Old enough to retire but
Too young to sit still
Tony Marietta and Leo Gray have a lot in common. They’re both UAW retirees. They each worked more than 30 years at a General Motors facility. And they got involved in their union after they retired.
For Gray — who’s now a local trustee and coordinates the UAW Local 1618 Retiree-to-Retiree Program — it was because of his local’s longtime retirees.
“That group is feisty and energetic, and they motivated me to get more involved,” said Gray, 52, who has a 25-year-old son, works part time at a grocery deli and likes to bowl.
“They amaze me,” he said. “Some are on oxygen and not in the best of health. But they’re always there, and I thought to myself, ‘I’ve got to do something — they’re making me look bad,’ ” Gray added with a laugh.
Gray retired four years ago as a Hi-Lo driver from GM’s Lansing (Mich.) Craft Center after 31 years. He started at the automaker’s Hamtramck facility when he was 18.
When he worked, Gray wasn’t that involved in the union, but he always attended union meetings. Back in the early 1970s, he attended training at the UAW’s Family Education Center at Black Lake. Some 30 years later, he went again as a retiree.
The local’s retiree program focuses on political action and community service, including the March of Dimes. Their next project is a clothing drive for needy children.
Like Gray, Tony Marietta wanted to be more active when he was working.
“I tried when I was younger, but I was too busy,” said Marietta, who lives with his wife, Jeannie, in Escanaba, Mich., in the state’s Upper Peninsula.
After 32 years at GM’s Buick Motor Division in Flint, the UAW Local 599 member retired in 1995. Now financial secretary for the Escanaba retiree chapter, Marietta meets with fellow retirees twice a month.
For the last few years, he’s been part of an amateur ham radio club which helps local law enforcement with search and rescue cases.
“We set up disaster checkpoints, like when there’s a power outage, and also help find people who are lost in the woods and on the water,” said Marietta, 57, a hunter who also has three horses.
It’s always a challenge to get people involved, but Gray thinks they’ve found a way to get started.
“We’re inviting some of our new retirees to attend our functions so we can show them that it’s not just a lot of folks who just sit around and do nothing. It’s not like that at all,” he said.
