Adolphe Bernotas – After 58 years in the Guild, my age (82), health and my wife demand I step aside from my union duties.
Between those bookends — shop steward; executive board and representative assembly member of Local 31222, News Media Guild; NMG retiree coordinator; organizer and bargaining chairperson for WSG-AP talks; TNG convention committee chairperson; New England District Council president; Merrimack County Labor Council, AFL-CIO, president; Concord Labor Temple Association president; NH-AFL-CIO delegate; and IFJ representative to promote news industry unions in post-Soviet Mongolia, my native Lithuania, Romania, Bosnia and Croatia.
Since 1965, when I went to work at the Jersey (N.J.) Journal, I have served on every union council available to me, from Journal bargaining committee member, to Media Sector president of CWA Retired Members’ Council.
All this as AP writer-editor for 39 years signing newbies into the union and mentoring them in the delights, inconsistencies and wonders of English and its proper use (my second language); contributing to a Lithuanian language book on the World War II Lithuanian diaspora; co-authoring a book on bicycling in New Hampshire; and producing occasional pieces for Lithuanian periodicals.
And there were 10 years as host of an opera show on New Hampshire Public Radio, stints as labor representative on the local United Way and founding board member of the New Hampshire chapter of Alliance for Retired Americans.
My life’s partner says we’ve paid our dues and now’s our time. When I told my pal Norm Abelson, he said, “About time you retired from your union good works.”