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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 6, 2006)
Let me say this about that —By Gene Klare Northwest congressional assembly gets mixed results on AFL-CIO report cards ‘Who’s on Our Side’ campaign launched to hold U.S. senators, reps accountable. Dean Wear dies, 78 DEAN WEAR, a former business manager of Operating Engineers Local 701, died on Dec. 2, 2005 in Portland, his family reported. He was 78 years old. Darrol Dean Wear was born on April 6, 1927 in Frontier County, Ne- braska. The family moved to Oregon, living first in Eugene before settling in Portland, where Dean attended high school. Dean’s mother died in a fire when he was 16, and he went to Kansas to live with his maternal grandparents on a wheat farm. After graduating from high school there, he attended a nearby college where he met and married Ann. They moved to Oregon, and Dean worked as a heavy equipment operator, as did his father, Ethmer (Olie) Wear. THE FAMILY SAID that Dean and Ann had two children, Dee and Karrol, and lived in every county in Oregon except Lake. The couple later divorced. DEAN WEAR Dean married Jerie Greer in about 1965, the family said, and he adopted her two children, Larry and Mary. The fam- ily moved to Wolf Creek, where Dean and Jerie owned and operated the local restaurant. Later, they moved to Boardman, then to Vancouver, Wash., in 1967, and next to Paxson, Alaska, southeast of Fairbanks. Dean and son Larry ran the service station in Paxson and Jerie cooked at the ad- joining lodge. Better jobs were found in Anchorage before they returned to Vancouver in 1970, the family said. After that, Dean went back to op- erating heavy equipment and later was elected business manager of Lo- cal 701. The family said he held the union office for about eight years, and later retired. Back then, Operating Engineers Local 701 was headquartered in its own building at SW 12th Avenue and Market Street near Portland State University. Now, the union has its own building in suburban Gladstone in Clackamas County. WHILE IN OFFICE in Local 701, Wear served on boards and trusteeships, including membership on Governor Vic Atiyeh’s Labor Ad- visory Committee in the 1980s. He was a delegate from Local 701 to various other labor organizations. After he retired, Dean and Jerie moved to Dayton in Yamhill County and he became active in a private security agency. She died in 1990. LATER, WEAR MARRIED Elenor Orvis Parham and they lived in Tigard, McMinnville and Newberg. The family said they made many trips around the country in their motor home. Dean belonged to the Sheridan Baptist Church and also attended the Tigard Christian Church with his wife Elenor. Dean, a large man, was an avid hunter and fisherman, a member of the National Rifle Association, a lifelong Democrat and a community volunteer in Yamhill County. SURVIVORS INCLUDE his wife, Elenor, of Newberg; three chil- dren, Karrol Britton of Maui, Hawaii; Larry, of Vancouver; Mary Sauter, also of Vancouver; four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Dean Wear’s funeral was on Dec. 10 at Tigard Christian Church with burial at Rose City Cemetery in Portland. Sheridan Funeral Home han- dled arrangements. WASHINGTON, D.C. — The na- tional AFL-CIO released an interim re- port card scoring the performance of U.S. senators and representatives as Congress completed the first half of its term in December. Democratic lawmakers from Oregon and Washington scored quite well in the five areas — jobs and wages, retirement security, health care, tax fairness and education — deemed by the national la- bor federation as important to workers and their families. Republican officeholders were a dif- ferent story. U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio of Springfield scored 100 percent, while Earl Blumenauer of Portland and Dar- lene Hooley of West Linn both scored 93 percent. David Wu of Beaverton and Brian Baird of Vancouver, Wash., both scored 87.5 percent. Oregon Republican Greg Walden of Hood River voted with labor on only one issue — an amendment to delete language in a Transportation appropria- tions bill that restored funding for Am- trak. In the U.S. Senate, Democrats Ron Wyden of Oregon and Patty Murray of Washington both scored 89 percent. Both voted against labor by favoring the Central American Free Trade Agree- ment and by confirming John Roberts as chief justice to the U.S. Supreme Court. Washington Democrat Maria Cant- well joined her Pacific Northwest col- leagues in supporting CAFTA. She also was on the wrong side of labor on a bill limiting federal class-action lawsuits against companies that violate state wage and hour laws, and a tax reconcil- iation bill that cut taxes — mostly for the wealthy — while adding $60 billion to the federal deficit. Oregon Republican Senator Gordon Smith voted opposite the AFL-CIO on all but three positions. Two of his “right” votes were procedural motions involving amendments to an immigra- tion bill that would have impacted the H-2A agricultural guest worker pro- gram. Another was an amendment that he co-sponsored rejecting a proposal by the Bush Administration to cut Medic- aid by $14 billion over five years. In scoring the lawmakers, the AFL- CIO examined votes on trade, the min- imum wage, job creation and commu- nity wage standards, child labor standards, protection for overtime pay, the freedom to form unions, pension and Social Security protections, Medic- aid, health care, consumer protections, tax cuts for the wealthy, student loans and funding for public education. [For a complete description of the legislation as votes, go to www.aflcio.org and click on “Hot Features” and “Who’s On Our Side?”] The report cards were issued as Congress completed the first half of its term in December. It is not the official AFL-CIO 2005 voting record, but it will be used as part of a union move- ment-wide drive to hold lawmakers ac- countable. This year the AFL-CIO plans to con- duct workers’ roundtables, grass-roots mobilizations and other actions to put elected leaders on notice that they need to support issues that matter to workers. “Working families, with the facts in hand, have the power to take back the country and make sure we are repre- sented by leaders who are fighting for our best interests — not special inter- ests — every day,” said AFL-CIO Sec- retary-Treasurer Richard Trumka. Poll Gives Congress and President Failing Grades According to a Peter D. Hart Re- search Associates Inc. poll conducted for the AFL-CIO, only 30 percent of U.S. voters approve of the job Congress is doing, while 56 percent disapprove — a sharp drop from the 41 percent ap- proval rating cited in an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll last January. In the same poll, nearly three in five voters surveyed in the West (58 per- (Turn to Page 12) Swanson,Thomas &Coon ATTORNEYS AT LAW Since 1981 James Coon Margaret Weddell Ray Thomas Sharon Maynard Cynthia F. Newton Megan Glor Tip of the week: Longshoremen and Shipyard Workers. You have the right to freely choose your own doctor for your work-related injury. We represent people on all types of injury and disease related claims. n Workers’ Compensation n Asbestos/Mesothelioma n Personal Injury/Product Liability n Social Security Disability n Death Claims n ERISA/Long-Term Disability We provide straight answers at no cost on any of the above areas of law. CALL US or VISIT OUR WEBSITE ( 503) 228-5222 http://www.stc-law.com ★★★ (Turn to Page 11) PAGE 2 NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS JANUARY 6, 2006