Clinton Jencks, Legendary Labor Organizer, Dies

[nosmokes]

i had the great honor and pleasure to meet mr jencks and shake hands with him and listen to him speak at a labor conference years ago. one helluva man, with some great stories. thanks for your leadership and your courage, sir. RIP.
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Clinton Jencks, Legendary Labor Organizer, Dies

    By Marjorie Cohn
    t r u t h o u t | Obituary

    Wednesday 28 December 2005

    Legendary labor organizer Clinton Jencks, who led mineworkers in New Mexico in a strike depicted in the classic movie "Salt of the Earth," died Dec. 15 in San Diego of natural causes. He was 87.

    An international representative of the Amalgamated Bayard District Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers in New Mexico, Jencks was convicted of falsely swearing a non-Communist affidavit required of officials under the Taft-Hartley Act during the McCarthy era. His five-year prison sentence was reversed by the Supreme Court in the landmark 1957 case, Jencks v. United States. The government had refused to turn over to the defense statements made by prosecution witnesses, including Harvey Matusow, a former Communist who went to work for Senator Joseph McCarthy. Matusow later recanted his testimony against Jencks in the book "False Witness."

    The Supreme Court ordered the government to give Jencks full access to its records. After the FBI refused, the prosecution was forced to dismiss the case against Jencks. Thanks to the Jencks case, the government is now required to provide the defense with prosecution witness statements. This hurdle was cited by the Department of Justice as a reason for abandoning prosecutions under the Smith Act, the centerpiece of federal anti-Communist legislation in the 1940s and 1950s.

    Three months after the Jencks case was decided, Congress enacted the Jencks Act in order to blunt the effects of the high court's decision. The statute provides that no statement of a government witness shall be turned over to the defense until after the witness has first testified on direct examination.

    Jencks raised the ire of the government with his successful organizing efforts. He was beaten up, thrown into jail, and his car was shot full of holes. "Why was I singled out?" Jencks asked. "I was a very good organizer. I was dangerous in that sense." Jencks said his work "concentrated at an intersection of several important struggles" - the proliferation of union organization after the Great Depression and World War II, and the new struggles of Mexican-American workers and of women.

    Unusually democratic in his sensibility to all people, Jencks respected everyone, cultivating leadership within the rank and file. Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers Union, said, "His life was one of extraordinary bravery. He was a pioneer, such a leader in an organization of mostly Spanish-speaking people. He earned everyone's respect."
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complete articlehere

[GrumpyGreg]

1. God we need more like him.

[tishaLA]

2. RIP

We need him now. Perhaps more than we have in decades.