2018 Annual Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies Awards Banquet honors ILWU Local 19 and welcomes a new Bridges Chair

On Sunday, November 11, 2018, over 250 people gathered at the University of Washington in Seattle to celebrate the contributions of students, faculty and working people to labor research and advocacy. The Labor Studies awards banquet, which has been held annually for over 20 years, is hosted by the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies. The Bridges Center was established in 1992 following a grassroots fundraising campaign by members of the ILWU to honor late president Harry Bridges by establishing an institution dedicated to the study of work and working-class issues in higher education. Thanks to the on-going support of the ILWU, the Bridges Center now provides nearly $100,000 in labor scholarships and research funding each year.

New Bridges Chair in Labor Studies announced

The night’s program began with an introduction from Michael McCann, the outgoing director of the Bridges Center. He introduced the audience to Kim England, the newest Harry Bridges Endowed Chair in Labor Studies. A rotating position held by faculty at the University of Washington, the Bridges Chair is tasked with setting the agenda of the Bridges Center and leading labor studies on campus. England is the first geographer to hold the Bridges Chair and also the first Chair whose research and teaching centers on women and caring labor.

Originally from the United Kingdom, Kim England completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Leicester, and subsequently went on to complete her MA and PhD in Geography at the Ohio State University.

Since coming to the University of Washington in 1999, she has continued to pursue her interests in feminist, economic, social and political geographies through teaching and research. Kim’s long standing interest in labor, work and employment stems from her own personal history and geography. She was born in Wallsend, a town on the River Tyne in Northeast England, with a long history of coalmining and ship-building. She grew up in a time when jobs in those industries were declining, and saw the struggles of family and friends whose livelihoods were disappearing. She remarked, “As a girl, I knew those jobs weren’t open to me anyway, but I was mindful of what this meant for the local economy and everyday life, and saw the ways unions fought to keep jobs and protest deteriorating working conditions.”

As someone who hails from a proud working class community in the North of England, she will continue to bring this dedication to labor and activism in her research, advocacy, and leadership as Harry Bridges Chair.

Honoring ILWU Local 19

Thanks to the generous contributions from ILWU locals and pensioners, two new scholarships were created at the Bridges Center in 2018, the Frank Jenkins Jr. Fellowship in Labor Studies and the Michelle Drayton and Ian Kennedy Scholarship in Labor Studies.

Frank Jenkins Jr. – grandson of a runaway slave, first son of a Buffalo Soldier and a native Filipina, and a member of the first known Filipino family in the Puget Sound region – was a devoted labor activist and lifelong union member and leader in Seattle’s ILWU Local 19. He began working on the waterfront as a young adult in the 1920s and was a contributor to the 1934 strike. His activism during his decades-long commitment to the ILWU and work with other labor activists such as Martin Jugum, an ILWU member who is also honored at the Bridges Center through the Martin and Anne Jugum scholarship for undergraduate students, allowed for the implementation of more equitable policies on the waterfront. One of their greatest contributions was the introduction of a rotation system that allowed everyone to receive an equal amount of work that did not strip fair opportunities from Black workers.

In February of 2018, to honor Jenkin’s= contribution to the ILWU and labor community, the membership of ILWU Local 19 voted to approve a contribution of $100,000 to the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies for the creation of the Frank Jenkins Jr. Fellowship in Labor Studies. The Coast Longshore Division followed with a matching donation of an additional $100,000. (See the September 2018 issue of the Dispatcher) At the banquet, Kim England and four of the former Endowed Bridges Chairs, James Gregory, Dan Jacoby, Michael McCann and George Lovell, collectively honored ILWU Local 19 at the Labor Awards Banquet by awarding the union with this years’ Robert Duggan Distinguished Supporter Award for its role in the Jenkins Fellowship and its three decades of investment in the foundation and support of the Bridges Center and its students.

In addition to the Jenkins Fellowship, the Bridges Center also received a contribution of $100,000 from Ian Kennedy and Michelle Drayton, former members of ILWU Local 52 and current officers of the Seattle ILWU Pensioners Club, to establish the Kennedy Drayton Scholarship in Labor Studies. The four-year award will support working-class freshmen pursuing labor studies at the University of Washington.

2018 Labor Studies Scholarships honor the legacy of ILWU Activists

The new scholarships join a long list of Bridges Center scholarships dedicated to past ILWU members, including the Gundlach Scholarship in Labor Studies, the Martin and Anne Jugum Scholarship in Labor Studies, and the Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes Scholarship in Labor Studies. The Gundlach Scholarship in Labor Studies was created by the estate of Jean Gundlach, a labor activist and former staff secretary of Harry Bridges and the ILWU, to honor her memory and that of her siblings, Wilford, Ralph and Betty, all former UW alumni. Ralph Gundlach was a former UW professor, but was fired in 1948 after being branded a communist by the McCarthyist Canwell Committee. Through Jean’s own efforts, former UW President William Gerberding issued an apology for UW’s participation in the Canwell hearings. This year’s Gundlach scholarship was awarded to Brian Serafini, a PhD student in Sociology whose research challenges assumptions about precarious labor and worker consent in the fast food industry.

Martin “Jug” Jugum was a longtime activist and key member of the ILWU for over fifty years. He was essential in creating the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies and was a co-chair for the Harry Bridges Memorial Committee. The Martin and Anne Jugum Scholarship in Labor Studies was created to honor him and his wife and their dedication to the labor movement. This year the scholarship was awarded to two undergraduates: Jenesis Garcia and Marcos Vieyra. Garcia has a deep commitment to resistance in the forms of community healing and personal authenticity. Her work is shared with her community and embodied through her work as the University of Washington Q Center’s Queer and Trans Student of Color Cultural Worker and Advocate. Vieyra is also dedicated to community resistance through his organizing with Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Alto Pacifico (MeChA), and hopes to pursue a career in law to develop an in-depth understanding of the U.S. legal system, to subvert laws that serve the interests of only those in power, and act as an advocate for laborers by providing platforms through which their voices may be heard.

Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes were two critical and inspiring labor leaders who fought hard to dispel brutal conditions and racist management in their workplaces. They jointly formed the Alaska Cannery Workers Association to undertake this feat. In 1977 Domingo and Viernes also formed the Rank and File Committee of ILWU Local 37 to struggle for union democracy and fair working conditions, despite severe opposition from all sides. They were elected to ILWU Local 37 leadership in 1980 and worked to build solidarity with workers in the Philippines. Both were tragically both murdered in 1981 at the order of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The Domingo Viernes Scholarship was formed in 2011 by the Inlandboatmen’s Union, Region 37, to honor their memory and the inspiring legacy of their activism. The awardees of the scholarship this year were Alejandra Pérez and Polly Woodbury. Pérez, as an undocumented student, has worked tirelessly to develop trainings and resources to serve other undocumented students and young professionals through the creation of Undocu Ally Trainings and her collaboration with the Washington Dream Coalition. Woodbury, currently a graduate student in Social Work and Global Health, has spent several summers working with the AFL-CIO through internships with the Union Summer program and the Solidarity Center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Labor History and the Labor Archives of Washington

In addition to awards honoring the ILWU, the banquet featured announcements of the latest research projects funded by the Bridges Center, a report on the activities of the Labor Archives of Washington, and a host of other awards. Of particular note, this year the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association (PNLHA) collaborated with the Bridges Center on the creation of a $500 Paper Prize to promote and reward engaging labor history research by students. One of the two award-winning papers this year, The Longshoremen During the Seattle General Strike by Juan Ortiz, focused on longshore history by illustrating the complex economic and social changes that occurred after World War I and the intricacies behind the Seattle longshore workers’ decision to join the 1919 General Strike.

In researching his paper, Ortiz drew upon collections held by the Labor Archives of Washington, established in 2010 thanks to generous support from the ILWU. The Labor Archives is currently organizing for the 100th anniversary of the Seattle General Strike with a commemorative event titled Solidarity City: The Seattle General Strike and 100 Years of Worker Power. This event will take place at the Labor Temple on February 9th from 1pm-4pm. It will be part of the Solidarity Centennial, a series of events hosted by various organizations in Seattle to commemorate the 1919 Seattle General Strike, a five-day worker strike that began on February 6th in light of post WWI economic and social conditions. Sixty-thousand union and nonunion workers stopped working in an act of solidarity, halting the city’s daily functioning before a military intervention incited by Seattle Mayor, Ole Hanson. “Solidarity City” will feature experts and panelists from the labor community to speak about the 1919 events and how the labor movement has evolved since, honoring the legacy of labor rights activism and where it must continue to go.

UW Laundry Workers Speak Out

The banquet concluded with an appeal for support from several members of the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) 1488. The University of Washington recently made the decision to close the Mount Baker laundry facility that cleans linens for UW hospitals, despite appeals and protests from the laundry workers, WFSE, UW United Students Against Sweatshops and 44 state legislators. This decision will result in job losses for about 100 union workers in late March. At the banquet, several people who have worked for Mount Baker laundry for decades spoke about how the closure will impact them and their families. The majority are immigrants and refugees.

More information about the year-round activities of the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies, including scholarships, research projects, events, and the Labor Archives of Washington, can be found by visiting the Bridges Center’s website at labor.uw.edu.