Labor and progressive activist Ah Quon McElrath dies

[The Sushi Bandit]

Source: Honolulu Advertiser

Ah Quon McElrath, who helped shape the history of labor and social justice in Hawai'i, died yesterday at the Kaiser Permanente Moanalua Medical Center. She was 92.

McElrath had been ill with cancer and other ailments. Funeral arrangements have not been announced, but the family is planning private services, according to Joanne Kealoha of ILWU Local 142. The union will hold a celebration of life to honor McElrath to coincide with Jack Hall Day in February, she said.

McElrath was born in 1915 in Iwilei to Chinese immigrants. After going to work in the pineapple cannery as age 13, McElrath graduated from the University of Hawai'i in 1938 and soon became a key figure with Local 152 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Through the 1950s, the ILWU united sugar and dock workers of different ethnicities in an effort to fight for higher wages and work conditions.

McElrath took on the job as the union's social worker, initially as a volunteer. She worked alongside two other ILWU legends, longtime regional director Jack Hall and information director Bob McElrath, whom she married in 1941. They had two children.



Read more: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20081212/BREAKING01/81212046

[KamaAina]

1. I heard Ah Quon testify at a legislative hearing once

powerful stuff, indeed. One of our last living links to the Territorial Era and to the time when the labor movement began to shape modern Hawai'i. Today, all over the place, even from people who should know better, you hear a lot of "Those d--n unions are destroying Hawai'i...". :eyes:

McElrath was born in 1915 in Iwilei to Chinese immigrants.

As it happens, my cubicle sits in the heart of the Honolulu neighborhood of Iwilei, now a commercial and industrial area, but at the time basically a slum that housed a notorious red-light district.

[TankLV]

2. Awwwe - that 's sad news indeed...

I used to listen to her spots on the radio on my way to work...she will be missed...

[unkachuck]

3. Rest in Peace, Old Warrior....it was good fight....n/t

[No Elephants]

4. I hope she enjoyed her life and rests well.