Frank Lumpkin, 93, Fought for rights of workers at Wisconsin Steel
Matthew Kruk
chicagotribune.com
Frank Lumpkin, 1916 - 2010
Fought for rights of workers at Wisconsin Steel
By Trevor Jensen, Tribune reporter
March 6, 2010
Frank Lumpkin got tossed from a job along with everyone else at
Wisconsin Steel when the giant South Side mill abruptly shut down after
the final shift on March 28, 1980.
Abandoned by their union and denied pensions and a host of other
benefits by the mill's owners, the steel workers were desperate for a
leader.
Mr. Lumpkin stepped forward, taking the helm of an organization called
Save Our Jobs Committee that fought to reopen the mill and restore
benefits, while also providing a food pantry and other services to a few
thousand idle workers and their families.
"As he put it, it was a question of fight or die," said his wife of 60
years, Beatrice.
Mr. Lumpkin, 93, died Monday, March 1, at Smith Village continuing care
center in Chicago, his wife said. A longtime resident of the South Shore
neighborhood, he had been suffering from symptoms associated with
Alzheimer's disease.
He had put in 30 years at Wisconsin Steel by the time the mill closed.
Because of his seniority, he received certain benefits that left him
better off than many others, his wife said. Still, he was immediately at
the forefront of efforts to help his fellow workers whose union, headed
by an ally of former 10th Ward Ald. Ed Vrdolyak, proved a paper tiger.
Mr. Lumpkin had never led labor efforts at the mill, but after the
shutdown, "he didn't have a minute's hesitation" at engaging in battle,
his wife said. The Save Our Jobs Committee enlisted labor lawyer Tom
Geoghegan to initiate legal action in an effort to restore lost
benefits.
The mill's longtime owner, International Harvester, had sold it to
Envirodyne in 1977. Save Our Jobs argued that IH had unloaded the mill
in part to rid itself of pension obligations. After years of legal
wrangling, a settlement with IH was reached, with around $15 million
being doled out to workers.
"We got a lot for them, but we never got them their real due," Geoghegan
said.
Mr. Lumpkin was no stranger to the inequities of life. One of 10
children, he grew up poor on an orange plantation in Orlando, Fla.,
living in a house Beatrice Lumpkin once described to the Tribune as "the
size of a good-sized garage." He and brother had to share one good
shirt, so school attendance was intermittent until he dropped out. He
had to help make ends meet, picking oranges and then heading north to
work at a Buffalo, N.Y., steel mill.
He joined the Communist Party, later telling the Tribune that "people
have the potential to bring about change in their lives collectively."
That belief guided him throughout the Wisconsin Steel saga, his wife
said.
"He had tremendous confidence in the ability of his co-workers to
accomplish things that they organized collectively," she said. "He
always said, 'We won, we got some justice.'"
In the late 1980s, Mr. Lumpkin twice ran for the state legislature as an
independent. At a forum at the University of Chicago during one
campaign, a group of conservative students challenged his calls for
radical change. Mr. Lumpkin kept his cool as one young man declared that
he liked the way things were and never planned to change, Geoghegan
recalled.
"Son, everything changes in life," Mr. Lumpkin replied quietly. "If you
don't know that, you don't know nothing."
Mr. Lumpkin also is survived by three sons, John and Paul Lumpkin, and
Carl Mohrherr; a daughter, Jeanleah Mohrherr; a brother, Warren Sam
Lumpkin; two sisters, Bess Slifkin and Bay Rollins; and three
grandchildren.
Services are set for 10 a.m. April 5 at the union hall at 11731 S.
Avenue O, and also at noon April 24 near the Haymarket Memorial at
Waldheim Cemetery in Forest Park.
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