Ramsey County History – Winter 2014: “Fighting to Keep Seeger Running: Ralph M. Scalze and His Leadership of Local No. 20459, AFL-CIO, 1949–1955”

Fighting to Keep Seeger Running: Ralph M. Scalze and His Leadership of Local No. 20459, AFL-CIO, 1949–1955
Author: Gerald E. Scalze

A World War II veteran, Ralph Scalze was the leader of Local No. 20459 of the Refrigerator Workers’ Union of the AFL-CIO from 1949 to 1955, the largest union local at the Seeger Refrigerator Company on St. Paul’s East Side, where Scalze worked. Scalze made sure that pay and benefits for employees of Seeger were consistent with those of other major manufacturing industries around the country. One of his major accomplishments included purchasing the headquarters for Local No. 827 (the successor to Local No. 20459) in 1953, which was paid for and operating in the black by 1965. He negotiated contract increases in the average assembly line hourly wages, won provisions that paid workers during manufacturing breakdowns, brought major medical coverage and a pension plan to workers as well as death benefits and jury pay. When Seeger merged with Whirlpool Corporation in 1955, Ralph brought the International Brotherhood of Teamsters into the plant with the hope that this larger national union would have more clout. Employees, however, were disgruntled with the merger and union workers went on strike for thirteen weeks. In 1965, Scalze lost the election for president of the local. He retired from Whirlpool in 1983.
PDF of Scalze article