Union Members Make Up Heart of the Movement

Terry Walls
Joanne Borts
Marie Justice

Don’t look for any monuments to Terry Walls, Joanne Borts or Marie Justice. No bridges or airports or skyscrapers are named in their honor.

But they’re real heroes—the men and women at the heart of the union movement, just like all the other women and men who pitch in with their locals, volunteer to help other workers organize into unions, and get out the vote during election years.

(Read more profiles of union members here.)

In fact, Walls, Borts and Justice are the movement.

A long-time activist with Local Lodge B of the Machinists (IAM) District 37, Walls was the lodge’s safety committeeman at a McDonnell-Douglas (now Boeing) plant when a container of dangerous chemicals fell and burst open on a warehouse floor. After the superintendent failed to act, Terry took matters into his own hands and called the fire department. Firefighters cleaned up the dangerously toxic spill and saved workers from the risk of serious injury or even death.

Walls could act only because of his union. He says: 

If you’re not at the table, you don’t have a say. Getting involved―it’s what makes unions strong. It’s the best thing for you.

Borts, an activist in the Actors’ Equity union, has appeared with Eartha Kitt at Madison Square Garden, sung duets with Neil Sedaka and performed at Carnegie Hall. As she puts it: 

I’m a union maid through and through.  

She’s also a councilor—a working performer elected by her union sisters and brothers to represent chorus actors, the nonprincipal performers in live musicals.

She stresses that even though her union peers range from the “stars above the title making buckets of money” to the vast majority struggling to make ends meet, the goals of Actor’s Equity are the same as those of other unions: better wages, affordable high-quality health care, safe and healthy workplaces.

Borts fights for them with a passion. 

I’m proud of being part of a movement that looks out for the little guy.  

After raising two kids, Justice of the Navajo Nation in Arizona went to work at Black Mesa Mine, a bituminous coal operation, driving a truck. She eventually joined the safety committee of United Mine Workers (UMWA) Local 1620 and was elected president of the local in 1999.

I come from a matriarchal society. Sometimes I feel like I’m a mom to everybody in my local.

Justice later was involved in a campaign by some 6,000 employees of the Navajo Nation to organize into the UMWA. She focused on supporting about 600 Head Start workers. Their organizing campaign took eight long years, but in the end, the Navajo Nation employees won their union. 

Walls in suburban St. Louis, Borts in New York City and Justice in Arizona may live vastly different lives. But there’s something powerful they and millions of others have in common. As Justice puts it:

In the old days, the way things were done was with respect. That’s what we’re asking for as workers. That’s what we’re doing in unions.

We just wanted to be treated fairly.

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