09/24/2024
From the Sacramento CLC:
It is with heavy hearts that the Sacramento Central Labor Council remembers the extraordinary life and legacy of Bill Camp, a man whose dedication to working people and unwavering commitment to justice have left an indelible mark on our community. Today we have lost a true leader; the best of us. Bill's years of service as Executive Secretary of the Sacramento Central Labor Council were defined by his deep belief that every worker deserved dignity, fair wages, and a voice on the job.
Bill was more than a labor leader; he was a warrior for social justice. He understood that the fight for workers' rights was inherently tied to the broader struggles for racial and economic equality, and civil rights. Under his leadership, the Labor Council became a powerful force not just for union workers but for all who faced oppression and hardship.
Bill's tireless advocacy for working families was rooted in his profound compassion and his moral conviction that no one should be left behind. He marched in the streets, organized in union halls, and lobbied in the halls of power with the same passion and energy. His presence was a fixture at picket lines, community forums, and at every place where the fight for justice was being waged.
But more than his accomplishments, Bill will be remembered for the relationships he built. He was a mentor to countless young organizers and a friend to all who sought a better world. His legacy lives on in the movements he helped build, the lives he touched, and the future generations of labor leaders he inspired.
We will never forget Bill's dedication, his unwavering courage, and his commitment to building a world where all workers can stand tall. His spirit will continue to guide the Sacramento labor movement for years to come.
In solidarity, we say: Rest in power, Brother Bill. Your fight lives on in us all.
**The Life of Bill Camp**
Bill Camp was the Executive Secretary of the Sacramento Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, from December 1999 through December 2014. During this time, the Central Labor Council represented 171,000 union members in the Sacramento region.
Bill was born and raised on a farm near Anderson, South Carolina—a cotton mill town in the red hills at the foot of the Smokey Mountains in the northwest corner of the state.
He made a key choice when he decided to enroll in a small Methodist college in Jackson in 1962, the beginning of a tough struggle for social justice in the states of the old confederacy. Bill joined the Civil Rights Movement there. He worked with students and their professors at a predominately college of African American students called Tougaloo College. His efforts to break the policy of racial segregation between the two colleges was somewhat successful when 108 Millsaps students attended a Joan Biaz concert at Tougalou one night. He later was put on an assassination list when he offended the state president of the White Citizens Council. He was told that if he left the state of Mississippi before the sun went down, the Ku Klux Clan would not follow him into another state to execute him. That was when Bill crossed the border and decided to move to the west coast at the age of 20.
He then moved to Oregon and received his BA Degree in Sociology at the University of Oregon in 1966.
He returned to the South and enrolled in a PhD program in Sociology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. There he began to picket with workers who were organizing a union at the Cohn Cotton Mills chain. At that time, the 250,000 cotton mill workers in North Carolina were earning an average of $38.00 a week in take home pay. When Bill returned in the evening to the Duke campus to do some homework , he struck up a conversation with some of Duke’s custodial staff who were his friends. These workers of African ancestry were being paid $1.12 1/2 per hour less than the national minimum wage of $1.25 per hour. When I told them I had been helping to organize a union at a cotton mill, they said they wanted to organize a union at Duke. I talked later with the textile workers union and they agreed to meet with the Duke custodial staff at their homes, but the Duke workers could not disclosed to anyone that they had given me their home phone numbers. Two weeks later the textile workers called and said they had signed up every worker of African American heritage at Duke. This was April, 1968, the time that Martin Luther King was murdered. There was an outpouring of grief among the students and faculty following Kings murder. The union called and told him that the Duke workers they had signed up wanted to strike. This would only have a slim chance of producing a contract. However, if the Duke students boycotted classes in support of the custodians, there a some chance that it could get management to the bargaining table. Bill went to work, leafleting every dining hall on the campus urging the students to stop attending class until Duke agreed to bargain. Ultimately, 2/3’s of the students supported the strike by not attending class. Management caved to the pressure from the alumni association who worked on Wall Street and agreed to bargain. Bill got called into his faculty Advisor’s office and told that the Vice President of the university had called the Sociology faculty and told that Bill would never pass another class at Duke. If he just packed up and left Duke, he would receive a masters degree in Sociology. The Duke workers got a union contract.
Bill moved back to the University of Oregon to work on a doctorate degree in education. After two years, Bill was bored and moved to Redding to work in the Lyndon Johnson poverty program. There he organized Head Start parents to terminate their contract with the racist County Superintendent of Schools and place the control of the program under the local nonprofit called Shasta County Community Action Agency. Bill was again fired for his role in organizing the change over and went to work supervising Vista volunteers.
After Ronald Reagan was elected US President, the income to the Community Action Agency was cut and Bill was once again laid off. He went to work as a volunteer in the McGovern campaign for President working to get rural northern Californians to vote for McGovern. 3 of the 6 counties in California that McGovern carried in California were in the rural “cow” counties of Northern California where Bill volunteered. Bill then helped create and worked with the progressive “Rural Caucus” to successfully elected an African American union woman to the Democratic National Committee, a union worker from CWA to the Democratic National Committee, a man of Hispanic heritage as Norther California Treasurer of the California Democratic Party, and an woman of African American heritage as the Northern California Chair of the California Party. Bill went to work for the California Democratic Party organizing the broad coalition on candidates running for Governor in 1974.
After Jerry Brown’s successful election as Governor in 1974, Bill and his wife, Catherine, and their sons, Ben and Bayliss, moved to Sacramento. Catherine found work quickly, and Bill eventually went to work in 1975 for the newly created agency providing bargaining rights to agricultural workers, the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. Bill quickly gained the confidence of farm workers, because he never allowed a ballot box during a union vote to be located inside a building. Putting the ballot box “in the fields” made a huge difference to the comfort of the workers in voting.
After the United Farm Workers union won all the elections in the lettuce fields of the Imperial Valley, East of San Diego, the lettuce growers refused to bargain with the union. The workers struck the growers and one of the striking workers, Rufino Contreras was murdered by the lettuce companies. Soon the Sheriff of Imperial County Called the ALRB and urged the agency to send someone down to help defuse the hostility that was bordering on a race war. Bill with his southern accent was sent to Imperial County. After meeting with each Police Chief and all the law enforcement and the lettuce growers in the Camber of Commerce, Bill stopped by the UFW strike headquarters and ask his friend Marshall Ganz how the strike was going. Marshall complained they could settle this strike in two weeks if they could get the sheriff’s deputies to quit stopping the strikers who were following the scab workers to where they were working. I suggested he fill unfair labor practice charges against the Sheriff. This was a unique feature of the act creating the ALRB. He agreed and walked into the ALRB regional office the next day with a tall stack of complaints. Shortly thereafter, the Imperial County Sheriff came to the California State Senate and asked for a financial bailout to prevent the county from going bankrupt due to the enormous amount of overtime he was paying to his deputies. Senator Craven’s bailout bill sailed through the State Senate and was referred to the Assembly Revenue and Finance Committee chaired by Assemblymember, Willie Brown. Bill called Dolores Huerta and told her she had to come to Sacramento to give Willie Brown a piece of paper with an amendment to Craven’s bailout bill. She handed the paper to Willie Brown and during the hearing, Chairman Brown asked Senator Craven to consider a small amendment to his bill. Craven graciously accepted the amendment knowing the bill was dead without the Chair’s amendment. That afternoon around 4:00 pm, Bill got a call from the Imperial County Deputy Sherrif’s Association asking him to fly to Imperial County and explain this amendment. Bill did and in the meeting filled with big guys with guns, Bill explained that he had been informed that if any deputy in the county followed one more striker, the General Counsel of the ALRB would file an unfair labor practice complaint and automatically all the money would go away needed to save the wages and vacation benefits and health benefits of the deputies. Bill left the meeting and flew back to Sacramento. Two weeks later, Marshall Ganz called Bill and said the strike was settled and a new wage increase was coming to the farm workers. In September, Bill received another call from Imperial County. The caller complained that Bill had created a big problem for the high schools in the county. All the young children of farm workers had always gone to work in the lettuce fields when the finished eight grade. With the new contract, the farm workers children had all showed up for 9th grade and there were nowhere for them to sit in their classrooms. That contract created a whole new life of opportunity for those children of those farm workers That is what unionization is all about.
Bill worked at the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board from 1975 until 1985. When George Deukmejian was elected Governor of California in 1982, the Republican staff at the ALRB announced that Bill Camp would be fired by the Governor when the budget got to his desk. Sure enough, the Governor went through the entire ALRB budget, found Bill’s salary and line item vetoed Bill’s salary. Everyone assumed Bill was finished, but Bill announced that he would take the next open position because he had more seniority than anyone else. When told that this meant a $10,000.00/year cut in income, Bill replied he did not care. Governor Deukmegian would have to layoff everyone before he got to his position because of his seniority. Bill remained on the ALRB payroll in charge of press relations and the legislative liaison protecting the ALRB budget and policies. During the next three years the California press broadcast the many, many illegal and biased decisions that Governor Deukmegian’s General Counsel made against the farm workers. Finally Gov. Deukmegian was almost ready to appoint the majority of the ALRB board and it was time for Bill to move on.
Bill went to work for the California State Senate Rules Committee from 1985 until 1991. There he worked as a liaison to unions throughout the state keeping the Rules Committee informed about issues unions were facing with policy bills and the state budget. However, whenever a State Senate election critical to Senator David Roberti’s leadership position came up, Bill was taken off the legislative payroll and sent to whereever a critical election was taking place. There Bill took on the responsibility, preparing the union volunteers to knock on doors and talk to voters about the pro labor state senate candidates. Bill developed a reputation as “Reverend Bill” due to his motivational persuasion.
When the budgets of the state legislature was cut by 40% in 1991, Bill was laid off. He went to work for the California Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO focusing on support for the federation’s central labor councils and their local unions helping them engage their members in volunteer political activity. Bill worked as the Assistant COPE Director of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, from 1991 through 1999.
In December 1999, he became the Executive Secretary (Chief Executive Officer) of the Sacramento Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO. This council is the political, policy, and public voice for the 171,000 AFL-CIO Working Families of Sacramento and the five surrounding counties including Yolo, Placer, El Dorado, Nevada, and Amador counties. Bill is married to Catherine Camp. They have two sons, a daughter-in-law, a son-in-law,and one granddaughter named Elizabeth and four grandsons named Beck, John Daniel, Owen Jacques and Ezra Julian.
Through the rest of his life, Bill continued to travel to Cuba and Honduras building international solidarity with the unions and their leadership in those two countries.
