GCIU loses long-time office manager to retirement

Charles C. Price Sr.

Charles C. Price Sr., GCIU's office manager for more than three decades who is retiring May 31, easily remembers the date he began working for the union.

That's because it was Dec. 7 – Pearl Harbor Day. The year was 1959, and the place was the headquarters of the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants' Union in Pressmen's Home, Tenn.

A native of Rogersville, Tenn., Price graduated from what is now East Tennessee State University with an accounting degree in 1958. He was looking into a career with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, D.C., when his father, who worked in the Pressmen's Home printing shop, persuaded him to stay closer to home by joining the IPPAU's accounting department.

It was a good move, because that job eventually led not only to Washington but also to marriage and a family. Price met his wife Doris at IPPAU headquarters. "She went to work there in March 1959 and I went to work in December 1959," he said. "We started going together in February [1960] and got married in November." Doris continued to work for the union until the birth of their second child in 1966.

At Pressmen's Home, Price was named by then IPPAU Secy.-Treas. Alexander J. Rohan to head the union's data processing department.

When the IPPAU moved its headquarters to Washington in 1967, Price was asked by Rohan to be office manager and take charge of the accounting, membership records, and data processing departments.

Price remained office manager through the two mergers leading to the GCIU. The IPPAU merged with the Stereotypers/Electrotypers in 1973, which produced the International Printing and Graphic Communications Union. In 1983, the IPGCU and the Graphic Arts International Union merged to form the GCIU.

As office manager, Price helped to ease the union through the technological revolution that computers brought to accounting and recordkeeping procedures. He said when he began with the IPPAU, bookkeeping and member record tasks were performed manually and printed on an Addressograph Multigraph using metal plates. "We had to store all those files," he said. "We needed about 18 people in the membership department and 12 people in accounting to get the job done."

The union eventually went to a then state-of-the-art Univac 1004 computer. "It was a really fascinating machine, and I was in on it from the ground up," Price said. "We had to start from scratch and keypunch all the data."

During the following decades, Price witnessed the next evolution – to personal computers with keyboard data entry and computing and recordkeeping software. He's overseen the introduction of two such systems, with the newest, Year 2000-ready system scheduled to go online in June.

"When you think about the leap from manual data entry to nearly complete automation in just four decades, it's really quite amazing," Price said.

Price also helped ease the transitions and consolidations required during the mergers and for new officers.

GCIU Pres. James J. Norton, leading a toast to Price during the General Board's spring meeting, credited Price for easing the integration of the GAIU and IPGCU staff in his departments following the 1983 merger. He praised Price for his "attention to the needs of the union" while maintaining "understanding and compassion" to the needs of the staff.

"It is for all those things: for an excellent direction as office manager; for an inspiration to the people who worked around you – not just for Charles as an office manager but genuine affection – that we salute him," Norton said.

GCIU Secy.-Treas. Gerald H. Deneau said his transition as a new secretary-treasurer "was as smooth as could be" thanks to Price, "and I sincerely appreciate that."

Price's four decades of knowledge of the union will be sorely missed, Deneau said. "You have such an enormous history," he said to Price. "You know right where everything is and what happened. I'm sure we'll have to do a lot of digging through records to pick up the things you could tell us right off the top of your head."

Price said that "all seven of the secretary-treasurers that I have worked for have been really nice to me. I enjoyed working with all of them, and I've enjoyed my career. I've always been treated with dignity and respect, and I appreciate that. It's been a good place to work."

Now, Price said, he looks forward to spending more time with Doris and his son and daughter and their families, including his 12-year-old granddaughter and five-year-old grandson.

And Price, who helped move the GCIU into the computer age, also will have more time for his newest hobby – exploring the cyber world on the Internet.