Charles Heymanns, sometimes referred to as the “Grand Old Man of Wisconsin Labor,” was born in Beringen, Luxembourg on November 8, 1901. He attended school for seven years, after which he worked first as a shoemaker for his father and later as a farmer. In 1920 Heymanns immigrated to Iowa, where he worked on the farm of a distant cousin. In December 1922, Heymanns and his brother Michael moved to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where both found employment at the Kohler Company.
During the Depression, work hours at the Kohler Company were severely reduced. These conditions, combined with the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act which guaranteed labor's right to organize and bargain collectively, created an atmosphere that was conducive to labor organizing. In addition to the reduced hours, Kohler workers had complaints concerning health hazards, piece rates, and deductions for defective workmanship. In July 1933, Heymanns and other Kohler workers formed Federal Labor Union No. 18545 which was affiliated with the Sheboygan Labor Council and the American Federation of Labor.
In September 1933, the Kohler Company laid off thousands of workers. During the next year, Heymanns and other members of the collective bargaining committee met with company officials several times without reaching an agreement. Company officials, meanwhile, maintained their refusal to recognize the rights of any organization as the sole bargaining agent and they assisted in the creation of their own company union, the Kohler Workers Association (KWA).
In July 1934, Local 18545 initiated a strike for recognition and bargaining rights. After only eleven days, the strike erupted into violence, and on July 27, 1934, after turning back a coal delivery to the factory, strikers armed with bricks and stones went on a destructive rampage throughout the village. In response to this mob activity, the special deputies hired by the company opened fire and two workers, Lee Wakefield and Henry Engelmann, were killed and an additional 47 people were injured.
As president of Local 18545, Heymanns traveled across the country speaking to conventions and other labor groups, soliciting their support for the Kohler strike and a boycott of Kohler products. Each year, he participated in memorial pickets to honor the two men killed during the strike, and he also helped to maintain token picket lines at Kohler throughout the 1930s. In 1937 Heymanns was hired by the American Federation of Labor as a field representative, thus beginning his thirty-year career as a Wisconsin labor organizer.
In 1941 a settlement was finally negotiated between Local 18545 and the Kohler Company. It allowed for the rehiring of all former employees with the exception of Heymanns, Rudolph Renn (the union secretary), and Otto Janish (the treasurer). In addition, KWA remained the only union at Kohler.
During the 1940s, labor organizers from the AFL and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) often competed with each other. During this period a significant amount of the organizing effort was channeled into discrediting the other union.
In 1954, Sheboygan Local 833 of the United Auto Workers (UAW) began a strike against the Kohler Company. Although it would be another four years until the AFL merged with the CIO, George Meany (then president of the AFL) authorized Heymanns to give his full support to the CIO-affiliated local. This cooperation is thought to have facilitated the merger of the Wisconsin State Federation of Labor and the Wisconsin State Industrial Union Council four years later. The second Kohler strike lasted until 1965, when the company was forced by the U.S. Supreme Court to recognize the UAW and to pay 4.5 million dollars in back pay and benefits.
From 1951 to 1956, Heymanns served as director of Region 9 of the AFL. After the merger he continued as director of Region 12 of the AFL-CIO from 1956 to 1968. Heymanns retired from the AFL-CIO in 1968, although he remained active in the 6th District Committee on Political Education (COPE) and he also represented Building Laborers Local 80 in the Sheboygan Labor Council. He also helped to organize a boycott against the Charles Manufacturing Company for the United Furniture Workers of America, Local 800. Charles Heymanns died on November 16, 1993.
