Tuomas Bryggari

Tuomas Bryggari (8 December 188131 October 1964) was a Finnish trade unionist, politician and member of the Parliament of Finland, the national legislature of Finland. A member of the Social Democratic Party, he represented Vaasa Province East between September 1922 and July 1948. Prior to being elected, he was imprisoned for political reasons following the Finnish Civil War. He was the son of Paavo Bryggari and Maria Himmanen. He studied at public school for three grades. Bryggari started working as a child and had many jobs during his early life: farm worker/cattle herder, wheelwright, forestry worker, railway construction worker, dockworker and stonemason in Jääske and Helsinki. He was on the board of the Helsinki Workers' Association (Helsingin Työväenyhdistys) and Finnish Stone Workers' Union (Suomen kivityöntekijäin liiton). During the August 1917 Helsinki strike Bryggari headed the delegation that met with the Russian Governor-General Mikhail Aleksandrovich Stakhovich and the Senate Vice-president Oskari Tokoi to present the strikers demands.

In December 1917, Bryggari was chosen as one of speakers of the Uusimaa branch of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Bryggari was amongst tens of thousands of leftists who were imprisoned in concentration camps for political reasons by the Whites following their victory in the Finnish Civil War. He was re-elected at the 1924, 1927, 1929, 1930, 1933, 1936, 1939 and 1945 parliamentary elections.

Bryggari, who was afflicted with silicosis from his days as a stonemason, fought for a wide interpretation of the Occupational Diseases Act.

Bryggari died on 31 October 1964 in Helsinki. He married Ida Wilhelmiina Lumivuokko (née Nieminen) in June 1938.