Lou Stewart, activist for employee safety, dies at 87

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Born into an Oregon logging-camp family, Lou Stewart learned early on what it took to build. As a young journeyman carpenter in the 1930s, he helped construct houses around Portland and Clackamas, Ore.

But it would be his work decades later with Washington state employee safety and health issues that would earn this quiet man laurels as a longtime labor and political activist.

Mr. Stewart, 87, died Tuesday (March 26) in his Olympia home.

Born in Rainier, Ore., in 1915, he attended nearly two dozen grade schools as a child, according to a biography published online this week by the Washington State Labor Council. He served in the Army Air Corps during World War II before marrying his wife, Helen, in 1946.

Five years later the couple moved to Seattle, where Mr. Stewart earned an industrial-sociology degree from the University of Washington before returning to Olympia.

In 1967, Mr. Stewart joined the staff of the labor council, where he concentrated on developing vocational education as well as occupational safety and health programs. His accomplishments included the Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act (WISHA), which he helped institute.

"I consider him the father of WISHA," says state Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Des Moines, who joined the labor council as communications director just before Mr. Stewart retired in 1982. "I really credit the work he did to put that in place."

Mr. Stewart followed that up by forming a rank-and-file committee to monitor enforcement of the law, too. "He got everybody up to speed," Keiser said. "It was a change in the way operations were done."

Mr. Stewart was a low-key negotiator who avoided headlines, instead working behind the scenes to get his message across. "I never saw him argue with anybody," says labor-council president Rick Bender. "He just laid out the facts as he saw them."

He also helped create the Harborview Occupational Medicine Clinic, which deals with occupational injuries and illnesses, then continued after his retirement to represent various groups, including the Washington Centennial Commission and the state Marine Employees Commission, according to the labor council.

A standing-room-only farewell dinner drew an aw-shucks response from a man more accustomed to laying foundations than speechifying.

"He was a builder," Keiser said. "He built institutions, and they are still in place."

Mr. Stewart is survived by his wife, Helen, of Olympia; daughters Irene and Cynthia of Seattle; sons Erik of Olympia, Craig of Anchorage, Alaska, and Philip of Juneau, Alaska; and six grandchildren.

A celebration of his life is planned from 1-4 p.m. April 13 at Jean-Pierre's Garden Room, 316 Schmidt Place in Tumwater.

Memorial contributions can be made to the American Lung Association of Washington, 2625 Third Ave., Seattle, WA 98121; Group Health Community Foundation, 1730 Minor Ave., Suite 1500, Seattle, WA 98101; or Harborview Occupational Medicine Fund, Harborview Medical Center Development Office, Box 359950, Seattle, WA 98104.