Bruce Foster succeeded by making friends of his enemies
The late International Vice President Bruce Foster celebrated his 80th birthday in August 2003. That event was just one of the benchmarks in a life filled with remarkable landmark achievements. Foster was ATU’s first African-American International Vice President; elected to that post in 1971.
Most proud of local president election
But, he would tell members that he was most proud of an accomplishment that took place three years earlier — his election as local president of Local 268-Cleveland, OH, in 1968 – the first African-American local president in the history of the Union.
Born in West Virginia
Born in Carbon, WV, Bruce Foster spent one summer in a coal mine, which, apparently was enough to convince him to settle in Cleveland after service in the Army Air Corps. He met Lillie Belle Usher on a train in 1943, and married her a year later. 1944 was also the year Foster joined ATU and began operating trolleys and buses in Cleveland.
Foster was a vocal critic of Local 268’s leadership over the years, eventually winning election as local president in 1968.
As an African American leader in the sixties, he must have endured a great deal of prejudice. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that “he heard a few racial epithets at Local 268 meetings and lots of jeers before a wildcat strike in 1970.”
Foster insisted, however, that he didn’t “really have to overcome a lot. I never dwelled on it. Wherever I went I just did my job.”
He ‘wasn’t there to make friends’ – but he did anyway
“I took a lot of pride in my work,” he said, “I wasn’t there to make friends. I was there to work.” Nevertheless, Foster did make friends on both sides of the table.
He delighted in recounting the time when he was negotiating with one manager who demanded that the contract contain his agency’s COLA proposal, rather than the provision the Local wanted.
Later that evening Foster called the manager and explained that the management provision would actually cost the agency much more than the union’s. The next day the parties agreed to the Local’s proposal, and Foster acquired a lifelong friend who knew he could trust this union officer.
‘Unifiers’ not always appreciated
“Unifiers” such as Foster are not always appreciated. Once during contract negotiations one of Foster’s local members, who believed that he was too cozy with management, actually threatened to do him harm.
Foster maintained his usual calm and succeeded in getting the contract ratified. “Wouldn’t you know it,” he said, “this guy brought the first grievance under the new contract!”
Foster effectively represented the member who became one of his best friends. “I did my job, regardless,” Foster asserted. He also served Labor in Cleveland as the president of the city’s civil service commission.
While he worked to maintain good relations with management, Foster knew when he had to stand his ground.
The Plain Dealer reported an incident in which Foster “could be heard shouting behind closed doors at an RTA colleague, ‘You are going listen to me!’” He also refused to attend plush RTA retreats for what he called “brainwashing sessions.”
In 1971, he fought layoffs of his members, declaring, “The time has come to make economy adjustments at the top instead of always at the bottom.”
Foster also fought against bald tires, split shifts, cockroaches, and dirty bathrooms. “Restrooms should not be a contract issue,” he once said, “but it seems the only way to get them cleaned.”
Foster’s hard work paid off in wages, increasing Local 268’s 1,400 members’ pay from the 37th to 16th highest in the nation while he was local president.
‘I felt a lot of responsibility’
After his election as an International Vice President in 1971, Foster said, “I felt a lot of responsibility. I had to work hard to succeed. A lot of people didn’t expect a black man to succeed.
“When I first went on (as an IVP) a lot of people didn’t know I was Black,” he said, recalling one attorney standing “dumbfounded” when he walked in the door to negotiate a contract.
“We did the usual ‘song and dance’ and worked it out,” said Foster. And later – you guessed it – the lawyer became one of his best friends.
‘You can’t make progress if you can’t knock on that door’
Anyone who knew Foster was aware of his keen interest in politics and that he relished disarming potential opponents with the unexpected. He confounded people with the fact that he was a Republican who served as a GOP executive county committeeman, and Ronald Reagan booster.
“When are Blacks going to wake up to the pie-in-the-sky promises of Democrats?” Foster would ask. But, Foster was also a founder of ATU’s Black Caucus and marched with “Republicans for Obama” in 2008.
The late IVP was a pragmatic activist who believed that economic progress depends on maintaining relationships with both parties.
“Black people suffer,” he explained, “when a Republican gets into office and they have nowhere to go. I worked with both Republicans and Democrats in Cleveland and I learned that you can’t make any progress if you can’t knock on that [Republican] door.”
The ‘Godfather’
“Union guys call me the ‘godfather,’ Foster said, “because I worked hard and I always told people ‘the way it was.’ With the help of God, I served people the way I was supposed to.”
For Foster, service was inextricably bound up with joy of friendship. He received a note on his 80th birthday from a retired ATU member who wrote, “You will always be my dear friend, no matter how many miles between us.”
Work, service, friendship. Those values summed up the life of this genuinely happy man.
Bruce Foster passed away on March 19, 2009, having achieved two of the most important milestones in the Union’s history, and paving the way for many African American local and international officers to come.
“It meant a lot to me that I was able to help a lot of people,” he said. And it meant a lot to ATU too.