In My Third Act: Bob Muehlenkamp on Working Collectively

For the latest edition of In My Third Act, Jane Fleishman sat down with Bob Muehlenkamp of Third Act Union and Third Act Maryland to discuss how his history in union organizing led him to Third Act.

Bob Muehlenkamp of Third Act Union and Third Act Maryland, spent most of his second act as a union organizer. As a graduate student he helped organize the first teaching assistants union in the country and became its founding president.  In his twenties he joined the organizing staff of 1199, the  historic Hospital Workers Union in New York City, and later became the Director of Organizing for the Teamsters union. 

I treasure the collectives I was a part of because we really accomplished a lot. We changed the lives of millions of people in this country and that was because we worked collectively.

He grew up in northern Kentucky, one of five children in a conservative German Catholic family. He attended all-Catholic schools, including a Jesuit high school and college. “Everyone worked hard, did well, had no complaints, and was happy with America,” says Bob. “I lived in a bubble.” 

Bob went to graduate school first at the University of Chicago and then to the University of Wisconsin. While at Wisconsin, he became the founding president of the Teaching Assistants Association, the first in the country. The Organizing Director of 1199, the National Union of Hospital and Health Care employees, recruited Bob to be an organizer. “I went overnight from a comfortable, all-white world into the world of low paid workers, a majority of whom are Black and Latino. I was 26 at the time. I learned what this country really is like for the vast majority of workers and their families.” After the reform movement won the Teamsters election in 1992, Bob became Assistant to Teamsters President Ron Carey and the Teamsters Organizing Director.

Like many Third Actors, Bob participated in the great movements that extended democracy in America and made progress in organizing unions, civil and women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, and peace. Looking back on his second act, Bob says “I treasure the collectives I was a part of because we really accomplished a lot. We changed the lives of millions of people in this country and that was because we worked collectively; that’s one of the things I treasure about the Third Act.” 

Bob learned about the Third Act after years of work with the progressive movement built by Bernie Sanders. He read Naomi Klein’s book, This Changes Everything, which, as he says, “changed everything for me.”  He learned about  the urgency of the climate crisis and how little he knew about it. “I wanted to know how I could learn and where I could do something about it,” says Bob. “Someone mentioned the Third Act and Bill McKibben to me. I didn’t even know who Bill was—that’s how little I  knew.” 

He started and serves as a coordinator for Third Act Union, He also serves on the steering committee of Third Act Maryland.  Bob is active in the Non-Violent Direct Action Network, a multi-state Third Act group which grew out of connections a number of Third Actors made while participating in the 3/21/23 Day of Action and in non-violent actions in 2024, particularly for Summer of Heat.

He is grateful that the Third Act has provided him with an arena to engage in the climate struggle. Because it’s only in the last several years he has learned what science tells us about the urgency of the climate crisis, he appreciates how the Third Act reaches out to other seniors who may not yet fully appreciate why and how “we have no time to waste.” 

 “That’s our mission at Third Act,” Bob says, “and I feel proud to work on that mission.”

Bob Muehlenkamp

Bob Muehlenkamp has been on the front lines of our country’s social justice and trade union movements for a half century. He served as Executive Vice President and National Organizing Director at SEIU-1199, the hospital workers union, and as Assistant to the Teamsters President and the Teamsters Union Organizing Director. Bob is a co-facilitator for Third Act’s Retired Union Members Working Group and serves on the Steering Committee of Third Act MD.

On March 22 2024, he was arrested in front of Chase Bank with 10 others as part of the Rocking Chair Rebellion against dirty banks.

Jane Fleishman

Jane Fleishman is a Third Actor residing in Nashville, TN who is regularly pulled to NYC where her first grandchild lives and to the Southwest where so many of her other family members live. She is retired from a social work career mainly focused on creating and promoting volunteer and civic leadership opportunities for youth in their first act.