mother was a nurse's aide at Milwaukee County Health Behavior. They used to call it rehab. It was the health -- behavior health division at Milwaukee County. It used to be [inaudible] County Hospital.

Destiny Griffin: Okay. What was your home like?

Fred Royal Jr.: What was my home like?

Destiny Griffin: Yeah, where did you grow up and where was it?

Fred Royal Jr.: Well the first home that we lived -- I lived in when I was born was on Teutonia 2636 North Teutonia right across from Greater [inaudible] We lived there until approximately around the age of six or seven, and then we moved to 3045 North 23rd Street by [inaudible] Avenue where we stayed until I 00:02:00was 11. At 11 we moved over to 1924 West Conference [phonetic]

Destiny Griffin: Okay. What was your religion or what is your religion and did you guys attend church or?

Fred Royal Jr.: As was growing up my father never required us to go to church. He felt that your religious practice should be something that you wanted to do. He grew up in a very religious family and he felt that that should be a personal choice and always let us exercise that choice. Me, now my older sister she kind of was required to attend church earlier from what I can remember when she was growing up. But we were never required to go to church every Sunday.

Destiny Griffin: Okay. What were some family activities that you guys did or just on holidays or just fun things, sports?

Fred Royal Jr.: Certainly. My father was a mason so we had a lot of interaction with masonic order and they would host picnics. That was some of the earliest memories that I had was we always had an annual picnic with the masons. But just growing up our family, the family nucleus was -- we were always doing barbecues, getting together on the holidays. One of my uncles, Harold Jackson [assumed spelling] back in the '60s, '68, he purchased land, some plot -- a plot of land out on 68th and Brown Deer [assumed spelling] when there was still restrictive covenants in the city of Milwaukee or Milwaukee county.

He had his European American coal worker, they worked in Square D at the time and purchased the land. And him and my father and the rest of my uncles constructed the house that was on the land because they couldn't hire contractors, but that was like a little get away that I would often go to in the summer. And we would -- I would stay out there quite frequently and play out in Brown Deer with my cousin, Dwayne [assumed spelling]

Destiny Griffin: Okay. Is there anything else that you would like us to know about your childhood?

Fred Royal Jr.: It was pretty normal in my opinion. You know, two parent household. What was -- I didn't know it at the time was unique was that my mother is Mexican and I grew up in an interracial home, but to me it was normal. 00:05:00It was, you know, it wasn't an issue.

Destiny Griffin: When did you realize she was Mexican?

Fred Royal Jr.: Well I knew she was Mexican but I didn't think it was anything, you know, out of the ordinary. I think, wow, it really wasn't an issue growing up. I think it was later after I was grown that she would -- she had told me an incident that had occurred with her where she was discriminated, where she was made to feel uncomfortable by not being served at -- or being served with an attitude at one of the local restaurants because of her color, because of her heritage.

But, you know, when we would frequent, there was some of our relatives on my 00:06:00mother's side weren't as receptive as others to interracial relationships but, yeah, I guess so, it could have been, you know, early on that I knew that there was tensions because my mother was Mexican and married an African American man but it wasn't a big issue.

Destiny Griffin: Okay. Can you name your grade schools through high schools that you attended?

Fred Royal Jr.: Yeah, the first grade school I attended was Howard Avenue I went to Garden Homes [assumed spelling] Garden Homes we went to Rufus King [assumed spelling]

Destiny Griffin: Okay. What was your favorite subjects?

Fred Royal Jr.: Math.

Destiny Griffin: Math. And any school activities?

Fred Royal Jr.: I swam. Actually I lettered in swimming. I was -- my nickname 00:07:00was Shorty in high school, I was about four 11, 97 pounds, so swimming was kind of the only sport that I could -- I could feel comfortable doing and I managed wrestling but I never got into that, it's a little bit too physical for me.

Destiny Griffin: Okay. Did you attend college?

Fred Royal Jr.: Later. Actually I did not complete high school. I dropped out without a GED because I felt that I wasn't learning life skills, I wasn't learning skills that were going to attain some kind of economic viability, and that's what I was looking for at that -- at that age. I wanted some money. I wanted to make some money and I felt like reading, writing, and arithmetic I had mastered already and, yeah, I had participated in the work study program, going 00:08:00to school half a day and working at general, I believe it was Wisconsin Gas Company at the time because one of the other subjects that I was good in was drafting.

And I got a work study grant, the program that they had where I went to school half a day, because I was a relatively smart kid. I had 3.4, 3.5 average and I was allowed to go to school half -- part-time and work the other part-time. And I was bored with that work study because it was a very menial task. We were doing -- we were putting in where the gas main would be in subdivisions and was -- I mean very tedious, extremely tedious.

So I got disenchanted with that and, like I said, my senior year I dropped out. 00:09:00We went down to MATC and got my GED and by that fall -- that September in 1975 I was in the service, I was in the Air Force. I enlisted.

Destiny Griffin: Why did you want to join the Air Force?

Fred Royal Jr.: Well, it was one of the branches that was always the furthest away from the frontlines. I wanted to get the benefits but I did not want to risk my life to receive those benefits. I was some dumb, but not plumb dumb.

Destiny Griffin: Is there anything else that you would like us to know about your educational history?

Fred Royal Jr.: Like I said, up until that point I had dropped out of school, went back to school later on in life and received two degrees, one in – a social degree in paralegal from MATC and a Bachelor's degree from Cardinal 00:10:00Stretch in local science.

Destiny Griffin: Okay. Are you married?

Fred Royal Jr.: Been married to Darlene Royal [assumed spelling] for the last 38 years.

Destiny Griffin: Do you have children?

Fred Royal Jr.: Two sons, one 38, one 36, five grandchildren. Both my sons have completed four years in the Navy. Both are working. Both are married. Both live in Milwaukee.

Destiny Griffin: And you just answered my next question. Do you have family activities with your children?

Fred Royal Jr.: Oh, just --

Destiny Griffin: And your grandchildren?

Fred Royal Jr.: It's a continuation of the way that I was brought up. Every holiday we find family activities and get around it, find some good food to consume.

Destiny Griffin: That's always a good time. Anything else you would like us to 00:11:00know about your family?

Fred Royal Jr.: Oh, to me that's the most important thing in my -- that's the nucleus, that's what keeps you grounded.

Destiny Griffin: Okay, we're going to talk about your work information. We're going to try to keep it in order. So as an adult what was your first job?

Fred Royal Jr.: Oh, after coming out of the service. I look at the service as being my first job. That kind of gave me direction, learning how to get there to where you need to be on time, punctual. After I got out of the service I think I started working for temp services. I finally got my first real job working in the warehouse for GE Medical off of 2nd and Edgerton.

I worked there for I want to say maybe 18 months and then I was afforded an opportunity to drive a truck for GE Medical and on the anniversary of my wedding I went to a jewelry store on Bayshore [assumed spelling] at the time it was called Orange Blossom [assumed spelling] and I was going to surprise my wife with a first wedding ring, because we got married when we were extremely poor and we did $35 at the church -- I mean at the courthouse and there wasn't any ring or anything.

But I finally got this job and some money and some credit and went over to Orange Blossom and I was in the company's truck, unfortunately, I was on the company's time doing this and I was coming through I think it was Lincoln Park 00:13:00[assumed spelling] and there was a bridge that the truck didn't fit up under [laughter] So needless to say that was my last day of working at General Electric.

I kind of damaged the truck pretty severely. And my father was a union representative, international representative for I.M. District 10 that represented General Electric Medical. So he was quite upset that I had not only lost my job but caused him some embarrassment also by damaging their property, doing things that I wasn't supposed to do on company time.

Destiny Griffin: Okay, we're going to move on to plant closings and the effects 00:14:00of that. So you worked with General Motors, Fred?

Fred Royal Jr.: Yeah, after leaving GE Medical I got a couple of menial jobs and through the contacts that my father had in his past, you know, experience at Ladish where he did retire from, but as I stated, he was very involved in the -- in the -- with the union at Ladish and was -- and was promoted from shop steward to a district rep, international district rep for I.N., which is the machine issue.

And he got me employment at Ladish back in '78, '79. In the first 30 days I 00:15:00worked at Ladish I got my finger caught in a clamp that had a 400 pound flange. This are just -- if you know anything about a forge shop, they heat up titanium, the hardest metal known to man, in furnaces, blast furnaces until it's a white ore and then they basically hammer it to various shapes.

So I was working in a grinding department, basics team, and there was this 400 pound flange and you pick it up with a clamp and the clamp is hoisted like with an electric motor. Well my finger got caught in the clamp in the middle -- in 00:16:00the corner of the clamp. So I was -- the first 30 days I had this finger basically fractured. So I went out on medical for that.

When I returned I was working on the -- in the grinding with a 16 pound stone basically ironed out imperfections in the -- in the -- from the metal -- from the -- when you -- when you hammer this metal you get little wrinkles -- little wrinkles of imperfection. So you take the 16 pound stone and you grind out those imperfections. Well that 16 pound grinding stone is connected to a -- an engine that's 440 voltz and a free spinning core. The core froze, slapped me across the chest, and I released the grinding stone and it cut my right leg and 00:17:00broke my left leg.

Destiny Griffin: Oh my god.

Fred Royal Jr.: So while I was in a cast mending I said this isn't for me and I started going to Big Step [assumed spelling] At the time it was on Martin Luther King and Berlain. At that time it was 3rd Street and Berlain, 3rd and Berlain. And Vince [assumed spelling] recognized my math ability and asked me one day, big time, if you want a job. And I said yeah. So he took me out to Delphi [phonetic spelling] Electronics, 7929 South Hall Avenue and completed out the application and was supposed to be back at Delphi the next day for an orientation.

I didn't tell Mr. Terran [assumed spelling] that I didn't have transportation to get back out there and I was staying on 19th and Nash [assumed spelling] right 00:18:00off of Teutonia and Nash at that time. So I got on the 10 speed bicycle the next day and got out there and it changed my life. I retired from Delphi Electronics in 2009.

Destiny Griffin: Okay. Did you like working there, you said it changed your life, so?

Fred Royal Jr.: It was from -- Delphi Electronics had two divisions that were located in that facility, one made catalytic converters and that's the automotive -- they're automotive parts industry. And the catalytic converter side, which I started on that August of '79, I thought I had, you know, stepped in -- from leaving Ladish, it was like night and day.

It was -- it was much cleaner, much quieter, parts were much lighter. You know, 00:19:00much safer work environment. Loved it. That December Bob Anderson [assumed spelling] called us all in to the cafeteria and had a -- had a meeting and informed us that we were laid off. We would be laid off that Christmas. Fortunately by May of 1980 we got picked up on the other side, the ENS side, which is the electronics and safety side of Delphi, which made engine control, body control, modules for automobiles and it was the cleanest plant that I had ever seen in my life, most highly automated plant that I have ever worked in in my life.

So it was like, you know, to me from leaving Ladish where you were beating white 00:20:00-- hot white iron core metal into shapes and ironing it with a 16 pound grinding stone. And to add injury to insult so you got all this smoke from molten steel well -- when the EPA had the tightening of the air control, air pollution control loss, all Ladish did was close the chimney stack and kept the smoke inside.

And if you wanted you could ask for a respirator to keep the dust particles from being breathed in your nostrils and your mouth. But you're talking about a plant that when it was 70 degrees outside it was about 110 degrees inside. So, yeah, it was like, you know, dying and going to heaven, that's the only thing 00:21:00that I could compare it to -- jobs.

Destiny Griffin: So when you got laid off or you were aware that you were going to be laid off, you said you picked up the other job, was that right away or did it leave a bad effect on your?

Fred Royal Jr.: Which lay off?

Destiny Griffin: With the better job that you were talking about with the --

Fred Royal Jr.: In between Delphi?

Destiny Griffin: Yeah.

Fred Royal Jr.: No, we had no idea whether we were going to be picked up or not. But, you know, you had unemployment so it wasn't as if the deal was a great panic at that time. And I hadn't -- my standard of living had not increased that dramatically where I was really concerned about making my bills.

Destiny Griffin: Okay. So then you said it wasn't long until you got the -- until you were picked up at the other job?

Fred Royal Jr.: At the other, yeah.

Destiny Griffin: And how long were you at that one?

Fred Royal Jr.: Now that was -- that's the job that I retired from. I was there from 1980 until 2009, actually 2006. It was an extremely profitable business for Delphi Automotive, but in 1990 General Motors spun Delphi off from the -- from the corporation and it became its own subsidiary, its own entity, profitable business, no debt, plenty of cash reserves in the bank.

It was the largest auto supplier in the world. Still is. But in I believe it 00:23:00was -- nine years after that, so 1999, they filed bankruptcy and went under bankrupt protection. And during that time they constructed a plan in China and one in India while they were under bankruptcy.

The reason that Delphi Electronics filed bankruptcy was to try and get from up under their legacy costs. And legacy costs are the pension and health benefits that they had promised individuals over the years of the contracts that we had negotiated. Delphi's workforce was -- had an agreement with the United Auto 00:24:00Workers and that was our bargaining agent, which I was a member of.

So it came out later that the COO, CFO had cooked the books and did some other illegal activities as far as transferring funds and the way they set up this alleged bankruptcy and they actually went to jail. So after the bankruptcy there was a contract that was negotiated that to ease some of the -- and this was prior to the indictment on the COO and CFO, these financial irregularities hadn't come to light yet.

So there were negotiations to reduce the costs -- the overhead costs and try to -- the union tried to assist Delphi in coming out of bankruptcy in a favorable manner. So they put in a two tier work system and all the new hires would come in making $16.50 an hour. Now the folks that had legacy, that had tenure, individuals like myself who were averaging anywhere from $30 to $35 an hour, so we had this two tier work -- pay scale -- wage scale in plant and these new employees, the new hires they didn't have the same health care, no pension plans that the seasoned workforce that I was covered under had.

So there was a little, you know, tension right there from the beginning. But it 00:26:00was a strategy that UAW felt that would assist Delphi in coming out of bankruptcy in a stronger position. Like I said, this was in not knowing that they had manufactured this entire bankruptcy and that there was some pending indictments coming down. So around 2006 we went into another negotiations, and in 2006 there were -- they had announced the plant closing but there were certain provisions for people that had 24 years of seniority or more that you would go out with half of your pay so you would in essence be paid $16.50 an hour to sit at home and you would accrue seniority, meaning your seniority would 00:27:00continue to go, to accrue until you reached your 30 years of seniority and then you would be transferred into pension, you get your full pension.

Now our international union negotiated one of the best severance package I've ever seen acquired for a workforce. We retained our medical, our dental, our vision and our full pension. Unfortunately, management who worked there with us, alongside of us for 30 years, some had 40 years seniority.

One lady named Kathy Michaels [assumed spelling] she had more seniority than I had years of -- on this earth when that plant closed and all they received was six months' severance package and that was it, no health, no dental, no vision. 00:28:00That's -- and it was pretty devastating on some of the management. It was pretty devastating on a lot of ours, I was the vice-president at the time that the internationals negotiating these severance packages.

And we were going to Detroit and we were allowed to sit in on some of the negotiations. They were asking our opinion and if -- giving them permission to negotiate what they were negotiating. As I said, the United Auto Workers is one of the most progressive, one of the most intelligent unions I've ever worked for. The people would come up to me after I had come back from these meetings and ask, you know, am I going to be alright?

Are they going -- are they going to take care of me?

Destiny Griffin: You answered those questions.

Fred Royal Jr.: But no, I want to -- I want to finish.

Destiny Griffin: Oh.

Fred Royal Jr.: Because some people actually either drank themselves to death. We've had high incidents of domestic abuse when we were going through this period. Plant closings are devastating. The impact on a person's life, it's not pretty.

Destiny Griffin: Okay, to wrap things up, I want to talk about -- because now 00:30:00you're the president of the NAACP.

Fred Royal Jr.: Uh-huh.

Destiny Griffin: What made you want to get a part of that?

Fred Royal Jr.: I didn't want to be the president. I was content with being one of the soldiers in the background. James Hall [assumed spelling] who had -- became president challenged the Hamiltons for the presidency of the NAACP four years ago. I had a relationship with him by working with him that STC where I was the chairman of the board of that commission for two years.

And he just felt that I had the ability to continue to lead in the direction in which he had taken the organization and ask if I would run for that seat. And 00:31:00for some reason the other individuals who were interested in running for reason or another were disqualified, so I didn't even have to run for the seat, I was basically de facto election, I was the only person qualified to be on the ballot.

Put you where they want you.

Destiny Griffin: How long have you been the president?

Fred Royal Jr.: Six months.

Destiny Griffin: Do you think that you're going to continue to go on?

Fred Royal Jr.: No, I don't -- I don't anticipate running for re-election. It's an extremely challenging position, it's challenging in the sense that you have to not only deal with the issues that confront us in our community, which are 00:32:00those we know of, the challenge is keeping the lights on for the organization, raising funds, because we don't do programming, we don't have a dedicated fund insuring.

That's the biggest challenge. And it's hard to take money from an entity and then potentially have to turn around and publicly humiliate them for them not doing what they should be doing by law as far as inclusion and hiring practices. So I don't want to be that type of individual that can't work effectively because I'm dependent -- I'm dependent on corporate sponsorship. So keeping the lights on is the biggest challenge.

Destiny Griffin: That's all I have.

Clayborn Benson: Please, you talked about people losing their lives, drinking 00:33:00themselves to death. Could you expand on that a little bit more? Do you know any specific people that?

Fred Royal Jr.: I don't -- I don't -- I don't remember their names but I remember we talked to, you know, you'd pick up the phone and you talk to some of your ex-coworkers and they tell you, you know, so and so they drank them self to death. And some of them had drinking problems prior to the plant closing, but the plant closing just exacerbated, it increased the amount of time that you had on your hands to do nothing but drink.

And you got to remember, most of these individuals that worked in -- at Delphi, a lot of them came straight from high school. They had no other work experience. They had no other identity. That job was their identity, that was who they were. And that was the concerns that people would ask me when they -- 00:34:00when I would come back from the meetings in Detroit is that, you know, what am I going to do? What am I going to do after this?

But, you know, I was fortunate in the sense that I had been going to school during the time. Part of our benefits was tuition reimbursement and I had been utilizing them. But nationwide, out of the 36,000 employees Delphi had, when they filed bankruptcy only 600 were utilizing tuition reimbursement.

Clayborn Benson: Uh-huh, wow. Wow. Do you know any people whose kids had to drop out of college or weren't able to pay their bills or their insurance as a result?

Fred Royal Jr.: Well fortunately insurance we received insurance. But here's 00:35:00the thing that most people don't truly take a full appreciation for is that when your standard of living is at $32 an hour, $50,000 a year, or based on overtime, maybe 70, $75,000 a year, and then all of a sudden you're reduced to $16.50, you know, $32,000, $36,000 a year, your bills don't get reduced.

Destiny Griffin: Right.

Fred Royal Jr.: So you still have a challenge of making ends meet even more so because over the course of 20, 25 years you've become accustomed to living a lifestyle that -- from 50 to $70,000 a year and then all of a sudden you're at 32. So there's a lot of anxiety, a lot of anxiety that's placed on that 00:36:00individual of how to make those ends meet.

Clayborn Benson: We're done.

Destiny Griffin: Okay.

Clayborn Benson: Thank you.

Fred Royal Jr.: Uh-huh.

Destiny Griffin: That's --