Bob Mattingly papers

Bob Mattingly (Robert Ramon Mattingly) January 4, 1933-May 27, 2004 was a trade unionist and political activist who lived in Oakland, California. He was a member of Brewery, Soda and Mineral Water Bottlers of California Local Union No. 896, Affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, for 35 years and Union Business Representative for Local Union No. 896 from 1985-1988. He was an advocate for the working class and the democratic rank-and-file labor movement, in addition to being involved in labor and socialist political parties and writing for labor various publications under the pseudonym Charles Walker.

Mattingly’s advocacy for the rank-and-file labor movement led him to leadership roles within Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), a rank-and-file organization within the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). He was a Petition Drive Organizer for the 2000 Tom Leedham Rank-and-File Power Slate Campaign drive, for which he helped collect 50,000 signatures to get the slate on the ballot for the 2001 IBT General Presidential Election. He was also a member of the International Steering Committee (ISC), TDU’s leadership body, in which he was involved with recruitment and organizing. In a release written to the ISC from the National Planning Meeting in Detroit, Michigan in February 1997, Mattingly expressed his interest in the IBT chartering rank-and-file organizations that were separate from TDU and union locals, open to all Teamsters, and functioned in the same way as IBT retiree clubs and certain caucuses. Additionally, he campaigned for the Ron Carey slate during the 1991 IBT General Presidential election campaign, as well as his 1995-1996 “anti-corruption” re-election campaign, for which Mattingly was involved in phone banking and the Ron Carey Petition Drive.

Mattingly became a member of Local Union No. 896 in 1964. He served as the Secretary for the Strike Committee and Chairman of a mass meeting of the five striking local unions during a six-month Bay Area Beverage Worker strike in 1972. Afterward, he continued to serve the union as Chairman of the Shop Steward’s Committee, Chief Shop Steward, and Fact-Finder, in addition to being an original member of the union’s Strike Fund Committee. He was a representative for Local Union No. 896 in discussions with other Bay Area local unions as well as the Alameda County Labor Council, AFL-CIO. While in Local Union No. 896, Bob Mattingly was a Business Representative for Branch No. 1 at Anheuser-Busch, Inc. in Fairfield, California from 1985-1988, a role in which he facilitated communication between the company and the union to carry out the goals of the bargaining unit within the plant. In this role, he developed definitions of employee types and seniority classes, established procedures regarding leaves of absence, vacations and interdepartmental transfer procedures to be included in contract proposals, as well as managed grievances and arbitrations for union workers concerning schedules, payment, terminations, contracts, absenteeism, and overtime. Mattingly also served on the Anheuser-Busch multi-plant grievance committee, which dealt with grievances concerning overtime and scheduling, was in charge of administering the Western Conference of Teamsters pension plan for the Fairfield plant, and was on the Safety Committee in 1988, which attempted to decrease the number of accidents occurring at the plant.

Outside of Anheuser-Busch, Inc., Mattingly was involved in Local Union elections, as evidenced by his participation in the appeal of Joint Council No. 42’s Executive Board decision concerning a protest of the secretary treasurer election for Local No. 896. Furthermore, he was also in the United Soft Drink and Brewery Election Committee’s Steering Committee as a representative of Pepsi-Cola, Inc., and was affiliated with the Bay Area Beverage Soft Drink Committee, in which he was involved in negotiations between the Committee and the Food Employers Council in Lafayette, California. Mattingly played an active support role in strikes outside of Local Union No. 896 in the Bay Area, such as a 2003-2004 Los Angeles grocery strike and lockout that included rank-and-file United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) members, and subsequently led to a similar strike and lockout of Northern California grocery stores connected to Bay Area UFCW locals. He also served as plaintiff on behalf of Sam Rosas, Jerry Friedhammer, and Ed Speckman in the arbitration proceedings of Specialized Distribution Management, Inc. (SDMI) v. Bob Mattingly, an unfair labor practice hearing that alleged SDMI discharged the employees for engaging in union activity. Mattingly wrote about the related strike and boycott of SDMI and Northern California Safeway stores, which was the result of the firing of 800 Teamster employees, in the publication “Labor Today” under the pseudonym Charles Walker, which was later edited for the publication “Labor Standard,” in 2003. Mattingly was a prolific writer for “Socialist Viewpoint,” “Labor Notes,” and other labor and Socialist publications, as well as the editor of “Labor Today,” an online journal.

Bob Mattingly’s involvement in political organizations coincided with, and even predated, his labor union activity. As early as 1959, Mattingly was an organizer for the San Francisco chapter of the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA), served on the Young Socialist National Committee, and attended courses at the West Coast Vacation School, a summer camp hosted by the Socialist Workers Party that included classes and discussion sessions concerning Socialist and Labor topics. Additionally, Mattingly was involved with the East Bay Chapter of Labor Party Advocates (LPA), a group that advocated for the formulation of a political party for the labor movement, and in 1995, the group held a public hearing sponsored by the Alameda County AFL-CIO and other labor organizations to prepare for organizing. The group held a founding convention from June 7-9, 1996, at which point LPA became the Labor Party (LP), which had goals that intended to support the working class in the United States.

Bibliography:

Schulman, Jason. (2016-12) Where is Our Labor Party? Jacobin. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/12/where-is-our-labor-party/

Uthappa, N. Renuka. (February 1, 2004) Hardship, Dissent, and Questions about Union Strategy- Supermarket War of attrition Drags Into Fourth Month. Labor Notes. https://www.labornotes.org/2004/02/hardship-dissent-and-questions-about-union-strategy-supermarket-war-attrition-drags-fourth

Various items throughout the Bob Mattingly papers, 1937-2004, bulk 1971-2004, HLL.2019.033, Gerth Archives and Special Collections, California State University, Dominguez Hills.

Weinstein, Nat. (July/August 2004). Bob Mattingly (1933-2004): Revolutionary Class Struggle Militant. Socialist Viewpoint, 4(7). http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/july_04/july_04_34.html