Fred Redmond, Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO and a more than 50-year veteran of the United Steelworkers, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast for the first Friday with Fred segment of August as part of the Labor 132 series presented by the National Labor Office.
Redmond opened with a story he called intensely personal: his parents were the children of sharecroppers in the Deep South of Mississippi who migrated to Chicago's South Side in search of a better life. His father worked every job he could find before landing his first union contract at an aluminum mill on the southwest side of the city. The moment his father got that contract, Redmond said, was the moment his family started going to a doctor's office instead of a free clinic.
Redmond also reflected on leading the organization of rubber plantation workers in Liberia for the United Steelworkers as one of his proudest professional moments. He also addressed the current surge in organizing driven by income inequality and the gap between CEO and worker pay, and said union popularity is at its highest level in 70 years.
- Redmond's father, raised in the Jim Crow South, worked as a gas station attendant and grocery stocker, and his mother took three buses each morning to clean houses in the far suburbs of Illinois before his father secured his first union contract at an aluminum mill on Chicago's southwest side. Redmond described the transformation in his family's life that followed, including first-time homeownership, a car, visits to a doctor's office rather than a free clinic, as the reason union membership is personal to him and the reason he has devoted more than five decades to the labor movement.
- Among the proudest moments of Redmond's career with the United Steelworkers was leading an organizing campaign among rubber plantation workers in Liberia, West Africa, at a plantation owned by Harvey Firestone. He also cited strikes at Reynolds and Alcoa as defining moments that tested the union's resolve and described the Steelworkers' guiding philosophy as staying one day longer than the company. Redmond noted that through some of the most seemingly impossible struggles, the union found a way to hold on.
- Redmond described the current organizing surge as driven by workers who have one fundamental demand: a share in the profits they help create. He said union popularity is now at its highest point in 70 years and connected the organizing momentum directly to the widening gap between CEO and worker pay, the desire for dignity and respect in the workplace and the recognition by workers across industries that the union is the most effective vehicle available to address those conditions.
A Story That Starts in Mississippi
Fred Redmond has been part of the labor movement for more than 50 years. When AWF host Ed “Flash” Ferenc asked him to reflect on his union history as part of the Labor 132 countdown to the 132nd anniversary of Labor Day, Redmond went to the place where that history actually starts: his family.
His parents were the children of sharecroppers in the Deep South of Mississippi. They were part of the Great Migration, leaving the South for the south side of Chicago in search of something better for the four sons they were raising. His father worked every job he could find - Gas station attendant, Grocery stocker - whatever he could get. His mother woke up every morning and took three buses to reach the far suburbs of Illinois, where she cleaned houses and cooked food for other people's families.
Then something changed. His father got his first union contract, becoming a unionized worker at an aluminum mill on Chicago's southwest side. Redmond described what happened next as a human transformation. His family bought their first home. His father purchased a used car. Plus, for the first time in his memory, his family started going to a doctor's office instead of the free clinic.
He did not learn until later what had made the difference; it was the union contract. That realization, he said, is the reason the labor movement is not abstract to him. It is personal. A decent wage. Respect in the workplace. The ability to retire with dignity. Those are not policy positions. They are what his family's life looked like when a union card was in the picture and what it looked like before.
Following His Father to the Bargaining Table
Redmond's father did not just join the union. He became a union official — a negotiator, a zone committeeman. He told his son about what it felt like to sit at a bargaining table or a grievance table. For the first time in his life, having grown up in the rural Jim Crow South where he was denied the right to vote and subjected to the abuses of that era, he felt like he was on the same ground as the people across the table. The union gave him that standing. It made him equal in the room in a way that nothing else had.
Redmond explained that following his father into the labor movement was one of the most meaningful things he has done. He carried that same understanding to his own career with the United Steelworkers and credits it with shaping his view of what the union is for. Former USW President Lynn Williams used to say the union represents good people — people who wake up every morning wanting to be good citizens, go to work, pay their taxes and whose only shortfall in life is that they are not able to represent themselves in the workplace. Redmond said that framing has stayed with him because it captures something true about who union members are and what they are asking for.
Liberia, Reynolds, Alcoa — and Staying One Day Longer
When asked about the moments with the Steelworkers that made him most proud, Redmond went global. He described leading a campaign to organize rubber plantation workers in Liberia, West Africa, at a plantation owned by Harvey Firestone, as one of the defining experiences of his career. Getting those workers organized and helping them form a union was one of his proudest moments as a labor leader, he said.
Back in the United States, he reflected on strikes at Reynolds and Alcoa; battles that at various points seemed like they might break the union. They did not. His explanation for why the union survived those struggles is simple, and he has applied it consistently: stay one day longer than the company. That is all. Outlast them. The workers who held the line in those fights did exactly that, and Redmond said he is proud to have been part of a movement that found a way to hang on through some of its most trying moments.
Why Union Popularity Is at a 70-Year High
Redmond addressed the organizing surge that is underway across the country with the same directness he brings to everything else. Workers have one demand, he said, and it is not complicated: they want to share in the profits they help create. They want to be valued and treated with dignity and respect. They want their safety on the job to take precedence over a company's short-term cost calculations.
What is driving people toward unions right now is the gap between CEO pay and worker pay, which has become, in Redmond's words, off the charts. Workers go to work every day expecting to be treated with the respect they deserve, only to find that this is not always the case. The recognition that a union is the most effective vehicle for addressing that reality is spreading. Union popularity, Redmond said, is now at its highest point in 70 years.
He connected the organizing momentum to labor law, noting that if the legal framework made it easier for workers to organize, the membership surge would be even larger. He said the AFL-CIO is doing everything it can to push back on laws that create barriers to organizing and to make the path to union membership more accessible. He is confident the labor movement is on the right side of history in that fight. Workers who simply want to earn a living, raise their families and access a piece of the American dream are not asking for too much. They are asking for what is fair.
He encouraged listeners to explore the AFL-CIO's labor history timeline at aflcio.org, which traces the organizing struggles and legislative victories that have shaped the American labor movement for centuries. Understanding where the movement came from, Redmond said, is essential to understanding where it is going.
More information on the AFL-CIO is available at aflcio.org.
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