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But at age 61, he’s still full of enthusiasm for his work for organized labor. At the moment, he’s busy preparing for next week’s annual La Crosse Labor Day parade and Labor Fest.
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ERIK DAILY | LA CROSSE TRIBUNE
Terry Hicks has been president of the Western Wisconsin AFL-CIO Council since 1995. Hicks said he probably will seek re-election to another two-year term as council president in 2010. |
“He lives and breathes blue collar,” said John Medinger, a La Crosse County Board member, former La Crosse mayor and former Democratic state representative. “He’s a worker’s worker.”
Medinger described Hicks as “one of the most effective union leaders I’ve ever met.
”He’s done all the Labor Day events,” Medinger said. “His wife (Mary) is a strong partner. She’s always there behind the scenes helping Terry at events, serving the hot dogs and whatever.”
Hicks, 61, has been president of the Western Wisconsin AFL-CIO Council since 1995. Council delegates have elected him to seven consecutive two-year terms.
The council, which changed its name from La Crosse AFL-CIO Council in 2003, has union local affiliates in La Crosse, Monroe and Vernon counties. It sponsors the annual Labor Day parade and fest, as well as the local Workers Memorial Day held every April 28 to remember workers killed or injured on the job.
Hicks said he probably will seek re-election to another two-year term as council president in 2010.
“I can’t give it up,” he said. “I enjoy being a voice for organized labor.”
The lifelong La Crosse resident has been active in unions since about 1970.
His father, Elton Hicks, worked at the city’s wastewater treatment plant and was a union member. His mother, Helen, was a union member when she worked at the LaCrosse Rubber Mills factory. She also worked at Kmart.
“I grew up on the North Side,” Hicks said. After graduating from high school in 1965, he worked as a shipping clerk at LaCrosse Rubber Mills until he was drafted by the Army in 1966. Hicks served in the 193rd Infantry Brigade, was stationed in the Panama Canal Zone and attained the rank of specialist fourth class.
Then he returned to La Crosse and became an apprentice meatcutter in 1968. He was a meatcutter at local A&P and National Tea grocery stores until 1975, and was a member of a meatcutters union bargaining team.
After that, Hicks held miscellaneous jobs for a few years, before becoming a city bus driver in 1978. He retired from that job in December 2001.
“I enjoyed meatcutting,” Hicks said. “You had to develop a lot of manual skills to cut different meats. And I’ve always enjoyed working with my hands, and still do. I weld whimsical sculptures at home and give them to friends and family.”
As for driving a city bus, Hicks enjoyed “The public and being quasi-outside. At least I felt I was outside. And I love to drive.”
As a labor leader, Hicks said, “I’ve enjoyed being a voice for the voiceless. And feeling like I’ve played a part in the fight for social justice.”
In his union work, Hicks is most proud of coming up with the idea, money donations and volunteers for the local workers memorial — a gazebo-type monument in Green Island Park with plaques that bear the names of workers fatally injured on the job. The annual Workers Memorial Day event is held near the monument, which was dedicated in 2000.
“I’ve received many heartfelt comments from widows and children” of fatally injured workers after the annual event, Hicks said.
He also has been active in Democratic Party politics and was the party’s La Crosse County chairman for a few years in the 1990s. “We know whatever we win at the bargaining table today, we may lose in the halls of government tomorrow,” Hicks said of his reason for being active in politics.
There were more union members in the area when he was young, Hicks said. But since then, some factories have closed and some others have sent jobs overseas, he said.
“I’ve witnessed a reduction in the number of union members that work in industry,” Hicks said. “But I’ve seen an increase (in the number of union members) in the retail and service sectors.” The number of area union members has remained about the same during his years as council president, he said.
Since 2004, Hicks has been program director for the Mississippi Valley Labor Management Council, a La Crosse-based organization that fosters cooperation between labor and management in western Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota. Among other things, it has held educational workshops on such topics as preventing workplace violence.
Hicks has been editor of the labor council’s Union Herald monthly newspaper since 1999.
He is nearly finished writing “La Crosse Labors,” a history of organized labor in the La Crosse area. “I’d like to have it done this year or early next year,” said Hicks, who has been working on the book for several years.
“Having spent hours looking through the records of the Union Herald newspaper and the Western Wisconsin AFL-CIO when I was first hired and elected as editor and president, I saw the fragile state that many of the records were in,” Hicks said. “And being a history buff, it was a short leap to start compiling a history of workers and their unions. And very quickly it developed into a book-length project.”
Steve Cahalan can be reached at (608) 791-8229 or scahalan@lacrossetribune.com.
THE HICKS FILE
WHO: Terry Hicks of La Crosse.
TITLE: Since 1995, president of the Western Wisconsin AFL-CIO Council.
AGE: 61
FAMILY: He and his wife, Mary, have two children, Amy and Terry.
EDUCATION: Graduated from Logan High School in 1965.
