Lifelong union and political activist Mark Sturbois died at home in Portland of liver and abdominal cancer March 22 at the age of 74.
As legislative committee chair of Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 7901 from 2002 onward, Sturbois was the kind of union volunteer who made an endorsement matter. Week after week he knocked on doors and made phone calls to help elect union-backed candidates, and he encouraged other members to do the same. He researched candidates for office, helped the local make decisions on endorsements, delivered political reports at Local 7901 membership meetings, and wrote legislative updates for the union newsletter.
Sturbois grew up in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, and after graduating high school there in 1968, he attended Ohio University in Athens for a few months and got involved in groups like Students For Democratic Society and the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors. After he was jailed and placed on academic probation for taking part in a campus occupation, he left school.
A child of the ‘60s, he took part in its counter-culture, attending the 1969 Woodstock music festival and later earning a living in the underground economy before and after moving to Portland in 1970. Back then, with hair down to his belt and a beard down to his chest, it could be hard to find and keep work. He worked for a time at Bonneville Power Administration as a mail clerk and courier and then for seven years at a Montgomery Ward warehouse as a member of Teamsters 206. Speaking with the Labor Press in 2023, he was candid about his struggles with addiction in the 1970s, when heroin use contributed to the end of his marriage and left him with hepatitis C. He kicked the habit in 1980. From 1987 until retiring in 2012, he worked at the local cable TV company through many changes of ownership, and supported several efforts to unionize. That’s how he became active in Local 7901 and later in the local labor movement.
He served as a foot soldier in many union legislative campaigns, including successful efforts to raise the minimum wage, set up a system of paid family leave, and give schedule predictability to grocery workers. He was a delegate to the Northwest Oregon Labor Council, a committed volunteer in Oregon AFL-CIO’s electoral campaigns, a member of the Oregon Working Families Party steering committee, and a volunteer with the group Health Care for All Oregon.
He wrote regularly to members of Congress calling on them to honor workers and reject NAFTA-style trade agreements. Dozens of letters to the editor were published in the Oregonian under his name.
In his spare time, he was an avid poker player and a proud Diamond Plus member at Caesars.
After word got out about his terminal cancer diagnosis, friends, labor council delegates, and elected officials ambushed him at the Northwest Oregon Labor Council’s monthly delegates meeting October 2023, holding a surprise session to honor his lifetime of service to the labor movement.
Friends and colleagues will gather noon to 4 p.m. April 27 at the Oregon AFL-CIO to celebrate his life and his life’s work
