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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (April 3, 2015)
PAGE 2 | April 3, 2015 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS (International Standard Serial Number 0894-444X) Established in 1900 in Portland, Oregon as a voice of the la- bor movement. Published on a semi-monthly basis on the first and third Fridays of each month by the Oregon Labor Press Publishing Co. Inc., a non-profit mutual benefit corpo- ration owned by 20 unions and councils including the Ore- gon AFL-CIO. Serving more than 120 union organizations in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Office location: 4275 NE Halsey St., Portland, Oregon Mailing address: P.O. Box 13150, Portland, OR 97213 Phone: (503) 288-3311 Web address: http://nwlaborpress.org Editor & Manager: Michael Gutwig Associate editor: Don McIntosh Office manager: Cheri Rice Printed on recycled paper, using soy-based inks, by members of Teamsters Local 747-M. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Individual subscriptions are $13.75 per year for union members, $20 a year for all others. Send a check for that amount, indicating mailing address and union affilia- tion, to P.O. Box 13150, Portland, OR 97213. For 25 or more subscriptions, group rates of $9.60 a year per person are available to trade union organizations. Call 503-288-3311 for de- tails. CORRECTIONS: See an error? Please let us know at editor@nwlaborpress.org or by phone at 503-288-3311. PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT PORTLAND, OREGON. CHANGE OF ADDRESS NOTICE: Three weeks are required for a change of address. When or- dering a change, please give your old and new addresses and the name and number of your local union. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS P.O. BOX 13150 PORTLAND, OR 97213-0150 IRS PROBLEMS? • Haven’t filed for ... years? • Lost records? • Liens - Levies - Garnishments? • Negotiate settlements. • Prepare offer in Compromise. Call Nancy D. Anderson Enrolled Agent NPTI Fellow/America’s Tax Expert LTC-1807 www.nancydanderson.com 503-244-2577 ...Astoria: A look back in time From Page 1 “slime line” — the several thou- sand Chinese who chopped, canned, and cooked the fish. When canneries sprung up along Astoria’s waterfront in the 1870s, labor was in short sup- ply: Native American popula- tions had been decimated by disease, and few settlers had yet arrived. So Chinese labor bro- kers stepped in to supply con- tract labor, and brought hun- dreds of male workers from Though stocks were already in decline by the 1880s, there were still Guangdong Province, in the plenty of salmon to be had for gill-netters like those above, pictured at Pearl River Delta. By 1880, the mouth of the Columbia River. there were 2,317 Chinese in Clatsop County, a third of the pound salmon in 45 seconds, ters thesis on the Astoria Chi- population. Nearly all worked in and 1,700 fish in a day. nese. True, newspapers like the Astoria’s canneries, which were But in the 1880s, a wave of Daily Astorian were full of built on wooden pilings over the anti-Asian feeling spread racist rhetoric about “yellow water. During salmon season, through the western United men,” and “heathenish celestial which lasted from April 1 to States. It led in 1882 to the pas- brutes.” But the need to keep Aug. 1, cannery workers toiled sage of the Chinese Exclusion canneries running prevented As- 11 hours a day, and slept in Act, which barred further immi- toria from following the exam- crowded wooden bunk houses gration. In 1885, the anti-Chi- ple of towns like Tacoma and provided by their employers. nese movement culminated in Oregon City, where white mobs Sanborn Company fire insur- massacres, riots, and forcible attacked Chinese in the dead of ance maps from that era show a expulsions in towns and mining night and forced them to leave densely-packed Chinatown, camps all over the West. town. right alongside row after row of Astoria was tolerant com- At the height of the anti-Chi- “Female Boarding,” the maps’ pared to other West Coast towns nese movement, the biggest euphemism for brothels. The at the time, says conference pan- worker organization was not the Chinese worked extremely elist Regan Watjus, who wrote AFL, but the Knights of Labor. hard: Some could clean a 40- her University of Oregon mas- Its primary demand was for the eight-hour work day, and in the East it sometimes stood for racial equality. But in the West, it was an active part of the anti- Chinese movement. In Astoria, members of the Knights of Labor organized anti- Chinese meetings. In February 1886, they got 18 cannery own- ers to sign an agreement not to employ Chinese workers once that year’s salmon season ended. The agreement didn’t hold, and the Knights of Labor went into rapid decline soon after. Exclusion and hostility took a toll on the Astoria Chinese. Workers returned to China, or stayed in other cities instead of returning to Astoria for salmon season. By 1890, Astoria’s Chi- nese population was 925, and by 1900, 601. Columbia River salmon runs also began to decline as early as the 1880s, due to pollution and overfishing. At the industry’s peak, Astoria had 17 canneries packing 12 million pounds of salmon a year. But towns and lumber mills up and down the tributary Willamette River were using the river as an open sewer. Fish pulled in by gill-netters Turn to Page 3
