Marty Williams, who is also known by his nickname “Mongo”, was a decorator at Chicago’s McCormick Place for 33 years before he retired in 2006. This week, he is a volunteer on board the Alliance of American Manufacturing and the United Steelworkers’ “Keep It Made in America” bus #3 in Indiana and Ohio.
For years, Williams worked to prep the exhibits at the Chicago Auto Show.
“It was getting bigger and bigger,” he says, but the past year was different.
“Usually, the show business is continuous all year. This year, January, people were running out on their unemployment because they hadn’t worked since like, September because all the shows were so down.”
Williams was able to retire under “Rule of 85″ under the Steelworkers’ agreement that provides for early retirement when an employee’s age and years of service add up to 85. Now he lives in Justice, Illinois, where he stays active with the union through SOAR, the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees, and is also working to urge the village of Justice to pass a resolution to buy all American products.
By joining AAM’s bus caravan through Indiana and Ohio this week, Williams is also working to spread the message of how severe the problems could get if more American jobs are lost. During the bus tour’s first stop and rally outside the Radisson Hotel in Merrillville, Indiana, Monday, Williams collected 11 pages of signatures, nearly 150 signatures, on the petition for Auto Supply Chain jobs.
“We lose the people who make the parts, then we lose the people who make the tires, right on down the line, and I’m volunteering to educate the common person on this, that we have to help out our auto workers and our auto parts manufacturers.”
