Gabe Gabrielsky <scottshuster@msn.com> sent the following to H-LABOR:
Subscribers to this list should be aware of the passing of Stan Weir, a
life long rank and file labor activist, independent socialist and labor
educator. Stan first gained public notoriety in the 1960's as a leader of
the "B" men in the ILWU for full union citizenship and an activist in the
struggle against containerization. Support for his struggle was taken up
by leading anti-Bridges intellectuals on the East Coast including Norman
Thomas, Michael Harrington, Bayard Rustin, Harvey Swados and James
Baldwin. His essay "The New Era of Labor Revolt" was first presented as a
talk during the period of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. It was later
collected in several different books on the sociology of labor. In it
Stan reviewed the working class struggles of the 1960's and particularly
the displacement of several International Union presidents, events that
went largely unnoticed among the middle class and the mainstream press.
Stan was, at various times a member of the Seaman's Union of the Pacific,
the UAW, the Teamsters, the AFT and the ILWU. His oral autobiography is
included in the first edition of Staughton Lynd's book, the Rank and File.
A long time left socialist and labor educator, at the time of his passing
Stan was on the editorial boards of at least three journals: Impact,
Against the Current and Radical America. He also contributed regularly to
New Politics and Labor Notes and occasionally to the publications of the
AUD. In the 1970's with Robert Miles he organized Single Jack Press which
published a series of pamphlet-sized pieces of fiction and nonfiction by
working people about the world of work consciously modeled on the
Haldeman-Julius series published earlier in the century. The most popular
title
was "Labor Law for the Rand and Filer," by Staughton Lynd, which is still
in print through Charles Kerr Publishers.
Stan was my political mentor, but much more. I often went to him for
personal advice and considered him almost a second father. He did
pioneering theoretical work in the sociology of work, particularly around
the conception of the primary (informal) work group. A collection of his
essays edited by George Lipsitz is due for publication by the University
of Minnesota Press very shortly. I would be most interested in
corresponding with people on this list about their recollections of Stan
as well as perhaps working to put together some sort of memorial get
together on the east coast dedicated to him.
Gabe Gabrielsky, Atlantic City, NJ
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