After 40 years, Tenth District Regional Organizing Coordinator John Murphy is retiring.

Brother Murphy was born into a classic Florida agriculture family working citrus and cattle.

"I thought we were lower middle class but, really, we were probably upper lower class," Murphy said.

In 1981, he was hired as an auxiliary operator at Tampa Electric Company, TECO, and joined Tampa Local 108.

"It was an entry-level, foot-in-the-door job I did not want to do, but it put me on the path," Murphy said.

Gannon Station where he worked was filled with Vietnam War veterans, and Murphy said they brought their understanding of the life-or-death value of camaraderie, loyalty, and brotherhood to the local.

Encouraged by the stewards in the plant, he started attending local meetings, talking to new hires and volunteering at pickets. He was often the youngest person there and welcome because of it.

"They were hard as woodpecker lips," he said of his union brothers.

By 1988, Murphy was a journeyman mechanic certified welder and he was tapped to be a steward.

"After welder, I never had another career goal," he said.

But other people had plans for him. In 1993 he was invited to join a slate of candidates to run the local.

"In the end it was guys on my crew who pushed me to do it," Murphy said.

For 15 years he did whatever the local's 14 units needed.

"There ain't a hat rack big enough if you are working at a local union," he said.

His true love, he discovered, was organizing.

"You can get up every morning and know you may get a chance to help moms and dads raise their kids better," he said. "That doesn't mean you will. Sometimes the phone will ring and it won't work out, but every day there's a chance."

Over time he got good at it; not just the connection with the workers, but the logistics of a campaign, working with the volunteer organizing committee, and judging within a vote or two either way, where the campaign stood.

"Ninety-nine percent of the time, there is no rabbit in the hat," he said. "People can accept an ugly truth, but if you risk their livelihoods on a pretty thing that isn't there just because you want it so much, they will walk away and never come back."

Of all the campaigns he's worked on over the decades, one that sticks out was one of his earliest.

TECO Energy controlled coal mines, coal barges and unloading docks in addition to the utility. Everybody was union except the dockworkers.

"When I think of their working conditions and the abuse it just made me… any person would be angry," Murphy said. "I worked across the fence from them for 14 years and they weren't any different. Half were kinfolk who didn't get in at the utility. It was just luck."

An organizing drive in 1989 failed, but 10 years later, they were ready.

Troy Trice was there when the drive failed and still there in 1999. In his 15 years nonunion, Trice says he got a single raise: a nickel bump to $8.15 an hour. Complaining about safety was a quick way to get fired.

"Murphy was just straight with us. He didn't sugarcoat anything and when we called him, he always showed up," Trice said. "He is a good man."

Twenty years on, everything has changed on the docks. The stevedores make the same pay and can bid on jobs inside the utility. Astonishingly, Trice said, eight of the 12 current dock workers bid in from the powerhouse because the opportunity is better to move up.

"That was unheard of before we joined the IBEW," Trice said.

Every year on the anniversary of the representation vote, Trice calls Murphy to thank him and Murphy thanks him right back.

"That campaign made me," Murphy said.

In 2008, then-International President Ed Hill appointed Murphy to the still young Membership Development Department as lead organizer for the Carolinas.

"For the first time in my career, the IBEW was putting real resources, effort, manpower, and talent into organizing. I thought, 'This might be cool,'" he said.

Once again, he had much to learn.

"The IBEW runs on a combination of a small number of elected and appointed full-time officials and a slew of unpaid volunteers. In the Tenth we had 52 locals and only 19 full-time business managers, 17 in construction," he said. "The key to succeeding was figuring out what size campaign was needed and how to meet that need with the resources at hand."

So, while the most rewarding part of his job was talking with nonunion workers, the most important part was organizing the IBEW itself, breaking down the artificial boundaries that kept different locals, classifications and job titles from working together.

In 2012, Hill appointed Murphy as the Tenth District regional organizing coordinator and Murphy moved to Chattanooga, Tenn., to continue working to unify the IBEW's organizing resources.

The culmination was the Electrolux campaign in Memphis.

"That was the first campaign in the southeast where we brought in local and international organizers with rank-and-file activists from all classifications, construction and P&I and put them all together. The southern guys teaching and learning from the northern guys. The kid from Los Angeles teaching and learning from the old guy from rural Georgia," Murphy said. "It was clear, this is the future — tearing up the lines, tearing down the silos."

Murphy is amazed when he sees the multimedia campaigns he oversees today, like when they organized 465 TVA nuclear security officers and created Chattanooga Local 911. Because of the pandemic, it went entirely virtual for months.

"I am the last propeller plane pilot. The ROC of the future is going to be like an astronaut," Murphy said.

The decision to retire was a tough one, he said.

"With the team we have, and with a friendly White House, it would be easy to keep going. But it is kind of like I have been pushing a rock for 20 years and now I know there are other people who can continue that work.'

Murphy and his wife Gerry are moving back to Tampa, his hometown, to reconnect with old friends and family.

"I tell people in every measure I won the lottery. I am the luckiest SOB in America. And you can be too. You just have to have a ticket to win. And that ticket is an IBEW card in your pocket," he said.

Please join the officers in wishing Brother Murphy a long and healthy retirement.