Public Employee Press

Book review
Tony Mazzocchi: visionary union leader, peace activist and environmentalist

Tony Mazzocchi grew up in the 1930s and ’40s, when labor and left politics enjoyed mass support. He was raised in a family circle where the highest principles were militant unionism and unswerving opposition to racism. Mazzocchi was young enough to escape the Red Scare purges, which in the late ’40s and ’50s silenced many who had contributed mightily to the vitality of the labor movement.

The young organizer helped build a militant, democratic local of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers in a Helena Rubenstein cosmetics plant. As constant organizing built the union in Nassau County, Mazzocchi mobilized members to help other Long Island unions and revitalize a moribund Democratic Party.

In addition to wages, he took on the health and safety concerns of the members, who were constantly handling chemicals. He expanded into wider environmental issues, laying the groundwork for today’s labor-environmental alliances.

As OCAW’s national legislative director, Mazzocchi battled toxic exposures that affected tens of thousands of workers in chemical, oil and nuclear plants and played a key role in passing the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970.

In the 1960s Mazzocchi went beyond the “bread and butter” unionism that was then the norm and pressed for unions to get involved with broader issues such as civil rights, nuclear testing, the war in Vietnam and the environment. He sought allies in these movements to expand the reach and influence of the labor movement, which had begun its long decline.

In the 1990s Mazzocchi searched for ways to create a movement that would transcend the stagnant, conservative leadership of labor and the Democratic Party and began his efforts to organize a Labor Party.

His death in 2002 left a void in progressive activism and thought, but a rich and inspiring legacy. There’s no better way to learn about this hero and visionary of the labor, environmental, peace and freedom movements than to read Les Leopold’s new biography, “The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi.” The Chelsea Green paperback is $24.95 in bookstores and available at the DC 37 Education Fund Library in Room 211.

— Ken Nash