Interview with Tony Podojil

"No one really listens to old people..."

They call her the Barricuda. "That," says Toni Podojil, 'is because I'm a mean, old fighter,

And fight she does. Her opponents? Insurance companies, government agencies, utilities, and the intangibles: the loneliness, hunger, and despair that beset the elderly.

Podojil serves on the executive board of the Coalition of Senior Citizens. She's the secretary of the United Labor Agency's Federation of Retired Workers. She chairs the Ad Hoc Committee of Seniors for Tax Reform. But the "Barricuda'' sobriquet tells you more about Toni Podojil than any of her other labels.

The Podojil family moved to Cleveland when Toni was nine. By the time she was 16, she was working at the Cleveland Worsted Mills. Podojil married the man her parents had chosen for her when she was 17, and by the time she was 20, already had three daughters. Two boys followed several years later. Podojil kept working in the textile mill as she raised the five children. Eventually, all three of her daughters went to work for the same firm.

It was while she was in the mills that Podojil first became interested in the Textile Workers Union. A gleam comes into her eyes as she talks about those days: "I was a supervisor, and management kept giving me lists of people in my department who were attending union meetings, asking me to keep an eye on them," she says. "I really got so disgusted."

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When the Cleveland Worsted Mills closed down in the early 1930's, Podojil went to night school for a while, where she picked up "a little bit of typing and a little hit of bookkeeping." Then she went to work for the Phoenix Dye Works ready for unionizing in earnest. She helped organize the plant, and became the first president of the Textile Workers Union local. She kept that office for ten years and also travelled, helping textile workers in Illinois, Wiscon sin, and Pennsylvania organize.

"I was never afraid of getting my head bounced,” Podojil recalls. “I'm a Libra -I'm an idealist. I've always thought we could overcome everything that we want to overcome."

But despite her work with organized labor, Podojil is convinced that unions can't go it alone. "Even if you negotiate a contract," she says, "they can always take it away from you through legislation. So you have to become part of a political program.”

Podojil prides herself on never having missed an election of any sort, since she got old enough to vote. She became a Democratic precint committeewoman at the age of 21, and has been involved in political campaigns for Franklin Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, and just about everyone in between.

In the late 1960's, Podojil stepped down as president of her local, because, as she explains it, "I've always been a firm believer in passing the torch to younger people."! She became pension chairperson for the local, and finally, a couple of years ago, retired for good, to `become "a doorkicker for the seniors.'

The United Labor Agency was, until then, a do-nothing organization, where older folks were concerned. “We got together once a month,” says. Podojil, "to write letters to Congressmen." That all stopped when Podojil happened to hear about' an elderly woman with no food, no heat, and no one to care. She helped that woman over the rough spots and, then wEDI to Cleveland's labor leaders, demanding, "What do we do for our seniors? What do we do for people who have given their whole lives to us -just throw them on the ash heap???

Podojil and a couple of other old union waith ogether,

mide, and recruited members of the trade unions to belo remodel k. Now they're runnin^'ariety programs for seniors: providing transportation to people who no longer drive, helping with Medicaid and insurance red tape, visiting shut-ins at their homes, searching for low-rent apartments, and putting people up until they can move into those apartments. And, of course, listening to people.

[Pagé Z/What She Wants?December, 1978

"No one," says Podojil, "really listens to old people."

All this is done on a shoe string mostly by volunteers. Podojil says, "We did put in for a grant, But y'know, all these grants are so damn politically motivated."

If there's no grant yet, it's not because of a lack of effort. "I go to Washington," Podojil states, "and I really raise hell with these people. Y'know, they tell you all about this money they have for seniors under the Elderly Americans Act. But hey, this money never gets down to the people who really, actually

need it.'

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Because of those problems, and because of the bureaucratic maze Podojil has been through so many times, she has some choice words for area politicans. On Dennis Kucinich: "I've known Dennis for a long time, and he's got his good points. But I do not believe they have the expertise to run a billion dollar business. And running a city is a billion dollar business. I don't think they have the humility and compassion to run the city. He just doesn't seem to have it inside of him to say, 'Well, I think I'd better back up a little on this issue,' He just, hey, 'I'm going to do or die on this issue.' That's his attitude, you know.. and that's the attitude of the people he has with him.'

•

On Ohio Governor James Rhodes: "He don't do anything for the people. We went down to see him -and he didn't even want to see us. Wouldn't have, continued on page 14

March

Marsh

drasting by Margo Manały are from The Murders

"You've never seen an elderly person, especially a woman, walk down a street and see a baby, and not stop to admire that baby. So why not let elderly people live in places where there are babies too.”

Better Active Than Radioactive

Karen Silkwood's life was celebrated and her death protested at two demonstrations during the week preceding the fourth anniversary of her murder. Silkwood was a nuclear industry worker who became appalled at the safety abuses at the Kerr-McGee Corporation plutonium plant where she worked outside Oklahoma City. As an elected official of her local of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW), she carefully documented the serious safety hazards and non-reported abuses at the plant. She continued despite being twice contaminated herself by the deadly plutonium.

Karen

We Almember

Dranding by

On the night of November 15, 1974, Silkwood was on her way to meet with a New York Times reporter with a thick folder of the evidence, she had built against Kerr-McGee. Alone in her car, a crash -Karen Silkwood was dead and her documents stolen. Union members, feminists and anti-nuclear activists have rallied around her martyrdom as part

of a continuing movement to challenge the corporations' and utilities' efforts to impose massively unsafe nuclear energy on citizens of the United States. Several organizations in Cleveland who are working with these issues commemorated Karen's life as a way of continuing the work that led to her death.

The regular Friday protest vigil sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee to challenge the nuclear policies of CEI focused on the issues raised by Karen Silkwood's experience. On November 10, outside the Public Square offices of the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, demonstrators carried signs: "Dead Because She Knew Too Much?" and "Who Killed Karen Silkwood?" One casual observer remarked to his friend, "Is she that gal Kennedy killed at Chappaquidick?''. All dead “girls" still look alike.

A memorial service for Karen was held on November 13 in front of the Cleveland offices of Kerr-McGee at West 210th and Center Ridge Road, sponsored by Northshore Alert, NOW, OCAW, AFSC, Women Speak Out, and others. Seventy-five demonstrators heard speeches commemorating Karen Silkwood and supporting efforts to pressure Kerr-McGee and raise public awareness of Karen's murder and the hazards of nuclear energy. For more information, please contact:

Supporters of Silkwood (national) 317 Pennsylvania Ave., SE Washington, D.C. 20003

North Shore Alert! (Northeastern Ohio anti-nuclear organization) Marge Grevatt -861-6945 Suzanne Watson -771-4815

American Friends Service Committee sponsors weekly vigil in front of CEI Fridays, 11:30a.m. to 1:00 p.m.) Call North Shore Alert! contacts for information.

Janna Dieckmann