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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 20, 2006)
Let me say this about that ...Back to the past (From Page 2) union later changed its name to Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) and is now UNITE HERE, having merged with UNITE, a union of workers in the needle trades and textile industry.) In the 75th anniversary edi- tion of the Labor Press, published in 1975, Gertrude Sweet recalled that wives of loggers stood watch over paths in Northwest forests as their men met in secret to form a union — The Woodworkers. WAITRESSES LOCAL 305 produced a num- ber of outstanding leaders. Agnes Quinn, an organ- izer, helped set up a soup kitchen in 1934 for strik- ing Longshoremen in the bloody 1934 strike at West Coast ports. Quinn’ s crew obtained leftover food from Portland restaurants and delivered it to strikers on the waterfront picketlines with the help of taxi drivers who belonged to the Teamsters. Two GERTRUDE SWEET of the Local 305 members who worked with Quinn were Alice Wesling and Mary Jackson, who later became leaders of the union and served separate terms on the Labor Press Board of Directors. Wesling told the Labor Press in 1975 that Congressional passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935 was a boon to large-scale organizing of women. The law, signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, created the National Labor Relations Board and guaranteed workers the right to join unions. Wesling was the only woman on the blue-ribbon committee that put together the 1956 merger of the AFL and CIO state councils to form the Oregon AFL-CIO. Other Local 305 leaders included Helen Marr, May Strand and Ellen Hen- derson. Marr was the wife of James T. Marr, who was the top executive officer of the state labor federation for 21 years from the mid-1940s until his retirement in the mid-1960s. Both Strand and Henderson were active in city and state la- bor groups and served at different times on the Labor Press Board of Directors. (Local 305 and other locals in what was sometimes called the Culinary Al- liance later merged together into what is now Here Local 9, which is Portland- based.) JANET BAUMHOVER, a charter member of the Portland local of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, chalked up many ac- complishments in her career. Among her achievements were leadership posi- tions in AFTRA where one of her colleagues was TV newscaster, reporter and commentator Tom McCall, who went on to serve as governor of Oregon in the late 1960s and early’70s. Baumhover chaired the Multnomah County AFL~CIO Committee on Political Education (COPE), was labor vice president for United Good Neighbors (now the United Way) and was the central labor council’s reading clerk in the late 1950s, the’60s and to the mid ’70s. A Port- land women’s group honored her as a “Woman of Achievement” in 1965. In her era she was thought to be the only Republican to chair a labor council COPE organization. EMSIE HOWARD, who worked at the Labor Press in the 1950s and early ‘60s as associate editor, advertising manager and office manager, also deserves membership on a Labor Honor Roll. She was an activist in labor circles, De- mocratic politics and civic affairs. Articles she wrote won awards from the In- ternational Labor Press Association. She was an outspoken member of the Newspaper Guild who criticized her union’s national leaders when she dis- agreed with their decisions. She served as vice chair of the Multnomah County Democratic Party, which then was the highest office available to a woman. Portland-born, she was a descendant of the pioneer Failing-family. She retired from the Labor Press because of health problems. ★★★ Charles Gilbert of Local 701 dies Charles Edward Gilbert of Portland, a retired business manager of Operat- ing Engineers Local 701, died of cancer on Oct. 19, 2005. He was 84 years old. He held the office of Local 701’s business manager in the 1960s and 1970s. HE WAS BORN in Iowa on Dec. 19, 1920. He served in the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II. Later, he and his wife, Mary Elizabeth, who met in high school, moved to Portland. He became a heavy equipment operator and joined Operating Engineers Local 701. He was active in politics and ran for public office several times. SURVIVORS INCLUDE his wife, Mary E. Gilbert, two sons, Jimmy and Jerry; and several grandchildren. Charles Gilbert’s funeral service took place at the Western Forestry Center in Southwest Portland and was attended by a large crowd. Interment was in Willamette National Cemetery in Southeast Portland. JANUARY 20, 2006 Carpenter defends Wobblies and labor martyr Joe Hill To The Editor: In response the a letter written in the Dec. 2 issue of the NW Labor Press, “Unionist says record shows Joe Hill guilty,” first, let me say that the Indus- trial Workers of the World (IWW) never had a violent approach to organizing workers; militant yes, violent NO! Be- cause they advocated and organized by direct action they were met by violence by the corporations who sought to keep workers oppressed. The IWW was, in my opinion, the most dynamic union to exist in the world. It took the combined effort of the U.S. Government and multinational cor- porations to suppress their activities. Their fights for free speech along the West Coast were some of the most im- portant efforts to reaffirm the right to or- ganize in labor’s history. Joe Hill was a part of that effort. Of all the books I’ve read that deal with the controversy of Joe Hill, only one states that Hill was guilty — and that is Wallace Stegner’s book, “ Joe Hill, The Man Who Chose to be Shot.” All the other books approach it from a point of view that Hill was framed, or at least from a little more objective view that gives enough doubt of the evidence presented during the trial to point to a frame-up. Granted, Joe Hill was shot during the time of the execution of store owner John G. Morrison, and his son Arling. Now bear in mind that this was an exe- cution of an ex-policeman who had a history of brutality. Not a robbery. Hill had no motive to execute Morrison, but there were others who did, and Morri- son had warned his wife that two men were out for revenge. Morrison’s other son, Merlin, who witnessed the shootings, said one of the men shouted when entering the store, “We got you now!” Another point, it was NEVER deter- mined that one of the gunmen (yes, there were two of them) was actually shot by Arling, who returned fire after his father was shot. Joe Hill had two things which made him appear guilty: A gunshot wound and a red bandanna. There were others arrested during that time who also pos- sessed red bandannas, one which was covered in blood. But all the other sus- pects were released when it was discov- ered that Joe Hill was an “ IWW agita- tor, and an undesirable citizen” who had participated in free-speech fights and strike activity. Another important point to bear in mind is that Utah had a legal precedent that no one could be executed on purely circumstantial evidence. Yet that is what they did to Joe Hill, despite a worldwide effort to have his sentence commuted to life. There is enough evidence presented in the many books that deal with this subject to show that Joe Hill was framed for murder because he was an IWW ac- tivist. As would be proven later in the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, “the state Open Forum can make a man look guilty or inno- cent.” It was in the interest of the state, the Mormon Church and the copper trust to have Joe Hill executed as an example of what would happen to union agitators. The reason Joe Hill continues to in- spire union activist today was the coura- geous way he faced the authorities, right up to his execution. His songs tell the stories of workers’ lives, struggles and efforts to organize while facing tremen- dous opposition. I believe that after studying all the books and material written on the sub- ject of Joe Hill, the man was framed and murdered by the State of Utah because he stood for the organizing of his fellow workers in the One Big Union. For more information on the subject of Joe Hill, I suggest you read the following books and come to your own conclusion: The Case of Joe Hill, by Philip S. Foner. Labor Martyr, Joe Hill, by Gibbs M. Smith. Joe Hill, by Fred Thompson. Joe Hill & The Making of a Revolu- tionary Working-Class Counterculture, by Franklin Rosemont. Gene Lawhorn Vice President Carpenters Local 247 Portland Hoehler, founding director of Meany Center, dies BELLINGHAM, Wash. (PAI) — Fred K. Hoehler Jr., founding director of the George Meany Center for Labor Studies, now the National Labor Col- lege, died Jan. 4 from complications of prostate cancer. He was 87. In the late 1960s, Meany, then AFL-CIO president, asked Hoehler, then at the Brookings Institution, to set up a labor leadership education pro- gram on topics such as collective bar- gaining, organizing and union commu- nication.Hoehler developed its program and convinced the AFL-CIO to purchase the center’s site in the D.C. suburbs. Hoehler became the Meany Cen- ter’s first executive director on the day it opened, Labor Day 1969. He served until 1984. He developed a college de- gree program working with Antioch College in Ohio and modeled after adult education programs he studied when touring Scotland, said his suc- cessor at the Meany Center, Robert Pleasure. “His model was the Scottish Uni- versity of the Second Chance, which provided higher education for people who were forced to go to work after NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS high school and didn’t have the first opportunity that more affluent people had,” Pleasure said. The Meany Center became a fully accredited college in 2004. Born on Nov. 18, 1918, in Cincin- nati, Hoehler was the son of Fred K. Hoehler, Illinois director of social wel- fare for Gov. Adlai Stevenson. After serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II, he graduated from Ari- zona State and the University of Chicago. He taught at the University of Puerto Rico and Penn State before serving as assistant director of the AFL-CIO Social Security Department from 1954-56. He then taught at Michigan State and was the Steel- workers Union’s education director from 1964-67. “Fred created modern labor educa- tion,” said Pleasure, now the education director of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department. “The first stage was a program for workers about the ideology of the la- bor movement. Fred took it to another level, providing education opportuni- ties and practical applications to help union officials become more effective leaders.” Hoehler is survived by his wife, Lisa Portman Hoehler, of Bellingham, and two sons, Fred III and Dan, both of California. Farm Workers leave AFL-CIO The United Farm Workers union of- ficially disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO. The 27,000-member union sent a letter to the labor federation Jan. 10 announc- ing its plan, which had been expected. UFW has been allied with the Change to Win federation since it was established late last year following the breakaway from the AFL-CIO of the the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers, UNITE HERE and the Carpenters. The Laborers Union also is part of the new federation and is expected to leave the AFL-CIO soon. UFW said it hopes the move to Change to Win will boost recruiting ef- forts. PAGE 11