I have a question about union representation. Was that a complicating factor in the park operations?
It became that. I can’t give you the particular date. It was probably about 1982. This came about when we selected a carpenter to come on board. I tried extremely hard to talk with people coming to Crater Lake to let them know the living conditions, and what it was like in the winter so that there wouldn’t be any surprises. There was a non-Park Service man coming to the park from Veterans Affairs. He was a qualified carpenter and I guess the best that the register had to offer. He wasn’t there long before he started agitating other employees as to the value and benefit of them having a union. He couldn’t understand why there wasn’t an employee union all ready in place. To his way of thinking, management would just run roughshod over employee right without a union. This appealed to maintenance employees, so contact was made with a union group in Portland. I met with the union leader (49). Unions were being pushed in a number of park areas at the time. The managers and those who work with them needed to have training in collective bargaining, so the department set up some training programs. We selected various employees to complete this training course. I attended a week long seminar in Denver on collective bargaining. We worked things out and a contract was drawn up. I can’t remember which union it was, but we worked out some kind of an agreement (50). I don’t think we had any problems after that.
Did it only cover the maintenance employees?
Yes, nobody else got in on that.
Did the visit by Director Whalen result in any operational changes?
He came out to welcome me. That’s the only time he was there. I had not taken my place at Crater Lake yet, but I met Whalen and we stayed overnight in Crater Lake Lodge. Whalen spoke to the press at the Sinnott Memorial. After that I was introduced to the crowd. We toured the Rim Drive. The next day we went to Klamath Falls and flew to John Day.
