Interview with Marv Ewing
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Date of Interview
7-14-2001
Duration of Audio File
Audio File 1 -- 01:03:10; Audio File 2 -- 01:03:24; Audio File 3 -- 0:58:25
Interviewee
Marv Ewing
Age
Born in 1935, 65 at time of interview
Gender
Male
Description
Ewing was a union activist and leader at New Jersey factory before working at USM. Ewing was the first major president of S. D. Warren's largest union local, led 1977 strike and trained next generation of union leaders. He left Warren in 1979 to become a professional at Maine's Department of Labor, including a stint as Chair of State's Unemployment Commission.
Birth Place
St. Petersburg, Florida
Residence
Standish, Westbrook, and Windham, Maine
Occupation/Work History
Paperworker, local union president, state AFL-CIO vice president, and Maine State Bureau of Labor Standards (including Chair of the Maine Unemployment Commission).
Role
Union
Mill or Principal Employer
S.D. Warren Company
Mill Location
Westbrook, Maine
Keywords
Paper mills - Maine, Sappi Paper - History, S.D.Warren - Maine
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Hillard, Michael G. PhD, "Interview with Marv Ewing" (2001). S.D. Warren Company. 7.
https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/sd-warren/7
Comments
Ewing's story illustrates the importance of worker migration to union organization and labor militancy. In six years (1960-1966) at Peter Schweitzer Paper Company in New Jersey, older union leaders mentored Ewing on organizing techniques and union leadership skills. He moved to Westbrook, Maine in 1966 to marry a local woman; her father got him a job at S.D. Warren. He played a supportive but minor role in the mill's 1967 union drive. He became president of United Paperworkers International Union (UPIU) Local 1069 in 1970. During his nine year tenure as President of Local 1069, he led hard nosed negotiations that brought 1069's contract up to industry standards, culminating in a successful 1977 strike that achieved mill wide seniority. He also inculcated younger union leaders in his hard nosed leadership, particularly William "Billy" Carver who was Local 1069 President from the late 1970s until the late 1990s.