As a mechanic helper for Automated Sugar Co. in 1944, George Martin was approached by a couple of longshoremen with a daring and ultimately life-altering question: Would he join the ILWU?

As Martin recounted in the ILWU oral history project, "Toil and Trouble in the Promised Land":

"I asked my parents, 'What do you think I should do?' because if you mentioned the word union in front of the employers, it was like mentioning the plague. My dad said, "Join! We've had enough trouble with these ... plantations.' So I did."

Martin, who died Jan. 14 at the age of 84, would go on to wield great influence as an ILWU leader, helping in turn to shape the future of his native Big Island.

Martin's parents immigrated to Hawai'i from the Portuguese island of Madeira. Martin was born in 1924 in Waipunalei and grew up in Laupahoehoe and Papaiko. He started working for the plantations after high school, learning quickly and soberingly of their powerful hold on all facets of life in the Islands.

As he explained in his oral history, "Once you went to work for the sugar companies, they wouldn't release you. They controlled the political scene and the Legislature; they were in full command of the banks, transportation, the utilities companies and the draft boards.

"When I was 19 years old, during the war, I volunteered for the Merchant Marine," he recalled. "I told them who I worked for and that was it: They never recruited me. The only guys who got out were the ones who were active in the union; they got drafted."

Martin and his fellow union members would often visit ethnic labor camps late at night, beyond the gaze of plantation bosses, to rally support.

Martin's ascent in the union — he was named director of the United Sugar Workers, Local 142, at age 26 and later served as vice president director in San Francisco for 10 years — spanned a pivotal and contentious time in Hawai'i labor history.

Early in his career with the union, Martin and his fellow organizers clashed with plantation owners over the planned import of some 6,000 Filipino workers as a hedge against a possible strike.

As Martin bragged in his oral history, the union got to the incoming workers first, planting existing Filipino union members on board the boats as crewmen to recruit them before they ever reached the Islands.

In later years, Martin would use his influence to help launch the careers of several local politicians and help to establish the University of Hawai'i-Hilo as a four-year institution.

As the ILWU's Hawai'i division director and international vice president, Martin rallied support for UH-Hilo's expansion, a contribution that earned him a Distinguished Service Award from the university earlier this year.

Martin is survived by his wife, Mary Dorothy; son, Tom; daughters Shirley Martin Breon, Loretta Matsumoto and Susan Baker; and 10 grandchildren.

Services are pending.