Feb. 4, 2011:NWLP
2/1/11
10:14 AM
Page 7
Union spy finds kidnap ring
in second mystery novel
The Portland of 1902,
recreated by a local
union attorney, was
prime ground for the
practice of shanghaiing
Using the pen name S.L. Stoner,
union attorney Susan Stoner has pub-
lished the second installment in her se-
ries of historical mystery novels.
Drawing on meticulously re-
searched local history, the books follow
fictional trade union spy Sage Adair as
he meets up with actual historic indi-
viduals in the Portland of the early
1900s. In the first installment, Timber
Beasts, Adair uncovered a timber fraud,
learned of the savage exploitation of
loggers, and pursued a murderer. Land
Sharks, the second in the series, finds
Sage in a search for two disappeared
union organizers, which leads him to
discover a true-to-life Portland under-
ground where the unwary are shang-
haied — kidnapped and placed in serv-
ice aboard ocean-going ships bound for
whaling regions or China.
Stoner, who is staff attorney at
Amalgamated Transit Union Local
757, researched the book by reading
period accounts and digging through
the archives of the San Francisco Mar-
itime Museum.
“By the end of the book, readers
will know more about the history of
shanghaiing and the major players in-
volved in it than most historians,”
Stoner told the Labor Press. “Shang-
haiing is how [business leaders] kept
their shipping costs down.”
The book also contains an account
of canneries on the Columbia River,
and of a real-life massacre of Chinese
gold miners in Eastern Oregon.
Stoner will read from Land Sharks
Thursday, Feb. 10, at 7:30 p. M,. at
Powell’s Books on Hawthorne, 3723
SE Hawthorne Blvd.
The two books are available at most
local bookstores, including Barnes and
Noble, Borders, Murder by the Book,
Gay trade unionists in Oregon
to form Pride at Work chapter
and Annie Bloom’s Books, as well as
union-represented Powell’s Books, the
Oregon Historical Society, and online
at www.yamhillpress.com.
Stoner said Dry Rot, a third book in
the series, is in the final editing stage; it
relates true tales of construction fraud
in city contracts that led to a bridge col-
lapse. Black Drop, a fourth book, deals
with the 1903 visit to Portland of then-
President Teddy Roosevelt, and is sev-
eral chapters from completion.
Willamette Heritage Foundation releases book
depicting mid-century millworkers at Crown Z
The Willamette Falls Heritage
Foundation has released a limited edi-
tion book on the history of millworkers
at Crown Zellerbach in West Linn.
“1.09 an Hour and Glad to Have It
— Conversations with 17 mid-20th
Century Crown Zellerbach millwork-
ers,” was written by Sandra Hickson
Carter, and is based on an oral history
project conducted by the non-profit
Heritage Foundation that tells the story
Unionists will bowl
for MDA on March 13
Mark your calendars for Sunday,
March 13, and the 22nd Annual Labor
Bowl Challenge to benefit the Muscu-
lar Dystrophy Association (MDA).
This year’s event will again be held
at Hollywood Bowl, 4030 NE Halsey
St., Portland. Registration starts at
noon, with bowling under way at 1
p.m.
Money is raised by pledges and a
silent auction. The goal this year is to
have 18 different unions fill the 18 re-
served lanes. Prizes will be awarded to
high and low bowlers, to top fundrais-
ers, plus a special prize for the bowler
who wears the “funkiest hat.”
Since its inception, Portland-area la-
bor unions have collected $311,828.75
for MDA. Money goes to buy wheel-
chairs and braces for children, as well
as research and summer camps.
For more information, call Jim
Cook, president of Letter Carriers
Branch 82, at 503-493-5903. To donate
items to the auction, call Debbie Bur-
bank at 971-404-5384.
FEBRUARY 4, 2011
of paper mill work in the 1930s-’90s
through the voices of 17 Crown Zeller-
bach “career” workers.
It contains many stories of unionism
and recollections of strikes at the mill,
as well as workers’ descriptions of the
hard industrial jobs and workplace con-
ditions prior to safety equipment and
safety committees.
One of those interviewed was
Harold King, a former union official
with the Association of Western Pulp
and Paper Workers (AWPPW) and sec-
retary-treasurer of the Northwest Ore-
gon Labor Retirees Council. King
worked for his union’s members
through some of the most turbulent
times in the industry’s history of la-
bor/management issues and inter-union
competition.
King died last June at age 88.
Carter, through a couple of small
grants, helped with the oral interviews
and produced two documentaries that
are ocassionaly aired on local cable
channels. She donated her time editing
and publishing the anthology of mill
work stories — fulfilling the founda-
tion’s goal of putting mill history into
the hands of the communities of
Clackamas County.
The 424-page paperback book is
available at Clackamas County li-
braries. It can also be purchased for
$35. You can order a copy by calling
the Willamette Falls Heritage Founda-
tion at 503-650-9570 and leaving a
message, then sending a check to:
Book, P.O. Box 635, West Linn, OR
97068.
All proceeds go to support the proj-
ect, which was grant-funded by the
Clackamas County Cultural Coalition
and the Kinsman Foundation.
For more information, go online to
www.willamettefalls.org.
Pride at Work, a group for gay, les-
bian, bisexual and transgendered union
members, is forming an Oregon chap-
ter, with a founding meeting 6 p.m. Feb.
22, at the 1125 SE Madison offices of
UNITE HERE Local 9.
The group is one of a handful of
AFL-CIO-sponsored “constituency”
groups, and as such will have a repre-
sentative on the Oregon AFL-CIO Gen-
eral Board. Pride at Work is open to
members and staff of AFL-CIO-affili-
ated unions as well as partner organiza-
tions, such as unions that are part of the
Change to Win labor union federation.
The group is intended to be a bridge,
to make sure gay civil rights issues are
...Union
membership
(From Page 2)
wage of $856, or 88.5 percent of the
union men’s median of $967.
Nonunion women had a median wage
of $639, or 81 percent of the $789 me-
dian weekly wage for men.
Walker said the BLS data are based
on the Current Population Survey of
60,000 households nationwide, a
rolling survey conducted over the year.
He said it does not include the self-em-
ployed or retirees who are still paying
dues — or people for whom their
unionized job is their secondary job.
Those workers are counted as
nonunion.
considered in the labor movement —
and that economic and class issues are
considered within the gay civil rights
movement.
Several dozen people attended the
group’s Jan. 27 kickoff meeting. At the
founding meeting Feb. 22, Oregon Pride
at Work is expected to get official status
as an AFL-CIO-chartered organization,
and elect officers.
...Middle class
shrinking fast
(From Page 2)
cording to a recent study by the Center
for Economic and Policy Research.
When unions were stronger in the
middle part of the last century, Ameri-
can workers wages rose as they became
increasingly more productive. But to-
day, as union strength has decreased,
this link has broken down: even though
American workers grow increasingly
more productive, their wages have stag-
nated. At the same time, more and more
income has become concentrated at the
very top of the income scale.
The fall in unionization rates is not
just bleak news for the ranks of the
unionized, it’s also bad news for the rest
of the middle class.
(Karla Walter is senior policy ana-
lyst, and David Madland is director of
the American Worker Project at the
Center for American Progress Action
Fund.)
March 7-10, 2011
Portland, Oregon
Oregon Governor’s
Occupational Safety
& Health Conference
Occupational safety and
health solutions for
NEW!
Columbia
Forklift
Challenge
Construction
General industry
Healthcare
Manufacturing
Public agencies
Register now! www.oregongosh.com
The GOSH Conference is a joint effort of the ASSE
Columbia-Willamette Chapter and Oregon OSHA.
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
PAGE 7