NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS |
October 20, 2017 | PAGE 7
IN MEMORIAM
Norman Malbin
July 17, 1949 — Oct. 1, 2017
Norm Malbin, longtime attor-
ney at IBEW Local 48, died
Oct. 1 of heart failure at the age
of 68. Malbin was a beloved fig-
ure in Local 48 and the local la-
bor movement. He used his
knowledge of the law to help
union members and working
people.
Malbin went to work as gen-
eral counsel for IBEW Local 48
in 1998. For more than two
decades, he helped police the
electrical industry, and defended
countless working people who
were wronged by their employ-
ers. He also helped hundreds of
Local 48 members with wills,
divorces, and legal advice in
weekly legal clinics that he ini-
tiated. He advised business
managers at Local 48, Local
280 and Local 932. And he or-
ganized and led an annual labor
law conference at Local 48’s
union hall. Since it began in
1996, the Oregon Labor Law
Conference has trained hun-
dreds of local union stewards
and staff on how to defend
union members’ rights. He re-
tired in July 2014 for health rea-
sons, but continued to offer le-
gal advice and support to IBEW.
Born in Vancouver, Washing-
ton, on July 17, 1949, Norman
David Malbin was the son of
Morris and Malbin and Nadejda
Remenchik. It was a family with
deeply held political convictions.
His father, a radiologist, moved
to the Portland area during World
War II to provide medical care to
Kaiser shipyard workers, and
later played a role in the forma-
tion of the nonprofit Kaiser Per-
manente. An uncle and aunt
helped fight against the fascists
in Spain in the 1930s. Norm him-
self was named after famed
Canadian physician Norman
Bethune, who served as a sur-
geon in the Spanish Civil War.
After attending high school at
Catlin Gabel in Portland, Mal-
bin earned a degree in child psy-
chology at the University of
Denver in 1971. In 1979, he
married Wendy Temko, the
daughter of family friends. He
was two-years-old when he met
her. Malbin went to work for
Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and
Industries (BOLI), where he
was responsible for determining
state prevailing wage rates on
publicly funded construction
projects. While at BOLI, he
earned a law degree from Lewis
and Clark Law School. After
passing the bar exam in 1986,
he worked at two law firms and
later headed a private practice,
always in the service of unions
and working people.
He is survived by his wife
Wendy, sons Zak and Ben, and
grandchildren Remy and Tessa.
The annual labor law confer-
ence lives on, and will next take
place Jan. 26, 2018, beginning
with a tribute to Malbin.
REMEMBERING NORM MALBIN
A memorial service is tentatively
scheduled Dec. 9 at 2 p.m. at the IBEW
Local 48 hall,15937 NE Airport Way,
Portland. Per wishes of the family, do-
nations in his memory can be made
to the Northwest Workers Justice Proj-
ect (nwjp.org) or to FASCETS, a non-
profit his sister founded which edu-
cates the public about fetal alcohol
spectrum disorders (PO Box 69242,
Portland, OR 97239).
Nellie Fox-Edwards with U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley.
...Nellie Fox-Edwards
From Page 1
business agent. In 1965 she was
elected second vice president of
the Oregon AFL-CIO.
In 1971, Local 1257 merged
into Food and Drug Clerks Lo-
cal 1092, and she was hired as
a business agent for that local.
Two years later she was ap-
pointed Women’s Activities Di-
rector for the Oregon AFL-CIO.
There, she helped establish 17
Committee on Political Educa-
tion (COPE) offices around the
state, boosting the success rate
of labor-endorsed candidates.
In 1975 she was elected po-
litical director of the Oregon
AFL-CIO, defeating incumbent
Lloyd Knudsen and another
challenger, Doug Dinsmore.
Fox-Edwards ran for state la-
bor commissioner in 1978, los-
ing in the primary to Mary
Wendy Roberts, who went on to
serve in that post for 16 years.
During her career, Fox-Ed-
wards served on numerous
boards and commissions, in-
cluding the governor-appointed
TriMet board of directors, the
State Advisory Council on Sex
Discrimination in Employment,
and Planned Parenthood.
President Jimmy Carter
named her to a nominating
panel for a judgeship on the fed-
eral appeals court in San Fran-
cisco in the late ’70s, and in the
early ’80s she was part of a Ore-
gon delegation to China and was
a whistleblower on unsafe
working conditions in Nike fac-
tories there.
She retired in 1985 at the age
of 62. She kept busy lobbying at
the Oregon Legislature on be-
half of mental health organiza-
tions and the American Associ-
ation of Retired Persons
(AARP). She held several of-
fices in mental health organiza-
tions, including president of the
Mental Health Association of
Oregon. She also served as
president of AARP’s Oregon
branch, and was a member of its
national governing board.
She received numerous
awards for her work, including
three from the Oregon Women’s
Political Caucus, and a Labor
History Person of the Year
plaque. In May 1997, she was
the first inductee to the Labor
Hall of Fame sponsored by the
retirees chapter of the Northwest
Oregon Labor Council.
N ELLIE M AE B ATMAN was
born Dec. 15, 1923, in Yakima,
Washington to Patrick and
Laura Mae Batman. They
moved to Oregon when she
was one, and she lived in the
Portland area most of her life.
At age 20 she became a wid-
owed mother when her hus-
band Edwin Ryder was killed
in an auto accident. She mar-
ried and divorced Robert
Holmes, a dispatcher at IBEW
Local 48, and the man she
credited for “teaching me the
basics of good trade union-
ism.” She was married to Fran-
cis Fox when she was elected
political director. After they di-
vorced she married Dr. L.E.
Edwards, a Beaverton chiro-
practor. He died in 1993.
Fox-Edwards spent the last
years of her life at an assisted
care facility in Hood River,
near her daughter in Mosier.
Fox-Edwards is survived by
daughters Beverly Bruce and
Ronell Currie, son Robert
Holmes, two granddaughters,
and three great grandchildren.
She was buried at the Union
Point Cemetery in Banks, Ore-
gon beside grandson John Mc-
Donald Bruce, and her mother.
At her request, no service will
be held. In lieu of flowers, con-
tributions can be made to the
National Alliance for Mental Ill-
ness of Oregon, 4701 SE 24th,
Suite E, Portland, OR, 97202.