Southern Labor Archives: W. J. Usery, Jr.: Biography and Timeline

Born in Hardwick, Georgia on December 21, 1923, Willie Julian Usery, Jr. has been known as W.J. Usery, but universally as "Bill", throughout his entire life.  Educated at Georgia Military College (1938-1941) in Milledgeville, Usery worked as a machinist at naval shipyards in Brunswick, Georgia, and later as a Navy- enlisted (1943-1946) underwater welder on a repair ship in the Pacific Fleet.  While working as a maintenance machinist at the Armstrong Cork Company, Macon, Georgia (1948-1956), Usery attended Mercer University.

Usery was a founding member of the International Association of Machinists' Local Lodge 8 (joining March 1, 1952, what is now Local Lodge 918), eventually becoming its president and later IAM Grand Lodge Representative from 1956 until February 1969.  In 1961, GLR Usery was appointed industrial union representative on the President's Missile Sites Labor Commission at Cape Canaveral (Kennedy Space Center from 1963 on) and at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.  Additionally, Usery coordinated union activities at the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas and in 1967, became a member of the Cape Kennedy Labor-Management Relations Council, serving as its chair in 1968.

In February 1969, Usery received his first presidential appointment from Richard Nixon as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Labor-Management Relations.  While administering the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), Usery formulated and implemented Executive Order 1199, establishing standards of organizing and bargaining for more than two million Federal employees.  In 1970 and 1971, Usery worked intensively to settle disputes in the railway industry involving the Brotherhood of Airline and Railway and Airline Clerks (BRAC) and the United Transportation Union (UTU).  Employing his characteristic non-stop negotiations, Usery had already averted a 1971 nationwide strike by the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen.   Also in 1971, Usery obtained the first collective bargaining agreement in the history of the United States Postal Service.

From March 1973 until February 1976, Usery held the post of Director of Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, guiding more than 300 professional mediators in 79 field offices throughout the United States.  During this period, Usery was chief mediator in major labor-management disputes.  He also advised Presidents Nixon (Special Assistant to the President for Labor-Management Affairs, August 1974) and Ford (Special Assistant for Labor-Management Negotiations, April 1975) on the status of the nation's labor-management relations.  In October 1973, the AFL-CIO Council voted unanimously to offer Usery the directorship of the Department of Organization and Field Services, which he accepted but then declined at the request of President Nixon.

In February 1976, President Gerald Ford appointed Usery United States Secretary of Labor, a post which he held until Jimmy Carter became President on January 20, 1977.  Almost immediately following the end of Usery's government service, he founded Bill Usery Associates, Inc. (BUA), a Washington, D.C.-based firm providing consulting services in all areas of employer-employee relations.  Usery has also been selected to serve on Presidential Commissions, i.e. the Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations, and the
"Coal Commission."

Bill Usery Associates served as the catalyst for pioneering negotiations among the United Auto Workers, Toyota, and General Motors to produce the entity popularly known as "NUMMI," the New United Motors Manufacturing, Inc. (established 1983).  NUMMI's inception involved Usery's firm in international negotiation, planning for productivity, and an entirely new way to foster labor-management cooperation.  High profile strikes involving Usery and his firm's mediation talents include the Pittston Coal Strike (1989-1990) and the Major League Baseball Players Association Baseball Strike (1994-1995).  Usery remains "on call" as a special mediator as presidents seek to resolve labor conflicts.

Usery was a Co-Commissioner of both the Coal Commission, seeking to resolve thorny issues involving miners' retirement funding, and the Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations (1993-1995).  In 1985, Usery established the Bill Usery Labor Relations Foundation which helped create Partners in Economic Reform, a group working with democratic labor and management in the former Soviet Union.

In the mid-1990s, Usery's vision of labor-management cooperation found a home in the W.J. Usery, Jr., Center for the Workplace at Georgia State University, an entity with wide programmatic aims in collective bargaining, workplace productivity, and dispute resolution serving company and union leaders.  In early 2000, Usery scaled back his work in the Washington, D.C. area to shift his focus to the work of the Center.

Special Collections and Archives
Southern Labor Archives
W. J. Usery, Jr., Papers

Phone: (404) 413-2880
Fax: (404) 413-2881
E-Mail: archives@gsu.edu

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