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