By Yvonne Gordon

When Rick Street, a photoengraver at Southern Gravure, was elected vice president of Louisville 619M in January 1998, he made a commitment to devote his time as an officer to organizing. Although he was still at the bench, he said he knew that a lot of his time was needed if the local was to grow.

A few months later, he was elected president of the local. At the same time that Street was elected president of the local, GCIU was working with the AFL-CIO in its focused drive to mobilize and educate members to organize (MEMO).

Street attended the GCIU MEMO program offered last year in Cincinnati while he was still the vice president of the local. He recalled: "I brought [the program] back and put it on for local. From that, we managed to convince a few people of the worthiness of organizing."

Street said that unionism is "a real sentimental thing for me. My grandfather came to this country from an engravers' union in England in 1948. He got my father in the trade. I'm the third generation."

When preparing the MEMO program for presentation to Local 619M members, Street said, he received some assistance from his teenaged son, Trevor. Street explained: "I used him to make copies. Then, when the program began, he sat in an empty seat. After the program, he said: 'I'm really impressed with what you're doing.' He's 17. That, coming from a 17-year-old, really gets your juices going."

After presenting the MEMO program, Street said that he and a group of volunteers from the local "went out and handbilled" some 15 non-union shops.

Response to the handbilling was immediate. Workers at one shop called the local, seeking union representation. Street and a group of current and retired members went to work distributing union information, answering questions, and making house calls – the way they had been trained through the GCIU training program.

One of the retirees working on the campaign was Rick Street's father, Joseph "Mick" Street, a retired photoengraver and member of GCIU. The elder Street had been a member of Local 619M at the Courier Journal, a local newspaper. Another volunteer in the campaign was Rick's brother Dave Street, a member of Local 619M. Yet another volunteer was Trevor.

The campaign is still ongoing. Street expressed pride in the members of his family and the Louisville 619M members who have donated their time to working on the campaign.