Let me say this about that
—By Gene Klare
James T. Marr hailed
JAMES T. MARR was a man of integrity and more, as this article about
the remarkable Jim Marr will elaborate upon. Marr richly deserves a place on
the Labor Honor Roll started by this column to spotlight unionists of yester-
years.
From 1944 until December 1965,
Marr was the executive secretary-
treasurer of the state labor federation-
-first the Oregon State Federation of
Labor, affiliated with the American
Federation of Labor (AFL), and later
the Oregon AFL-CIO, elected in the
1956 merger convention of the state
bodies of the AFL and the Congress
of Industrial Organizations. The
merger in Oregon followed by a year
the national merger.
JAMES THOMAS MARR was
born in Prescott, Washington, on
April 21, 1900. He lived his adult
years in the Portland area. He was
working for the city’s parks bureau
when he helped establish Municipal
JIM MARR
Employees Local 483 in 1928. Marr
said that parks employees organized a
union because they were “dissatisfied with City Hall.” Marr added: We
wanted a 44-hour week instead of 48, twice-a-month paychecks instead of
once a month, and we wanted a pension plan.” A year later he was elected
president of Local 483, an affiliate of the Laborers International Union. He
served in that post until 1936 when he stepped down because he was ap-
pointed as a foreman. However, he maintained his union membership and
was a delegate to the Portland Central Labor Council and the Oregon State
Federation of Labor.
IN 1943, Marr was elected a vice president of the State Federation of La-
bor. In 1944, upon the death of D.E. Nickerson, the state federation’s board
elected Marr to succeed him as the organization’s leader in the top post of ex-
ecutive secretary-treasurer. After that, Marr was elected on a continuous ba-
sis by convention delegates. Following his first election as executive secre-
tary-treasurer of the merged state labor council, he served until his retirement
at the constitutionally-mandated age of 65 in 1965.
Elected with Marr at the 1956 merger convention, held in Portland, were
George Brown as director of politics and legislation, and J.D. (Rosy) Mc-
Donald as president, the organization’s presiding officer, the same ceremo-
nial post he’d held in the AFL state federation. “Rosy,” so nicknamed be-
cause he usually wore a rosebud in his suit lapel, also had a job with Portland
Meat Cutters Local 143. Brown had been the executive officer of Oregon
State CIO Council. He had a reputation as a savvy political strategist and a
canny lobbyist at the Oregon Legislature. Brown and McDonald also belong
on the Labor Honor Roll; their careers will be covered in later columns.
JIM MARR was self-educated on the related subjects of labor law, labor
relations and employee rights and benefits. There were many achievements
for organized labor during Marr’s long tenure at the top of the labor federa-
tion’s leadership hierarchy.
Organized labor’s lobbying efforts at the Oregon Legislature at the Capi-
tol in Salem resulted in improvements in workers’ compensation and unem-
ployment insurance laws. Those laws, as Marr and Brown often pointed out,
benefited all men and women workers — both union and nonunion.
Marr, Brown, and McDonald, who also lobbied at the Legislature under
Vote-by-mail advocates push
cause, tell states to go slow
WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) —
Advocates of voting by mail say
switching to such a system would vir-
tually eliminate voting fraud while rais-
ing voter participation. But they’re
telling states considering it to “go slow”
in order to work out the kinks.
At a May 1 conference organized by
People for the American Way, and
backed by the National Association of
Letter Carriers, the National Education
Association, the Service Employees
and other groups, the leading state in the
process, Oregon, was held up as a
model.
The national AFL-CIO passed a res-
olution in 2005 favoring vote by mail in
all 50 states. That resolution originated
in Oregon.
In the 2004 general election, Oregon
had the nation’s third-highest turnout —
70 percent — trailing only Minnesota
and Wisconsin, both of which have
Election Day registration.
In that election, 91 percent of union
households voted.
Oregon Secretary of State Bill Brad-
bury, who runs the state’s Elections Di-
vision — which is all vote-by-mail —
said the system is cheaper than the tra-
ditional lines at polling places, people
voting at individual machines, and indi-
vidual precinct judges tallying votes
and then sending them to county clerks.
That’s because vote-counters in a
county clerk’s office, with many hours
of training and testing beforehand,
could handle all the mailed ballots —
rather than trusting the count to thou-
sands of untrained, sometimes com-
puter-illiterate amateurs hired at $100
per person nationwide and given only
minutes of training, the speakers ex-
plained.
Besides Oregon, vote-by-mail is
catching on in Washington state —
where 35 of 39 counties have approved
it — parts of Colorado and Arizona and
other Western states, the speakers said.
Before its adoption in Oregon, by a
71-29 percent margin in a 1998 ballot
measure, first the Democrats and then
the Republicans opposed it.
Democratic Governor John Kitz-
haber vetoed it and an ensuing initiative
petition and ballot measure reacted to
that.
But as it turns out, Bradbury said,
both Oregon parties came to support it:
The Republicans because they felt they
had a superior get-out-the-vote opera-
tion which they could translate to indi-
viduals’ living rooms, and the Democ-
rats when they saw Democratic U.S.
Rep. Ron Wyden construct his get-out-
the-vote campaign completely around
mail balloting for a special U.S. Senate
election, which he won.
The contrast between orderly vote-
by-mail and chaos at the polling places
was summed up by Texas economics
professor James Galbraith, who volun-
teered to take voters to the polls in
Columbus, Ohio, on Election Day
2004.
There he watched people in inner-
city Columbus stand six hours in the
rain and cold waiting to vote. He found
out that was due to a deliberate decision
by Republican Ohio Secretary of State
Kenneth Blackwell — President Bush’s
campaign chair who is this year’s gu-
bernatorial nominee — to put fewer
voting machines in the central city and
student precincts, to hold down Demo-
cratic turnout.
Hundreds of people, Galbraith said,
gave up and went home. Bush carried
Ohio.
JOB OPENING
Bookkeeper/Secretary
The Oregon AFL-CIO is looking for a full-time
bookkeeper/secretary to work out of its Salem
office.
Qualifications: Bookkeeping experience and/or
AA degree in bookkeeping, secretarial skills
required.
Duties: Typing, computer skills, accounts
payable and receivable, payroll reports and
various office skills.
Salary & Benefits: $15.60 to $17.13 an hour,
fully-paid health benefits, retirement plan, plus
employer-paid 401(k).
Submit resume to:
Tom Chamberlain, President
Oregon AFL-CIO
2110 State St.
Salem, OR 97301
or fax to 503-585-1668
Swanson,Thomas &Coon
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(Turn to Page 11)
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NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
MAY 19, 2006