Seattle restaurants and restaurant workers settle strike on June 28, 1969.

  • By Alan J. Stein
  • Posted 6/04/1999
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 1246
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On June 28, 1969, Seattle restaurants and restaurant workers settle a 12-day strike just as the first of 125,000 Shriners begin arriving in Seattle for their national convention.

The settlement came after a 15 1/2 hour negotiating session in the office of Mayor Floyd Miller, with the assistance of three federal mediators.

The strike began on June 16, 1969, against seven employers including the Washington Athletic Club and the Olympic Hotel. Five unions representing waiters and waitresses bartenders, cooks, and motel and club workers, called the walkout after the prior contract expired on May 31, 1969. The Restaurant Association of Washington urged all 220 of its members to lock out union members and the Association also filed a $2.86 million lawsuit against union negotiators for breach of contract. The principal issue in the contract negotiations was wages.

The negotiations ended with the workers winning raises.


Sources:

Walt Crowley, Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), 271; The Seattle Times, June 17, 1969, p. 1; Ibid., June 18, 1969, p. 24; Ibid., June 28, 1969, p. 1; Ibid., June 29, 1969, p. 1.


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