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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (May 5, 2006)
Let me say this about that ...Volunteer work (From Page 2) tended by nearly 100 children with muscular dystrophy. Don has worked there in the kitchen and dining room for 18 years; Sandy has taught arts and crafts there for 16 years. Sandy was a founder of the Wheels to Walk Foundation, which raises money to buy special equipment for children and young adults with disabilities. Don said the group provides three-wheel bikes, orthopedic beds, leg braces and various other equipment. He said that corporations, or- ganizations and individuals contribute funds to the foundation and that “96 percent of all the money goes to the kids.” He added that the foundation has helped 295 disabled persons over the past 15 years. The Getmans began their work for the disabled because one of their grandchildren has muscular dys- trophy. DON WAS AMONG a dozen members of the Getmans’ church, Resur- rection Lutheran in Parkrose, who left on April 24 to spend a week helping re- pair plumbing and water lines in Slidell, Louisiana, one of the many places hard-hit by Hurricane Katrina last year. Slidell is near New Orleans. Hunting, fishing, golf, gardening and travel are Don Getman’s recreational pursuits. Sandy joins him for the gardening and travel. He said they have “60 to 70 pots full of flowers” in their yard. Their travels have taken them to Hawaii, Lake Tahoe, New England, South Padre Island, Texas, and the Caribbean. They have plans to see Ireland and Scotland. DON BELONGS to the Gateway Elks Lodge in Northeast Portland, which he joined 36 years ago. He’s a life member of American Legion Post #102 in Valley Springs, Calif., which he joined at the request of Sandy’s fam- ily. ★★★ From Ludlow to shiny dimes FROM A PUBLICATION of the national AFL-CIO comes this article, which was prepared for the 1981 Centennial of American Labor: “One chapter of the history of early-century industrial conflicts involved John D. Rockefeller, the first tycoon of the age of energy and the creator of the Standard Oil complex of corporations. ROCKEFELLER CONTROLLED the Colorado Fuel & Iron Corpora- tion, whose coal miners went on strike in 1914. With their families, they were promptly evicted from company-owned homes in Ludlow, Colorado. They moved into a cluster of tents, around which National Guard soldiers took positions and at night occasionally fired their rifles into the colony. To protect the children, the miners dug a cave under the largest tent. But on Easter night 1914, company-hired gunmen and some of the National Guard poured oil over the strikers’ tents and set them on fire. AS THE FRANTIC miners and their families ran for safety in the night, they were machine-gunned. Some escaped, some were killed, some were wounded, and 13 children and a pregnant woman in the recently-dug cave all died — some with gun shot wounds, some from suffocation. The nationwide protest against the killings on Rockefeller property were immediate and long-sustained. Eventually, it led to Rockefeller, the nation’s first billionaire, to hire Ivy Lee, an early public relations man, to repair John D.’s sullied reputation. Lee advised the billionaire tycoon to pass out shiny new dimes to children at his public appearances. EVEN AS AN OLD MAN, Rockefeller continued to hand out shiny new dimes to little children in an effort to erase the Ludlow image — but among the miners and workers in many other unions, the memory of Ludlow persists like an endless bad dream.” The shootings of miners and family members, which occurred on April 20, 1914, went down in history as “The Ludlow Massacre.” ...Hill and Sorenson share views (From Page 3) JIM HILL www.jimhill2006.com Jim Hill has the endorsement of SEIU, the Oregon State Fire Fighters Council, and the Oregon School Em- ployees Association. Hill served as a state legislator from 1983 to 1993, where his votes earned an 88 percent rating by the Oregon AFL- CIO. Hill then served as state treasurer from 1993 to 2001. In his legislative and treasurer races, he ran with union en- dorsements. He ran for governor four years ago, and came in second in the Democratic primary that Kulongoski won. Like Kulongoski, Hill is quick to mention his humble origins. Kulongoski was raised in an orphanage; Hill was the son of sharecroppers. Hill is less forth- coming about his career in the invest- ment world. Since leaving office as treasurer, he says he’s worked to connect people who have money to invest with asset management firms. But he de- clined to tell the Labor Press the names of any firms he’s worked with. Hill points out that Oregon’s fund portfolios increased in value tremen- dously during his time as treasurer. But then so did most states’, thanks to the run-up in stock prices. As treasurer, Hill’s interest was in de- mocratizing finance. Where possible, he tried to use state investments to put Ore- gonians to work, creating the Oregon Growth Account, for example. And he led projects to spread “financial literacy” to working people. He also met with representatives of the national AFL-CIO to advise them on how to put union trust funds on the side of union workers. And he won passage of a bill to pre- vent Oregon treasurers from working in the finance industry until at least two years after leaving office. In his second run for governor, Hill PETE SORENSON www.petesorenson.com Lane County Commissioner Pete Sorenson has just one union endorse- ment, that of American Federation of Teachers Local 3544, which represents graduate teaching and research fellows at University of Oregon. But he did gar- ner the most votes of the Oregon Edu- cation Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, although it wasn’t enough to win an endorsement. And his record in Lane County has the praise of local union officials like Lane County Labor Council Executive Secretary-Treasurer Pat Riggs-Henson. “He understands working families,” says Riggs-Henson, who once served with Sorenson on the board of Lane Community College. “As a county com- missioner, he has been the workers’ friend.” Sorenson supported a Eugene living wage ordinance that required businesses with public contracts to pay decent wages and benefits. And he backed a symbolic ordinance supporting workers’ right to organize. When Eugene city workers were in negotiations, he at- tended union rallies to show support. At the county, he helped set a tone of coop- eration with unions such that the most recent contract negotiations took just a day and a half to complete. He has had union endorsements in his local races. He also earned a 90 per- cent rating from the Oregon AFL-CIO for his votes in the 1995 Oregon Senate. Sorenson is the only one of the three Democrats without experience in statewide elected office, but he has de- tailed plans and proposals if elected. He proposes to extend the concept of paying the prevailing wage to all busi- nesses with state contracts, not just those in the construction field. He says he supports a set of union- backed reforms to rein in health care costs; in addition, he proposes that a state investment of $50 million would get federal matching funds, enough to cover the 177,000 Oregon children who are uninsured. And he wants to build nu- trition, exercise, smoking cessation into state policy. The centerpiece of Sorenson’s cam- paign is taxes: Sorenson says corpora- tions aren’t paying their fair share, and criticizes the governor for allowing se- vere state budget cuts and failing to find new sources of funding. Kulongoski’s reply is that he supported a bill passed by the Legislature that eliminated some of the cuts with a temporary increase in individual and corporate taxes, but that bill was shot down by Oregon voters. Sorenson says that’s because working people feel they’re paying enough al- ready, and argues that a stand-alone in- crease on corporate taxes might have passed. Corporations used to shoulder 18 percent of the state’s tax burden; now it’s 5 percent. Sorenson wants to return to the former, and says that alone would be enough to guarantee adequate fund- ing for schools and health care. As for the Republican candidates for governor, only former state lawmaker Kevin Mannix has a union endorsement — from the Oregon School Employees Association. Mannix was the only Re- publican to actually seek union support. He has by far the best labor voting record of the Republican candidates: The Oregon AFL-CIO rates his votes 71 percent “right,” though much of that dates from the time before he switched parties. Mannix’s voting record gradu- ally worsened from the 100 percent he rated in the 1989 legislative session to 55 percent in 1995. When he went back to the Legislature as a Republican in 1999, his votes got a 14 percent rating from the state labor federation. Westmoreland's Union Manor Kirkland Union Manors 6404 SE 23rd Avenue Portland, Oregon 97202 3530 SE 84th Avenue Portland, OR 97266 503•233•5671 503•777•8101 Marshall Union Manor 2020 NW Northrup Portland, Oregon 97209 503•225•0677 • Planned Events, Clubs, and Activities • Ideal Locations offer easy access to Bus Lines, Shopping, and Entertainment MAY 5, 2006 is highly critical of Kulongoski, saying he only entered the race because of the governor’s poor record. 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