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The Pacific Northwest
Labor Press
 The Seattle Union Record is one of the
most famous
examples of labor journalism in the Pacific Northwest. It has a fascinating
double history. A daily newspaper with a circulation that
sometimes reached
80,000, it was the voice of labor from 1900-1928. It became so again in the fall
of 2000 when it was resurrected by members of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild during their seven week strike against the Seattle Times and Seattle
Post Intelligencer.
 The Industrial Worker was the principal newspaper of the IWW, the
Industrial Workers of the World. Published initially in Spokane, the
Industrial Worker moved to Seattle in
1916. Here is a detailed report:
The Northwest Labor Press of
Portland is the oldest continuously published labor newspaper in the region.
Since 1900, the Portland Central labor Council and Oregon State Federation of
labor have made sure that the Labor Press remains a strong and active voice for
unionism. We report on the early years of the newspaper when it was
called:
The Philippine-American Chronicle was one of
the many papers created in the massive union organizing campaigns of the
1930s. The paper was the organ of The Cannery and Farm Laborer's
Union, which was launched in 1933 by Filipino workers who made the
annual circuit from the Alaska canneries to the fields of eastern
Washington and California. We report on this paper:
 The Guild Daily was the paper of
the American Newspaper Guild. In the 1930s the guild organized
journalists across the country. But the strike that solidified that union took place at
the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1936. Striking journalists not only
brought the Hearst corporation to its knees, they published a daily newspaper of
their own that kept the city informed of local, national, and strike news:
 The Timber Worker and The
International Woodworker were the official publications of the
International Woodworkers of America. The IWA was formed in 1937
when unionized workers in the timber industries broke with the AFL and
joined the CIO. The papers provide invaluable information on the
union and its causes: the struggle to establish legitimacy in early
jurisdictional disputes, the union's campaign to improve safety
conditions in the woods, and internal debates over communism. We
report on both of the union's papers:
 The
Pacific Coast Longshoreman was the newspaper of the Pacific Coast
District of the International Longshoremen's Association.
The ILA’s Pacific Coast
District was formed after a coast-wide dockworkers’ strike in 1934.
Protesting poor wages, dangerous working conditions, and unscrupulous
hiring practices, waterfront workers in West Coast port cities went out
on strike on May 9th. After eighty-five days of violence, arrests,
and attempted strikebreaking, the Pacific Coast’s dockworkers won the
strike and coast wide union recognition. The paper was founded a
year after the strike and published weekly until 1936 when the Pacific
Coast longshoremen left the ILA and formed the ILWU. Our report on
it is below:
 The
Aero Mechanic was published by Local 751 of the International
Association of Machinists.
During World War II The Boeing Company
became the Northwest's
largest employer and Boeing workers joined what was to become one of the
mainstays of the region's labor movement, IAM Local 751, International Association
of Machinists. Local 751 began publishing the paper in 1939. Below
is our report:
 The
Washington Teamster was the publication of Washington State's International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
The union has long been a powerhouse in Seattle. From his base in Seattle's Joint Council 28, Dave Beck
organized delivery drivers and long-haul drivers up and down the coast. We have
a report on joint Council 28's newspaper:
 The Washington State Teacher was the official organ of the Washington
State Federation of Teachers (WSFT), which was allied with the American
Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
As a result, the paper had a two-fold objective: to strive for the
betterment of public education and to advance the organized labor
movement. Our report
focuses on the publication from October–November 1945 until January 1951:
 Public sector unions dated back to the early
part of the century but were hard to legitimate until the 1960s when federal
workers were finally accorded bargaining rights similar to what private sector
workers had won in the 1935 Wagner Act. Postal workers in Seattle had maintained
a union since before World War I and a newspaper since 1947. In 1971 they became
part of the American Postal Workers Union and the newspaper changed its name to
the APWU News. Protective service workers (police and fire)
also have a long history of unionism. Seattle Firefighters Local
27 (International Association of Firefighters was formed in 1918.
The Third Rail is its monthly newspaper.
 The
Scanner was the offical publication of
the King County Labor Council. Representing
nearly all of the AFL-CIO union locals in Seattle, the KCLChas published various
newspapers throughout the past century, starting with the
Union
Record. In 1968 KCLC
began publishing:
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The
Scanner (1975-1981) by Victoria Troisi
- Since 1998 the KCLC quarterly publication
Labor's
Voice has been available on-line.
The Bellingham Labor News
was established in 1939 as the paper of the Bellingham Labor Council.
The paper not only sheds light on the Bellingham labor movement, but as
"the official paper of Bellingham," it also provides insight into the
history of this important Northern Puget Sound city.
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