Let me say this about that
...#1388’s Pankow dies
(From Page 2)
Local 290, Waits moved to the Portland area and served as a business agent of
the new local union until retiring two decades ago. Retirement took Waits to
LaPine in Central Oregon’s Deschutes County.
SIX YEARS AGO in LaPine, Herb’s wife, Jan, died. She was his third
wife. His second wife, Juanita, had died years earlier. Herb married his first
wife, Marcea, in 1942; they were divorced later, and she, too, died. Marcea
was the mother of his three sons. They are Ronald, of Bend, Herb III, of
Beaverton, and Robert, of Medford. Herb III and Robert followed their fa-
ther’s footsteps into the pipe trades and are members of the United Association
of Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 290. Ronald owns a repossession com-
pany, which operates in various localities and has worked with government
agencies. Herb Jr. has nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. One
grandson, Drew Waits, of Medford, is the fourth generation of the Waits fam-
ily to become a a pipe trades journeyman.
Waits likes living in LaPine, which is south of Bend in Deschutes County,
a prime Central Oregon area for outdoor recreation He does some fishing in
LaPine but prefers going hunting for deer and elk with his sons. They often
hunt in the Prairie City area of Grant County in Eastern Oregon
REPUBLICANS OUTNUMBER Democrats in Deschutes County,
Waits said, so he’s sometimes called “Mr. Democrat” by friends and ac-
quaintances because he’s in the political minority.
Waits belongs to the American Legion and Moose Lodge in LaPine. He still
belongs to the Elks Lodge in Klamath Falls but maintains an associate mem-
bership with the Elks Lodge in Bend. When Herb and Jan first relocated to
LaPine, they lived in the Newberry Estates District and he was elected as
chairman of its board. After she died, he moved to a place in a wooded area.
★★★
JERRY PANKOW, a longtime member of Carpenters Local 1388, died at
age 59 on June 8. A remembrance service will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday, July
8, at St. Matthew Lutheran Church, 10390 SW Canyon Rd. in Beaverton.
His family said that he had “a long and
distinguished career as a Local 1388 car-
penter, progressing through the ranks from
apprentice to superintendent. His 35-plus
years in construction were filled with all
types of structures built in Oregon, Wash-
ington, Northern California, Wyoming and
Alaska. Among them were the Emanuel
Hospital Burn Center, Shriners Hospital
Children’s Addition, Tektronix Building 3,
Portland Justice Center foundations, St.
Vincent Hospital parking structure 2, St.
Charles Medical Center additions and Ea-
gle River School in Alaska.”
IN 1992, he was honored with the Car-
JERRY PANKOW
penter Guildsman of the Year Award by the
Oregon Building Congress, a longtime or-
ganization with membership from labor, management, the professions and
government.
Pankow was a certified instructor at the Willamette Carpenters Training
Center in Portland, where, his family said, “he helped many hundreds of as-
piring tradespersons to become more successful in their construction careers.”
He also took training courses himself, completing all 10 units of the Associ-
ated General Contractors supervisory program.
He enjoyed scuba diving, especially in the Hawaiian Islands, and loved
having dogs around, particularly Dalmations. He was a fun-loving man who
entertained friends and family at barbecues, pool parties and at other social
events. He made time to help friends and neighbors with household repairs
and renovations.
JEROME PANKOW was born on Jan. 1, 1947 in Portland to Hugo and
Eleanor Pankow. His siblings were Dian, Mark and Darlene. He graduated
from the Beaverton School District’s Sunset High School. In 1968 he married
Carol Mischel and they had one son, Steven.
“Within his own life and with his associates, Jerry exemplified the ability
to face adversity with good nature,” his family said. “Some but not all who
knew him were aware that from birth Jerry spent his entire life dealing with
heart problems. At age 11 he underwent his first heart procedure; performed
by the famed Dr. Albert Starr of Portland. And even when Jerry’s failing health
would periodically surface, he would smile and ignore it. No matter the cir-
cumstances, Jerry faced them with a dignity that was unique to him, never
missing an opportunity of living life to the fullest.”
JULY 7, 2006
Proud to be union
By J ON H UNT
President
ATU Local 757
Anyone who talks to me for very
long will hear me say that I was raised a
union kid. My father, Bill Hunt, was an
ATU 757 member for 23 years. During
the last years of his working life he was
an ATU 757 executive board officer. To-
day he is a proud member of the ATU
757 retirees’ chapter. I tell you this be-
cause I grew up believing that being
“union” was a very good thing.
The preamble to the ATU Constitu-
tion states that the union was established
“to promote the general cause of hu-
manity and brotherly love, and secure
the blessings of friendship, equality and
truth.” Those union values brought us
the eight-hour work day, five-day work
week, the minimum wage, pensions,
workers’ compensation, vacations and
other benefits we often take for granted.
The values in the ATU preamble remain
as important today as they were when
they were written over 114 years ago.
Global corporations are making
every attempt to drive working people’s
wages, benefits and working conditions
down. This fact makes union values
more important than ever. The power of
union values put into action is why cor-
porations attack unionization in every
country. And, that is why, as union
members, we must speak up about our
union values. Four of the most impor-
tant of these values are:
• Unions fight to have workers
treated like assets, not like interchange-
able resources or throwaway parts. It is
the working people who create the profit
and provide the service. They deserve
their fair share of the value they create
in addition to recognition and respect.
• Unions fight for families. It is hard
to balance the demands of work and
family, so unions fight for family leave
laws and child care. They fight for fair-
ness and justice in the workplace so that
a family’s welfare cannot be threatened
by capricious management action, fa-
voritism or bullying.
• Unions fight for the entire commu-
nity. Unions brought America the mid-
dle class, and now unions are on the
front lines fighting to keep the middle
Open
Forum
class. They know a healthy country must
invest in the future, and so unions fight
for family wage jobs, universal educa-
tion and health care for everyone. They
know that families who are thriving con-
tribute to the community by giving both
their time and money.
• Unions provide an opportunity for
people to practice democracy in their
daily lives. Union members vote on who
leads them, on their wages, benefits, and
working conditions, on who they are go-
ing to defend and how their money is
spent. No other organization in Ameri-
can life provides so many opportunities
for meaningful democratic action.
So yes, like many of you, I am proud
to be union. I am grateful for the ac-
complishments of organized labor. More
importantly, I am looking forward to the
future as organized labor continues its
fight for the union values of economic
morality, social justice and social re-
sponsibility.
Raising the minimum wage: Poverty is your problem
By PAUL PETILLO
For most of us, the poverty level
looks like some far-off place we are not
likely to visit. We enjoy our pay pack-
ages and the benefits supplied by union
contracts negotiated with our employ-
ers. But for far too many Americans, the
reality of living with a low income is a
daily challenge. In 2006, the Census
Bureau describes a family of four with
an income of less than $20,000 as one
living in poverty.
With the average income in the U.S.
at $44,473, should it matter to workers
on the West Coast with an elevated min-
imum wage (California - $6.75, Oregon
- $7.50, Washington - $7.63) whether
the federal minimum wage of $5.15 per
hour is adequate?
Try to imagine if you will the costs
of raising a family of four on the mini-
mum wage set by Oregon. At $15,600,
you would find it difficult to provide ad-
equate housing, reliable transportation,
and still have enough to provide your
family with health benefits. Forget
about funding your retirement.
Now imagine that same life on the
current national minimum wage of
$10,700.
Once again, in a nod to the busi-
nesses that lobby so heavily in an effort
to influence Congress, elected officials
have deemed any increases in the mini-
mum wage as counterproductive to eco-
nomic growth.
When David Card and Alan Krueger
of Princeton University offered their
study on the subject of wages versus
growth of business in 1995, they were
faced with the daunting task of con-
vincing a Congress that believed any in-
creases in the minimum wage would
eliminate jobs, not create them. While
their study was criticized for its narrow
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
time frame, what these two economists
found was quite the opposite.
Congress is convinced that America
is one big company town; a place where
wage increases are directly offset by
corporations with higher prices to the
general public. What Card and Krueger
found was an upward moving trend of
pay raises for low-wage workers acted
as an economic force to not only stay
competitive but to retain better workers.
In other words, companies are price-set-
ters not price-takers.
In the short run, retaining workers
with better than average pay is far more
cost-effective than hiring wave after
wave of low-wage help. In the long run,
it raises everyone’s standard of living.
Partisan support of raising minimum
standards has fallen by the wayside.
Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon and
Bush (H.W.) all agreed with the efforts
to raise the wages during their terms as
a reward for those who play by the
rules. The logic of repeatedly nixing
any further increases over the last 10
years seems counterintuitive. The sim-
ple reality of those wages increases
would result in higher tax revenues
without raising taxes.
With over 37 million people in
poverty in the U.S., among them 13 mil-
lion children, the chances are you know
someone living below acceptable stan-
dards. Come November, you can change
this and how America treats its lowest-
paid workers with the cast of a vote.
(Paul Petillo is a member of UFCW
Local 555. He is the author of Building
Wealth in a Paycheck-to-Paycheck
World, McGraw-Hill, and editor of
BlueCollarDollar.com.)
Workers Memorial Committee thanks
labor for donations; goal is $75,000
To The Editor:
We want to thank those who have
donated to the Oregon AFL-CIO’s pro-
posed Workers Memorial at the State
Capitol in Salem.
We have set a goal of $75,000 to
make this memorial become a reality.
So far we have collected $7,500.
Groups that have donated to the
worker memorial are: Steelworkers Lo-
cal 6163; Steelworkers L&E Commit-
tee; the Lane,Coos,Curry Counties and
Salem Building Trades Councils; Ma-
chinists Local Lodges 63 and 1005;
Woodworkers W-536; B. Curtis
Wilcox; IBEW Locals 48, 280 and 659;
the Southern Oregon and the Marion,
Polk, Yamhill Counties Labor Councils;
Longshore and Warehouse Union Lo-
cal 40; IFTPE Local 97; Eugene Fire
Fighters Local 851; United Auto Work-
ers Local 492; Service Employees Lo-
cal 503; American Federation of Teach-
ers-Oregon convention donations;
Bakers Local 114; Columbia River
Council of the ILWU, and Office and
Professional Employees Local 11.
Please make all donations to the
Workers Memorial Fund. through the
Oregon AFL-CIO, 2110 State St.,
Salem OR 97301.
Al Dorgan
Oregon AFL-CIO
Health & Safety Committee
Salem
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