Anti-Sweatshop Pastor

The Pastor Who Made Kathy Lee Cry
 
Rev. David Dyson, born in 1946,  in a suburb of Pittsburgh in Western Pennsylvania, in the culture of Friday Night Lights and the Land of Namath, Ditka and Montana.  His father was a United Steel Worker and his mother a nurse.   The shy  high school kid was a football lineman,  a drama club member and loved rock-n-roll.
 
In his church, Seminary Students share about Civil Rights, Freedom Rides,  Martin Luther King who makes the stories of Jesus, sacrifice and selflessness relevant.  At age 17, his summer job at the Mackintosh Hemphill Foundry introduce him work ethic and unionism.
 
At Bethany College in West Virginia Dave is introduced to the theology of  the “Germans,” -  Bonhoeffer,  Tillich and Bultman and to be a Christian is to participate with God in the suffering of the world.
 
In January of 1968,  he travels to Israel where pieces of planes and burned out tanks are scattered throughout the land.  He writes a Spring paper about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.  Reverend Martin Luther King is assassinated in April of 1968 and the best way for him to honor his legacy is to enter ministry entering the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.  In August of 1968,  he marries his high school sweet heart Sally Fields.
 
Jesuit priests Daniel and Philip Berrigan are protesting the Vietnam War.  David joins the Vietnam Committee, participates in the “die in” at the Pentagon,  and joins the Africa Committee to protest human rights atrocities in Angola joining the divestment campaign against  the Gulf Oil Company.
 
His first field assignment is with Trinity Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, across the street from the Red Eagle Club run by the Genovese Mafia family.  Dave attends Pitt University and works as a mental case worker at the Western Psychiatric Institute, with many Irish Mill boys stealing cars for mob chop shops.  He volunteers with the George McGovern Campaign Office in Pittsburgh and gets to meet national manager Gary Hart, and Eunice Shriver,  sister to John Kennedy.
 
Dave works with the Middletown Presbyterian Church near Philadelphia, and decides to become involved in the issues of the day by working with the United Farm Workers.  Dave will work fifteen years in the labor movement.
 
Dave works with the United Farm Workers and become friends with Cesar Chavez, the iconic spiritual leader of the grape boycott.  At times, he acts as body guard in the age of assassinations of American progressives.  Leaving the UFW, Dave becomes an organizer with the ACTWU,  the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union.
 
The Stevens Boycott:  In NYC,  Dave and 23 others get arrested at Gimbels for wearing Boycott JP Stevens shirts.  This company is made famous through the Norma Rae movie with actress Sally Field (Dave’s wife, is Sally Fields with an “s.”), who wins the Oscar Award for her performance of Crystal Lee.  The boycott is called off when Stevens agrees to sign a contract covering 8,000 workers.
 
UFW Campaign against Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance to divest its money in Coachella citrus ranches.  Delegations of religious and community leaders generated free media against the company and the campaign won.  Dave was part of 25 UFW workers trained by the legendary Fred Ross,  who trained Saul Alinsky and use to hang out with John Steinbeck and Woodie Guthrie.
 
Cannon Towels in Kannapolis North Carolina takes three elections, but the workers finally voted in a union.
 
Tip Top Tailors in Toronto Canada consisted of 500 workers speaking five different languages, but Dave helped them get a union.
 
Juvenile Shoes in Missouri sold shoes in malls.  Fifty percent of their profits came from nurses shoes.  The nurses stopped buying shoes,  the company finally agreed to recognize a union.
 
SOLIDARITY WORK: Workers from the ACTWU hopped in vans to southwest Virginia to help the coal miners at the Pittston Coal Company win their strike over safety issues and cuts in benefits.  They joined a blockade with the coal miner wives called the Daughters of Mother Jones.  They claimed victory in one week that stayed completely non-violent.
 
El Salvador:  The AFL-CIO may have supported unions in the U.S., but was used as a CIA front to support right wing agendas in El Salvador.  It was the land where Bishop Oscar Romero commanded the military “to stop killing brothers and sisters in the name of Christ,”  over a radio broadcast,  and was assassinated while officiating a church service in consequence.
 
Dave helped organize the National Labor Committee which became known as the group the made Kathy Lee cry over her child labor sweatshops in Central America.  Dave also was part of the movement to free the STECEL 9, or the 9 hydro-electrical workers who were sent to jail or disappeared after their strike.  Representative Marcy Kaptur gave Dave time to testify to Congress as to what things he witnessed in El Salvador.  The N.L.C. organized a rally in Washington DC on April 25th, 1987 on El Salvador, and in January of 1992,  the civil war there came to an end.
 
Riverside Church: Dave works at Riverside Church in NYC and then becomes the 7th pastor of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn since the Civil War.
 
He starts the People of Faith Network in helping to fight sweatshop and child labor conditions in conjunction with the National Labor Committee.  How is a corporation to respond to letterhead of  hundreds of religious organizations except to be shamed into doing the right thing.
 
He helps organize the Gap Campaign using Chinese-run factories in San Salvador.  The NLC helps uncover the shops making Kathy Lee clothing,  and she cries on television over the sweatshop and child labor conditions,  but works with them to make things right.  The NLC also uncovers American companies using Maquiladora factories in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
 
The Disney Campaign:  The Anti-sweatshop campaigns took off in the mid-1990’s when American college students pressured colleges to not buy clothing from corrupt subcontractors.  David Gonzalez of the NY Times helped by writing about the campaign in 1996.  Haitian workers are paid 23 cents an hour by Disney, but need 50 cents for rent, food and schooling for the children.
 
Nike Puebla Factory in Mexico had worms in its workers food, and used the police to beat up the female workers after a wildcat strike. Nike eventually changes the management.
 
Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church Ministry in Brooklyn NY,   Reverend Dyson, or Dave he prefers to be called,  is “the People’s Pastor.”  His church is involved in helping run a Men’s Homeless Shelter,  works with Habitat for Humanity helping build homes for the poor, and serves as a refuge for at least 36 who showed up covered in white soot, tears and in shock after the Twin Tower attack on 9/11/01.
 
Trying to Organize the Fulton Street Mall Workers after a year of organizing efforts cannot defeat the dummy or company union run by a local Mafia family.  The UFCW union was too afraid of physical reprisal, and a year later the Fazio crew is convicted of racketeering by the FBI.
 
Anti-Iraq War Campaign:  The Church hosts and event with Cindy Sheehan,  mother of Casey Sheehan who was killed in Iraq.  Iraq War Veteran,  Tomas Young, who was shot and paralyzed,  speak and are filmed for the documentary BODY OF WAR, which is produced by Phil Donahue.
 
RETIREMENT:  Dave retires in January of 2011, is named Pastor Emeritus of LAPC,  enjoying time with his wife, daughter, son in law and the hugs and kisses of the grand child.
 
I salute Dave and Sally Dyson’s commitment to Christ, and their sacrifices to fighting for peace and justice – a life well lived.