Wimpy Takes Command

"We're perceived as a middle-class lobby protecting our own ass. "

That dour view of U.S. unions comes from the newest member of their high command, William ("Wimpy") Winpisinger. Last week he became president of the 910,000-member International Association of Machinists, a union that rarely makes headlines but ranks as fifth largest in the nation and third biggest in the AFL-CIO. As I.A.M. chief, Winpisinger, 52, automatically becomes a member of the labor federation's 35-man executive council. There he will be in a position to fight against what he regards as Big Labor's drawbacks: stagnating union membership, growing conservatism, weakening political clout --and George Meany.

With his rimless glasses, thinning gray hair and predilection for white belts and shoes, Winpisinger hardly looks the part of a radical labor leader; nor do his background and hobbies fit the image of a firebrand. The son of a Cleveland printer, Wimpy started as a diesel mechanic, slowly worked his way up the I.A.M. ladder and today maintains a complete mechanical shop in his home in Wheaton, Md., where he repairs neighbors' lawnmowers as well as his own Oldsmobile and Chevy. But he is one labor leader who states proudly: "I don't mind being called a lefty. We're being centered to death." And in particular, he openly advises Meany, who is 82, to step down as AFL-CIO president when the federation convenes in Los Angeles in December. Says Winpisinger: "I have immense respect for George Meany, but there comes a time when every man passes the apex of his career, and it's all downhill after that. When the polls rate labor just behind Richard Nixon and just ahead of used-car salesmen, you know something needs to be changed."

Meany may not take the advice; even if he does retire in December, his successor as AFL-CIO president would surely be Lane Kirkland, 55, the federation's secretary-treasurer and also a strong conservative. But either Meany or Kirkland may find the executive council something other than the rubber stamp that it has become; Winpisinger is expected to be a catalyst for change. At least four members are likely to vote with him to reform AFL-CIO policies: Murray Finley, president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers; Sol Chaikin, president of the Ladies Garment Workers; Glenn Watts, chief of the Communications Workers, and Jerry Wurf, head of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Two more possible recruits for a liberal coalition are Lloyd McBride, new president of the United Steelworkers, and Douglas Fraser, who is expected to lead the United Auto Workers back into the AFL-CIO.

Legislatively, Winpisinger would have the AFL-CIO lobby for broad social goals, like national health insurance, rather than concentrate on parochial measures like the common-situs picketing bill. He also would blunt Meany's hard anti-Communist line in foreign policy. Further Winpisinger wants to start a drive to organize blacks and other minorities (I.A.M. membership has dropped 100,000 in the past ten years). In general, says Wimpy, union members are not so conservative as they are believed to be: "They are not comfortable with the idea that they're supposed to hate people on welfare."

Winpisinger also would take a softer line on defense. Though the matter is somewhat academic after President Carter's decision last week, Winpisinger's own union is on record as favoring the B-l bomber. But, he says, "personally and morally I'm absolutely opposed to the B-l." In almost any other country, Winpisinger's agenda would scarcely seem all that far left. That it seems radical in the U.S. is a true measure of the labor conservatism that Wimpy intends to change.

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