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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 4, 2006)
Inside MEETING NO TICES See Page 6 V olume 107 Number 15 A ugust 4, 2006 P ortland Oregon AFL-CIO backs Kulongoski for re-election The Oregon AFL-CIO wasted little time endorsing Gov. Ted Kulongoski for re-election at its meeting July 25 in Portland. During President Tom Chamber- lain’s report to the Committee On Po- litical Education (COPE), he was inter- rupted and a motion was made to endorse the Democratic incumbent. A vote was taken and Kulongoski won unanimous support, with two unions — the Oregon Nurses Association and Springfield Fire Fighters — abstaining. A political endorsement requires a two-thirds majority vote. Support by the AFL-CIO is a huge relief for Kulongoski, who failed to get its backing in the May primary when he faced two labor-friendly Democratic opponents. At the time, public em- ployee unions were still upset with Ku- longoski because of his work in the 2005 Legislature to scale back public employees’ pensions through massive reforms. Kulongoski won the primary. He now faces a well-financed anti-union conservative Republican. “I think Ted Kulongoski is the best labor governor in the United States in terms of what he says and what he does. His actions follow his talk,” said Ken Allen, executive director of Oregon AF- SCME Council 75. It was Allen who moved to endorse Kulongoski. “Job creation. Capital construction. Minimum wage. Organizing. Health care. He’s with us right down the line,” said AFL-CIO President Tom Cham- berlain, who formerly served as the governor’s labor liaison. “He just gets it,” added Bob Petroff, directing business representative of Ma- chinists District Lodge 24. “He knows what’s right for workers...he’s one of us.” Kulongoski, a former member of the Teamsters and Steelworkers unions, refers to himself in speeches as a “labor Democrat.” He was one of the first gov- ernors in the nation to sign the pledge for the Employee Free Choice Act, a legislative proposal pending in Con- gress that calls for card-check elections and employer neutrality during organ- izing campaigns. During his first term, Kulongoski signed executive orders designating AF- SCME Council 75 as the exclusive representative for some 5,000 registered child care providers throughout the state, and the Service Employees Inter- national Union as the exclusive agent for approximately 6,000 state-listed family child care providers. (Turn to Page 3) Machinists strike at Cummins NW continues Steve Capsey, Ward Andring and Rick Brandt, members of Machinists Lodge 1005, walk picket line July 31 at Cummins NW on Swan Island in Portland. The unfair labor practice strike, which is getting virtually no attention by the Portland media, started July 7 after the company’s new owner voided contracts with Machinists and Teamsters unions at facilities in Portland, Pendleton, Renton, Wash. and Spokane, Wash., and quit paying into the pension fund. The sides are negotiating on new contracts with a federal mediator, but talks are moving slowly. The new owner wants open shop language in any new pacts. “We’re in for the long haul, said Andring, who has been with Cummins NW for 31 years. More than 100 workers are on strike, including 23 in Portland. The ULP strike is sanctioned by the Northwest Oregon Labor Council and Teamsters Joint Council 37. Former Labor Press editor ‘Jimbo’ Goodsell dies at 86 James Warren Goodsell, editor of the Oregon Labor Press in the 1950s and ’60s, died in his sleep on July 15, 2006 at his home in Twisp, Washington, at the age of 86, his family re- ported. Twisp, which is not far from the Cana- dian border, is situated in the Methow Valley in the North Cascade Mountains. In 1982, Goodsell and his second wife, Dorothy (Dee) Compton Goodsell, moved to Twisp, which they had earlier selected as their retirement site because of its proximity to moun- tains, which they both enjoyed climbing. He took early retirement from a federal executive post because she had suddenly gone nearly blind in 1981. Doctors said the cause of her sight loss JAMES GOODSELL was temporal arteritis. At that time they were living in Italy where he was the director of the United States Trade Center in Milan. Dee Goodsell died at their Twisp home in 2003 at age 86. Jim, also known as Jimbo, became the editor and manager of the then-weekly Oregon Labor Press on June 1, 1951 and held the job until Oct. 8, 1965. (This labor-owned non-profit newspaper was started as the Portland Labor Press on Labor Day 1900, became the Oregon Labor Press in 1914 and changed its name to Northwest Labor Press in 1987 to reflect its expanded scope.) Under Goodsell’s editorship the Labor Press won 24 national awards in the annual journalism com- petition sponsored by the International Labor Press As- sociation. In those years the ILPA journalism contests were mostly judged by Nieman Fellows at Harvard University. Those are professional journalists studying at Harvard while on a school year’s sabbatical from their jobs. A highlight of Goodsell’s tenure at the Labor Press was attend- ing and covering the historic 1955 national merger of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations at a convention in New York City. The next year he attended and cov- ered the AFL-CIO state-level merger convention in Portland. The circulation of the Labor Press was 18,900 when Goodsell became its editor and manager in 1951. He increased it to 40,000 over a period of years. Goodsell’s reporting on the long, bitter November 1959 to April 1965 strike against the Oregonian and Oregon Journal and his sup- port for the striking unions and their members earned him a special (Turn to Page 2)
