YOU COULD SAY that Sam Kinville learned to be a union person from the day he was born in Butte, Montana, on March 12, 1926.

The city was so strongly pro-union — indeed, it was considered the most unionized city in the United States in those days — that it barred McDonalds from setting up shop there because the fast-food chain was not unionized. The Anaconda Mining Company owned much of the town and most residents were ardent members of the Butte Miners’ Union. Feelings ran so strongly on both sides that Butte experienced strikes almost every year.

At 17, Kinville went to work for a year in the Anaconda Mining Company’s copper mine. He joined Local Number 1 — and soon learned that the company was “the enemy.”

After marrying his wife, Louella, in Seattle in December 1951, Kinville worked in Longview as a social worker for the state for a year. During that time he realized that public employees did not have the protection that many union workers for companies did. He had seen first hand that when workers were unhappy with wages or working conditions they could bring a company to its knees with a prolonged strike. Using that threat, they could pressure the company into meeting their demands.

Sam Kinville regularly was involved in passing pro-lab or legislation in Olympia. He is seen here, on the far right, with Gov. Mike Lowry.

“The strike was an economic weapon,” Kinville recalled in an interview several years ago. “But this weapon could not be wielded by those in government service as it was illegal to strike against the government. Many questioned the value of unions among public employees; they wondered how public employee unions could bring pressure to bear on their employers.”

This situation set Kinville thinking. But it was when he attended the AFSCME convention in the summer of 1956 that he made up his mind what he wanted to do. He was inspired by Arnold Zander, who, he said, was the opposite of the stereotypical union leader of those days. He had finesse, was a Christian Scientist, had a Ph.D. and was “extremely sophisticated and articulate.”

Kinville resigned his job and dedicated himself full-time to the concept that public employees deserved a voice in the decisions on their hours, conditions of employment and wages.
Zander obtained a charter to form state councils, including one for the state of Washington. “They called it Council 2,” Kinville said, “although it should have been Council 1 as it was the first to be formed. They gave Council 1 to Wisconsin out of deference to their favorite son, Zander.”

Kinville was appointed a Council 2 staff representative in Spokane, one of the first two paid employees of the union. Two years later he was elected the fourth president of Council 2, the union’s first full-time executive director.

Kinville set his sights on obtaining a collective bargaining law in Washington State. After a long fight, in which Kinville took a leading role, it was passed in Washington State in 1967. “That took a lot of effort, but it was certainly worth it,” Kinville said, adding that his best memories are of the passing of the law.

“This is the most significant thing we did,” Kinville said. “It is probably the most important legislation passed in this state concerning the rights of local government employees.”

Collective bargaining spells out an employee’s rights and how a grievance can be presented, Kinville said. “With the advent of the law, the law said the employees had a right to collectively bargain and the employers had a duty to collectively bargain. It became a matter of right.”

Kinville was also instrumental in the fight for the creation of the Public Employees Retirement System (pers) and for the establishment of medical benefits for public employees.

Kinville left Council 2 in 1967 and worked for the Washington State Labor Council for seven years and for the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals for seven years. He was appointed Director of Labor and Industries by Gov. John Spellman in 1981.

He retired in January 1985. But the next year he returned to Council 2, serving as a contract lobbyist. In 1994, when he was appointed a member of the Public Employment Relations Commission, he dropped all ties with Council 2 because of concerns about conflict of interest.

Kinville was a fixture in Olympia for more than 40 years, where he was respected on both sides of the aisle for his humility, hard work and forthright views.