Posted on 04/29/2002 8:47:22 AM PDT by flim-flam
John P. Morris, the fiery union leader who came here from the coalfields of northern Pennsylvania 56 years ago and built with his Teamsters Local 115 in Northeast Philadelphia what became a labor powerhouse, died last night.
Morris, who was 76, had been ill with heart trouble in recent months. But he was still pressing ahead with a legal fight against national Teamsters leaders who ousted him from Local 115 in late 1999 amid bitter political feuding and misconduct allegations that Morris said were false.
"It broke his heart," said his daughter, Nancy Morris, who had worked alongside her father in the Teamsters local. She said Morris had suffered a viral infection after a heart procedure in January and had never fully recovered. She said he died at 6:45 last night at MCP Hahnemann University Hospital.
Morris founded Local 115 in 1955 with just seven members. When forced out 44 years later, his local had 2,700 members in a wide range of fields, from truck drivers to store clerks.
"He came along at a time when labor needed a man of integrity and great self-confidence," said Arthur Shostak, the University of Pennsylvania professor and labor expert. "John was a terrific communicator, and he was always there for his rank-and-file."
In a brass-knuckles world that was often scarred by scandal, Morris prided himself on his nickname: "Mr. Clean." His forte was organizing workers and negotiating tactics. In fact, he wrote the book on strikes - literally.
Nancy Morris said when she took a course on labor issues at Harvard University the professor passed up copies of a strike manual her father had written at Local 115. She said it remains the only strike manual the Teamsters use.
Unions were in Morris' blood. Born in 1926 in the coal regions of Schuylkill County, he told relatives that his ancestors belonged to the infamous and bloody Molly Maguires, who clashed with the mine operators. When he was 15 and working in the mines, he lost four fingers in an accident.
In 1946, he married his high school sweetheart, Jean McCarthy and moved to Philadelphia, where he found work as a shipping clerk.
It was in labor tactics where Morris' real talents laid. In 1950, Morris - then with Teamsters Local 169 - walked into the Lit Brothers department store in Center City and told all 300 clerks to come out to Market Street for a Christmas party. Only when they left the store did he tell them they were on strike.
"They all grabbed their Rosary beads," Nancy Morris recalled, laughing.
It wasn't always fun and games. In 1975, Morris was joined by national civil rights leaders in a bitter trash strike in Cheltenham Township. When NFL football players struck in 1987 replacement players were brought in, Morris and his men showed up at the Vet, calling fans "scabs."
Eventually, Morris became a national vice president of the Teamsters, representing the East Coast in national policy debate. He befriended leading pols like then-Gov. Tom Ridge and made some enemies, most notably state Sen. Vince Fumo.
In recent years, Morris became best known for the October 1998 incident in which five Teamsters who were with Morris were convicted of assaulting an anti-Bill Clinton protester. A year later, national Teamsters accused Morris of misusing union funds and moved to oust him from his Local 115 post. Morris and his allies said it was political retribution because he had opposed Teamsters President James Hoffa Jr.
In addition to his wife and daughter, Morris is survived by his son John; nine grandchildren, three brothers and three sisters. Funeral arrangements were incomplete.
There's no dignity in speaking ill of the dead.
May the Lord have mercy on his wretched soul.
LOL!!!
I do my best to maintain objective neutrality on labor organization issues.
(It takes an awfully thick hide to voluntarily absorb the crossfire!)
Not, "when;" where.
Follow the industrial-sized post hole auger mounted on the back of an International Harvestor.
That'll lead to the real gravesite location.
...the, "when" will follow.
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While Nancy was visiting him in the hospital, she played a little joke on dear old dad. She casually put her hat on his head and a group of five thugs came rushing in to beat the crap out of him. Everyone at the hospital got a good laugh out of that one. What a close knit family and a loving daughter.
Good riddance to the gangster.
I will say no more than that he was a tough old Teamster.
I should expect not. It is a contention of the lawsuit he is pursuing that Mr. Morris was personally responsible, in large measure, for the violence of Oct. 2, 1998. I know that it was important to the Adamses that Mr. Morris be held legally, if not criminally, responsible for his actions. Sadly, he is now beyond the temporal reach of justice. As it turned out, he never even had to defend his actions under oath.
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