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A Remembrance of Alameda County's Labor Day Picnics

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By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

In the 1960’s and ‘70’s, Labor Day was a huge social event in the calendar of all Democratic politicians in Alameda County. Our Labor Day “picnic” was the largest gathering of people for a political event in the State – and one of the largest in the nation. (As late as 1996, President Bill Clinton was speechmaking there). In an election year, with all the Party’s candidates present, several thousand people would pack the audience.

But even in “off years” such as 2007, there would be 1500-2000 people in attendance. The rank and file members of each of the unions affiliated with the Central Labor Council – and of many unions that were not affiliated (Teamsters Local 70). To this base would be added the Members of Democratic Clubs, Central Committee Members and various ‘hangers on’ of Democratic campaigns like myself.

It was a true ‘picnic’ – we’d lie on the grass at the Fairgrounds where the event was held, eat lunch, drink beer and gossip about politics. Every elected public official in the County who was a Democrat would attend – and most of the elected State Democrats as well. In what had become the most Democratic County in California, that added up to a lot of politicians.

The head of the labor council during it’s heyday was a legend. Richard K. Groulx had been assistant secretary treasurer and head of COPE – its political arm – from 1955 through the early 60’s. In the mid-60’s, Dick became Executive-Secretary of the Council.

Always an aggressive Council (Oakland was the scene of America’s last General Strike after WWII), Groulx provided professional picketers to go up against hired strikebreakers – leaving amateur workers who could break under the pressure of lost income and become violent on the sidelines. While there were many fights during Groulx’s regime, there were no deaths or serious injuries on a picket line.

Groulx himself was arrested and convicted of misdemeanors arising out of picket line incidents dozens of times. He used to laugh about being characterized as having the fastest left hand in the labor movement. (His only felony arrest stemmed from an accusation that he’d thrown a sheriff’s deputy out of a second story window during the student sit ins during the UC Free Speech movement).

Groulx was equally fearless in throwing labor’s support to candidates he thought worthy – not in joining an already winning team. His decision to back a young Legislative Aide named Bill Lockyer against the frontrunner – two times Chair of the United States Conference of Mayors, Jack Maltester – was crucial to Lockyer’s victory.

The Council maintained a full-time office with a 20 instrument phone bank. And provided Lockyer with the where with all to do 10 mailings the campaign’s final week.
Assemblyman. Senator. Then Leader of the Senate. Attorney General. Now California’s Treasurer.

Bill Cavala was Deputy Director of the Assembly Speaker’s Office of Member Services where he worked for over 30 years.

He attended undergraduate and graduate school in the 1960’s and received a doctorate in political science at UC Berkeley. He taught political science at UC Berkeley during the 1970's while he worked part-time for the State Assembly.

Cavala left teaching at UC Berkeley and went to work for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown in 1981 until his tenure as Speaker ended in 1995, and he has worked for his five successors as Speaker up to and including Speaker Fabian Nunez.

Mr. Cavala manages election campaigns for Democratic candidates.

Posted on September 03, 2007

Comments

I am Secretary-Treasurer of The Free Speech Movement Archives, and this article came to our attention.

I was personally present in Sproul Hall on the second floor of Sproul Hall where a window pane was broken as police charged to shut down speakers on the balcony. No one was thrown out a window during that sit-in (one person went down a rope from that balcony to aid with the strike organizing, though) and there were no felony arrests.

We maintain a large archive of information on the Free Speech Movement at . We encourage anyone interested to take a look there. Let's not rewrite history here.

Posted by: Lee Felsenstein at September 4, 2007 11:05 PM

Apparently my formatting of the URL for the FSM Archives website caused it o be invisible. You can reach our site simply by clicking on my name here or on the original comment.

Posted by: Lee Felsenstein at September 4, 2007 11:08 PM

Groulx was acquitted, so you must be correct.

Posted by: william cavala at September 5, 2007 08:08 AM

Is Lockyer's career such a good thing? I would say no

As Attorney General, he had supervisory authority over all law enforcement in the state, but in fact, he did nothing to oversee them, as far as I can tell. I asked the AG's office for stats on discipline and prosecutions of law enforcement, and they did not even had any numbers.

Why? Because actually doing his job might have offended powerful law enforcement ogranizations.

Lockyer is not alone in this, but that's the point - how was he much different than many other AGs? Did it mean anything that he as a Democrat from the most Democratic county? I can't see how.

Posted by: Steve White at September 13, 2007 04:43 PM

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