Jean GUNDLACH After a short time battling illness, Jean Gundlach passed away Friday, December 11th. She was 96. Born in Missouri, Jean spent time in Idaho, Minnesota and New York City before moving to Seattle in the 1940s. In 1946, Jean began her lifelong dedication to organized labor, working as secretary of the Committee for Maritime Unity, and later went to work for the National Maritime Union and the International Fisherman and Allied Workers of America (IFAWA).

After IFAWA merged with the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) in 1950, eventually working for the long-time president of the ILWU, Harry Bridges. Throughout her years, Jean devoted herself to progressive programs, working with migrant farm worker organizations in the 1950s, and even joining a "walk out" when Harry and the ILWU titled officers didn't treat staff as they should. With her retirement in the late 1970s, Jean's tireless work only increased.

She was central to the creation of the Harry Bridges Chair and Center for Labor Studies at the University of Washington. In 1992, Jean wrote a letter to then-UW president William Gerberding which was instrumental in Gerberding issuing a formal public apology for the UW's role in the anti-Communist Canwell Committee trials. Jean's brother, Ralph Gundlach, a UW Professor, had fallen victim to the Committee, fired unjustly in the late 1940s after being accused of being a communist. President Gerberding apologized for university administrative complicity in these proceedings.