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.
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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
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