Bob Burford - Part VI

 Life in San Francisco was interesting, to say the least. And quite enjoyable. Vicki and Monica and Suzanne were all three unique in their own ways. There were no complications. None. We just lived life as it came at us, enjoying what we had, and having a lot of fun in the process.

That all came to a screeching halt one Saturday morning as I was having my first cup of coffee when I got a telephone call from a friend of mine, Glenn Robinson, a Federal Marshal at that time who eventually became head of the Federal Marshal’s office in San Francisco. He was a great jazz piano player. Very hip. He would call me occasionally and we’d go see a movie. If he heard of a movie with a good sound track, we’d go hear it. I assumed that’s why he was calling; to get together to go hear a movie. Not so. Not at all.

When he asked me if I was okay, just by the way he asked it I knew something was up. As it turns out, he called to let me know that a hit list had crossed his desk and my name was on it. There were some serious union problems in San Francisco and I was smack dab in the middle of it. The unions organized a demonstration and consequently the head of the Longshoremen’s Union got locked up. Leon Olson, the president of the typographical union got locked up along with Arnold Sears, the business manager of that union. And they blamed me for it. The Independent Journal in San Rafael was on strike and things had gotten really ugly.

The NLRB or federal magistrate overseeing the strike limited the union to station two pickets at each of the paper’s three entrances, nine hours a day, Monday through Friday. The union’s 1250 members were given the option of picketing two hours per week or paying a fine every week. Obviously, that ain’t gonna fly given the limited number of hours the union was allowed to picket. So I didn’t like either option and, basically, told the union to stick it. A special general membership meeting was scheduled for a Sunday, the purpose of which was to make an example of me. That blew up in their faces in grand style. At the meeting, the president of the union actually uttered these words: “You’re taking advantage of the union’s rules and bylaws!” To which I replied, “Goddam right I am and there ain’t shit you can do about it!” 

That was like opening the flood gates. It went from me being the union’s lone dissenter to suddenly 850 union members in full rebellion. And that number rapidly increased with each passing day. So, from that point on, I got blamed for everything bad that happened.

I was correct in thinking there wasn’t anything the union could do about the situation. Legally speaking, of course. I wasn’t considering their option of doing something illegal. And that takes this story back to a phone call from a Federal Marshal one Saturday morning. Glenn Robinson was well aware of the violence in all its various forms associated with this strike, so he took seriously my name being found on a hit list. 

Shorty, the composing room foreman at the Independent Journal, had his house fire-bombed in the middle of the night. One night in San Francisco a couple of guys showed up at the house of the guy whose job was to keep all of the equipment running at the Independent Journal. They took him into the living room and killed him. They took his very pregnant wife into the kitchen and beat her so badly she wound up in the hospital fighting for her life. Of course, the baby didn’t survive.

So Glenn Robinson, my Federal Marshal buddy, told me that a couple of guys had been arrested in Louisiana and among other incriminating evidence was a hit list with my name on it. Although the Federal Marshals didn’t have anything officially to do with the union problems, that hit list with obvious San Francisco connections and federal implications had crossed his desk as an advisory. The typographers’ union had recruited a couple of thugs in the mailers’ union to murder the people on the hit list. Going through the list I discovered that the name of a good friend, Chet Plewa, was also on the list. He was a salesman for Mergenthaler Linotype and his fatal sin that qualified him for inclusion on the hit list was selling typesetting and printing equipment to the Independent Journal. For that he was on a hit list to be murdered. 

So, as soon as I got off the phone with Glenn, I called Chet to give him a heads up. He had spent years teaching the graphic arts/printing trade at Boys Town in Iowa. As far as I know, he and his wife, Jess, packed up and headed back to the safety of Boys Town and Iowa.

And me? I hastily ended my affairs in the Bay Area, packed up and moved to Reno where all of my union problems came to a screeching halt in one telephone call. Wanting to avoid any more union problems, I called the secretary of the Reno local, introduced myself, and told him I needed to transfer into the local. He told me that he recognized my name, knew all about me, and to forget the union. “You leave us alone,” he said, “and we’ll leave you alone.” And for me, at least, that’s the way it ended.

Here is a bit that I found from KQED. KQED News report from July 27th 1970 in San Rafael (Marin County, California), featuring views of a march in support of the San Francisco Typographical Union Local 21 which went on strike at the Marin Independent Journal in January 1970, in a dispute marked by riots, vandalism, firebombings and murder. Note that this labor dispute dragged on until fall 1971, when the union lost an election at the paper. United Farm Workers (UFW) and International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) can be seen taking part in the march.