Labor Pains

Hail and farewell: Kate McKenna, here being interviewed by News 10 Now reporter Bill Carey in April 2004, is retiring from her post at the Syracuse Teachers Association, one of three key labor operatives stepping down almost immediately. Michael Davis photo.

Neil Falcone, for 30 years a mainstay of the local and regional United Auto Workers, retired in March after a career that began in the 1960s when manufacturing in Central New York was in its heyday. Falcone has been instrumental in most labor negotiations involving the UAW since the 1970s, and has seen the rise and decline of the assembly line economy firsthand. He most recently worked on the union bargaining team that concluded a contract with Magna at New Process Gear, preserving hundreds of UAW jobs, but at a heavy price: Wages were cut by nearly a third. 

Kate McKenna, president of the Syracuse Teachers Association for nearly 11 years, has announced plans to retire, effective July 25. She will be joining her husband of two years, Don Raczka, himself a retired union president, to live in San Diego, where her son Brendon also lives. 

Marshall Blake, for decades the most powerful union leader in Central New York, has taken a sudden leave of absence from his position as vice president of United Health Care Workers East/1199 SEIU, citing personal issues. The once ubiquitous Blake has been noticeably absent from labor functions since late January, and is reportedly about to resign his role as president of the Area Labor Federation.

McKenna, 59 and an avid runner, is the first woman to serve as president of the Greater Syracuse Labor Council. When asked about her achievements, she mentioned some internal reorganization of the STA that led to a greater voice within the union for teachers’ assistants, food service workers, hall monitors, bus attendants and school nurses. In the past few years she has been able to win benefits for domestic partners for employees of the Syracuse City School District, and helped establish a procedure for first-year teachers to be supported by consulting teachers from the union.

In a recent interview, McKenna confessed to already feeling nostalgia for Syracuse. When she moves West she will miss her home in the Westcott area, “my sister Anne, the labor community, my neighbors, the first snow and my colleagues at STA. Syracuse has become a familiar thing,” she said, “like that flannel shirt you love to put on that feels so comfortable.” A classroom teacher for decades, McKenna is eager to experience her “first September without the teacher nightmares.” AnnMarie Voutsinas, current STA vice president, will serve out the last two years of McKenna’s term. 

Blake, a powerhouse of Syracuse labor politics since he dethroned Service Employees International Union leader Walter Butler in 1986, has taken a personal leave of absence and plans to retire shortly. He said he was planning to spend some time on “personal growth issues” and work more seriously on his avocation of landscape painting. Blake has been a mover and shaker in Central New York politics for nearly a generation, acting as kingmaker in districts where a union endorsement has meant the difference between victory and defeat. While speaking with The New Times, he sounded like a man eager to stay in the political fray. “I’ll be keeping my hand in politics and social consciousness and stay involved, in some fashion, in the labor movement,” he noted.

In 1994 Blake, 61, took control of a nearly moribund Labor Council, bringing in a slate of officers that included AnnMarie Taliercio of the Hotel Workers Union, Loretta Donlon of the STA and Dick Knowles of the United Steelworkers. “I was glad when he got elected,” McKenna said of the effort. “He helped pull the trades, industrial and public sector unions together.” Taliercio, president of the Hotel Workers Union, described the hard-driving Blake as a man with a plan. “He had a vision for labor locally and he moved us forward to go toward organizing and representing the workers.”  

Added Blake, “Every major union joined the labor council again in the 1990s. It became an important voice.” Blake, McKenna and Falcone served together as officers of the 11-county Labor Federation since its inception eight years ago.  

At a time when unions nationwide were shrinking, Blake’s local went on the offensive, organizing both Crouse and Community General hospitals, waging a lengthy strike at Loretto on the issue of health care, and making its first foray into organizing at Syracuse University. “He was responsible for the big organizing drive at Crouse Hospital,” noted Taliercio. “That’s about 1,500 people. He had a lot to contribute to the solidarity among the unions.” The 1993-1994 efforts at Crouse and Community General reversed the decline in union membership locally that had been going on for a decade.

In addition to his new artistic endeavors, Blake is painting a self-portrait that is anything but retiring. His gusto for the fall presidential race was evident: “Right now 1199 is focused on Barack {Obama}. We will have incredible activity for the Democratic candidate. We can’t have another Republican president.” He easily lapses into the role of political strategist, professing a belief that Hillary Clinton may well be the better candidate, but that Obama has a better chance of winning the nomination. 

“Politics,” said Blake, “is the crucial thing right now.” He also sounds like a man still very much engaged in his union’s activities. The Community and Crouse contracts are up this year, all of which makes it a bit difficult to explain how a union guy and self-acknowledged political animal could be choosing to leave the arena at this vital junction.

On the other hand, Falcone, 58 is clear about why he is leaving office—his family. At a recent Labor-Religion Coalition dinner honoring Falcone, McKenna and New York State United Teachers official Bernie Perry, Falcone introduced his wife Sherry, a four-time cancer survivor, and spoke of visiting their grandchildren in New Jersey. “In some ways, I’m glad to be getting out and leaving things to others; the auto industry is in a horrific state.” Things would be a lot worse, said McKenna, if it were not for Neil Falcone. “He is absolutely a master at what he does. That plant {Magna} would be gone if it were not for Neil.”

One thing is for sure: The Syracuse labor movement has a leadership void to fill. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a turnover like this,” said Falcone. “Ever.”

—Ed Griffin-Nolan