Bob West: Underemployed but Larger Than Life

You always got the impression that Bob West was underemployed. I bet he knew that, too. But so many of us gained from it.

Bob, who passed away October 1, was a major organizer and negotiator for the Wisconsin Education Association Council during much of its heyday, which ended when the Republicans, laying for it, finally got enough power to take away just about any meaning behind collective bargaining with Act 10 in 2011. Bob West was a major reason they thought they had to.

West bargained for WEAC members first in NUE, Northern United Educators, going back to the 1960s. Partly because of his leadership in some of the first strikes in Wisconsin education history, he became one of the major players in the famous Hortonville school district strike of 1974-76, a nasty, brutish showdown that made national headlines and couldn't be settled until the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled upon it.

His talents were enormous. At his "celebration of life," held yesterday, October 13, in Verona, it was revealed to those who didn't already know it that West initially wanted to be an actor. Not unlike Ronald Reagan, who was an actor first and politician second, West put his skills to work in persuading and inspiring thousands of Wisconsin educators to utilize collective bargaining as a deserved tool to stand up for themselves.

Yes, he could act. But in the world of collective bargaining, the support of those one represents is essential. Without it, you can't walk into a room and command the high ground. With it, you can get it, hold it, make the other side understand and get somewhere close to where you needed to go (which is always the point of bargaining). To do that, you have to bring forward something inside of you that you didn't even know was there at times. But it has to sound genuine and heartfelt.

And nobody could jack you up like Bob West. He was a blond-haired lion. His voice was resonant and strong. His long needle reached pretentious school board members and their lawyers with rapier wit and endless challenge. If you weren't already on fire with resentment about the treatment you were receiving, he lit it and poured on gallons of gasoline. An underemployed, brilliant actor, he knew which lines would work.

Then he'd smile and crack some outrageous joke with great timing. Rage together, laugh together through crisis: That was what a union could be.

Beyond that, his preparation for bargaining was terrific and simply gained with experience. He was nearly always a step ahead of the other side, rarely thrown off by some unusual strategy. So in command of such situations was he that, as again revealed on Sunday, he would actually consult with a school board to slow down a bargaining process because, though it was obvious that all knew where things were going, both sides' members might get upset about potentially leaving something else on the table.

Such is the essence of bargaining: Not just to arrange for agreements that while disagreeable in part were reasonably satisfactory, but to look ahead far enough to understand that the process had to have enough integrity for all to accept it as what democracy means, and submit to it as legitimate. For in all things, tomorrow is another day and another set of negotiations is just around the next corner. It takes passion to bargain, yes, but it also takes wisdom. Bob West had plenty of both.

Bob could get under your skin, though. Such it is with negotiators. It's their nature. If you took him on, you'd better bring your best game, though, because he had the facts at his fingertips and probably had more than you did.

At Hortonville, though, the irresistible force met the immovable object. WEAC was well-rehearsed in resistance tactics, having honed them by seven previous strikes, many of which were in locals of NUE: no surprise there. But Hortonville's school board was ready. It pushed back with massive firings, and the members, led by warriors such as Bob West, took to the streets. Old NUE members took busses during spring break to assist. The town blanched under the pressure; it has not been forgotten. Such a small place became the stage for such an enormous showdown.

I discussed it with him some time ago for a book I began that's way too long awaiting on the subject. The phrase that he kept repeating, the one that made the entire situation unique in the annals of Wisconsin collective bargaining, has traveled with me to this day: It was a war. Not like a war: It was one.

WEAC lost that battle but won great advances in the larger war concerning representation of public employees. Weary and drained from the strife caused by Hortonville, the earlier strikes, and an even larger one in Racine (which should not be overlooked), in 1979 the state legislature passed a mediation-arbitration law that remained the basis for collective bargaining for public school employees until the Qualified Economic Offer diminished it and Act 10 destroyed it.

Despite the longed-for departure of Mr. F. Gow and the election of a reasonable person to be governor, the Republicans are in control of public schools: Their growth has been stunted, powerless teachers are leaving in droves, and mindless privatization afflicts them. About 1970, Playboy magazine (yeah, it had good articles, too) ran a Gahan Wilson cartoon mocking the nuclear world we've been in. A singular soldier with a torn uniform walks through ruins with a stunned, wild-eyed gaze and says, "I think I won." That's Act 10. The Republicans won, but they leave utter devastation behind. They don't care about public employees other than regarding them as the hired help--unless, of course, they vote Republican. Act 10 nakedly reveals that.

Bob West did his best to stave that off for more than a generation. Grateful staff and members who loved him gathered yesterday to salute a legend: An underemployed legend, but one larger than life. He could have been anything he wanted to be; he had the drive, the determination, the great talent. Instead, he devoted himself to helping WEAC members stand proud. He was an enormous gift.

The passage of a great man sometimes signals the passage of a great time. Thus it was Sunday. I tore over from Milwaukee right after church to make it just barely in time. It was good to see old warriors again. Made you proud of all that devotion and of a time when fair battles could be fought.

Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark