Richard Gurtiza is Director of Region 37, Inlandboatman’s Union/ILWU, representing Alaska cannery workers. He has been a member of Local 37 since 1977 and Regional Director of the IBU since 1993. Region 37 is known to be one of the most active arms of the IBU and has been especially committed to fighting against the discrimination and unfair treatment of Filipino-American and pacific islander workers who have traditionally worked in this industry. Gurtiza was born in the small farming community of Wapato Washington in the 1950s. Like many young Filipino Americans in Washington he went to work in the Alaska canneries in the late-1970s. During that time activists Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes began a campaign to reform the working conditions, and the racist and unfair treatment of Filipinos in this industry. Gurtiza worked actively alongside them. After gunmen acting under orders from the Marcos dictatorship of the Philippines killed Domingo and Viernes in 1981, Gurtiza and other reformers won leadership positions and transformed Local 37. He also continues to advocate for Asian-American workers as a member of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA). He was also the president of the Filipino American Political Action Group of Washington from 2003-2011. Gurtiza is active in the King County Labor Council, the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies Visiting Committee, and the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO.
Topics: The ILWU, Alaska Cannery Workers, Filipino History, Social Justice Organizing, Union Leadership and Management, Campaigning, Civil Rights Organizing, Filipino American Labor Activism, APALA
