Inside
MEETING NO TICES
See
Page 6
V olume 108
Number 5
Mar ch 2, 2007
P ortland
Labor
Lobbyist
AFSCME’s Mary Botkin has
been traveling the halls of
Salem for 24 years working
on behalf of public
employees.
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Friday, Feb. 16, 6:30 a.m.: It’s still dark. Mary Botkin, tall
and silver-haired, climbs into her black Ford Explorer outside
her Southeast Portland home.
“I’m nervous,” she says.
Botkin is Oregon’s most experienced labor lobbyist, with a
24-year record of representing the public employees union Ore-
gon Council 75 of the American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees at the Legislature. She’s known nearly
every Oregon lawmaker going back two decades, and a great
many figures in local and national Democratic Party circles.
But today is important to her.
“I’ve been trying to get this bill passed for 20 years,” Botkin
says.
Mary Botkin (center) talks with Multnomah County
Commissioner Lonnie Roberts at a community forum.
The bill, HB 2401, would give 911 dispatchers with 25 years
of service an early retirement option — with reduced benefits. At
no extra cost to the government, emergency operators weary of
“carnage, car crashes, and crank calls” could call it quits after a
quarter-century.
But 10 separate Oregon Legislatures have declined to pass it.
At 3 p.m., the bill will get its first committee hearing in the
new Democratic-controlled Oregon House.
Emergency operators — AFSCME members — will be com-
ing to the State Capitol to testify alongside her. If committee
members are persuaded, they’ll send the bill to the full House
and recommend its passage.
One minute and two stoplights down the road, Botkin pulls
over. AFSCME lobbyist Joe Baessler gets in. The two live six
blocks apart, and share the 98-mile Portland-Salem round-trip.
Baessler, 31, is Case Western Reserve Law School Class of
2000. Botkin, 59, is Jefferson High School Class of 1966. But
he’s learning from her, because it’s his first session as a lobbyist,
and her 12th.
Botkin first went to Salem in 1977 as a legislative aide to
State Rep. Rod Monroe. She worked briefly as a committee
staffer for Bill Bradbury, who was then a committee chair in the
Oregon Senate. Cecil Tibbetts, executive director of AFSCME’s
statewide council, hired her as a full-time lobbyist.
On the drive down, Botkin and Baessler compare notes and
talk tactics. At the hearing, they’re going to play recordings of
911 calls for the committee — “fatals,” Botkin calls them.
There’s a mobile home fire and a shotgun suicide. Will the
recordings help them get their point across?
Botkin has long been assigned to defend the interests of pub-
lic safety and corrections officers, and is fiercely protective of
them. She’s been known to go to the mat for a minor work rule,
or call in all her chits to get an unjustly-fired worker reinstated.
At 7:20 a.m., Botkin pulls up outside the Capitol building and
parks in a handicapped spot. She was diagnosed with multiple
sclerosis in 1975, but it’s in remission now, and she uses it, jok-
ingly, as an excuse when she forgets things.
Botkin wants to check for messages, and heads to Room 40
in the basement. The sign at the entrance says “Capitol Club
(Turn to Page 4)
Teamsters blast plan to open border to Mexican trucks
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The
Bush Administration announced Feb.
23 it intends to open the U.S. border to
Mexican trucks in the next six to eight
weeks for a one-year experimental pi-
lot program.
The announcement drew harsh re-
actions from organized labor, espe-
cially the Teamsters Union.
“As with the Dubai Ports debacle,
President Bush is willing to risk our
national security by giving unfettered
access to America’s transportation in-
frastructure to foreign companies and
their government sponsors,” said Jim
Hoffa, Teamsters general president.
“They are playing a game of Russian
Roulette on America’s highways.”
The Teamsters Union has led ef-
forts to keep the border closed since
the implementation of the North
American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), which called for opening
borders to the trucking industries of
Mexico, Canada and the United States.
President Bill Clinton blocked cross-
border trucking because of concerns
that Mexico’s trucks weren’t safe.
However, in 2004, the U.S.
Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit
brought by labor and environmental
groups to stop implementation of the
open-border trucking policy because
of the Mexican government’s failure to
meet the truck safety and driver train-
ing requirements of NAFTA.
The border has remained closed,
except for transfers within a 20-mile
commercial zone in the U.S.
“Mexico refuses to meet their end
of the bargain, yet President Bush re-
wards them with open access to Amer-
ican highways,” Hoffa said. “It is the
American driving public who will pay
the consequences.”
Two years ago, the Department of
Transportation inspector general found
that the Mexican government and
Mexican motor carriers did not meet
congressionally-mandated require-
ments. An inspector general audit re-
port is due in the next couple of
months, raising serious questions as to
why President Bush is pushing this ex-
perimental program ahead of that re-
port, the Teamsters Union said.
“Where is the inspector general’s
report that tells us that Mexico is meet-
ing U.S. standards?” Hoffa asked.
“Why is the president willing to move
forward when his own inspector gen-
eral has stated that Mexico cannot
meet its obligations?”
The Bush Administration plans to
open a one-year experimental program
that will allow 100 Mexican carriers to
begin travel beyond the currently per-
mitted commercial zones. Supposedly
no hazardous material shipments will
be permitted in order to avoid the re-
quired background checks.
The Department of Transportation
did not say how many trucks will be
participating in the experiment or
whether there will be a system in place
to differentiate between those trucks
traveling to the 20-mile commercial
zones and those permitted to travel
throughout the United States.
Mexico exported $198 billion in
goods to the U.S. last year, with more
than 80 percent shipped by truck. As it
stands, Mexican truckers are required
to transfer cargo to U.S. carriers within
the border zone.
U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, (D-Wash.),
chair of the Appropriations Subcom-
mittee on Transportation, will hold a
hearing March 8 to determine whether
the Bush Administration has met safe-
ty requirements Congress set earlier.
When the Administration first pro-
posed opening the U.S. border to long-
haul Mexican trucks without adequate
safety standards, it set off a firestorm
in Congress, Murray said.
The House voted to prohibit cross-
border trucking outright, and President
Bush threatened to veto it..
Murray authored a bipartisan com-
promise requiring dozens of new
safety requirements to ensure that
cross-border trucking would not pose a
risk to the American public.
“The Bush Administration and
Mexican authorities now maintain that
they have fulfilled every one of these
safety requirements. That remains to
be seen,” Murray said.
Oregon U.S. Congressman Peter
DeFazio told Bloomberg News that he
questioned how Mexico will oversee
driver drug testing and monitor driver
fatigue, since Mexico doesn’t require
truckers to keep trip logs.