On Feb. 26, 1899, 44 painters and wallpaper hangers met at the Portland hall of a fraternal order called the Improved Order of Red Men and founded an independent union called “Painters, Paperhangers and Decorators Union No. 1 of Portland.”
At the same meeting they approved resolutions calling for a nine-hour workday, an increase in wages from 25¢ to 30¢ per hour, overtime pay of time-and-a-half for work on Sunday or beyond a nine-hour day, and a limit on the ratio of apprentices to journeymen.
A committee presented these resolutions for the approval of employers, and after several weeks of negotiations, the employers agreed to all but one — they wouldn’t go higher than $2.50 for the nine-hour day (just under 28 cents an hour). The union, which by then had 145 members, voted to accept the offer, and 34 employers signed. The union put newspaper ads in The Oregonian and the Telegram inviting all painters to attend their meetings.
Then on Nov. 7, 1899, members voted to dissolve their independent union and accept a charter as a chapter of Local Union No. 10 of the Brotherhood of Painters, Paperhangers and Decorators of America, a national union that had formed in 1887.
Brotherhood was a meaningful part of its name: It was a close-knit group, and there were no female members in Local 10 until the 1960s. In its early decades, the local met weekly on Wednesday nights, and it also held monthly “smokers” (a term no longer in use, it referred to a social gathering for men).
Local 10’s membership peaked at over 2,500 in 1952. Today Local 10 has 1,800 members and a jurisdiction that includes Southwest Washington and Oregon north of Salem. Today journeymen doing commercial work earn $35.62 an hour ($285 for an eight-hour day, over 100 times the $2.25 a day painters made before the union was founded.)
The parent union adopted its current name — International Union of Painters and Allied Trades — in 2000.
Local 10 is celebrating its 125th anniversary with a Sept. 21 luncheon at the Redd on Salmon Street in Portland. On the agenda: buttermilk fried chicken, an axe-throwing competition, and displays showcasing 125 years of members standing together to fight for a better life.
