Pat Barcas photo
Margaret Blackshere inspires the crowd with a short history of her union positions, as well as telling the tale of how she managed to get a gun pointed at her while trying to help overseas workers working for slave wages at a computer factory.

By Pat Barcas
Staff Writer
DOWNERS GROVE — The Democratic Women of DuPage County hosted former President of the Illinois AFL-CIO Margaret Blackshere at its annual brunch in Downers Grove Jan. 21. Blackshere shared some inspirational stories of her work as a labor activist, and left the crowd with some solid advice.
“As we climb the ladder, and you all will, give a helping hand to the person that’s behind you on the ladder,” she said to applause.
Blackshere is a former kindergarten teacher who has served at all levels of the Illinois labor movement. She started as president of her local union in Madison, Ill. in the 1960s to statewide vice president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers. She served as Secretary-Treasurer of the Illinois AFL-CIO from 1993 to 2000 when she was elected President — the first woman to hold that position.
“I was raised in a household of women, it makes a difference,” said Blackshere of her sister siblings, and Catholic school upbringing. “There wasn’t anything my mom didn’t try to do. I thought, ‘Hey, I can do anything,’ and that’s how I was able to do everything,” she said.
She attend Catholic school because “it was the 1950s, and you gave one of your kids to the church, so I was the one.”
Quickly learning that being a nun was not for her, she asked to leave the school. The Mother Superior jokingly asked “Is Thursday soon enough?”
But she did take away some important life lessons from her time at the Catholic school.
“I learned early on, women can make decisions on their own and can make things happen,” she said.
Growing up in a union family, she next decided that her hometown of Madison, Ill. needed a teachers union.
“The reason we organized was not for pay, but for the fact they never asked us our input on the construction of all these new schools. We wanted a little respect for that college degree we had earned,” she said. “Hey, it was the 60s, you could do anything.”
While running for President of the Illinois AFL-CIO, she said she didn’t have to go negative in her campaign ads, but her opponent did, with negative results.
“The other flyer said, ‘we don’t need a kindergarten teacher running our unions.’”
The plan backfired when people wistfully remembered how great their kindergarten teachers were, and how they helped them early in life.
“Thank goodness I taught kindergarten, not high school history or something,” she joked.
Blackshere ended her speech with a story of visiting a computer factory on an island in Southeast Asia, a triumphant story that involved her having a gun pointed directly at her chest by a soldier.
She explained that she was with a labor group visiting this factory that made computer parts. The island solely housed factories, with young women employed there. In what amounted to basic slave labor, the women toiled for just $2 per day of pay, with rents to the company of $22 per month, all to live in squalid, drab dorms.
“Here come these old broads that want to make a difference,” she joked.
On the first day, Blackshere and her friends sang “Solidarity Forever” with the ladies, and got them at least thinking about organizing, which they deemed a success. A date for tea back at the dorms was set for the next day.
The government liason that was with Blackshere forbid this, saying the dorms were closed to outsiders, but the women snuck through a hole in the fence, saying they had made a promise, they had to go.
“Then people were following us as we’re making our way over there. Pretty soon a military truck shows up, with soldiers. I’ve got an AK-47 pointed at me, so we finally stopped going,” she said. “It was dead silent.”
She said they had to let the women know they were there, so they started singing “Solidarity Forever.”
“It was more like screaming, it was not a melodic piece at this point,” she said.
Pretty soon, they heard the women singing back from their dorms.
“We heard them singing to us. It was just one of those thing you never forget. I hope we got through to them,” said Blackshere.

Pat Barcas’ e-mail address is pat@foxvalleylabornews.com.