EDITOR’S NOTE: Superiorland Yesterdays is prepared by the reference desk staff at Peter White Public Library.

30 years

MARQUETTE — Upper Peninsula labor leaders worry about the ramifications of a federal appeals court ruling that holds a Marquette union local responsible for helping start a 1989 riot in Minnesota. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals May 12 reversed a National Labor Relations Board Decision and found Marquette-based Ironworkers Local 783 “guilty of unfair labor practices….” “That judgment was certainly not fair,” said John LaVallee, whose local is merging with Ironworkers Local 8, headquartered in Milwaukee. The Sept. 9, 1989 riot caused damage to a housing camp for construction workers at a Boise Cascade paper mill in International Falls, Minn. Nino Green, an Escanaba lawyer who represented the Marquette local and LaVallee, called the appeals court decision a “direct assault on the NLRB.” The union local, he noted, was exonerated by an administrative law judge in 1992. “In effect, it has held a union local responsible for the actions of its members,” Green said. The appeals court decided that the local “condoned and ratified” members’ illegal acts by borrowing $30,000 to help pay for attorney fees, bail and fines. “I would say [the decision] would make it much more difficult for an individual in any sort of labor union to get involved in any sort of demonstration,” said Larry Casey, director of Labor Education Services at the University of Minnesota. “It may lead members not to worry as much about the consequences of their actions, and it may lead unions to hold back.” “John LaVallee–at his own expense–helped members exercise their constitutional rights to pay bail…people who were presumed innocent at that point,” Green said. LaVallee said neither he nor the union paid legal fees for union members. The case is now back in the lap of the NLRB, which must decide whether to appeal the court decision.

60 years

MARQUETTE — Today, for the fifth day, industrial plumbers in the Upper Peninsula remained on strike, in a wage dispute with plumbing contractors. Plumbing work on large construction jobs in the U.P. has been halted all week and other building trades have refused to work. Contract negotiations between U.P. industrial plumbers and the U.P. Mechanical and Electrical Contractors Association terminated at a mediation meeting in Marquette a week ago yesterday. The union advised that there would be no work without a contract and the strike went into effect at midnight last Sunday night, when contracts expired.