Inside
MEETING NO TICES
See
Page 6
V olume 107
Number 7
April 7, 2006
P ortland
Labor all over map
in governor’s race
NW Oregon Labor
Council ‘recommends’
Kulongoski, plus several
other local candidates.
For the upcoming May 16 primary
election, most Oregon unions have de-
cided by now whether and who to en-
dorse for governor. Uncharacteristically,
a number have taken a pass on the in-
cumbent Democrat, and some have
even backed a challenger.
Governor Ted Kulongoski has the
endorsement of the Oregon State Build-
ing and Construction Trades Council,
Teamsters Joint Council 37 and United
Food & Commercial Workers Local
555, plus a “recommendation for en-
dorsement” from the Northwest Oregon
Labor Council.
Under AFL-CIO bylaws, in state-
wide races a central labor council can
only make a “recommendation” to the
state body for an endorsement. Recom-
mendations are addressed by the labor
federation’s Committee on Political Ed-
ucation. The Oregon AFL-CIO’s COPE
meeting was held March 10 — prior to
the March 27 meeting when the North-
west Oregon Labor Council made its
decision. State COPE took no action in
the gubernatorial primary and no fur-
ther COPE meetings are scheduled
prior to the election.
And no public employees union has
thus far endorsed Kulongoski, despite
his having been an early union favorite
in the 2002 election. As a labor attor-
ney, in 1973 Kulongoski helped write
the state’s public employee collective
bargaining law. But as governor, he sup-
ported making cuts to the Public Em-
ployees Retirement System, angering
many public employees.
Oregon Council 75 of the American,
Federation of State, County and Munic-
ipal Employees declined to make a en-
dorsement in the governor’s race.
None of the Democratic primary
candidates could muster enough votes
for an endorsement from the Oregon
Education Association, though it came
close to backing the campaign for gov-
(Turn to Page 10)
Postal Workers donate to Union Food Bank
Marie Clark of the American Postal Workers Union Auxiliary presents a check for $365 and more than 850
pounds of food to Mike Fahey of the Portland-based Union Food Bank during a banquet March 31 of the
APWU’s Auxiliary and Multi-State Northwest Region Convention (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska and
Montana) at the Benson Hotel. The convention was hosted by Portland Local 128. Food and personal care
bags were collected as part of the auxiliary’s Two-Can Do project to help those in need. The Union Food Bank
distributes food boxes to 500 families monthly out of the Carpenters Union Hall in Northeast Portland.
Portland on short list of massive Change to Win organizing drive
LAS VEGAS — Portland is on a list
of 35 cities the Change to Win labor fed-
eration has selected to be part of a mas-
sive organizing campaign it plans to
launch the week of April 24.
The seven-union federation unveiled
its recruiting plans at a gathering of 2,000
CTW officials, organizers and members
here last month, adopting as its slogan,
“Make Work Pay.”
The objective, said CTW Chairwoman
Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer of the
Service Employees International Union,
is a joint effort to organize workers in “transportation, distribution, re-
tail, construction, leisure and hospitality, health care, property serv-
ices, laundries, food production and processing and other services.”
Burger, speaking at the conference, estimated those sectors have
50 million workers combined. CTW’s unions — SEIU, Teamsters,
United Food and Commercial Workers, UNITE HERE, the Labor-
ers, the Carpenters and the Farm Workers — have an estimated 6
million members. They have also pledged to devote most of their
money to organizing.
The unions will be reaching out to unorganized workers as well as
members of the public and politicians to support the notion that the
United States cannot exist without a “vibrant
middle class,” Burger said. “This campaign
will empower the millions of workers to
help them effect real change to make work
pay.”
Gene Pronovost, president of Tigard-
based United Food and Commercial Work-
ers Local 555 and an international union
vice president, said CTW unions in the Port-
land area are meeting to finalize their organ-
izing plans. On the short list, he told the
Northwest Labor Press, are possible cam-
paigns at Three Mile Canyon Dairy, Wal-
Mart, the Benson Towers condominium, Port of Portland drivers and
the Oregon Lottery
One of the focuses of the CTW convention March 19-21 was the
creation of local cross-union campaign teams, which will work to-
gether as single entities to unite workers of all the unions in their
cities.
“It’s a little different” from past union organizing drives by CTW
members and others,” Burger stated. “Truth is, we’ve always done
campaigns — but we’ve done them individually, union by union.
And we still have these campaigns. But now, as we work on these in-
dividual campaigns, we will be tying our work together and make it
‘In every campaign, no
matter what union, we
will be telling the world
that working people are
uniting to make work pay.’
all add up to something bigger.”
“In every campaign, no matter what union, we will be telling the
world that working people are uniting to ‘make work pay,’” she
added.
In practical terms, that means CTW unions will field joint organ-
izing teams, just as two of the member unions — UNITE HERE and
the Teamsters — are doing in their current drive to organize 17,000
workers at Cintas, the nation’s largest launderer of uniforms and
other materials.
But Burger also said CTW seeks worldwide support for the drive,
because “corporations are global and so must we be.” Only with
global cooperation, she stated, can unions “make global corporations
raise living standards and respect workers’right everywhere — rather
than dragging them down to the lowest level everywhere.”
Some CTW leaders are comparing their organizing campaign
with that of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) of the
1930s, when millions of workers joined unions.
“We must remember that auto, steel and other basic manufactur-
ing jobs weren’t always the good middle-class jobs they became af-
ter World War II,” Burger said.
When a large percentage of the workforce was unionized, labor
was able to change low-paid manufacturing jobs into jobs that were
the “backbone of the American middle class,” she said.