Cancer claims Cornelia Murphy, 40,
Oregon’s workplace fatalities
former Oregon AFSCME political staffer report misses half the story
Cornelia Murphy, former political
campaign director for Oregon Council
75 of the American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees (AF-
SCME), died May 13 in San Jose,
Calif., of ovarian cancer. She was 40
years old.
Friends and colleagues remember
Murphy as an incredibly hard worker
who lived life with gusto and was in-
tensely proud to be part of the labor
movement. Funny, irreverent and head-
strong, Murphy had a talent for inspir-
ing volunteers to get involved, and mak-
ing them feel rewarded.
Murphy was born June 29, 1965. She
grew up in Washington, D.C., and
Rhode Island. She is the daughter of
Mariel Valentine and Cornelius Murphy.
After earning a bachelors degree in
political science and public law from
California State University Northridge
in 1992, she went on to work in Wash-
ington, D.C., for several Democratic
members of Congress — Jack Brooks,
Ron Coleman and Max Sandlin from
Texas, and Leonard Boswell from Iowa.
Later, working at the Iowa Depart-
ment of Agriculture in 1999, she be-
came active in AFSCME, and as a vol-
unteer coordinator helped defeat two
state constitutional amendments that
would have required legislative super-
majorities to raise any tax.
In 2000 she went to work for AF-
SCME’s national office, mobilizing
union members to support Al Gore for
president in
Iowa, New
Hampshire,
Wi s c o n s i n ,
California and
Oregon. With
the victor un-
certain, Mur-
phy was one
of a crew of
AFSCME
staffers sent to
Florida to
CORNELIA
watch the re-
MURPHY
count.
After the election, she was assigned
to help statewide AFSCME Council 75
in Oregon.
She helped elect Randy Leonard to
the Portland City Council and Ted Ku-
longoski as Oregon governor. She also
worked to defeat several measures that
would have restricted unions’ ability to
take part in politics. She helped pass
Multnomah County’s temporary in-
come tax surcharge for schools and a
property tax levy to support libraries.
Pollster Lisa Grove said Murphy’s
efforts probably made the difference in
close races, like Kulongoski’s or the
Multnomah County I-tax.
“She was an unstoppable force of
nature,” Grove recalled, “Cornelia stood
out quickly to me because she was a
doer. She wanted to win.”
“She never focused on what she’d
done, but was always talking about
other people’s commitments even
though you knew she’d done twice as
much,” said AFSCME organizer Debra
Kidney.
Her impact is clear, however: Over
the last several months, as word spread
of her illness, hundreds of people wrote
in from around the country on a Web
page her brother Paul set up for her at
carepages.com.
Murphy had left AFSCME in Feb-
ruary 2006 and moved to San Jose to be
closer to her brother after the death of
their mother. There she took a position
with Kenyon Black, a public relations
and political consulting firm, but dis-
covered her illness before that job got
under way.
She is survived by her father; two
brothers, Jeremiah of Rhode Island, and
Paul of San Jose, Calif.; and nephews
Harry and Gus.
Services will be held in San Jose on
May 25 and in Portland June 2 at 11a.m.
at the International Longshore and Ware-
house Union, 2401 NW 23rd Ave.
A tax-deductible fund to defray
medical and funeral expenses was set
up, to which many AFSCME members
and others gave generously.
“There probably isn’t a labor person
in this state who hasn’t benefited
tremendously from Cornelia’s work,”
said AFSCME staff rep James Hester.
“She was totally committed to AF-
SCME and the movement. I think she’d
want us to keep on fighting.”
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The Newspaper Guild
hits newspapers’ sale
WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) —
The sale of four newspapers — three in
the San Francisco Bay area and the St.
Paul Pioneer Press — to media mogul
Dean Singleton should be scrutinized
by those newspapers’ cities and possi-
bly overturned on anti-trust grounds,
says Newspaper Guild President Linda
Foley.
Foley commented after the Mc-
Clatchy newspaper chain, which is buy-
ing 32 papers from Knight-Ridder and
putting 12 — including the aforemen-
tioned, all of which are represented by
The Newspaper Guild, an affiliate of
Communications Workers of America
— up for sale, said it would sell them
to Singleton’s MediaNews Corp. for $1
billion. Singleton, a right-winger, has a
reputation for slashing news, workers
and pay.
The Newspaper Guild and a pro-
worker investment firm, Yucaipa, are
bidding for all 12, with an employee
stock ownership plan to be established
if they are successful. Eight of the
newspapers are unionized, including the
four Singleton wants.
“The apparent complexity of the
proposed purchase of three Northern
California newspapers shouldn’t ob-
scure a simple fact: The industry is
dominated by a small circle of owner-
ship groups,” Foley said. The late-April
sale of the four papers “drew that circle
even smaller.”
If Singleton buys the four papers, he
would have a virtual monopoly east and
south of San Francisco, because he also
is buying the San Jose Mercury News
and two papers south of the city. He
now owns the Oakland Tribune.
(International Standard Serial Number 0894-444X)
Established in 1900 at Portland, Oregon
as a voice of the labor movement.
4275 NE Halsey St., P.O. Box 13150,
Portland, Ore. 97213
Telephone: (503) 288-3311
Fax Number: (503) 288-3320
Editor: Michael Gutwig
Staff: Don McIntosh, Cheri Rice
Published on a semi-monthly basis on the first and third Fridays of
each month by the Oregon Labor Press Publishing Co. Inc., a non-
profit corporation owned by 20 unions and councils including the
Oregon AFL-CIO. Serving more than 120 union organizations in Ore-
gon and SW Washington. Subscriptions $13.75 per year for union
members.
Group rates available to trade union organizations.
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and new addresses and the name and number of your local union.
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MAY 19, 2006
The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OR-OSHA)
issued a press release earlier this month announcing a record-low 31 job-re-
lated deaths in Oregon in 2005.
While the number reported is the lowest since the state started keeping
track in 1943, it includes only those workers covered as compensable claims
under the state’s workers’ compensation system. While this fact is included
in the press release, many news reports don’t mention it in their stories.
“The real number of workers killed on the job in Oregon is, unfortunately,
about twice what was reported,” said Tom Chamberlain, president of the
Oregon AFL-CIO. “The state’s number – 31 – does not include deaths of
workers who were self-employed, working in Oregon for out-of-state em-
ployers, City of Portland police and fire employees, federal employees and
others. And we must remember and honor the soldiers who have died in the
Middle East – they died on the job as well.”
The Northwest Labor Press reported in April that in 2005, according to
records by OR-OSHA and the federal Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries,
53 workers were killed on the job in Oregon. The names and occupations of
these 53 workers were listed in the April 21 issue — and the names were
read at a Workers Memorial Day event on April 28. This number does not in-
clude soldiers with ties to Oregon.
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
E-Mail: gstorms@equitygroup.com
www.equitygroup.com/gstorms
7886 SE 13th Ave.
Portland, Oregon 97202
Branch: 503-233-8883
Direct: 503-495-4932
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