There’s a 20-year-old column by Northwest Labor Press writer Gene Klare about Dave, from right about the time he retired from the IAMAW, that he ran across the other day. This is part of it.
AS PRESIDENT of IAM Local 1311 from 1971-80, Plant represented the union as a delegate to a number of organizations including the Lane County Labor Council and its Executive Board; IAM District Lodge 163, which later merged into District 24; Oregon Machinists Council, and conventions of the IAM Grand Lodge and the Oregon AFL-CIO. Also, he attended two IAM Leadership School sessions.
Later in his career he attended advanced IAM seminars and training sessions. He served on a Lane County Labor Council committee that came up with the idea of establishing the Labor Education and Research Center (LERC) at the University of Oregon. LERC’s enabling legislation was passed by the 1977 Oregon Legislature at Salem and signed into law by then-Governor Bob Straub. Plant was appointed to the first LERC Advisory Board and served until 2001. Straub also appointed Plant to “Speak Out, Oregon,” a group the governor sent to Washington, D.C., to make recommendations on trade issues to federal officials.
Plant also was assigned in 1978 by IAM District Lodge 24 to lobby Congress on labor law reform legislation.