Labor filmmaker Maria Brooks received this year’s Elaine and Karl Yoneda Award from the Southwest Labor Studies Associ-ation’s Don Watson in recognition of her numerous films on workers and their unions. Watson, a retired ILWU ships clerk and 18-year chair of ILWU clerks’ Local 34’s executive committee, was himself also given the SWLSA Award for Distinguished Service to the Labor Movement at its 2004 conference in Tucson, Arizona April 29-May 1.

Brooks’ award-winning works include “The Men Who Sailed the Liberty Ships,” “The Reindeer Queen,” “The Odyssey of Captain Healy,” “We Are the ILWU,” and “Pilebutts: Working Under the Hammer.” She has also won numerous awards for her stories published in The Dispatcher.

Karl Yoneda, an ILWU Local 10 activist, founded the Elaine Black Yoneda Memorial Award upon Elaine’s death in 1988 to memorialize the work of his companion of over 50 years in movements to further labor, peace, women, civil liberties and interracial understanding. Karl’s name was added to the award when he died in 1999.

Watson is also co-founder of the Bay Area Labor History Workshop, a long-time SWLSA member and officer and an active supporter of United Farm Workers campaigns. He serves as secretary of the Copra Crane Labor Landmark Assn. and has always sought to combine union activism with the promotion of labor history. Some of Watson’s many other accomplishments are detailed in his oral history on pages 6-7.