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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 2, 2007)
Inside MEETING NO TICES See Page 6 V olume 108 Number 3 F ebruary 2, 2007 P ortland F acing the coming labor shortage Unions say they want to train younger workers, but often- times feel ignored By DON McINTOSH Associate Editor Oregon’s business community is sounding an alarm about a looming shortage in skilled labor, but it’s not clear to what extent government efforts in “workforce development” will be able to solve the problem. Oregon unions, for their part, have been eager and willing to partner in efforts to im- prove worker skills, but feel like they too often get left out of plans for work- force training. Demographics is the number one reason a labor shortage is expected — the baby boom generation becomes eli- gible to retire in the next five to 15 years. That will likely mean greater competition for skilled workers by em- ployers throughout the economy — construction, high tech, health care, the public sector, even manufacturing. That last, the notion of a labor short- age in manufacturing, seems to go against conventional wisdom: Hasn’t manufacturing taken a beating in Ore- gon and the rest of the country, losing jobs to foreign competition and corpo- rate outsourcing? The short answer is, “Yes.” According to the Oregon Employ- ment Department, statewide manufac- turing employment peaked in 1998 at 227,000, declined in the 2000-2003 re- cession, and has been flat since then. State economists think it will ac- count for 205,500 jobs in 2014, about the same number as the end of 2006. But such numbers hide the reality of turnover and changing skills require- ments. Even in an industry with a de- clining workforce, workers retire or change jobs and need to be replaced. And computerization and mechaniza- tion, which contribute to job loss, at the same time require that remaining workers have higher-level skills. “New technologies are really changing the workplace,” said Lita Colligan, workforce policy adviser to Governor Ted Kulongoski, “and with baby boomers retiring in the next few years, we don’t have a pipeline of skilled workers to take those jobs.” That’s the message State Rep. Brad Witt has been hearing, loudly. Witt, who served 14 years as secretary-treas- urer of the Oregon AFL-CIO, became chair of the House Workforce and Eco- nomic Development Committee at the beginning of the year. His committee held several weeks of hearings in Janu- ary to listen to business and labor about what the Legislature could do to in- crease family-wage jobs in Oregon. “Not one witness didn’t say we’re headed for a train wreck in 10 or 15 years,” Witt said. The culprits most often fingered are culture and school: A shift in culture has made young people less interested in technical occupations, and the K-12 school system isn’t steering students toward skilled trades careers. Some labor leaders expect to see the business community clamor for more tax dollars to pay for their workforce training needs. That’s the chorus Bob Shiprack, executive secretary of the Oregon State Building and Construc- tion Trades Council, says he’s heard from business leaders. “The people that complain the most about not being able to find skilled people are the ones who don’t pay them what they’re worth,” Shiprack said. “What drives me crazy is that they’re doing nothing about this sup- posed labor shortage except asking the taxpayer to give them subsidies to train their workers.” Meanwhile, union training pro- grams, which operate without tax dol- lars, struggle for recognition. Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain says the state workforce training sys- (Turn to Page 7) Attorney Jim Egan of Albany leads a workshop on Oregon’s workers’compensation insurance system. A NNUAL O REGON L ABOR L AW C ONFERENCE B LOSSOMS I NTO A C ROWD OF N EARLY 250 What started 11 years ago as an intimate gath- ering of about 30 union leaders eager to learn more about state and federal labor laws has blossomed into a conference of nearly 250 union leaders, business agents, shop stewards and organizers who have overflowed the venue. “We may be looking at moving to the conven- tion center next year,” said Norman Malbin, in- house attorney for Electrical Workers Local 48 and founder of the Oregon Labor Law Conference. The day-long conference was held Jan. 19 at Local 48’s union hall and training center in North- east Portland. This year’s confab featured a plenary session on “Employment and Labor Law Overview” pre- sented by management attorney Rick Liebman. Twenty workshops are offered — ranging from “corporate campaigns” to “union discipline” to a panel on the impacts of last year’s Kentucky River decision by the National Labor Relations Board that redefined the definition of a supervisor. The panel for that discussion featured Richard Ahearn, regional director of the NLRB for Region 19, and attorneys from both labor and management. Malbin said the goal is to keep registration affordable while offering useful information that union staffers can uti- lize at work. RICHARD AHEARN NORMAN MALBIN
