Jack Hall (trade unionist)

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Jack Hall
Jack Wayne Hall.jpeg
Born
Jack Wayne Hall

(1915-02-28)February 28, 1915
Ashland, Wisconsin, U.S.
DiedJanuary 2, 1971(1971-01-02) (aged 55)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
OccupationVice President and Director of Organization, ILWU (1969-1971)
Hawaii Regional Director, ILWU (1944-1969)
Spouse(s)Yoshiko Hall
Children2
WebsiteJack Hall - ILWU Local 142

Jack Wayne Hall (February 28, 1915 – January 2, 1971) was an American labor organizer and trade unionist. He was the Hawaii Regional Director of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

Early life[]

Hall was born in Ashland, Wisconsin on February 28, 1915. When he was a child, his mother committed suicide.[1] He was raised in Los Angeles by his grandmother. After graduating from Huntington Park High School in 1931, Hall became a merchant seaman and sailed aboard the SS President Hoover.[2] His experience traveling in Asia and witnessing poverty and the effects of colonialism led him to become a communist.

Career[]

Hall's first labor strike was the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike as a member of the Sailors Union of the Pacific.

Hall arrived in Hawaii in 1935, where he wrote for a newspaper called The Voice of Labor. In 1944 he was named Hawaii's first regional director for the ILWU. He then led a drive that organized plantation and dock workers as one interracial union. Before the drive, most strikes were held by one ethnic group at a time, with the exception of the Oahu sugar strike of 1920, during which Japanese and Filipino plantation workers went on strike together. The drive ended with the ILWU having contracts with 33 out of 34 sugar plantations,[3] and 30,000 members.[4] This made the union very successful during strikes in the late 1940s, especially the strike in 1949 that closed Hawaiian ports for six months.[5]

When he could not make changes with labor strikes, Hall worked politically, eventually becoming close with future Governor of Hawaii John Burns.[6] Hall drafted the Hawaii State Employment Relations Act, which was a Hawaiian version of the Wagner Act. It was introduced in the Hawaiian Senate by J. B. Fernandez, and passed in 1945.[7]

In August 1951 Hall and 6 other people (later called the Hawaii 7) were accused by Jack Kawano of violating the Smith Act. They were arrested and investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Many in the ILWU claimed that the arrest was planned by the Big Five to interfere with the union's negotiations with the sugar companies.[8] The Hawaii 7 were convicted on June 19, 1953. Hall was sentenced to 5 years in prison and a $5,000 fine. The charge was later overturned during an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.[9] Despite this, he remained popular with the workers he unionized, though the union itself lost political influence.[1]

Later life and death[]

In 1969, Hall was promoted to International Vice President and Director of Organization for the ILWU. He moved to San Francisco, where he died of a stroke on January 2, 1971.[10] After his death, flags were flown at half mast. Members of the ILWU and other unions stopped work for 15 minutes in the first statewide work stoppage in Hawaii's history.[2] A documentary titled Jack Hall: his life and times was filmed about his life in 2008.[10] The ILWU building in Honokaʻa was also named after him.[11]

Further reading[]

  • Zalburg, Sanford (1979). A spark is struck! : Jack Hall & the ILWU in Hawaii. Honolulu: Watermark Pub. ISBN 9780979064784. OCLC 192041987.

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ a b Japanese American history : an A-to-Z reference from 1868 to the present. Niiya, Brian., Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, Calif.). New York: Facts on File. 1993. ISBN 0816026807. OCLC 26853950.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  2. ^ a b "Jack Hall is dead" (PDF). The Dispatcher. January 7, 1971. Retrieved May 23, 2019.
  3. ^ Hitch, Thomas Kemper (1992). Islands in transition : the past, present, and future of Hawaii's economy. Kamins, Robert M. Honolulu: First Hawaiian Bank. ISBN 0824814983. OCLC 26256832.
  4. ^ "International Longshoreman's and Warehouseman's Union | Densho Encyclopedia". encyclopedia.densho.org. Retrieved 2019-05-24.
  5. ^ "Jack Hall Dead; I.l.w.u. Official". The New York Times. 1971-01-05. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-05-24.
  6. ^ Boylan, Dan. (2000). John A. Burns : the man and his times. Holmes, T. Michael, 1934-. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 0585463670. OCLC 52764017.
  7. ^ Beechert, Edward D. (1985). Working in Hawaii : a labor history. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0585239215. OCLC 44955328.
  8. ^ Holmes, T. Michael (1994). The specter of Communism in Hawaii. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0585240612. OCLC 44955841.
  9. ^ Wagner, Peter (September 13, 1999). "Upstart led labor to power". archives.starbulletin.com. Retrieved 2019-05-24.
  10. ^ a b Gordon, Mike (February 28, 2008). "Film details Jack Hall's labor union leadership". Honolulu Advertiser. Retrieved 2019-05-24.
  11. ^ HistoricHawaii. "ILWU Jack Wayne Hall Building / Honoka'a". Historic Hawaii Foundation. Retrieved 2019-05-24.
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