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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (June 2, 2006)
Let me say this about that —By Gene Klare George Brown, a legend GEORGE BROWN, a legendary lobbyist and political strategist for the Oregon labor movement, gets the spotlight in this edition as a new member of the Labor Honor Roll, which the Northwest Labor Press started to salute labor stalwarts of bygone years. The Labor Honor Roll provides recognition to men and women of the past who are not eligible for the Labor Hall of Fame sponsored by the Northwest Oregon Labor Retirees Council because the Hall of Fame was established to honor retired unionists while they are still living. BROWN SERVED the Oregon AFL-CIO as its elected director of political education and legislation from the 1956 merger of the state councils of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations until his retirement in 1969. Prior to the merger, Brown was the executive secretary-treasurer of the Oregon CIO State Council, a post he was first elected to in 1949. That year he took over the the state leadership of the CIO from Stanley Earl, who left to undertake an assign- ment in Korea for the United States Govern- GEORGE BROWN ment. Upon Earl’s return from Korea, he was elected as a Portland city commissioner in 1952 and continued at City Hall until his death in 1970. BROWN AND EARL had started working together at the old Multnomah Plywood Co. sawmill in 1934; Earl became president with Brown as vice pres- ident of the AFL Lumber and Sawmill Workers local union at the mill. Later, because of dissatisfaction with their union’s national leadership in the big 1935 strike to organize the Northwest lumber industry, Brown and Earl broke away and helped form the International Woodworkers of America as a CIO union. Brown became an IWA organizer, achieving his first big success in Longview, Washington. In a series of bargaining rights elections there, the IWA got 5,000 members in two days. That had a two-fold significance: It was the key to or- ganizing the rest of the industry in the Northwest, and it provided the votes needed within the union to oust Communist-leaning leaders. FOR 14 YEARS, Brown dedicated his energies to the rough-and-tumble job of organizing logging and sawmill workers. He spent some of his organiz- ing years in the South, where he insisted that the locals he organized be racially integrated. Brown did some of his organizing in Oklahoma, where he was born on Nov. 6, 1902, which was five years before it became the nation’s 46th state. While trying to organize a sawmill in a small Oklahoma town, Brown was alerted by some of the mill’s workers that the bosses and their goons were planning to tar-and-feather him and chase him out of town. Forewarned, Brown left before the gang got ready to look for him. Brown, who eventually became the IWA’s director of organizing, did ex- tensive organizing in Canada. When he left the IWA job in 1949 to head up the State CIO Council, the Portland-headquartered IWA had grown from a mem- bership of 15,000 to 150,000. IN THE YEARS prior to the 1956 merger of the AFL and CIO, Brown and his AFL counterpart James T. Marr (profiled in the last issue), cooperated on politics and legislation so they could be more effective in representing workers’ interests. That cooperation reaped rewards, as was noted in the Marr article, in the mid-1950s elections of Democrats to federal and state offices. Over the years, George Brown put in countless hours as a spokesman for or- ganized labor and a representative of workers’ interests while serving on gov- ernmental and civic boards, commissions and committees. Among his major contributions was service on a committee appointed by Portland Mayor Terry D. Schrunk that eventually saw the formation of the TriMet Transit System as a public agency which replaced a privately-owned bus line. (Continued in Next Issue) PAGE 2 Providence bosses frown on state official’s role on ‘Fair Elections’ panel After Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury agreed to look at the union election rights of workers at Providence Health Systems, he got a pair of threat letters from Providence and its industry association. Service Employees International Union Local 49 has been engaged in a massive organizing campaign at several Providence hospitals in the Portland area for over a year, but the union has been hesitant to file for a union election unless Providence commits to a set of ground rules. In campaigns in other states, Providence — a Catholic-owned nonprofit health system — has used le- gal avenues under the National Labor Relations Act to mount vigorous anti- union campaigns that sometimes slow or defeat union drives. Bradbury had agreed to chair a May 25 hearing of a “Fair Election Oversight Commission,” made up of members of the activist group Jobs with Justice’s Workers Rights Board. The Board is comprised of religious, political and community leaders who agree to use their moral authority to advocate for workers’ rights, usually with letters to employers and sometimes in unofficial but quasi-judicial “hearings” that result in recommendations for neutrality. As secretary of state, it’s Bradbury’s duty to ensure free and fair elections for public office. But intervening in a union election was going too far, said Providence CEO Russ Danielson. “Your decision to insert the office of secretary of state into a private organi- law,” Bradbury said. “If that’s their re- zation’s labor issues is both perplexing sponse to me, a statewide elected leader, and disturbing,” Danielson wrote in a it makes me wonder what it’s going to May 17 letter to Bradbury. “There sim- be like for the workers who want to ply is no merit, precedent, or legal foun- form a union.” Undeterred, dation for your at- Bradbury went a- tempts to use your head with the hear- office as a vehicle If that’s their response ing, and in a phone for attempting to to me, a statewide call to Danielson legislate the union and a letter to the and labor issues of elected leader, it makes hospital association, a private com- me wonder what it’s explained why: De- pany.” mocratic principles “It would be in- going to be like for the are not limited to effective and leg- workers who want to elections for public ally questionable office. Just as he ad- to attend the meet- form a union.’ vocates for demo- ing of a commis- cratic principles sion that — by law — should not exist. We officially re- when he meets with foreign dignitaries, quest that you disband this commis- Bradbury said, he encourages public sion.… My belief is that responsible support for the right of Providence Oregonians would strongly encourage workers for a free and fair election. The hearing at the Portland Building you to refocus your energies (and the taxpayer’s dollars) on the official duties was packed wall-to-wall with Provi- prescribed to you as Oregon’s secretary dence workers, union leaders and pro- labor activists. SEIU brought Provi- of state.” CEO Andrew Davidson, president of dence workers from New York, the Oregon Association of Hospitals California, and Yakima, Wash., to tes- and Health Systems, sent a similar letter tify along with workers from the Port- the same day, inquiring about what land area. There was a note-taker, and statutory authority Bradbury had to con- simultaneous translation into Russian vene such a meeting. The letters can be and Spanish. “NLRB [National Labor Relations viewed in their entirety on the North- west Labor Press Web site at Board union certification] elections www.nwlaborpress.org/2006/6-2- look more like the discredited practices of rogue regimes abroad than like any- 06WRB.html “They vaguely threatened, without thing we would call American,” testified directly saying it, that I’ve broken the (Turn to Page 3) ‘ Swanson,Thomas &Coon ATTORNEYS AT LAW Since 1981 James Coon Megan Glor Cynthia F. Newton Ray Thomas Margaret Weddell Sharon Maynard James Oliver Kimberly Tucker Tip of the week: Many people give up pursuing disability benefits from Social Security when their first application is denied. However, it is important to appeal. Over 60% of the denied applications are granted after a hearing before a judge. Don’t give up! 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 WEB SITE ( 503) 228-5222 NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS http://www.stc-law.com JUNE 2, 2006
