David Newell, who serves as president of the Building and Construction Trades in 65 of 82 Mississippi counties, took a shine to unions early. When he was nine—living in rural parts 60 miles southwest of Jackson—his family bought their first TV. He remembers watching Jimmy Hoffa and other labor leaders challenging the status quo. Then his father—who tried unsuccessfully to make a living farming—got a job in a plastics plant and helped to organize the USW local at the facility.
After graduating high school, Newell worked as welder for nonunion companies on offshore oil-drilling rigs in South Africa, Denmark, Norway and Saudi Arabia.
Ten years later, Pipefitters Local 619 in Vicksburg needed welders and Newell finally got his break into the labor movement. After passing tests, he began working at Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Plant as a welder-pipefitter, promoting to foreman.
“The labor movement is like a religion to me. I go and do whatever I have to do,” says Newell, who also serves as president of the Jackson AFL-CIO.
In 1977, when the local’s business manager resigned, Newell took over at age 31. Soon he began passing on his passion for trade unionism to his sons.
Today, Newell is a tri-state UA organizer. His son, David Newell, has replaced him as business manager of Local 619. Another son, Johnny, is a 619 journeyman. His grandson, Thomas, is a super general foreman at Grand Gulf and another grandson, Chris, is a journeyman in Local 619.
Supervising a mailing party of Working America volunteers stuffing envelopes promoting the candidacies of former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove and Sen. Barack Obama to the state’s trades, Newell says, “We’re finally playing in the political arena. We’ve come a long way in building the kind of structure that can win new respect and power.”
Comments