[Where’s I.W. Abel? raw: Buddy Hill]

Raw interview footage with steel worker Buddy Hill shot for the documentary "Where's I.W. Abel?" Made by Kartemquin and a rank-and-file steel workers caucus, the video documents the opposition of the rank-and-file to the no-strike agreement between Steelworkers President I.W. Abel and the ten major steel companies, made without a vote by the membership of the union. Featuring Staughton Lynd.

00:00Copy video clip URL Footage of a kitchen stove. In the background we hear a man talking about history related to steelworkers.

00:22Copy video clip URL Static.

00:25Copy video clip URL Buddy Hill, a steelworker, sits in a family room chair being interviewed on camera. “Start when I went to the stockholders’ meeting?” he asks the off-camera interviewers. Yes. Hill says he went to the stockholders’ meeting to talk about the employees fishing along the lake front. The plant had filled in the lake where they used to fish. The company put up signs saying you can’t fish here. They showed a movie called “Where’s Joe?” It was about employers cutting employee’s incentives. “I had to get up and talk,” Hill says. He notes he talked to the leader of the group who said they would go through the grievance procedure about the issue. He said he would look into it and give an answer back.

01:36Copy video clip URL Hill notes, “The issues were brought up with the superintendent of labor because he raised cane that I went over his head. They wanted to know why I couldn’t work out my problems with them instead of going to the stockholders’ meeting. Even the superintendent got in on the act. I told him I’ve got one share of stock, and he said ‘well ain’t you got gall to go up there and complain with only one share of stock.’ And I said, ‘well I’m a stockholder and I have just as much right as anybody to go up there.'” Hill notes that he and his comrades felt they had to do something to draw attention to “what happened there.”

02:25Copy video clip URL End interview. End tape.

 

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