Newsmakers

David H. Gray, assistant to Printing, Publishing and Media Workers Sector President Bill Boarman, has announced his retirement. Gray began his career as an apprentice at the Detroit News in 1956 and joined Detroit Typographical Union 18 (CWA Local 14503) in 1957. He received his journeyman's card in 1961 and became the first journeyman at the paper to qualify on both teletype and linotype. Gray became increasingly active in his local, serving as chapel chair and vice president from the late 1960s until elected president in 1984. He continued full-time in that position until Boarman brought him to Washington, D.C. as his assistant in 1990. As local president, Gray negotiated the first ITU/CWA contract after the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press began publishing under a joint operating agreement. An arduous two years of negotiations concluding in 1989 affected 300 workers and brought lifetime job guarantees to printers at the two papers.


James K. Lovelace, PPMSW contract administrator, has retired. Lovelace entered the printing trade in 1953 as an apprentice at the Peru Republican newspaper in Indiana, represented by Peru Typographical Union 97. Lovelace joined Rand McNally in Springfield, Ill., as a journeyman in 1960 and became active in Springfield Typographical Union 177. He moved to the State Journal Register in 1963 and became president of his Springfield local in 1969. Lovelace continued as a printer and local president until 1987, when following the ITU/CWA merger he came to Washington, D.C., as contract administrator. As local president Lovelace was responsible for the 1972 merger of the Springfield, Decatur, Taylorville, Quincy and Danville locals, to become Central Illinois Typographical Union No.177/CWA Local 14406.


Vira S. Milirides, District 9 area director for Northern California, Nevada and Hawaii, has retired. Milirides joined the CWA staff in 1985 after 17 years at Pacific Bell, where she was active in CWA Local 9423. After serving as shop steward, treasurer and executive vice president, she rose to president. In 1983 she led the 4,000-member unit during the last nationwide strike against the Bell System. Milirides joined the staff as a CWA representative in District 9, moving to the area director's position in 1992. She was responsible for contract enforcement, mobilization, education and public relations. She acted as co-chair of the Pacific/Nevada Bell bargaining committee in 1992 and as chief negotiator in 1995. She also served as an executive board member, vice president and treasurer of the Santa Clara County Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO.

Marilyn Salas, the granddaughter of a veteran CWA member, is one of six congressional fellows this year selected by the Women's Research & Education Institute, a nonpartisan center funded in part by CWA's Joseph Anthony Beirne Foundation. The Institute was created 20 years ago to study and promote public policy issues affecting women. Salas, a nurse-midwife and mother of three from New Mexico, is working in the office of Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), researching health and environmental issues. Salas' grandfather, the late Lionel Elden Meloy, was a lineman in Oklahoma in the 1920s when telephone workers were starting to organize into unions that became CWA. Her fellowship with WREI runs through April.

Eight CWA activists from across the country completed the three-week Minorities Leadership Institute Program in October, studying economics, labor history, collective bargaining, organizing, public speaking, the Internet and other topics. The graduates are Joyce Augustus, business agent, CWA Local 1105 in the Bronx, N.Y.; John R. Wills III, secretary-treasurer, CWA Local 2202 in Virginia Beach, Va.; Mary E. Garr, secretary, CWA Local 3310 in Louisville, Ky.; Mabel Huff, president, CWA Local 4216 in Chicago; Earline Jones, president, CWA Local 6377 in Bridgeton, Mo.; Mark J. Rocha, business agent, CWA Local 7102 in Des Moines, Iowa; Finnisha Orme, business agent, CWA Local 9415 in Oakland, Calif.; and Joanne Williams, business agent in CWA Local 13000 in Philadelphia.

Margaret Carney, CWA Local 1141 in Oneonta, N.Y., and husband John, a past local president of United University Professions, say talking politics and labor issues as a family has led two of their children to run for office. Daughter Julie Carney ousted an incumbent to win an alderman's seat in Oneonta in November, and son John Carney III was elected police commissioner in Madison, Conn. Margaret Carney said her daughter worked as an animal control officer in Oneonta and "saw the injustice" to city employees. "She decided to get elected and try to change things from the inside," Carney said.