Roosevelt University will celebrate the life of Leslie Orear, a labor organizer who helped found the United Packinghouse Workers of America union and the Illinois Labor History Society, in an event Tuesday.
The event, which will begin at 5 p.m. at the university’s 10th-floor library at 430 S. Michigan Ave., will include video testimonials from people who knew Orear, including labor leaders and historians, said Erik Gellman, an associate professor at Roosevelt. Orear died May 30 at age 103.
There also will be a presentation about his role in labor history and a performance by folk musician Bucky Halker, Gellman said.
Orear, who grew up in Chicago, dropped out of college during the Depression to seek work and found a job wrapping bacon in a meatpacking plant. He became the editor of the workers’ newsletter, and in 1937 helped create the Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee, which later became the United Packinghouse Workers of America.
“That achievement led to a miraculous transformation in the labor movement in this country,” Gellman said. “In order to organize a union, they had to cross over racial lines. He was always adamant about including African-American and Hispanic workers.”
As a leader of the Illinois Labor History Society, he helped persuade the city to create a memorial for the 1886 Haymarket Square tragedy. He also pushed for a labor history museum on the old site of the South Works steel plant that has yet to materialize.
Orear also co-wrote a book, “Out of the Jungle: The Packinghouse Workers Fight for Justice and Equality,” about the Packinghouse union and its role in labor history.
“I hope people get a sense of the incredible 103-year life of Leslie Orear and how he dedicated himself to working-class people through his life,” Gellman said. “But also the times he lived through.”
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