Let me say this about that
...Back to the past
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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.
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