William Savolainen talks about being an iron miner and a union organizer in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He says that he went to work in the mines in 1940 and talks about the mine environment, how miners worked and how they were paid, labor actions in the early 1940s that secured the union for workers, a strike in 1946 which lasted 105 days, union picketing and marches, various ethnic groups represented in the miner population, mine disasters, the impact of Scandinavians, especially Finns, on U.P. culture, his work in the building trades unions, and attending a building trades school at Michigan State University. He also bemoans what he calls a decline of democracy within the labor movement. Savolainen is interviewed by John Revitte, Michigan State University professor of Labor and Industrial Relations.
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