ShareThisThe death of California labor leader Jack Henning this month generated, as one might expect, paeans to his longevity, his skills as a hellfire-and-brimstone orator and his remarkable forays into national and even international affairs, the latter as ambassador to New Zealand during the 1960s.
There was, however, another dimension to Henning's passage. His quarter-century as head of the California Labor Federation, which ended with his retirement in 1996, also saw fundamental change in the California economy and a huge change in the labor union movement.
When Henning became California labor's top leader four decades ago, the industrial economy that arose during World War II and expanded in the postwar years was still going strong.
Only older Californians remember when the state had countless industrial facilities -- auto assembly plants, aircraft factories, petrochemical complexes, lumber mills, even shipyards -- that generated high-paying blue-collar jobs.
The factories were, for the most part, unionized. Henning, born in 1915 the son of a San Francisco steamfitter, reflected that fact. Henning personally walked the halls of the Capitol, seeking not only enhancements for his members -- such as increases in compensation for job-related injuries -- but also expansion of the plants that employed them.
Although this month's obituaries cited his thundering denunciations of the excesses of capitalism, they neglected to mention that he often worked with corporate executives to improve the climate for investment and job creation.
When, for instance, Dow Chemical abandoned plans for a $500 million petrochemical plant in California in 1977, citing environmental red tape, Henning publicly denounced then-Gov. Jerry Brown, to wit: "He (Brown) did not pull the trigger, but he bought the pistol and bullets. There are certain mad hatters in the Brown administration who will, if they have their own way, drive all significant industry out of California."
The Dow incident, in fact, marked the beginning of a long decline in industrialism that's still under way, along with an endless debate over causes -- whether the state has a hostile investment climate or it's merely the collateral effect of global economic patterns and the end of the Cold War.
California's economy has evolved into a post-industrial mode -- centered on technology, communications, trade and services -- that's mostly non-union. Millions of industrial jobs that Henning championed have disappeared, accompanied by evolution of the state's labor movement into one almost completely dominated by public employees, thanks to legislation that Brown signed.
Public worker unions have become extremely powerful in the halls of state and local governments, as their role in closing, or not closing, budget deficits is demonstrating.
California is a far different place than it was when Henning was the face of labor in the state; the change is not necessarily for the better.
(E-mail Dan Walters at dwalters(at)sacbee.com. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/walters. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
ColumnMust credit Sacramento Bee
