RIP David Richardson. Former Afscme Local 444 President Good Union Man.

LtoR Dave Richardson, Marvin Cain Nimrod Sejake Jim Burris

 

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

GED/HEO

I heard today that a former co-worker, David Richardson died last night in his sleep. Apparently, his death was related to Parkinson’s disease.

 

I haven’t seen or talked to David for a long time. He was the president of my union, Afscme Local 444 and also after he retired was on the board of the public utility we worked for the East Bay Municipal Utility District in Oakland California.

 

I remember my first encounter with David. It was at a contract ratification vote at the old AFL-CIO union hall on Valdez street if my memory serves me right. Bob Torres, a close friend was speaking and he was being taken out of the union as he took a job that was not represented. He was speaking about how important the union was and so forth and he was sad to leave it, it wasn’t his choice in the sense that it was a non-represented position. Torres died in 1983 from stomach cancer. I loved him, a decent working man with exceptional skills.

 

At that meeting I remember David standing up and loudly protesting some issue. I can’t remember what it was but what struck me was his appearance. He was a rotund fellow with a loud voice but what caught my eye most of all was he looked like some character out of the Wizard of Oz, with his persona and overalls.

 

We developed a sort of friendship and at the time he lived close to me in an apartment off of 35^th Avenue. It was the late 70’s or mid 1980’s and I was struggling with cocaine issues at the time; I was quite depressed. The union activity was my anchor and helping me but my personal life was a little difficult as I was going through a separation. I remember going round to see Dave and I was feeling very low, he was so kind to me, so warm and understanding. I will never forget how he helped me back then. Cocaine is a nasty drug and I lost a few friends to it, killed by street dealers.

 

Over time we became closer as we were both active in the local. I think Dave was a Methodist and from a Minnesota Methodist family though I am operating from memory here; I just found out about his death today. But he eventually became president of the local and as a trade unionist was a good fighter on the job. We had some members in our local that were affiliated to some of the left socialist groups that vegetate on the fringes of the workers’ movement and trade unions and he was quite often attacked rather crudely by some of them. But Dave was not a company man.  We are sometimes limited by our own consciousness and views of the world and that brought myself and some of my colleagues in to conflict with Dave politically. He was basically a liberal along the lines of the anti-communist Hubert Humphrey. But Dave was a working man; it’s a good place to start when evaluating people.

 

I attended AFSCME International conventions alongside Dave and others and I remember he got a resolution adopted at one of them that was in opposition to the usual procedure where the labor bureaucracy having the majority of the followers there would have one of their bootlickers “Call the Question” on an issue on the floor that they wanted passed. For those not familiar with Roberts Rules of Order, calling the question is a motion that cannot be debated and doesn’t need a second. It’s a way of ending long debates but also is used to stop debate and democratic discussion. Dave’s amendment to a resolution passed that stopped that procedure. An opposing view had to be heard before the question could be called.

 

It’s no revolutionary proposal but I raise it in order to stress that Dave was not afraid to buck the power or stand against the stream if he believed it right.

 

I will never forget the kindness that Dave showed me when I needed it most or the contributions he made to the welfare and material conditions of the workers at the East Bay Municipal Utility District in Oakland California.. The political differences in the long run were over liberalism and socialism. But he was not a dishonest man, he was a good human being.

 

The picture above is Dave with Marvin Cain, Jim Burris and the South African socialist Nimrod Sejake*, the South African trade union leader, former NUMSA member exiled with Nelson Mandela after a meeting my local had for Nimrod at the library on Adeline in Oakland. He supported workers internationalism and fought against racism and all forms of discrimination.

 

I don’t know Dave’s age but he was older than me. He died Feb 6^th 2022. RIP Dave Richardson, union man.

 

*Nimrod is on the cover of the book, Organize or Starve about the Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU)