Boston Bill Pastreich probably influenced me more as an organizer than anyone else alive or dead. Sadly, he passed away in recent weeks at 84 years of age in Mexico. I was fortunate to be able to attend a memorial in Boston, organized by his family, particularly his oldest son, Manny, his union, comrades, family, and friends over his many decades. Fittingly, it was held in a union hall, and not just any union hall, but even more appropriate at SEIU 32BJ, now headed by Manny.
For many, including me, his memorial was a reunion of sorts. Many old comrades were there from our days together working for Massachusetts Welfare Rights Organization, the juggernaut that Bill had founded, and that I was privileged to serve as head organizer for six months before leaving to found ACORN in June 1970: Tom Glynn, Gerry Shea, Terri Lucas, Anne Peretz, Lee Staples, and Michael Kerr among others. Some of them intersected once again in various ways as part of the labor movement with SEIU and other organizations, either as lawyers, organizers, or support staff, including Jon Hiatt, Kirk Adams, Mike Gallagher, Larry Engelstein, Maureen Ridge, and others. Some overlapped with stints in ACORN, the AFL-CIO, United Labor Unions, or the local Bill built on Cape Cod, SEIU Local 767, now part of SEIU1199. It was a gathering of many from the organizing community that had benefited from Bill’s work and friendship over the years. The rest was family. I had known Manny since he was a babe in his mother’s arms in 1969. It was moving to meet his family, grandchildren and others.
I was asked to speak, so I did my best, but there’s always more to be said. Jon Hiatt, former general counsel and chief of staff at the AFL-CIO, spoke before me about how Bill had in many ways directed the course of this life. I could say the same. He came up to me at an NWRO rally in the Boston Commons in 1969. He said that he had heard that I had done some anti-war organizing before. I was living in western Massachusetts at the time and working a summer job between semesters. He said he needed someone to organize in Springfield for MWRO. I said, “well, I’ll have to go there and see if it’s ready to be organized.” How preposterous! I wouldn’t have known something was ready to be organized or not, if it slapped me in the face, yet sure enough, I hitch hiked down there for three days, and once back home called the MWRO office on Brookline Street in Cambridge. He wasn’t there, so I left a message, that said, “ok, I’ll go to Springfield.” Bill had set me in motion for the rest of my life.
Six months later, he asked me to come to my first staff meeting in Cambridge. He had announced he was going to Connecticut to build something there. The bottom line was that somehow, I was being asked to come to Boston after the Christmas holidays as head organizer and take over the staff and work for the board. MWRO was the largest NWRO affiliate with 4 or 5000 members. Bill had done an amazing job with the help of many of the 20 or so organizers based there in expanding the organization all over the eastern part of the state from Worchester to the Cape. Here I was 21-years old now, but I said yes, ready or not.
Tom Glynn is a mover and shaker in Boston and beyond and has been for decades running the MTA, managing Logan International Airport, operating the giant Partners Hospital system, and serving under Clinton as the under-secretary for the Department of Labor, but then he was a VISTA volunteer at MWRO who handled friends, made connections, managed donors and the like. Before Bill’s Memorial I had breakfast with Tom, which has been a tradition for us whenever I’ve happened to be in town. I asked Tom, “how did Bill manage to make me head organizer?” His answer was classic Tom, as he said, “Bill didn’t make many mistakes in that period.” He didn’t exactly answer my question, but he said more than that about Bill then, and often in the future. Bill wasn’t perfect, but he didn’t make casual mistakes, and I have spent my career and life’s work in no small part, proving that he was right.
Gerry Shea was another veteran of that period whose path crossed mine then and onward in SEIU and the AFL-CIO where he was for a long time the point person for labor policy with one administration after another. Bill was a unique character as an organizer and a person, so there were many fond, funny, and important stories people shared at the memorial. Gerry asked to speak. He wanted to remind people that Bill was “a serious person.” There should never be a doubt on that score.
At a memorial, it’s important to make sure that what you say and do helps all to remember the life and work that made his life so fundamental to so many, especially the family and the people in the room. It’s a tough job to make sure the tone is both true, comforting, and inspiring in equal measure.
In refection now, it’s easier to talk about what he meant to me and my life, just as I hope my life and work has meant to others. It’s important to keep the flame burning. Bill Pastreich was a comrade and a friend. I’m proud to be part of his legacy.