This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 21, 2011 - When Robert O. "Bob" Kortkamp retired as secretary-treasurer of the Greater St. Louis Labor Council in 1995, friends at a testimonial dinner compared him to the legendary Polish leader Lech Walesa. After his death Thursday, a longtime friend and colleague, Dave Meinell, simply called him "Mr. Labor."
Though Mr. Kortkamp's name surfaced only occasionally in the press, just about everyone who held a union card or managed companies organized by unions knew Bob Kortkamp and the work he did here, across the nation and around the world on behalf of workers.
Mr. Kortkamp , 82, died Jan. 20 after suffering a heart attack at his home in Chesterfield. Friends said he had been vibrant until the end. He had taken part in the Building Trades Council Man of the Year dinner on Saturday night and another labor event on Tuesday. Mr. Kortkamp, a widower, became ill at home on Wednesday night and called for emergency help. He died about 2 a.m. Thursday at St. John's Mercy Medical Center in Creve Coeur.
A Mass will be celebrated for Mr. Kortkamp at 10 a.m. Wednesday Jan. 26 at Ascension Catholic Church, 230 Santa Maria Drive, Chesterfield. Burial will be in Calvary Cemetery, 5239 West Florissant Avenue, St. Louis. Visitation will be from 3 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 25 at Buchholz Mortuary West, 2211 Clarkson Road, Chesterfield.
At his retirement dinner 16 years ago, friends provided in the dinner program a description of Mr. Kortkamp that had first been applied to Walesa, the Polish labor leader who brought down a Communist dictatorship.
"By skillfully steering a course between militancy and moderation he has succeeded. Reluctant to talk about politics, he describes himself as 'a union man' who is simply trying to deal with workers' problems. Although not flamboyant, his direct, low-key anecdotal style appeals to his audiences. Although informal in his manner, he is an adroit politician and diplomat, always well-groomed and polite ... delivering the harshest of criticisms in the gentlest of voices."
A Battle For The Ages
In the view of his friends and colleagues, Mr. Kortkamp's finest hour may have come in working with then Labor Council President Bob Kelley and many others in defeating the right-to-rork referendum on the Missouri ballot. The measure would have allowed the state to bar "union shops," which require employees at an organized workplace to join the union and pay dues. Early polls showed labor faced an uphill battle against the referendum, which had a name that seemed attractive to many non-union workers unschooled in its implications.
"We were beat. There was no question about it," recalled Kelley. "We spent two years of our lives explaining to people what that measure really meant."
Supporters said the right to work law would give workers a choice concerning whether they wanted to belong to the union. If they opted out, they would still have to make payment to unions. But opponents argued that the law would decimate organized labor as it had in many other states. They needed to persuade Missourians that the wages and benefits negotiated on behalf of union members helped increase benefits for everyone.
And they succeeded; voters rejected the measure by a 3-2 margin.
"After we won," Kelley recalled, "Bob and I told each other that we were glad to be working at a time when we got to do it. But we didn't ever want do it again."
The Republican-controlled Missouri Legislature is again talking about a right-to-work measure. Mr. Kortkamp at the time of his death remained just as outspoken in opposition. Friends said Mr. Kortkamp recognized that the labor movement here remains fragile. The union membership rate in Missouri, according to figures cited in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has fallen from 25 percent of the workforce in 1978 to 11.2 percent in 2008.
'Someone put my name in'
Robert O. Kortkamp was born in St. Louis on May 17, 1928, and adopted at age 4, by Oliver and Frances Kortkamp, a couple living on the city's north side. Young Bob went to work for his dad's furniture moving business, handling both local and long distance moves. He joined the Army in the 1950s and served two years, mostly in Germany. When Oliver Kortkamp sold his business in 1957, Mr. Kortkamp took a job as a mechanic at what was then McDonnell Aircraft. Though his father had once briefly been a union officer, Mr. Kortkamp had no particular interest in union leadership. "Someone put my name in the running for steward" for Machinists Local 837, Mr. Kortkamp once recalled. "I hadn't really considered the position beforehand."
It didn't take long for his commitment to crystallize. "As an officer, I dealt more and more with the company over conflicts," Mr. Kortkamp recalled. "I began to realize that corporations really hold all the cards. ... Nothing in the contract was voluntarily given by the company. It was won by union leadership and union membership who, in many instances, had to 'hit the bricks' to win anything at all."
By 1964, Mr. Kortkamp had become a business representative for District 9. He left that position and McDonnell in 1971 to join the United Way as a labor liaison. In that role, Mr. Kortkamp worked with the legion of social service agencies the United Way supported. He played a key role in persuading union members to donate generously to the United Way's annual campaign.
Mr. Kortkamp would later serve for decades on the United Way's board and executive committee. For many years he co-chaired the United Way's advance campaign with August Busch III. Though the two came from different worlds, they became close friends, Kelley remembered. "Bob always wanted to tell him how to run the brewery," Kelley said. "And August would tease him about it."
Mr. Kortkamp returned to his old job at District 9 in 1977 after one of the agents died unexpectedly. A year later, he and Kelley were elected to the top two spots on the Greater St. Louis Labor Council, the umbrella organization representing AFL-CIO organizations in the region.
As Close As Brothers
Friends said Kelley and Kortkamp were as close as brothers. Kelley had a deft touch for politics. Kortkamp, a bit more blunt, was a master of detail and strategy. "I did the political stuff and he did the thinking," is the way Kelley put it in an interview with the Beacon on Thursday.
Kelley said Mr. Kortkamp sometimes grew impatient with glad-handing and was eager to get done whatever needed to be accomplished. He kept meticulous records and always planned way ahead. In fact, another longtime friend and colleague, Marcia Cline, said Mr. Kortkamp was already at work on the annual labor Mass to be held at the Shrine of St. Joseph downtown in May.
"If you ever looked at my desk, it was a pile of nonsense," Kelley said. "If you went into Bob's office, everything was in order."
Beyond his accomplishments, Mr. Kortkamp was remembered for his love of Lincoln town cars, particularly the white ones with the red-leather roof that he special-ordered. He also loved well-tailored clothes, which, as Kelley recalled with a laugh, were sometimes mismatched, as Mr. Kortkamp was color-blind. "I used to ask him, 'Who dressed you this morning?'"
Mr. Kortkamp and Kelley traveled the nation and the world together on behalf of the labor movement, meeting presidents, legislators and world leaders. Mr. Kortkamp took a particular interest in the developing labor movements in Central America, visiting Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s. "It was dangerous at times," Mr. Kortkamp recalled. "We traveled in armored vehicles and saw union offices that had been bombed and strafed, most officers killed."
Mr. Kortkamp, a devout Catholic who attended 5 a.m. Mass each morning, played an active role in Catholic Charities, and served on the board of directors of the Girl Scouts. In recent years, he worked with Dave Meinell, president of the Missouri Chapter of the Alliance for Retired Americans. "One of Robert's major achievements on behalf of retirees was to stop the privatization of Social Security," Meinell recalled. "He made speeches about it across America.
"Bob was a great orator," Meinell said. "He understood people. He had a gift that allowed him to put things in a perspective that everyone could grasp. I've lost my mentor."
Marcia Cline, a current United Way liaison, feels the same way after having worked with and known Mr. Kortkamp for 40 years. And she compared him to another legendary figure, Harry Truman. "Bob was like Truman," she said. "He didn't pull any punches."
Mr. Kortkamp was preceded in death by his wife, Elizabeth "Betty" Towers, whom he called his inspiration. Surviving are nine nieces and nephews.
Memorials may be made to Places for People 4130 Lindell Boulevard, St. Louis, Mo., 63108; the United Way of Greater St. Louis, Attn: Pledge Processing P.O. Box 500280, St. Louis, MO 63150; and Wings of Hope, 18370 Wings of Hope Boulevard, Chesterfield, MO 63005.
The St. Louis/Southern Illinois Labor Tribune provided a great deal of background information for this obituary.