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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (May 19, 2006)
Inside MEETING NO TICES See Page 6 V olume 107 Number 10 Ma y 19, 2006 P ortland Labor federations reach accord on Solidarity Charters Change to Win forms new political organization, and says it will not renew Solidarity Charters after ‘06 WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) — Faced with a split in labor’s po- litical operations, the AFL-CIO and Change to Win reached a new agreement on May 8 on letting Change to Win union locals get Sol- idarity Charters. The pact, announced by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Change to Win Chair Anna Burger, recommits the CtW unions to paying per-capita dues for locals that have charters and rejoin — or remain — in AFL-CIO’s state federations and central labor coun- cils. CtW locals on May 1 suspended dues payments to AFL- CIO state and local bodies to protest what they said were newly-im- posed Solidarity Charter rules that excluded the Farm Workers and any other union that left the national AFL-CIO after July 2005 from participating. Approximately 1,600 CtW locals have signed Solidar- ity Charters nationwide. Their dues dollars account for a large por- tion of operating income for state labor federations and local labor councils. In a concession to end the brouhaha, Sweeney said he’ll ask his Executive Council to let United Farm Workers locals seek charters. If approved, they would join five of the seven CtW unions — the Service Employees, Teamsters, UNITE HERE, Carpenters and the United Food and Commercial Workers — whose locals can get char- ters. The seventh CtW union, the Laborers, is still in the AFL-CIO. The resolution is important, Burger and Sweeney said, so locals and their members from both federations can work with each other “on the ground” during the 2006 campaign — a key reason the char- ters were established in the first place. “The entire labor movement is united by the desire to make work- ing people’s issues the country’s priorities this election year, and we are taking all the necessary steps to effectively coordinate our efforts toward this end,” they added. To run the political operation, the two federations will create a National Labor Coordinating Committee, chaired by American Fed- eration of State, County and Municipal Employees President Gerald McEntee and vice-chaired by CtW Secretary-Treasurer Edgar Rom- ney, who is executive vice president of UNITE HERE. “Political directors and staff from the organizations will work in close collaboration on every aspect of the program, and the organi- zations will share the costs of joint activities,” the two federations said. After the CtW unions left the AFL-CIO in 2005, the state feds and central labor councils lost substantial shares of their dollars, staffers and political activists. They then pressured Sweeney to es- tablish the Solidarity Charter program to help recoup the losses. Despite the announcement, political unity on the ground may not be complete. SEIU President Andy Stern, in a May 3 letter to his lo- cal leaders announcing the developments, said SEIU — like the oth- ers — left Solidarity Charter participation decisions to its locals. As a result, “uneven participation makes it impossible to create a fully integrated member-to-member program” for the elections “that in- cludes all members of both federations,” Stern said. He also said CtW would go ahead with an idea Burger proposed, and Sweeney rejected: Creation of an “umbrella” organization, the Alliance For Worker Justice “to bring the AFL-CIO, Change to Win and any other labor organization together to plan and coordinate on legislative and political issues that affect working families.” And Stern reminded CtW locals the Solidarity Charters will exist only through the end of this year, adding: “Change to Win has no plan to seek renewal of the program beyond that date.” Tom Chamberlain, president of the Oregon AFL-CIO, said two Change to Win unions with Solidarity Charters — Service Employ- ees Locals 503 and 49 — will decide later this month whether to continue paying dues to the state labor federation. Change to Win unions with Solidarity Charters at the Northwest Oregon Labor Council — United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555, UNITE HERE Local 9 and Teamsters Joint Council 37 — attended a May 8 executive board meeting, where representa- tives said they will resume paying dues to Oregon’s largest central la- bor council. Multnomah County judge says prevailing wage law doesn’t apply on PDC job STAMPING OUT HUNGER — Letter Carrier Tisa Wrightson (right) watches a team of volunteers from Wells Fargo Bank unload food items from her mail truck at the Parkrose Post Office, part of the National Association of Letter Carriers one-day “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive on May 13. On that day, letter carriers collected bags of donated food left by mail boxes along their routes. Nearly 560,750 pounds of food was collected by members of NALC Branch 82 in Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties. It was taken to the Oregon Food Bank for distribution. A Multnomah County Circuit Court judge ruled May 3 that the state prevail- ing wage law doesn’t apply to a Port- land renovation project that is being partially financed with taxpayer dollars. The state prevailing wage law has been on the books in Oregon since 1959 and was last revised by the Legislature in 2005. It was enacted to ensure that contractors on public works projects compete on ability and efficiency rather than on who can pay the lowest wages and offer the fewest benefits. Prevailing wages and benefits are set through annual surveys of more than 5,000 contractors by the Oregon Em- ployment Department. The Oregon Bureau of Labor and In- dustries (BOLI) enforces the law. The court case stems from a lawsuit filed by the Portland Development Commission (PDC) against BOLI over a determination by state Labor Com- missioner Dan Gardner that a redevel- opment project in Northeast Portland — known as the Tin Roof project — was a prevailing wage job. PDC — the development arm for the City of Portland — appealed, saying the project was a private one because the agency only loaned money and didn’t own the building. When Gardner would not reverse his decision the agency sued BOLI. PDC is involved in numerous part- nerships with private developers, many of which involve taxpayer dollars through urban renewal districts, tax in- crement financing and other creative fi- nancing methods. BOLI maintains that the prevailing wage law covers any binding agreement a public agency enters into which re- quires construction, uses public funds, and is done in the public interest. PDC has argued for a much narrower legal interpretation, contending that the (Turn to Page 12)
