Danny Fetonte, lifelong activist, passed away peacefully on October 23, 2022, surrounded by his family. Danny was born in 1950, in New York City. He met and married Barbara Fetonte in Buffalo, New York. A celebration of his life was held November 12th at the Texas AFL-CIO auditorium. Stories of Danny’s skills as a union organizer, and his leadership and mentoring role within the Communication Workers of America (CWA) were shared with a standing-room-only crowd. Video interviews shed light on Danny’s family background, his immense devotion to family and friends, and his perseverance. Until his final days, Danny could be found on picket lines protesting against Austin’s association with the Fayette County Coal plant and distributing yard signs for candidates.
In 2015, Bernie Sanders said he would come to Austin if Danny could get a union hall and 200 people. Danny got the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers’ union hall and over 500 people crammed into the hall to hear Bernie Sanders not long before Sanders announced that he would run for president. Danny’s younger son, Tony, shared Danny’s unique approach to correcting bad behavior. Rather than being grounded, Tony said, he might be required to read a book by Howard Fast and write a report.
Anne Lewis, a longtime friend of the Fetonte family and a union sister with the Texas State Employees Union (TSEU/CWA 6186) wrote this poem for the celebration of Danny’s life and read it on November 12, 2022.
For Barbara
Butterflies roost among the acorns
It’s too cold for them to fly
Mist lies heavy on flat ground
Weeds lit by dewdrops In a rising sun.
The dayshift men and women in work clothes,
swinging lunch buckets,
walk towards factory gates and mine portal.
On Saturdays, union halls fill.
The wages they pay us are a shame
Every war’s a rich man’s game.
We learned from the workers who sang
“I don’t want your millions mister,”
organized during a great depression
went on strike during a World War.
Joe believed revolution would happen in 1974.
He reached out a communist newspaper at the gate.
His fellow workers held him down
and broke his fingers.
Joe went on to become a hospital administrator.
Danny became a union organizer.
Nothing to lose but our chains and a world to gain.
The good ones were old when we were young.
They are as gone as peasants
who plowed with mules.
Country of consumption and hedge funds
Highways and development; capital flight.
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