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Phil Melnick, 61, began his career as an activist when he was sixteen years old. A young singer/guitarist/songwriter Phil published two songs, "After the War" and "All is Well," that were sung by topical folk singers throughout California during the mid-1960s. "After the War" was performed by Peter Geer (Will Geer's son) at the 100,000 strong anti-Vietnam War protest in San Francisco in 1967. Phil, then 17, knew that his life would be devoted to fighting against oppression, racism, and war.
Elected Associated Students Vice-President of San Fernando Valley State College in 1969 (now CSUN), Phil was arrested for conspiracy to commit a riot at a demonstration in remembrance of the massacre of students at Kent State College by the National Guard. He served four months and twenty days in Los Angeles County Jail beginning on his 21st birthday in 1970. "Jail changed me into a more serious and mature person," says Phil. "I knew how powerful the Establishment really was, and I was committed to changing America at all costs."
In 1974 Melnick was hired as a union organizer by the Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers Union AFL-CIO. Assigned to organizing primarily Latino workers in the sweatshops of Los Angeles, Phil and the other four members of his team were responsible for bringing more than 20,000 new members---many of them undocumented workers---into the union.
In 1979 Phil left the Amalgamated and moved to Guatemala to assist the Mayan people in their struggle against the U.S. supported military government that had already murdered more than 200,000 indigenous people. His bar in Panajachal in Lake Atitlan served as a clandestine headquarters for the Guerrilla Army of the Poor. Informed by close friends that there was a "hit" out on his life, Phil escaped from Guatemala through Nicaragua, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
Returning to the United States in 1980, Melnick became Co-Director (along with GFI Board Member Jim Smith) of the CWA Psych Tech Union. Phil & Jim oversaw a staff of more than twenty organizers and representatives and together directed an organizing project that brought 8,000 new members into the union. At the time, it was the largest union organizing victory in California in more than 30 years.
From 1982 through 1985 Phil moved to Copenhagen, Denmark where his column in "Land og Folk" newspaper---"Letter from the USA"---received honors in journalism. While in Denmark he published a book about unions in the garment industry---"The Organizing of H & H Manufacturing Company"---that was widely read in Denmark and Norway. His article, "Inside the AFL-CIA," was voted "Best Article of the Year" by the staff of Land og Folk. While in Europe Phil traveled to Switzerland, Italy, and lived in Yugoslavia for six months---publishing articles in newspapers and magazines throughout Europe.
In 1985 Melnick returned to the USA and became an organizer and negotiator for the International Association of Machinists, the California School Employees Association, and the California Nurses Association.
In 1996 he and blues guitarist Brian James recorded an album of Phil's poems, "Spoken Blues," and embarked on a tour of California, Oregon, and Washington performing for audiences large and small. "L.A. Magazine" wrote: "Melnick's poetry is "tough, gritty, working class...with a sublime quality that is all the richer for the steel guitar accompaniment of B. James."
In 2000 Phil retired as a union organizer and earned his degree in Labor Studies from the National Labor College in Maryland. In 2008 he was awarded a Master of Arts degree from Prescott College in Arizona in "Labor and Media," specializing in the damaging impact of traditional media on the minds of Americans, particularly children. His research and writing on the subject of subliminal messaging in television and print advertising is still pace-setting.
Now a candidate for a second M.A.---this time in "Screenwriting: Theory and Practice," Phil has completed two screenplays that are currently on the market. He is in the process of completing his teleplay for GFI's five-part television series: "Curanderos" (Healers) that explores techniques of healing including shamanism, music, sound, art, dance, Tai Chi, and Chi Gung. Aside from writing the teleplay, Phil is directing and producing the series.
"I am in love with America," says Phil, "and the greatness of our people. We must put our political differences aside and fight against the deliberate poisoning of our population by chemical trails, genetically modified organisms, and geo-engineering. I'm neither left nor right. I'm just a patriot who knows the score."
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