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Remembering
Karen
Silkwood,
Union Martyr
"We must remember her story, because it
is a symbol of the ... courage of millions of trade
unionists who have fought, and still fight, to defend the health, safety and
security of their fellow workers." |
A poster commemorating Karen Silkwood is
available for $10. Proceeds to benefit the Labor Party. To order, call 718
369-2998. Artist: Nick Sweeney.
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NEW YORK
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Meryl
Steep at 'Remembering Karen Silkwood' |
Meryl Streep,
who portrayed trade unionist Karen Silkwood in the 1983 movie Silkwood,
joined co-star Ron Silver, director Mike
Nichols, and the real-life players in the Silkwood drama on the stage of
Symphony Space here on Dec 17. Silkwood’s son, Michael Meadows, who
was five when Silkwood was killed, also made an emotional appearance.
The event was presented by the
Labor Party with co-sponsorship by UE and other union endorsers of the party.
Proceeds will benefit the Labor Party’s Just Health Care campaign.
A UE delegation led by District
One Pres. Connie Spinozzi attended the event; some UE members traveled
with two vanloads of Lehigh Valley Labor Party members. Spinozzi described the
event as "A good tribute, well worth it."
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A union activist, alarmed by the serious health risks in a
nuclear fuels production plant, investigates the dangers. She uncovers a
frightening cover-up by the company. Her home is mysteriously contaminated
with radioactive plutonium.
While taking revealing documents to a confidential meeting
with a union staff representative and an investigative reporter, she’s
killed in an auto accident under highly suspicious circumstances.
That, in brief, is the story of Karen Silkwood, still
remembered as a union martyr 25 years after her death. Silkwood, an employee
of the Kerr McGee Company’s Cimarron plutonium plant in Crescent, Okla., was
a member of Local 5-283 of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union.
The Silkwood story became the basis for the movie Silkwood,
starring Meryl Streep with Kurt Russell and Cher. Silkwood
was a powerful movie, but the actual events surrounding the death of
28-year-old Karen Silkwood are even more riveting, and tragic, and far more
complex.
MARKED FOR MURDER?
Silkwood was a victim of company harassment, like other union
activists in the plant, but her problems didn’t end at the factory gate.
There is evidence that Kerr McGee, a virulently
anti-union corporation with powerful political connections, kept Silkwood
under surveillance, possibly with the help of police and government agents.
Someone tapped her phone. Someone had, in fact, contaminated her apartment.
And evidence strongly suggests her car was forced off the road on the night of
Nov. 13, 1974.
Why she would be marked for murder is no mystery. Three months
previously she had given the Atomic Energy Commission a detailed list of
safety violations at the plutonium plant where she worked. The night of her
death she was on her way to meet Steve Wodka, assistant to OCAW
Legislative Director Tony Mazzocchi, and a New York Times
reporter.
Silkwood was bringing with her documents that proved her
allegation that quality control of fuel rods had been compromised. Her
revelations might have exposed a major scandal with enormous and wide-ranging
ramifications.
Exactly how she died — or who killed her — is still a
mystery.
THE REAL STORY
While the movie has outstanding moments, Silkwood’s
portrayal of the union as a largely irrelevant organization is one of its
dishonesties. In the movie the young woman is only gradually drawn to the
union as a result of her concern with health and safety. The real Silkwood
became committed to her union during a long strike not long after she went to
work at the plant in 1972. Kerr McGee broke that OCAW strike in the winter of
1972; only 20 workers remained in the union out of a workforce of 150. Kerr
McGee instigated a decertification election.
"In August 1974, just months before the decert election
was scheduled, Karen Silkwood was elected to the union’s three-person
bargaining committee, the first woman committee member in Kerr McGee’s
history. Karen’s assignment was health and safety," recalls Tony
Mazzocchi, today the Labor Party’s national organizer. "Although she
had only been at the company for two years, she was upset about what she
viewed as abusive and dangerous conditions in the plant.
"That September, Karen and her fellow committee members
flew to Washington, D.C. where they met with me to develop a plan to defeat
the decert effort," Mazzocchi continues. "Karen described the
company’s appalling health and safety conditions. When I explained the
connection between plutonium exposure and cancer, it took Karen by surprise.
She was angered at how Kerr McGee was taking workers’ lives into its own
hands. She herself had been in a contaminated room without a respirator just
two months before.
"We decided we should make the company’s health and
safety record an issue in the campaign, and to educate workers about the
hazards of plutonium.
"The strategy worked," Mazzocchi writes.
"Although the union had begun with only 20 members, we beat back the
decert effort by 80 to 61."
FATAL NIGHT
Mazzocchi encouraged the young activist to collect detailed
information about the plant’s hazards. Only about a month after the
election, Silkwood left home for a meeting with Mazzocchi’s assistant and
the reporter. Her car ran — or was forced — off the road. No documents
were found.
"Karen Silkwood was a union martyr," says Mazzocchi.
"Her experience was not that unusual in the trade union movement, except
that she ultimately died for her cause. We must remember her story, because it
is a symbol of the collective efforts and courage of the millions of trade
unionists who have fought, and still fight, to defend the health, safety and
security of their fellow workers."
In recalling Silkwood’s life and death, UE NEWS readers
might view the movie Silkwood, although keeping in mind its
limitations. Missing from Hollywood’s interpretation is the real Silkwood’s
loyalty to her union, and the company harassment which made her life hellish.
Readers are recommended to look for two fascinating accounts of the Silkwood
case, The Killing of Karen Silkwood by Richard Rashke and Who
Killed Karen Silkwood? by Howard Kohn. Particularly noteworthy in
these accounts are the company’s political and military connections.
Karen Silkwood was a courageous woman worker whose life and
death should not be forgotten.
— PETER GILMORE
(This article was based on a review that appeared in the UE
NEWS on Jan. 16, 1984 and on an article by Tony Mazzocchi, Labor Party
national organizer.)
UE News - 01/00
