HALLING

Posted by Cathy Gowdy on Sunday, June 24, 2007 at 06:05:32 :

Independent Journal
Wednesday, January 9, 1980
Page 16

BJORNE I. HALLING

A memorial service for Bjorne Ingvar Halling, a longtime San Francisco and national labor leader, will be held Jan. 20 at 2 p.m. at the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union Hall in San Francisco.

Halling, 70, died in a fire which destroyed his house in Nevada County on Dec. 10.

One of his survivors is a daughter, Britta Halling of Mill Valley.

Halling went to sea at the age of 16 from his native Norway and eventually became California secretary of the CIO.

He was active in organizing the International Longshoremen’s Association, now the ILWU. He was a member of the union’s strike committee during the bitter 83-day strike in 1933 on the San Francisco waterfront, which resulted in “Bloody Thursday,” July 5, when 64 persons were injured and two strikers killed in battles with strike-breakers and police.

After the strike, which brought the union control of the hiring halls, Halling served as executive secretary of the national CIO Maritime Committee in Washington. He later was legislative representative for the ILWU there.

In 1943 he returned to the West Coast as regional director of the union and in 1947 was elected state secretary of the CIO.

He retired 10 years ago.

In addition to the daughter in Mill Valley, he is survived by his wife, Niki; two other daughters, Kandi Halling of New York City and Karen Halling Burch of Toronto, and two grandchildren.