In Tuckahoe, New York, Frank Emspak became a political activist in high school and met Dolores Fox, his future wife, who was attending a nearby school. They would later raise two children, Jesse and Freya. Emspak chose the University of Wisconsin–Madison for college and while in Madison, he took part in local civil rights organizing campaigns. While in graduate school he moved into rising anti-war activity.
Beginning in 1973, Emspak worked a shoe manufacturing plant, represented by the UE, and later at the General Electric plant in Lynn, Massachusetts, represented by the International Union of Electrical Workers (IUE). He became a leader in the labor movement in Massachusetts, where he challenged factory management and existing union leadership alike on issues ranging from health and safety to women’s rights and changes in technology. His descriptions of tactics and strategy in his memoir, Troublemaker: Saying No to Power, remain valuable to readers within unions and outside of them.
Emspak soon became a regular guest on radio station WORT and an informal adviser to local unions and the Madison Central Labor Council. In 1998, he set out an ambitious plan for labor information and education on the radio nationally and beyond. He and Ellen La Luzerne created a weekly labor radio program that aired on the station, a wide-ranging, all-volunteer effort focused on the issues and concerns of working people. He produced “Labor Radio” in Madison, Wisconsin, until his final days. For nearly 15 years, Frank, Ellen and others regularly produced the Workers Independent News Service (WIN). Starting in 2002, WIN broadcast on 70 radio stations and later on the internet. His work on “Labor Radio” was recognized with a mayoral proclamation on the 25th anniversary of the program.
Read more.
