Labor Federation’s Robertson to Retire

Bill Robertson, the onetime bartender and bouncer who rose to become a major labor leader and community power broker, has decided to retire as executive secretary-treasurer of the 700,000-member Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

The 74-year-old Robertson, whose labor career has spanned nearly 50 years, will officially announce his plans today. He will be replaced by Jim Wood, 48, the No. 2 executive of the federation for seven years and the chairman of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency since 1980.

The switch at the helm of the AFL-CIO organization--scheduled to take effect after a vote by federation delegates Monday--follows a decade in which unions in Southern California and nationwide have been battered by job losses and dwindling membership.

But it also comes as organized labor’s spirits are buoyed by the election of President Clinton, whose Administration is regarded as the first in 12 years to be friendly to union causes.

In fact, Robertson said he began contemplating retirement a year ago but decided to stay on to campaign for the election of pro-labor presidential and mayoral candidates. Robertson was dealt a severe disappointment with Richard Riordan’s victory this month over labor-backed Michael Woo in the Los Angeles mayoral race.

Robertson said his decision to retire a full year before his current term as the labor federation’s top official expires was motivated by a desire to return to private life and not prompted by Riordan’s election. “There’s always a time for the changing of the guard and, in my case, I think it’s time to bow out,” Robertson said.

With his gravelly voice and silver hair, Robertson was a regular fixture in progressive-liberal political movements in Southern California and Democratic Party campaigns.

“For at least the last couple of decades, he’s been one of the more visible and more effective decision-makers in the Los Angeles region,” said Larry Berg, director of the Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics at USC.

“He came out of the classic labor leader tradition--a socially responsible, socially active person.”

In addition to brokering important labor backing of ballot measures and candidates, Robertson was a key confidant and trouble-shooter for Mayor Tom Bradley during his 20 years in office.

Robertson stood firmly with Bradley through some of his toughest moments, including the 1989 ethics scandal that rocked City Hall and the early effort to oust Police Chief Daryl F. Gates after the beating of Rodney G. King.

“They don’t make people like Bill anymore,” said Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani. “Those of us who have known him have always been impressed by his fierce loyalty. If you were his friend, he would do anything for you.”

In addition to serving as a Bradley appointee to the city parks commission, Robertson has served on the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission on and off since 1979. He calls his role as chief negotiator in the deal that brought the Raiders professional football team to Los Angeles from Oakland one of his proudest accomplishments.

Robertson was later drafted by Bradley to rescue negotiations when team owner Al Davis was threatening to return the Raiders to Oakland.

Not only did Robertson persuade Davis to stay, he also helped seal the complex public-private deal to renovate the aging Coliseum. “If it wasn’t for (him), the Coliseum would be a hulking shell, totally useless,” Fabiani said. “Instead, it’s undergoing a major renovation.”

But Robertson also suffered bitter setbacks. He cites the defeat of union efforts to organize gravediggers employed by the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese, a campaign that led to a split between Robertson and Cardinal Roger M. Mahony that has never been repaired.

Although Wood has been Robertson’s protege for years, the incoming federation chief has a far different background and personal style than his mentor. Trim and college-educated, Wood came to the federation as a political operative after a brief career as a telephone company wireman.

Robertson attended Marquette University for a year but left after suffering an injury and losing his football scholarship. He later earned his livelihood as a boxer and semipro baseball player but moved away from sports after developing a serious drinking problem.

In his late 20s, Robertson, a native of St. Paul, Minn., moved to Los Angeles and got a job as a bartender and bouncer. He became involved in the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union Local 694 in the San Fernando Valley, and eventually headed a group of insurgents and was elected president. Later, he joined the federation as a business agent and moved up through the ranks.

“Mine has been a traditional labor background,” Robertson said. “I was a union president for 10 years and an organizer. Jim hasn’t had those types of experiences. One might think of him as a new breed. . . . He’s certainly no clone of Bill Robertson.”

Robertson added that “it remains to be seen how Jim adapts and adjusts” but he expressed confidence that Wood “can provide leadership.”

Wood said that his and Robertson’s styles have been complementary and that there will be little substantive shift in the federation’s direction. “I grew up with the labor movement in the 1960s. I’ve got the interest in social activism. Bill showed me how to use that social activism to accomplish goals,” Wood said.

Wood, who has been a key political player in his own right in recent years, can be more centrist in his approach, some say. He charted a carefully balanced course on homeless issues and other social policy downtown as Bradley’s head of the Community Redevelopment Agency.

“Jim is seen as more politically pragmatic,” Fabiani said.