Destiny Griffin: Today's date and time is June 29th, 2015. It is 10:38 a.m. I
am Destiny Griffin the interviewer. And the oral historian is, sorry, what is your name?Wendell J. Harris: My name is Wendell J. Harris, Senior.
Destiny Griffin: Wendell J. Harris, Senior. And this project is title oral
historians on plant closing in Milwaukee. So I'm going to ask you questions from your childhood all the way to plant closing and what you do now.Wendell J. Harris: Okay.
Destiny Griffin: So to begin if you can just tell us your, where you were born
and the name of your parents and your siblings.Wendell J. Harris: Okay, oh wow. I was born in Sherrill , Arkansas. My
mother's name is Matilda Harris, and prior to that she was Matilda Williams. My father's Reuben Harris. And my siblings, goodness there's a lot of us so I 00:01:00guess I'll start at the top.Destiny Griffin: Okay.
Wendell J. Harris: There's Billy Jean who is the oldest sister, she's the oldest
of the siblings that I knew. There was one older than her who passed away when she was a year or so old. And following Billy Jean there's Josephine. And after Josephine there's Geraldine. And then these are my mother's children before she married my father.After Geraldine there is Joe Henry, Todd and then Irma Jean Dickerson and
Rebecca Anderson. Those are my mother's six children that she was the mother of when she and my father got married. Out of my father and mother's married there 00:02:00were four children, Ruth Harris, Naomi Harris, Cardel Harris and myself Wendell Harris.Before my mother and father got married his first wife was Miss Salona and they
had three children together, Rubin Harris, Senior who's my oldest brother, Otis Harris and his daughter with his first wife Geraldine Harris. So I believe it was that 12, I believe that's 12 of us. We all knew each other. I was next to the youngest in the family but I, I've had a relationship with all of my sisters, siblings and brothers and very good relationships.Growing up in our family what we call today blended families we were really a
blended family. My mother's two marriages before my father and my father's 00:03:00marriage before she married my father.Destiny Griffin: And what were your parents’ occupations?
Wendell J. Harris: My father was a farmer. He was a farmer. He actually worked
for people who owned the land where I grew up at in Arkansas on the farm. My mother was a domestic. She, at one point my mother was a school teacher. And way back when school teachers only needed a high school diploma which she had, she as a high school graduate. And at some point when she was supposed to grandfather in as a teacher without a college degree when, you know, it came with a requirement.Those teachers who had high school diplomas was supposed to be able to
grandfather in. I guess more appropriate would be grandmother in but I'm 00:04:00talking to a young lady. Well she missed that opportunity and so she ended up working as a domestic. And she did that until, she worked as a domestic and as a homemaker until my father passed in 1971. After he passed she moved to Milwaukee and she started a career working in the health field.She worked in hospitals here in Milwaukee until she retired. So that's the
history of our, the family's labor, my parents.Destiny Griffin: Okay. What was your religion? Did you guys attend church or?
Wendell J. Harris: Oh, I grew up in the Baptist Church in Arkansas. I was, I
would say born and raised in the Baptist Church. For me I had some real serious 00:05:00questions about what I was being taught and indoctrinated in in the Baptist church growing up as a child. So, I at, in a pretty, middle age, I guess not quite middle age I left the Baptist church and I became involved with the Unitarian Society.But prior to the Unitarians I became a humanist, religious humanist. I started
the religious humanist movement here in the State of Wisconsin. I was a humanist minister for many years. That work being a humanist and my philosophy, my religious philosophy which is a philosophy that states that we believe that human beings absolute responsibility is to each other, why we're here on the planet.And that it, you go to survive, you have to work to make life better for each
00:06:00other and afford other people the freedoms to be who they are, who they're meant to be. So my religious journey has been very, it's been very exciting because for over 20 years I was a practicing humanist minister. I was learning, I was the only registered humanist minister in the State of Wisconsin for many years.I'm one of the first people in the State of Wisconsin who actually officiated
same sex ceremonies, one of the very first in the Midwest. Because there was a time when people from Minnesota and Illinois would actually through the American Humanist Society, would set up the organization that my religious affiliation was with or ordained through in order to, for a person to come into a particular 00:07:00state, another state to officiate a wedding or something.That person would have to get a letter from the register officiate in that
particular state. And many times I would be the only person who could carry that out. Fast forward religious, fast forward my religious beliefs I was able to reconcile some of those issues I had with Christianity and reclaim my Christian heritage just two years ago as a matter of fact.I founded the Universal Church of Christian Humanists. And I was able to do
that when when I was able to say no one else to define my religious beliefs for me which gave me a way back to my believing in Jesus Christ as, in philosophy as 00:08:00a very vital philosophy to live by. So that's been my journey, religiously.Destiny Griffin: Okay. What are some family activities that you guys did maybe
on holidays or just fun things, sports or anything?Wendell J. Harris: Well growing up in the south on the farm working in the
fields, you know, we cherished Christmas. Always church, you know, it was always a big deal. But as a family we, that was about it. Christmas and Thanksgiving dinner but that was pretty much it. We just every day was a holiday, you know, a kid in a loving family. You play together, you live together in a small environment.And there just wasn’t a lot of celebrations back in those days, you know, the
traditional holidays but that was pretty much it. 00:09:00Destiny Griffin: Okay. Is there anything else that would like us to know about
your childhood?Wendell J. Harris: Other than the fact that I had a good childhood. I grew up
in Arkansas on the farm. Poor as all outdoors but didn't know it, didn't have a clue, just knew there were some people with nicer houses and we worked for some white folks who had nice houses. But they were just, in my mind they were just some folks that we worked for. Because I never had direct contact them in that they were allowed to debase me. One of the things about my childhood was that we always knew in our family, you know, our family oral histories that was passed down was that my family did not take nothing from white folks when it came to it.They're children. And that means my mother, my grandfather, I had an uncle who
00:10:00went to prison because he shot a white man for doing some, you know, being disrespectful to our family members. Actually the story is we actually lost our family land in Arkansas because trying to keep him from being hung, which he, he didn't get out, he did his prison time. So those kind of stories were passed down. The story about the time the white man threatened my brother.And my mother took the shotgun and went and told if, if he do anything to harm
her son that she would kill him. And that's the kind of story that was passed down in our family. So with those stories being passed down it was very clear to me that I didn't have to take nothing off nobody. And, and my responsibility was as a member of this family not to allow anyone to cause harm. So that was my, a part of my socialization process.And it has to do with the fact that I been fighting for these folks for
00:11:00injustice. And the reason I fought for gay people who have a right to be married and to, you know, all the other rights that I thought they should have when I founded the, when I founded my Christian Humanist ministry. Because the church I grew up in as a child did not sanction that and I couldn't accept being part of an institution that would take away other people's what I think are civil rights.To be, in the case of marriage to have a legal contract, a legal binding
contract to protect them for all the other things that happen out here in this society. So like not allowing you to go see the folks in the hospital because you're gay, you know, all that stuff. Yeah.Destiny Griffin: Can you name and tell the locations of your schools that you
went to?Wendell J. Harris: Oh sure.
Destiny Griffin: Grade school.
Wendell J. Harris: I went to the Cheryl Rosenwald School. And I, the reason
00:12:00I'm so happy that you asked that question, my wife is a retired educator. And I asked her just the other day if she knew anything about the Rosenwald schools? And what a lot of people don't know is that Rosenwald schools were schools that were started by a white man, Mr. Rosenwald, to give opportunity to black kids coming out of slavery to get an education.The Rosenwald schools are a, what is it a national school movement. That was a,
I went to school up until 7th grade. I left Cheryl Rosenwald at age, in high school I went to Altheimer High School in Altheimer, Arkansas. And which became in 1966 I graduated. Altheimer High School became Martin High School named after our great principal who was a principal at Altheimer. 00:13:00And then the school was named after him. In 1967 the school integrated with the
white school so then it just became Altheimer High School. So I left the year before the integration. And so I'm glad that I left that year because I'm proud to be a graduate of my Altheimer, Martin High School. There's some really great, great people have graduated from my high school. A little school in Arkansas community of 3 or 400 hundred people.And when I look at our high school reunion book, you know, I look at a document,
there were doctors and surgeons and neurosurgeons and all those folks that come out of that little community. And growing up, you know, with playing with each other we never even think that some of us had that of, some of them had that kind of genius. And then I see myself, you know, I see, so that was a good 00:14:00experience. Certainly racism existed but, you know, as a people, we would rise and rise and rise until we straightened this thing out.Destiny Griffin: What was your favorite subjects?
Wendell J. Harris: My favorite subjects in school? That's an interesting
question. I guess it would have been political science because I, when I, I wanted to study political science. I wanted to, I went to college. The first time I went to college to major in political science or sociology. Those were always subjects to me, anything that had to do with people and community is what interested me. So for many years I practiced those vocations.And educated myself to become capable, I would say comfortable in my view of
00:15:00myself as a political scientist and sociologist. Because my, my formal education start with age 38. After high school I graduated high school with a high school diploma. And I was one of the children that was voted most likely to succeed. But what folks didn't know was that I couldn't spell.And I didn't know why I couldn't spell. But I know I could read and I could
pass tests because I could read. First is, you know, if you can answer the question with poor grammar, the question was answered. You could at least a grade, passing grade. And I just discovered that I could do true or false and multiple choice tests and do as well as anybody. So for me I went back to literacy school at age 38 to work on my spelling.And then I went back to college because I'd already tooken college not knowing
that you had to be able to spell to get through college, so. But I went back to 00:16:00literacy school at 38. And I got now a bachelors and a master's degree and all that, but.Destiny Griffin: And what school did you go to?
Wendell J. Harris: I attended UWM. As a matter of fact my first attempt with
college was MATC coming out of the military. When I came out of the military at age 21, 22, I was, you know, I was having some issues with my behavior, drugs and alcohol and all that. And but I went on to UWM. Somebody told me that I could go to UWM and that you only had to take multiple choice and true and false questions and you could get a college degree. You see what they were trying to tell me is that if I had a learning disability there was a provision for it.But they didn't know how to tell me that. And I didn't know what a learning
disability was. So I did enroll in UWM because I was a veteran, military veteran. And they couldn't stop me. First, very first class after the 00:17:00professor he go through the syllabus he tell us all that we have to write a paragraph. And I raised my hand and said well look professor, I was told that this was all true and false and multiple choice. And he laughed. And we had a conversation. He said you I think you're a pretty bright guy. Go and come back.And I did. So I left and I went to literacy school, worked on myself for about
a year and a half. That was my most important degree, 1988. Yeah, 1988 I enrolled at, at the literacy center on 27th and Wells. And I was there for a little over a year. And one of my tutors, Mr. Jim, what was his name, he's a retired professor from Marquette.He and I had a conversation when I first started about what my dreams and
aspirations. And I told him I wanted to be a politician and I wanted to study political science. So we working one morning and he said well Wendell I think, 00:18:00you know, you think it's about time for you to go back and give it a shot. I'm like, give what a shot? He said go back to UWM, the clock is ticking, you know, he's talking about my age. And he said you can do the work. So I went back to UWM. I got 90 some credits at UWM. And the reason why I didn't complete my degree at UWM was because I owned my own business.And I was, I was working a contract with the State of Wisconsin. And the guy
who worked for me is a guy with a college degree. In the contract they call for someone with a degree. And when my employee saw that he had the upper hand, because that's what it was, just like I'm talking to you now I can see his demeanor change. So I heard about an accelerated program at Springfield College 00:19:00where if you had college credits and life credits you could go and get your degree in two years.I went over there, took my UWM credits in Springfield College. And got me a
human services because that's like, again, education was always so important to me. And that was a really good clear example of why you need to have an education when I saw my employee, the person who depended on me for his livelihood, his attitude changed when he thought he had me with this degree stuff. So I, so just keep that in mind.Because I understand you're a student, right. Yeah, so I have a master's degree
in human services with a concentration on organizational management, leadership, so. That's the history of the education piece.Destiny Griffin: Okay. Are you married?
Wendell J. Harris: I'm married to Roselia Harris . Roselia Johnson Harris.
We've been married for 20 years. Roselia's my fourth wife. My first wife was a 00:20:00girl that I met when I was a kid, when we were children living over on Vine Street. We got married when we were 19 years old. We had three children together. That's Beverly Harris who still refers to herself as Beverly Harris.We had three children, my daughter Monica Harris who's my oldest child, second
oldest, Andre Harris and then Wendell the third. Wendell Harris was our third child. After Beverly and I divorced what almost ten years later I, Brenda Johnson and I got married. We had one daughter, Helen Harris. And Helen is 32 years old.She's a proud college graduate and works in the IT field. And I was married
00:21:00briefly to my childhood sweetheart, my high school sweetheart. We were married, we stayed together about a year. And we, high school reunion saw each other, fell in love all over again but it didn't take long to realize that after 40 years it was not the best thing to do.So we didn't, it didn't, you know, we ended up divorcing. And I've been married
to my wife Rosella for the past 20 years. And we have one 15 year old son that we adopted who's my biological grandson. And she's the mother of two children.Destiny Griffin: Okay. And do you have any family activities with your children?
Wendell J. Harris: Sure, we do everything together. I mean, they are grown. I
do the 15 year old. My daughter come home for holidays and, you know, you do all that. Fifteen year old, he's been our child since he was four months old so 00:22:00we do everything together. Now I do a lot of stuff with my grandchildren and great grandchildren. You know, we do gym, we go to the gym. The truth of the matter is I pretty much do, it's unfortunate and I'm not proud to say this but I am their father figure, all of my grandchildren, even my great grandchildren.So that's my responsibility. Unfortunately the son, the grandson that I adopted
he does not, he doesn't know his father. And my great grandchildren, his sister, she's got three sons I, you know, I do all the, what needs to be done with them. One, their father's in jail. And so it falls on me.And I'm just, I always think about something my father said to me when I was a
kid. And I went, and sometimes I thought it was, he was wrong but maybe he was 00:23:00a visionary. Because he said to me have your children young so you can grow up with a, and I think about that a lot. Because I did, I fathered my children young. And I'm fortunate that I'm, my health is, I'm old but I'm healthy enough to actually spend time with my great grandchildren and my grandchildren to help them along the way.Because if I'd done this as an old man I wouldn't be living probably to do this.
I told my wife this morning, one of my great granddaughter's, she is, she's so talented. And I want to take her Dance Works. Because, you know, I do a lot with the boys and she always says grandad why don't you do more with me? Because she's that, you know, she's that bright. And she's so outgoing. And if she can get some support she'll, she could change the world. I can see that, 00:24:00so. I'm going to take more time to spend with her just to help her, to see her, you know, a bigger picture of her at five, so.Destiny Griffin: We're going to try to stay in order.
Wendell J. Harris: Sure.
Destiny Griffin: What was your first job?
Wendell J. Harris: My first job was, I took a job working in the fields, right,
that was my first job. Picking and chopping cotton. Then I used to ride the bus, here’s how it worked in Arkansas because I was some enterprising black guy who's going to make some money. So where I come from it was O.D. Kirkland, we called him rabbit. Rabbit would take people to the bus, he would have the people who owned the land would give him either 50 cents or a dollar for everybody he took to the field.That would be his cut. He owned a bus and a truck. And so sold stuff. I,
Rabbit took to me. We became very good friends because I was enterprising. 00:25:00Rabbit would sell sodas and stuff and the water boy in the field would be someone that rabbit liked. And I would be a water boy meaning I didn't have to chop and pick cotton, I could be here but I got water.He had little things going like a crap game. I'd have me a crap game. So that
was my introduction into the work world growing up in Arkansas in the fields picking cotton. And hustling whatever was available. I did that and then I, one year I think I was like 15, I chose, I said I'm not going to work this summer. I took a job in a rice field.The white guy owned the land. So me and a couple of other guys that if we would
00:26:00help him raise a crop of rice that we would get paid and get a bonus when the crop was sold. We got the little $15 a week for working in the field. But when the crop came out, beautiful crop, I don't know how much money the guy made, there was no bonus. And at that point I decided I would never work for those folks again. So I came to Milwaukee the next summer which was my junior year, it would have been going in my junior year and senior year in high school.That summer. I've got a job working at a body shop. My first job in Milwaukee
was working in a body shop detailing cars and just learning about, you know, how they operate a body shop. I kept that job and after I graduated from high school I came back to Milwaukee and got the same job back at age 18. And I quit that job when the owner decided that he was going to have a black guy be a 00:27:00supervisor of sorts.And he told me that I would, he would love for me to have the job but I was too
young and he didn't think grown-ups who had taught me would work under my leadership. And I didn't like that so I quit. I quit that job and I worked for JC Penny's. I'm still 19 years old by now. I worked at JC Penny's warehouse. And I worked there for a short period of time. Because that was, it was like you get off, you go in the morning, there's an order, you know, where you take the orders.Back then orders were not on the computer. You had to go with a, you had a
stack of orders. Then you had to run with a big crate and you fill those orders and you had to make a quota. And I was, my friend and I, we went to work in 00:28:00May. And we drove up to that place, there was four of us, because I went in the car and two other guys and myself in the car.We drove up there. And I had read on Sunday in the Sunday Journal, the
Milwaukee Journal that a company, that A.O. Smith was looking for people, was looking to hire. So we drove up to work that morning. I'm 18 years old. And I was telling my coworkers about the A.O. Smith opportunity. And the two other guys said well we going up to work. And my friend who drove, owned the car, his name was Dicky Burden . We called him Dickey.He was real cool. I mean he was the coolest cat on the planet. You have to see
him to know what I'm talking about. I said man I'm not going in there. He said I don't want to go either. So we turned around and we drove to A.O. Smith and on Monday morning. Yeah, because it was a Monday I believe. We went to A.O. 00:29:00Smith, we filled out an application. And they said they'll call us. They didn't even call us. They told us to come back later that evening to get our medical. And that was 5/9/1968 I believe or '67.I was hired with A.O. Smith. And I worked there, I was employed there for 30
years until my retirement in 1998. So that was my, you know, that was my opportunity to have a very good paying job. And I notice is what this conversation is all about. I started working for a company at age 18 paying but I never dreamed a person would make working for anybody, you know, I mean, really making some good wages.And I was able to stay there for, to get the 30 year retirement. And, you know,
00:30:00in between that time being 18 years old, married a couple of times and all the other challenges that a person face in their life I was able to maintain my employment with a good piece of retirement and that got one daughter through college and all of that. So and I was, you know, I never really liked anything.But unlike today. So that's, and since my retirement at A.O. Smith, prior to
retirement I planned to retire in that, '98 saw I started my own transportation company. And I ran that company for a few years, my brother and I. He passed away. I closed it down. And I been mental health, been around mental health 00:31:00and all that I actually I owned a mental health clinic, The Reuben Harris Institute for Family Enrichment.I called the drug clinic and other family services. I did that for a few years.
And when after that closed I've been involved with the public school system for many years, volunteering with, working with our students, guys who were knuckleheads like myself. And advocates, at the same time advocating for services for that student population. I developed a program, the Ambassadors for Peace program, a program to teach kids how to deal with conflict almost two years ago.What it was I'm going to tell you is though I was, actually starting contracting
with MPS to do that kind of work. For the past eight years I worked at a school called Transition High School for kids who are transitioning out of the prison 00:32:00system and back into school, working with that student population. So it's been a, you know, it's been a good ride. How I ended up in that kind of work goes back to being a knucklehead who was a struggling kid who had, didn't really know how talented I am, I was and that had to do with my learning disabilities.Because I couldn't understand why I couldn't do certain things. And I didn’t
think the world could be my oyster, that I would be able to get my pearl. So I took a different route for a few years. And go back to me in Arkansas as a kid who, who was learning the crap game on the bus and all that. Remember that conversation? Well I became a street hustler with a job and a family. And because I, frankly I thought that was my best option. Because I knew I didn't want to work for nobody all my life. 00:33:00And I knew how to hustle. Then that's part of the story. So that's part of the
work history, yeah.Destiny Griffin: Okay, so let's focus on the plant closing and --
Wendell J. Harris: Okay, the plant closing. By the time we get to where the
plant's closing I'm now an executive on our union. I'm a union executive. I run the, I'm the chair of the alcoholic drug committee which is the committee that work with the brothers and sisters who had drug and alcohol problems. And I'm very active politically. And I know what's happening around the country with plants closing.So prior to the plant closing there was a process, there was a process. The
process was that the, at the time and you don't see a lot of it now but around 00:34:00the country many corporations were hiring what they call, it would people who would go in and they would make the company lean and mean. It means they get rid of as many people as possible and bring their profits up as high as they can.And get as much work out of those folks. And at some point when they got the
profits up the companies would be sold to the highest bidder. And that's what happened at A.O. Smith. And I saw that coming when, because I'd been studying this stuff. I've seen people like T. Boone Pickens and other raiders they call them. They’d raid companies and go in and take them over. So A.O. Smith when we decided that process some of us union leaders, myself and just a couple were saying that maybe we shouldn't go along with everything the company asked us for because they were making a lot of promises that if we do this, if we give this up, they'll stay. 00:35:00And I've been seeing it all around the country where they ain't staying. We
just started giving. So the year I left in '98, the company had just been sold to Tower automotive. Tower automotive was a company, it was company that buy out companies and resell them and move them offshore. And that's what they did with A.O. Smith. A.O. Smith sold to Tower. It was very traumatic experience where many people in our community, black and white.Because folks took ownership for A.O. Smith, you know, A.O. Smith was Milwaukee
company generation after generation that worked at A.O. Smith and they had before the good opportunities. The children were able to go off to college, you know, with good wages. And then they, those who did not choose to go to school, a lot of nepotism, you know, you come back and get a job at the company. So when A.O. Smith sold there was a lot of pain involved for people who had been 00:36:00involved in the company because they felt like they were part of it.And unable to make that transition that this was just business deal. So when
the plant closed for the most part the Northside of Milwaukee closed if you look at this area. This particular community many people worked at A.O. Smith who lived in this community. And there was businesses that depended on their income that came from A.O. Smith. I look, I go back in the community around the plant, those older guys who were there when I came at 18 who had fought the good fight to get us in the plant because they had some real stories for us , too, about what they had to go through to get the jobs and to keep the jobs.And to always remind us how, how fortunate that we were that they fought the
battle, right. They had nice, well really large, we really well taken care of, 00:37:00they live in those houses. They die and pass on their siblings, the generations that follow, they don't have a job, they don't have resources to upkeep the property. So the neighborhood is gone. So when the plant closed they pretty much closed the neighborhood for many people.And we have not as a community, we certainly haven't recovered from it. I'll
talk to you about when I was 18 years old going into a company making the kind of wage that I, in one hour what I used to paid for all day. I never thought I would see the day when a young person would look at a $10 an hour job and think that he or she was about to make it in life. But I see that all the time now.They think that and believe that until it's time to pay their first, you know,
to keep the rent paid and pay the light bill. And they realize that maybe this 00:38:00$10's is not so much. But when you been used to working for minimum wage that seems like a lot of money. But back, coming out of the fields in Arkansas coming into Milwaukee, getting a job at a place like A.O. Smith you moved into a whole different mindset because there's so many places like A.O. Smith where you could go, you know, at a decent wage. The breweries, the automobile plants, the tanneries, all that's gone.So plant closings, moving all this stuff offshore put pure business decisions,
you know, no regard for the people that would be left with collateral damage. And so it's devastating. And we're going through another phase now where we, you know, I don't fault the president, premarket, once the market's open up, once the computers became a household name, everybody is in the same neighborhood. 00:39:00Destiny Griffin: Were you close to people who were affected ?
Wendell J. Harris: Yeah, for use. I retired with them. A lot of my coworkers
who I was their union rep, some of them didn't get their retirement. You know, people who spent 25 years who was looking at being able to walk away with a retirement. It was over until, you know, they could their retirement when they turned 62. But these guys some of them were in their 40s. So yeah, very close. And I had one experience where I was at the doctor in the doctor's office and one of my coworkers, he and his wife was in there.She was seeing the doctor. And I spoke to this man and he looked at me like I,
you know, like I was the enemy. And I'm like man, what's the matter? He said man you, you were part of negotiating that health contract. I'm like yeah. He says well do you know now I'm paying $1,100 a month for insurance and my 00:40:00retirement is only $1,300? And I'm like no, I didn't know that because that's not what we negotiated. And he was blaming me.So I was affected to be in the doctor's office and my coworker do that. Now I
didn't know that because my wife was working for MPS and I didn't need the company's insurance so I didn't have to buy it. But the company had re-negotiated what would be negotiated. They eventually went back to court and won the case. But that, you know, what happened to those folks in between that before the case was won. So that's been the major plant closings in this country.Just destroy people's lives and moving on. And we have to do more to protect
the rights of workers. And that's just not where we are now in this society.Destiny Griffin: So did it affect you and your family?
Wendell J. Harris: Me? I got out. You know, me, I got out. But yeah, it
00:41:00affects the fact that my, who else in my family got the opportunity to work at place like A.O. Smith, yeah.Destiny Griffin: In another interview we were talking about it and they were
saying, you know, there were people who turned to drugs and suicide.Wendell J. Harris: Oh yeah, all of that, yeah.
Destiny Griffin: Can you speak on that?
Wendell J. Harris: So many, yeah being that I’m the alcohol and drug counselor
for the company, you know, for my union brothers and sisters. It was devastating, you know. People just didn't see a way out. And folks lost their homes, you know, when you go from making $40 or $50,000 a year to 12 and 15 working part time, overtime on some minimum wage job, what's left?So yeah, lots of drug abuse and alcohol which goes with the territory anyway
00:42:00with them, you know, living in them. Especially with being a hostile environment like some of the jobs were.Destiny Griffin: Do you know of pensions being taken away or?
Wendell J. Harris: Well yeah, people who didn't get their pension because of the
plant closing, yeah, there was a lot of that. Like I said there were people who were right at the door, people with a year to go. You know, not so much taken because if you get the, you get your pension but say if you've got 29 years, you started at the company at age 20. You're 49 years old, you got 29 years and a year to go and the plant close. You can't get your pension until you turn 62.You can't get social security and you can't get your company pension either or
sixty or whatever it is. That's a long stretch to wait for what you've worked for and worked for because that's just what happen when plants close. In some 00:43:00cases people had their 401K's and that was good, but that didn't, you know, a lot of folks didn't have that because they had not had an opportunity to invest in those 401K's and keep their investments going.So, yeah.
Destiny Griffin: Do you have an opinion or opinions on making a good living in Milwaukee?
Wendell J. Harris: Do I have some opinions on making a good living? Opinion is
yeah, I mean, if you, we should certainly value a person's labor. Companies you'd have to be required to at least pay a decent wage for an honest days work. You know, if a company's making profits that will allow to provide employees 00:44:00with a living wage, they should, company owners and corporations should be willing to do that.But in Milwaukee and not only in Milwaukee but in Milwaukee especially many
corporations are not willing to do that. You know, corporations it's all about the 1% to keep the profits for 1%. And to keep the rest of us as serfs working for them and they're the Lord. And working people are going to have to fight that battle again. We fought it in Milwaukee, you know, with the Haymarket, the Bay View Massacre when people fought for their rights as workers and died, actually people died here.And I'd hate to think that we have to fight the fight with our lives again. But
00:45:00that's where we coming in this country and in Milwaukee when really it comes to labor relations. Oligarchs control the world and we have to fight that.Destiny Griffin: Is there anything else that you would like us to know about the
plant closings? Anything else you want to talk about?Wendell J. Harris: The closings in Milwaukee's just like other cities around the
country, this is my piece as recorded in history. I'd just like to let it be known that in my opinion the corporations who's only motive is profit, they were able to live up to their goals.But in the process closing these factories around the country, around this
00:46:00country, in Milwaukee in particular has destroyed many lives. And now there's talk about bringing some of these jobs back and surely jobs that did not have to go off in the first place. So whenever, my message is always be true business people to corporations in the future when this is read. Be mindful of the affect that you have on people's lives when you make rash decisions purely based on profit motive.Thank you.