Let me say this about that
...Brumm dies at 61
(From Page 2)
west states the AFL-CIO state labor federations launched campaigns to gather
the necessary signatures to refer minimum-wage- raise ballot measures to the
voters and then campaigned for passage of those measures.
Efforts to raise minimum wage rates are under way in a number of states.
Nevada voters will have an opportunity in November of this year to increase
their state’s minimum wage.
The highest non-federal minimum wage rates have been set in two cities —
Santa Fe, New Mexico, and San Francisco, California. In Santa Fe, the mini-
mum wage is $9.50 an hour and scheduled to go to $10.50 an hour in 2008. In
San Francisco, the minimum wage is $8.50 an hour.
USA TODAY SAID that Santa Fe, New Mexico’s capital, is a “city of
68,000 built largely on state government and tourism. Popular with celebrities
and well-heeled art lovers, Santa Fe is an expensive place to live.”
San Francisco, the fabled city by the Golden Gate Bridge, has a higher
minimum wage than does the State of California — $8.50 for the city vs.
S6.75 for the not-so Golden State.
★★★
THOMAS ALLEN BRUMM of Portland, who had worked for labor
unions, U.S. Senator Wayne Morse, Gov. Neil Goldschmidt and the Clinton
White House, died at age 61 on June
17. His death was from medical com-
plications following a stroke.
An obituary published by his family
said that he died “in the loving presence
of family and friends.”
TOM BRUMM was born in Port-
land on July 11, 1944. He graduated
from Kennedy Grade School, Grant
High School and Portland State Uni-
versity. His family said his first job after
graduating from PSU was with Port-
land’s Model Cities program. While
still at PSU, he worked as a student in-
tern for the legendary labor lobbyist
George Brown, who was the elected di-
rector of politics and legislation for the
TOM BRUMM
Oregon AFL-CIO.
In his career in the labor movement,
Brumm was an organizer and assistant business agent for Laundry, Dry Clean-
ing and Dye House Workers Local 107 when Jerry Haggin was secretary-
treasurer of the non-affiliated union. He worked for the Communications
Workers of America when Del Ricks ran a statewide organizing local for the
union. He also was an organizer for the American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees under John Paul Jones.
BRUMM SERVED on the campaign staff of Democratic U.S. Senator
Wayne Morse in 1968 when Morse lost to Republican Bob Packwood, and
Tom also worked for Morse when he tried for a comeback a few years later.
Tom campaigned for Democrat Neil Goldschmidt in 1970 when the Legal
Aid attorney won election as a Portland city commissioner. In l986, Tom
worked on Goldschmidt’s successful campaign for governor and subsequently
was hired for an economic development post. Brumm’s family said that in
his economic development work his focus was on “the improvement of con-
ditions for rural Oregon citizens and communities who had been financially
displaced by globalization and the dimunition of the Oregon salmon and tim-
ber industries.”
BRUMM’S EXPERIENCE with and his empathy for the economic
plight of rural and small-town citizens brought him to the attention of Demo-
cratic President Bill Clinton’s Administration in the 1990s and he was called
to Washington, D.C., for a temporary assignment in his area of expertise. He
later retuned to Oregon and worked on various projects for state government.
Tom’s survivors include his wife, Betsy; two sons, Bill and David; daugh-
ters-in-law, Lisa and Jackie; four grandchildren, Max, Pearl, Josh and Alexa;
plus a stepfather, known as Bill; and Doug and Kenny, described by the fam-
ily as “like sons” to Tom.
FAMILY AND FRIENDS staged a wake for Tom on June 21 at former
Mayor “Bud” Clark’s Goose Hollow Inn, which was attended by an estimated
400 people. Tom and Betsy had met at the Goose.
JULY 21, 2006
Open
Forum
Labor Commissioner Gardner
rebuts foes of prevailing wage
By DAN GARDNER
Oregon Labor Commissioner
In its July 2 editorial, the Oregonian
displayed a disturbing lack of under-
standing of the state’s prevailing wage
laws as well as cold contempt for the
fortunes of Oregon’s construction
workers and their families.
As the commissioner of the Oregon
Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI),
I am charged with applying the state’s
prevailing wage law (PWR) in a fair
and legal manner. I take that duty very
seriously, as I do my legal responsibility
to protect the rights of Oregon’s work-
ers.
The state’s prevailing wage rates for
construction workers toiling on public
works projects are not designed to sup-
ply “padded paychecks” to those work-
ers. It reflects the amount of wages and
benefits already paid to construction
workers in a particular geographic labor
market. In other words, it is the com-
munity standard package of wages and
benefits paid to both union and
nonunion construction workers.
Thirty-two states and the federal
government set wages for construction
workers on public works projects
through such PWR laws. Oregon’s law
has been in place since 1959. In 1994,
the state’s voters were asked to repeal
the law. They emphatically said “no.” In
fact, a majority of voters in each of Ore-
gon’s 36 counties rejected such an ap-
peal. In the Portland metro area, the
level of support for the PWR law was
above 60 percent. The Oregonian was
wrong in 1994 to advocate repeal of the
state’s PWR law and in 2006 they still
seem to think they know better than
Oregon’s voters.
The state’s prevailing wage rates are
established by an annual, independent
survey conducted by the Oregon Em-
ployment Department. More than 5,000
union and nonunion contractors are sur-
veyed in 14 different regions through-
out the state as to what they are paying
their workers. By questioning the valid-
ity of the survey’s rates, the Oregonian
seems to be questioning the integrity of
the contractors filling out the surveys.
Do they believe the contractors are ly-
ing to the Employment Department?
The Oregonian accuses me of “ex-
panding” the reach of PWR to cover
public-private partnerships. The charge
is false. The first public-private partner-
ship to be “covered” under the PWR
law was the so-called “Salem Carousel”
project in 2001. The labor commis-
sioner who made that decision was Re-
publican Jack Roberts.
The Oregonian argues that the PWR
law is a “bad deal for taxpayers.” I’d re-
spond by asking: Is it bad for our com-
munity, or for our state, that construc-
tion workers on public works projects
earn enough to support their families
while receiving health insurance cover-
age and retirement benefits? That is
what prevailing wages supply.
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
Prevailing wage rates appear higher
than other wages because they represent
a package of both wages and the value
of fringe benefits, including health and
retirement. For example, in the recent
Tin Roof case where the Portland De-
velopment Commission sued BOLI to
avoid paying the prevailing wage rate,
53 percent of the additional cost (about
6 percent of a $3.4 million project) as-
sociated with PWR came from the ben-
efits portion paid to the workers. Would
our community be better off if contrac-
tors imported low-wage workers from
other states or countries to build public
projects and paid them no benefits?
Who in our community would benefit
from such a situation?
Another question the Oregonian fails
to ask concerns how the PDC chooses
to spend its taxpayer dollars — and let’s
remember they receive 19 cents of
every dollar paid in property taxes in the
city of Portland. Is it better for PDC to
build in large, double-digit profits for
developers of their projects rather than
spend several hundred thousand dollars
more to pay higher wages and benefits
to local construction workers? It seems
odd that the question is never framed in
that manner. Instead, the Oregonian and
others question the need for highly-
skilled and trained construction work-
ers to receive family wages and health
insurance benefits while never daring to
wonder whether the built-in profit mar-
gins for PDC’s development partners
deserve scrutiny or are “a good deal”
for Portland taxpayers.
The Oregonian also calls upon the
governor to appoint a second task force
to recommend changes to the state’s
PWR law. Such a task force is unneces-
sary without a new found willingness
on the part of certain key participants –
namely PDC — to compromise and
solve problems. I named a PWR task
force in September 2005. It was an au-
gust group with a broad representation
including PDC, contractors, developers,
bankers, the building trades unions, af-
fordable housing advocates and local
municipal officials. The group was
jointly chaired by Jessica Harris-Adam-
son of the Associated General Contrac-
tors and Bob Shiprack of the Oregon
State Building and Construction Trades
Council.
The group worked hard for eight
months to reach consensus recommen-
dations on how best to apply the state’s
PWR law to public-private partnership
projects. Unfortunately, it failed to do
so. That failure can be laid at the feet of
one participant — the PDC. Apparently,
it was PDC’s belief that they would
have a better chance of changing the
law in the courts or in the state Legisla-
ture, so they balked at attempts by all
parties to reach a compromise. Even the
Oregonian agrees that such a strategy is
ill-conceived given that it will take years
for either the courts or legislators to
make constructive changes to the law.
We should remember that these are
local men and women who work in the
cold, the heat, the rain and in the mud.
They attend apprenticeship and training
schools that offer state-of-the-art math
and science classes. They earn the
equivalent of an associate degree or
higher during their four to five years of
attending school and working at the
construction site.
They do not get an hour of vacation,
sick time or holiday pay. Simply put, if
you don’t work, you don’t get paid.
They rarely work on average more than
nine months out of each year and often
have to travel hundreds of miles to a job
site. They work in the third-most dan-
gerous profession in the nation and,
sadly, many construction workers are
injured or killed on the job each year.
These workers are your friends, your
neighbors and your loved ones. They
provide for our community. While it is
not my intent to expand the reach of the
PWR law, I will strongly defend its im-
portance to maintaining community
standards for all of us.
(Editor’s Note: Dan Gardner is a
third-generation electrician and mem-
ber of IBEW Local 48. He was re-
elected to a second four-year term in
the May primary.)
Broadway Floral
for the BEST flowers call
503-288-5537
1638 NE Broadway, Portland
Zachary
Zabinsky
• Social Security
• SSI - Disability Claims
Personal Attention To Every Case
Working For Disability Rights
Since 1983
NO FEE WITHOUT RECOVERY
621 SW Morrison, Portland
223-8517
PAGE 11