Sam Gindin’s beautiful memorial tribute to Bob White, with his lead about Bob being an always sociable organizer, brought back memories of my only chance to meet and talk with him, briefly. That occurred at the dinner held after our Canadian Auto Workers-Communications Workers of Canada-Communications Workers of America meeting in Toronto thirty years ago, in which we plotted cross-border strategy for dealing with (the not-yet-bankrupt and then-still-alive-and-union-busting) Northern Telecom.

It was the rarest of interactions with someone at or near the top of a national union, only duplicated in the two encounters I had with Jim Matles of the United Electrical Workers in the early 1970s.

The organizer in Bob (and Matles) seemed to make them both great interrogators. The fact that you were many years younger, far less or completely inexperienced, and way down the union totem pole, didn’t seem to matter when it came to soliciting information or even opinions about topics they were interested in.

Each peppered you with questions, reflecting a lively curiosity, seemingly unburdened by the usual top official concern with maintaining the appearance of knowing all and being above it all, projecting the aura of “here I am” and making it a one-way conversation with anyone in the room, member or non-member, thereafter.

Bob was definitely our kind of labor “hero,” looking better all the time in the absence of more of his kind today. If we all end up in nursing homes, what better way to go out the door than “talking union” with the underpaid caregivers around us?

 — Steve Early

When I last visited Bob at his nursing home in Kincardine, a nurse politely pulled me aside to tell me that he no longer talked much but remained quite sociable. The deterioration in his condition was sad to hear, but I remarked that his retention of social skills was no surprise. “As a union organizer he had a natural sociability.” She lit up and excitedly whispered to a nearby nurse: “That explains it!” “Explains what?” I asked. “Well, the one thing he keeps telling us is: ‘You know, all of you work really hard but don’t get paid enough; you should get a union.’”

More than anything else it was the sentiments of an organizer that defined Bob as a union leader. One of my great pleasures was seeing Bob, once union president, move through a room of workers. No politician with a pasted-on smile. No aura of “Here I am!” Instead, someone attentive to people stopping him, ready to kid and laugh, serious and thoughtful when a troubling question was asked — the comfortable, engaged chattiness of an organizer. Bob had a genuine common touch that matched his practical common sense.