LONG-FORGOTTEN AND UTTERLY REMARKABLE

Playwright Tony Kushner, best known for writing "Angels in America" in the midst of the AIDS crisis, believes history matters. This is particularly true of union history. In his newest play an ex-longshoreman and union activist pronounces of a long-forgotten strike, "We did something utterly remarkable then, which no one appreciates now".

That is the way I feel, and maybe you do too.

If you were a member of SEIU 503 in 1987 and participated in our first strike you know that it seems long-forgotten. Or at least the lessons seem long-forgotten.

Prior to 1987 the union always "caved". Our middle name was "CAVE". As our contract was about to end, you could count on it. The Union yelled, "We give in".

But in 1987, we were prepared. We had staff that organized for a strike. Not staff who tamped down expectations. The rank and file and staff organized for a fight together. No one said, "the public won't like it". We said, "We demand respect". And we got it! That strike defined us. After the strike, whenever new staff were hired, they were given a copy of, "The Nine Days That Shook Oregon". It was the defining history of the union they were joining. Today if you go to the SEIU 503 website and search "strike" or even "1987" it will come up: "0 results available".

And in 1995 we went on strike again. We had a sit-in in Governor Kitzhaber's office. Yes, the same Governor Kitzhaber we have in 2011. We struck a second time as we remembered how "utterly remarkable" we were. We knew our history and we demanded respect. And that was much more important than maintaining a one-way friendship with a Democratic Governor.

Do most of our current members know we are a union with an "utterly remarkable" history of strikes? I am with Tony Kushner -History Matters. But the lessons of that history are what matter more. And they seem as long-forgotten as the strikes themselves.