A member of St. John's Parish has been named to direct organizing activities here for the Alliance for Labor Action.

Tony Zivalich, 44, recording secretary and director of Organizing for Teamster Local 528 and a member of that Local Union since 1959, was named to coordinate ALA's organizing and community action operations by Teamster General Vice-President Frank E. Fitzsimmons, Teamster Vice-President M. W. "Dusty" Miller, and United Auto Workers Vice-President Pat Greathouse in an announcement here.

Miller and Greathouse emphasized the need to step up ALA's participations in community affairs. Both men said there was a vital link between ALA's organizing activities and "Our ability to demonstrate firmly that we are anxious to take an aggressive part in community life."

ALA's ambitious goals include building an effective coalition for action in Atlanta among whites and blacks, students and labor, poor and the not so poor, the two men stressed.

"Trade unions have a very special understanding of the way that collective action can help improve a person's life," said Miller and Greathouse. "We know the value of organizing, not only to obtain the material benefits of life, but also to win important measures of justice and personal dignity."

The two men emphasized ALA's moral obligation to organize the working poor, "Those who cannot be organized through normal channels." They said that ALA will aggressively pursue the many thousands of unorganized working poor of Atlanta who must rely upon an employer's unilateral decision rather than on the more dignified give-and-take of collective bargaining."

Miller and Greathouse were in Atlanta last week for a meeting with Zivalich and the organizing staff. They agreed on the future direction of the program and on Thursday evening, April 22, 1971, Miller and Greathouse were the guests of honor at a get-together designed to introduce Zivalich as ALA's new director of Organizing for Atlanta and Miller and Greathouse to the Atlanta community. Among the guests were United States Senator David Gambrell, Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan, regional director of National Labor Relations Board Walter Philips, Vice-Mayor Maynard Jackson, former Governor Carl Sanders, Community Relations Chairman Andrew Young, and many other political, labor and community leaders, and professors from the Universities of Emory, Georgia, Ga. State, and Ga. Tech.

Frank E. Fitzsimmons, general vice-president of the Teamster International Union and cochairman of the ALA's Executive Committee, was unable to attend because of another commitment, Miller said. Tony Zivalich will direct a team of 24 organizers from the Teamster, Auto, Chemical and Distributive Workers. He said that ALA's Atlanta organizing efforts will proceed on a more "low key" basis as part of what Miller and Greathouse described last week at the "second phase" of ALA's Atlanta activities.

Zivalich is considered a persuasive organizer. His friends underscore that point by noting his effective work on behalf of the population explosion. He and his wife, Joanne, are the parents of eight children.