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Bill Grimes
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Musician encourages Heartland employees
When Anne Feeney was growing up in the Brookline neighborhoods of Pittsburgh during the 1950s and ‘60s, she didn’t think about pursuing a career in music.
“There weren’t a lot of artists in my neighborhood,” she said. “My dad thought education was the answer to everything.”
Being the dutiful daughter she was, young Anne earned undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Pittsburgh before going to work as an attorney. She stuck with it for 12 years before realizing it wasn’t her thing.
“I came to hate just about every kind of law there was,” she said. “I was very glad to leave it behind.”
Feeney left her legal career behind to sing and play the guitar at up to 260 appearances a year. Tuesday, she was in Effingham at a concert for members of Local 3494 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Local 3494 is the group of about 40 Heartland Human Services employees who have been locked out for nearly a year after being on strike for the previous year.
Local 3494 member Gail Warner said she contacted Feeney in an effort to inspire her union brethren.
“I wanted her to come here and lift our spirits,” Warner said. “We needed some inspiration.”
AFSCME representative Rick Prince said negotiations with Heartland management are going nowhere.
“There hasn’t been any changes in management’s position,” Prince said.
But he added union members have maintained their solidarity.
“None of our people have even thought about going back to work,” he said. “They are a testament to the labor movement.”
The Rev. Roger Marshall, president of the Heartland Board of Directors, said negotiations continue, but with little progress beyond some relatively minor issues.
“There’s been very little progress on the major economic issues,” Marshall said.
Local 3494 walked off their jobs at Heartland in July 2007. Union members were locked out after offering to return to work in the summer of 2008.
Feeney was a social activist before she was a professional musician.
“I graduated from high school in 1968,” she said. “It was a real good time to get into folk music and become an activist.”
A little young for the civil rights movement, Feeney instead became involved in the anti-war movement. More recently, she has been involved in the women’s, peace, environmental and labor movements.
“I became a lawyer because I wanted to change the world,” she said. “That’s why I sing, too.
“I think my job is to help people connect the dots,” she said. “There’s been a huge transfer of wealth to private interests. That’s a very scary thing to me.”
But for many years, Feeney didn’t mix activism and music, though she would often perform old Irish songs on Pittsburgh-area picket lines.
“I didn’t feel it was right to inflict my agenda while I was performing,” she said.
Feeney said she got over that philosophy after hosting a group of activists walking cross-country in 1986. The group encouraged her to infuse her music with her beliefs.
“Within a year, I had written a song,” she said.
Within three years, she had won a national songwriting contest. By 1990, she was playing regional shows in the Pittsburgh area.
By 1997, she was touring nationwide, as well as in Canada, Denmark and Sweden. She also guides historical tours to Ireland several times a year.
Feeney said she has a repertoire of about 800 songs, split evenly between original compositions, classic folk tunes and contemporary songs.
Bill Grimes can be reached at 217-347-7151 ext. 132 or bill.grimes@effinghamdailynews.com.
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