Fred Lee passed away unexpectedly on May 20, 2012. He was 85 years old. He retired in 1989 as the ILWU’s Contract Administrator for 20 years. In retirement, Fred served on the Board of the ILWU Memorial Association and was active in the ILWU pensioner program and political action program, representing Oahu pensioners on the Local PAC. Fred was known for being a hard-hitting negotiator, a nononsense contract administrator, and an experienced educator, but he is best known for his colorful language and his deep and abiding loyalty to the ILWU. The following remarks were shared by Guy Fujimura, ILWU Secretary-Treasurer, at Fred’s memorial service.
I am humbled and honored to speak on behalf of the ILWU in remembrance of Fred Lee. It would have been more appropriate perhaps if someone from that time in 1969 when Fred was recruited to work for the Union spoke, but Jack Hall, Newton Miyagi, Carl Damaso, Dave Thompson, A.Q. McElrath, Tommy Trask, and so many others are no longer with us. And others, like Tony K [Kahawaialoha], have gone to grey. They have the stories of tough negotiations and strikes, of legendary lost weekends where, as Fred put it, you “drank with all your might” and of Fred’s cooking talent.
Fred was a generous, principled, fiesty, professional, smart labor leader as you could find. He wanted everyone to think he was a curmudgeon, but his heart was gold. He was for the working men and women, but recognized and celebrated all their faults and quirks.
He graduated from Punahou, but was proud that he didn’t attend reunions. He was a UH grad, but boasted that he was the only student thrown out of intramural sports for unsportsman-like conduct. When I came to work for the ILWU in 1974, recruited out of Love’s Bakery by Eddie Lapa and Tommy Trask, I had no office for a week. They let me use a storeroom. Fred took pity on me and offered to share his office. He took me under his wing and guided me through the “office politics.”
He taught me simple but important things. Like who you don’t lend money to. That Tabasco does go with everything. When a Local Officer enters a class you are teaching, you stop and introduce them. And the importance of seniority when he informed me that I was now the junior man and had to carry the box of materials to the next stewards training class.
dministrator who learned his craft from the best negotiators and labor lawyers in town—like Jack Hall, Tommy Trask, and Ed Nakamura. He would pound away at his old manual Royal typewriter, which literally was falling apart with miscellaneous screws and springs popping off, which he would pick up, examine, then throw away. When he was negotiating a contract, if he showed up at the hall in sneakers and jeans, you knew there was a picket line. He sat with me in my first negotiation and generously shared his vast knowledge about grievances and human nature.
And he had a mischievous sense of humor. He would check downstairs if I had an off-island card and then complain to Sabu Fujisaki, who was then my supervisor, “Where the hell is that kid? He’s never around when you need him.” He would take delight in cranking Sabu up. I never understood Sabu’s gripes until Fred finally revealed his prank to me.
Fred was, for 20 years, the Contract Administrator for the ILWU and, before that, he led the Hawaii Newspaper Guild as their Chief Officer. After his retirement from the ILWU, he continued to participate in our retiree program and political action program for another two decades.
He served with distinction and principle on boards and commissions, like the Board of the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific, the Labor and Industrial.Relations Appeals Board, and the Policy Advisory Board for Elder Affairs. He was a board member of the ILWU Memorial Association. He grew up with and went to school with business and community leaders. He walked with the giants of the labor movement.
But at the end of the day, one of my fondest memories of Fred was early on, when we went to Lanai to teach a two-day leadership class. Those days, there was no catering. The store across the street from the union hall made stew and rice for lunch one day and hekka the next day. Dolfo’s wife made malasadas for breakfast, and we brewed the coffee in an urn at the union hall.
We stayed at the old manager’s house- -five bedrooms, two fireplaces, screened lanai, beautiful dining room set. We went to the store, bought beer and pupu, invited the unit leadership over, then spent the evening around the kitchen table, the rest of the house unused. Fred cooked the pupu and Shiro Hokama and the older men and young boys talked and drank the night away. What a time that was.
It was a perfect ILWU moment. It was Fred Lee at his best. I came to love my Union and its members because of Fred and times like these.
Fred Lee chose his life. He had the education and connections to go in another direction, but he chose the Guild and then the ILWU, and he made a difference in our Union, for the labor movement, and for the people of Hawaii.
To Helen and Fred’s family, thank you on behalf of the ILWU and the members, their families, and our retirees. Thank you for sharing Fred with us, so generously.
We hold Fred in our memory and in our hearts. We will remember his smile and his feistiness and our shared struggles and our shared joy. Thank you so very much. We miss Fred.
