Sam Gillispie, who spent most of his working life as a union representative, died unexpectedly April 13 at age 76.
Gillispie was an important figure in the local labor movement. He spent 25 years as a member, officer, union rep and lobbyist in AFSCME and 18 years as a union rep and grievance director at United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 555. He also served in leadership at the local central labor council and in Oregon’s labor federation. Between his start in 1975 and his retirement in 2018, his name appeared in the Labor Press more than 180 times, most often in reports about strikes, grievances, and union politics.
Born in Chehalis, Washington, on April 28, 1949, Samual Lee Gillispie was the third of five children. He grew up in Onalaska and Morton in a family of loggers and saw mill workers. After graduating from Puyallup High School in 1967, he attended Green River Community College in Auburn and worked summer jobs setting chokers on a cat (securing logs with metal cables to be dragged by a Caterpillar), doing forest fire watch, and working in the Tubafor saw mill. While attending Central Washington University in Ellensburg, he worked full time in a union job at a Chevron station. There he became a union steward but was fired from the job after filing multiple grievances.
Having earned a degree in political science in 1973, he hoped to be a teacher, but failed school levies made for a tight teacher job market and he went to work instead at the City of Portland as a janitor and member of Laborers Local 483. On Nov. 14, 1974, he moved to another city job as a truck driver in Portland’s public works bureau and became a member of AFSCME Local 189.
With the encouragement of his cousin Donovan Boyd, then president of AFSCME Local 189 at the City of Portland, he joined the staff of Oregon AFSCME as a field representative in 1975. Gillispie’s job was to represent locals in Eastern Oregon as well as some in Multnomah County.
From the beginning, Gillispie prioritized union coalition building and political muscle.
“Public employees get clout at the bargaining table from affiliation with other unions through labor councils and state federations,” Gillispie said at a 1978 meeting of the Multnomah County Labor Council, remarks which were reported in the Labor Press at the time. “And if we don’t become involved in politics we can’t be effective in dealing with our employers who are politicians.”
In 1976, Gillispie became a delegate to the Multnomah County Labor Council, the precursor to today’s Northwest Oregon Labor Council. After working to get public employee unions to affiliate with the labor council, he ran for election as second vice president in 1977 and with the support of public employee and machinists union delegates defeated incumbent Jim Moran of Stationary Engineers Local 87. In 1980 he was elected president of the labor council with the support of delegates from public employees, retail clerks and some building trades unions, outpolling Caroline Miller, who was past president of Portland Teachers Local 111 and a newly elected county commissioner. Gillispie served as president until 1988, overcoming a 1983 challenge from CWA 7901 president Linda Rasmussen.
He also got active in local politics as part of the Willamette Democratic Society, a union-heavy group that held weekly luncheons with Democratic politicians and party faithful, and sometimes candidate fairs in which aspirants would be introduced and then mingle with union members. He became its president in 1983.
Lobbying in the legislature for AFSCME that year, he helped stop lawmakers from passing a sales tax.
Gillispie left Oregon in 1988 to work as associate director of AFSCME Council 40 in Wisconsin. But he wasn’t happy with the job, so in 1991 he quit and returned to the Portland area and his job in the Water Bureau. He became shop steward and later president of Local 189.
In 1996, he went back to work as an AFSCME rep. And in 2000, he took a job as a union rep at UFCW Local 555, eventually rising to become grievance director.
Gillispie also made several runs for public office. In a 1994 race for Oregon House to represent Milwaukie and Oak Grove, he defeated James Groener in the Democratic primary but lost to Republican Jane Lokan in the general election. In 1998 he finished fourth in a five-person race for Metro Council, an election swept by David Bragdon. He ran again for House in 2000 but lost to Carolyn Tomei in the primary. But he won an election to North Clackamas School District board in 1995, became its chair in 2013, and served 20 years altogether.
Unionism may have been his life’s calling, but Gillispie also spent five decades officiating high school football and basketball games, and served in the national guard in the rank of sergeant.
After retiring in 2018, he and his wife Nancy Fleming moved to Minnesota.
He is survived by daughters Katie Gillispie, Patty Stoeck, and Erin Helus; grandson Soren Stoeck; sons in law Alex Stoeck and Daniel Helus; brother John Gillispie; and sister Sherrie Simpson.
A funeral will be held at Sticklin-Brown Funeral Chapel in Centralia, Washington at 11 a.m. May 20. All friends are welcome and are encouraged to wear his favorite color, green, to celebrate Gillispie and his life.
