Bill Fogarty doesn’t have an easy...

There doesn’t seem to be a single significant organizing drive in the county right now other than the drywall workers, who are ostensibly organizing without the help of a union. Why so little activity?

It has a little bit to do with the times, that money’s tight with unions just as it is with business. And it takes money to organize. I think that’s going to change in the next year. Also, we’ve had problems with what the Administration has done with labor laws in this country; they’re a management tool right now, and they make it difficult to organize.

Who is organizing these days?

Well, the hotel and restaurant employees are doing some, though it’s down a bit lately. The communications workers are doing some. Electronics workers. Some of the building trades, although a lot of them are waiting to see what’s happening with the drywall situation. If the drywall workers are successful, which we think they’re going to be, that will give new drive to the rest of organized labor in the county.

Is it harder to organize in a recession?

I think it’s easier. When times are tough, you see a lot of layoffs, closures--this is the time people start looking for protection. In good times there’s more apathy.

The percentage of unionized workers in the labor force drops every year. Is the same thing happening here?

Our local unions are actually reporting higher numbers of members: While factory jobs decrease over the years, there are more public employees and white-collar people joining unions, and there are a lot of them because the county’s such an affluent place.

What can you offer people these days when unions are making concessions and workers worry that if they unionize their company will close or move offshore?

Samuel Gompers (considered the father of the American labor movement) said there’s strength in numbers. Through the collective bargaining process, through the courts, through lobbying city councils, we may be able to avert a move offshore, or save people’s pension benefits.

You’re saying a company that’s planning to move to Mexico is going to care what the city council says?

When (the credit-reporting unit of) TRW was about to move out of state, people pulled that community together. It wasn’t just government. Unions can help with that.

Yes, but the city of Orange had to offer to subsidize some of TRW’s rent, too, didn’t it?

Well, there was a carrot at the end of that stick, sure. But a lot of things like that are happening around the country, where people have got together and taken action.

Is job protection, then, the key issue these days?

Health care is probably No. 1, job security would be No. 2. In years past, wages and working conditions were your two big items. More and more people are asking for help on health care. Companies are cutting back on health benefits and we’ve got no national health care policy to speak of.

Orange County has a reputation as being anti-labor; how true is that?

I’d say it’s true, though the perception may be worse than the reality. I think it’s better than it was years ago. People like Walter Knott (of Knott’s Berry Farm) are no longer around; he was one of the staunch anti-labor CEOs. There are probably still a lot of companies that would rather go bankrupt than have a union. We’ve heard that a lot during the drywall strike.

How do you change that?

It would be nice to have a labor movement like they do back East and in the Midwest, where kids going through school learn about the labor movement as part of their curriculum, as opposed to the view of organized labor they get through the school systems here in Orange County.

It’s interesting, the perceptions kids here have about organized labor. When my kids were going through the Irvine school system, there would be whole chapters about business and a few sentences about labor, and those were about how unions went on strike and punctured tires, which ignores child labor laws, sick leave and other accomplishments of the labor movement.

What are the most unionized industries in the county?

Public employees are heavily unionized. There’s quite a bit of the defense industry organized through the auto workers, the machinists’ union and even the carpenters. The food and grocery retailing industry is probably the most unionized business in the county.

Where does the local labor movement go next?

In the higher-paying jobs you see people with more education, and Samuel Gompers said the last thing an employer wants is an educated employee. You see more people with degrees in the labor movement than you did 20 years ago.

The service employees union now represents internists in the University of California system; it’s interesting to see doctors joining labor unions. And district attorneys belong to labor unions. State employees are a good possibility; the parts of county government that aren’t organized yet, too. There are a lot of obstacles, but a lot of opportunities, too.

On the lack of women and minority union leaders . . .

“You’ve got to start somewhere, and Lane Kirkland and the executive board of the AFL-CIO seem like a good place. It needs to be more reflective of the work force--there’s only one Latino on the board.”

On Orange County and unions . . .

“This is probably one of the hardest nuts to crack in the country, even more so than the South. They’re real adamant in their dislike of labor unions.”

On the drywall strike . . .

“There’s a lot of hard feelings with some union people who say, ‘How can you support those guys when they broke the union?’ I don’t forgive them, but that was then and this is now.”

On federal labor law . . .

“The National Labor Relations Act and other laws protecting workers have been tilted so far to the right that they favor employers now.”