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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (July 6, 2006)
Electrical Workers #280 elects Nicol as business manager Last month, members of Interna- tional Brotherhood of Electrical Work- ers (IBEW) Local 280 voted new lead- ers into union office. Local 280, headquartered in Tan- gent, Oregon, just east of Corvallis, has 1,068 members in the electrical construction industry, and a jurisdic- tion that runs from Woodburn to Cot- tage Grove and from the Cascade Range to Crook, Deschutes and Jeffer- son counties in Central Oregon. For business manager — the local’s top office — Local 280’s former polit- ical director Tim Nicol won 57 percent of the votes cast, out-polling incum- bent Dennis Caster and two other can- didates. At Local 280 as in many unions, business manager is the one elected office that’s also a full-time paid position. In the race for Local 280 president, Jerry Fletcher, a current Examining Board member, beat Mike Spade, the current vice president. For vice presi- dent, Drew Lindsey won in a runoff, after he and Arnold Langendoerfer were the top two of three candidates in the first round. Running unopposed were Tommy Paul for recording secre- tary and Dave Baker for treasurer. Members also elected Steve Bebout, Mike Davis and Wayne Lathrop to the Executive Board; Julie Emmit, Cory Miller and Mike Sliper to the Examin- ing Board; and Jerry Fletcher, Rich Lofton and Tommy Paul as delegates to the IBEW international convention. The new officers will be sworn in July 20 and take office July 21. All terms are three years. Turnout topped 42 percent. The election was conducted by mail, with the first round of ballots counted June 7, and the runoff June 28. Incoming business manager Nicol, 53, grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where both his parents worked as union factory workers. Nicol became an IBEW member in 1971, and after a four-year apprenticeship with IBEW Local 150 in Northern Illinois, moved to Junction City, Oregon, where his wife’s family lived. For 11 years, he was on the road as a traveling journey- man electrician, taking short-term jobs wherever there was union electrical construction work — and attending lo- cal union meetings wherever he went. In 1986 he transferred his membership to Local 280. At the invitation of busi- ness manager Al Reddig, he ran for union office and won election as Local 280 Executive Board member and then vice president, serving one term each. In 1998, then-business manager Steve Rose hired Nicol to work on building code enforcement. Local 280 faced competition from renegade con- tractors using unlicensed electricians, Nicol said. He soon found that filing complaints with state enforcers wasn’t enough, and began to lobby the Ore- gon Legislature for tougher rules. That work prompted the local to draft Nicol as a political coordinator. In the 2004 general election, he helped IBEW Lo- cal 280 achieve 92 percent voter turnout, among the highest of any union in the state. Nicol's priority, he said, is “provid- ing more communication to members, so they can make the decision whether they want to get involved.” “Apathy is our biggest enemy,” Nicol said. TIM NICOL Vancouver Hilton workers join UNITE HERE Local 9 VANCOUVER, Wash. — The Hilton Vancouver Washington is now the fourth union hotel in the Portland metro area. Last month, 130 house- keeping, laundry, restaurant, bar and banquet workers became members of the garment and hospitality union UNITE HERE Local 9. Under a neutrality agreement signed before the hotel and adjacent conven- tion center was built, management agreed to recognize the union once a majority of hotel workers signed union authorization cards, said Jeff Richard- son, financial secretary-treasurer of Lo- cal 9. The complex is owned by the City of Vancouver’s Downtown Redevelop- ment Authority, which signed a 15-year contract with Hilton Hotels Corporation to manage it. The 226-room hotel is lo- cated at 301 W. 6th Street, across the street from Esther Short Park in the heart of downtown Vancouver. Organized labor played a major role in shepherding the $73.1 million deal through bureaucratic red tape at the state, county and city levels. Union members also helped promote a bond levy to voters to fund the project. But the new facility hasn’t been without controversy. The general con- tractor for construction was from Texas, and at least a dozen nonunion subcon- tractors were hired to build it. A large portion of the project was let to a nonunion plumbing company, resulting in picketing by Plumbers and Fitters Local 290 and the Columbia-Pacific Building and Construction Trades Council during construction. The building trades council called for a three-year boycott of the hotel and conference center when it opened June 15, 2005. Building trades officials said they hope to meet with city officials soon to discuss ways to end the boycott. UNITE HERE contract bargaining for the Hilton Vancouver staff is ex- pected to begin shortly. Surveys have been sent to workers, who are meeting to establish priorities and select mem- bers of the bargaining team. House- keepers currently earn $8.50 an hour and servers make minimum wage plus tips. UNITE HERE Local 9 also repre- sents hotel workers at the Hilton, Ben- son and Paramount in downtown Port- land. BENNETT HARTMAN MORRIS & KAPLAN, LLP Attorneys at Law Representing Unions and Workers Since 1960 PROTECTING UNION MEMBERS’ SMILES AND WALLETS. 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