[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 31 (Thursday, March 11, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E353-E354]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     RECOGNITION OF ALBERT M. ELIAS

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. RAUL M. GRIJALVA

                               of arizona

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 11, 2004

  Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Albert M. 
Elias for 50 years of service to organized labor and to the progressive 
political community in Tucson and Pima County as a member of 
International Typographical Union/Communications Workers of America 
Local 7026.
  Albert M. Elias represents the highest ideals of the labor movement. 
While others talk about the need for a strong labor movement to protect 
and enhance the lives of working people, Albert, for more than 50 
years, has worked to advance these goals. While others have talked 
about how Pima County and southern Arizona need progressive political 
success to empower the ordinary and disadvantaged among us, Albert has 
worked long hours helping politicians and movements advocate on behalf 
of these people.
  Using the printing skills he has honed for most of his life, the 
knowledge he has gained over more than five decades of how the printed 
word can help realize worthy goals, and the personal contacts his 
honesty, integrity and goodwill have forged, Albert has achieved much 
and has helped others achieve even more in advancing political 
movements, and the labor movement in particular.
  Albert, 75, a fourth-generation Tucson native, joined the 
International Typographical Union of his maternal grandfather Francisco 
S. Moreno in January 1954 and committed himself to a career in the 
printing trade. Albert believed that union membership would improve the 
professional quality of his work as a printer, and enable him to 
develop meaningful, long-term relationships in his community that would 
benefit himself and his family, as well as his union brothers and 
sisters. Union membership, he believed, also would provide him with 
better income and with vacations and holidays off to spend quality time 
with his family. It was Albert's goal to provide his children with the 
wherewithal to excel in education through high school and go on to 
college if they desired.
  Time proved Albert to be correct. All three of the children of he and 
his wife Viola Baine are college graduates who are serving others in 
pursuit of their careers. Their eldest, Ana Elias Terry, has a master's 
degree from the University of Arizona and has worked as a bilingual 
speech therapist for Tucson Unified School District for 22 years. Son 
Albert is also a University of Arizona graduate and has been an urban 
planner for almost 20 years with the City of Tucson, where he is now 
the planning director. Son Richard parlayed his University of Arizona 
degree into winning election to the Pima County Board of Supervisors 
and becoming its vice chair.
  Albert and his sister Aida Elias, the children of Alberto Spring 
Elias and Ermelinda Moreno Elias, always have lived their lives as 
Christians and are dedicated to their religious faith. Albert has 
maintained an active lifetime role in his Roman Catholic parish, based 
at St. Augustine's Cathedral in downtown Tucson. He served for many 
years as a member of its Parish Council.

  Albert's interest in the printing trade goes back to his childhood in 
the 1930s. His grandfather Moreno had begun publishing the Spanish-
language El Tucsonense weekly newspaper as a member of the 
Typographical Union in 1915, but he died an early death in 1929. El 
Tucsonense continued publication under ownership of his wife, Rosa E. 
Moreno, and with the help of her five children--Ermelinda, Gilberto, 
Federico, Arturo and Elias. Before Albert's 10th birthday he was 
delivering El Tucsonense by bicycle to the Latino barrios that 
dominated much of downtown Tucson. He worked his way into the print 
shop during his years at Tucson High School to be a ``printer's 
devil,'' sweeping the floors, cleaning presses, and remelting the lead 
used to make ingots for the shop's linotype machines.
  After graduating from Tucson High School in January 1947, Albert went 
to the Frank Wiggins Trade School in Los Angeles to learn more about 
printing. After completing those studies in 1948, Albert went to work 
in the print shop that published El Tucsonense, now being run by his 
uncle Arturo Moreno. That ended in late 1951 when Albert was drafted 
into the U.S. Army. He served in the infantry for two years before 
being honorably discharged. After his discharge, Albert returned to 
Tucson. But instead of rejoining El Tucsonense, Albert sought 
membership in the Typographical Union as a journeyman, skipping 
apprenticeship because of his experience. His skills earned him a 
position as a linotype operator in early 1954 with the Tucson daily 
newspapers, The Arizona Daily Star and Tucson Citizen.

[[Page E354]]

  A bitter and ultimately unsuccessful Typographical Union strike at 
the Star-Citizen in 1966, over job-depleting automation and the 
companies' rejection of the union's demand for a pension plan, ended 
Albert's 12-year stint with the daily newspapers. Fortuitously for 
Albert, El Tucsonense was in the process of folding and he and a 
partner, Oscar Araiza, bought his uncle's printing shop. Araiza retired 
in 1991 and Albert has run Old Pueblo Printers alone since then.
  Upon taking control of the business in 1966, Albert and his partner 
began doing printing work for Tucson-area labor union locals and 
Democratic Party candidates for political office. One of the first 
campaigns for which Albert's shop printed the political literature was 
one of the late U.S. Representative Morris K. Udall's bids for office. 
Udall continued to use his services after that, as did Robert Kennedy 
for his assassination-truncated 1968 presidential campaign. Albert 
printed campaign materials for Raul Castro, who was elected as the 
first Latino governor of Arizona; for Ed Pastor, who was elected as the 
first Latino congressman from Arizona; and for longtime Pima County 
Supervisors Sam Lena and Dan Eckstrom. I, too, came to Albert for my 
printing needs when I first launched what became a 12-year stint on the 
Tucson Unified School District Board. I continued to use Albert's 
services through 13 years on the Pima County Board of Supervisors and, 
finally, on my 2002 bid for Congress.
  During his career, Albert supported labor leader Cesar Chavez of the 
United Farm Workers, he supported the efforts of local Latino activists 
to get their fair share of federal funds to improve the homes and 
neighborhoods of their people, and he supported a landmark lawsuit 
forcing Tucson Unified School District to desegregate its schools. 
Albert always has been, and still is, fighting battles against those 
who seek to use their financial influence to their own advantage--and 
at the expense of ordinary working people.
  Albert M. Elias deserves special recognition, honor and respect for 
his five decades of union membership--and for his meritorious 
achievements during that time on behalf of working people and the less 
fortunate of Pima County and Southern Arizona.

                          ____________________