Job Fairs slated March 28 and April 6
Freightliner Machinists prepare for layoff, bargaining
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Machinists Local 1005 moved into
speed-up mode in March, as the union
simultaneously prepares to help 632
members due to be laid off at Freight-
liner at the end of the month and gears
up to bargain a contract for the 655
who remain.
Local 1005 — the largest of four
unions at Freightliner — is also con-
sidering a political protest against
politicians who voted for job-destroy-
ing trade agreements. And it expects
to add a new group of Freightliner
workers, even though they will most
likely be laid off not long after joining
the union.
Daimler-Chrysler announced in
January that it will permanently cease
production of Freightliner brand
trucks at its Swan Island facility in
CORRECTIONS
An article on the Freightliner layoffs
in the March 2 issue of the Northwest
Labor Press contained several errors,
and left out some information. Freight-
liner workers top out at $21.55 an hour
under the Machinist contract, not
$20.55 as reported. The U.S. Govern-
ment certified that Freightliner layoffs
were trade-related, not because of the
company’s decision to build a new plant
in Saltillo, Mexico, as the article im-
plied, but because the union had docu-
mented work moving to the Freightliner
plant in Santiago Tianguistenco, Mex-
ico, in 2005. Also, the article failed to
report that the 2007 truck engines will
achieve much of their reduction in par-
ticulate emissions through recirculation
of exhaust gases through the engine.
The NW Labor Press regrets the errors
and omission.
Portland by March 30, though the
company’s Western Star brand trucks
will continue to be produced at the
plant. Freightliner trucks will be made
at plants in North Carolina and Mex-
ico.
Unions, management and govern-
ment and non-profit agencies teamed
up to organize a massive job fair for
the laid-off workers. The event will
take place at Portland Memorial Coli-
seum from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.,
Wednesday, March 28. It will be
open to workers and their families. As
many as 100 employers, mostly in
manufacturing, are expected to take
part. Event organizers focused recruit-
ment efforts on companies that are
currently hiring, and that pay compa-
rable wages and benefits.
Local building trades unions are
also extending a coordinated wel-
come, not just to the downsized
Freightliner workers but to other
workers being laid off this spring, in-
cluding workers at Georgia-Pacific’s
Camas, Washington paper mill,
Tigard truck throttle maker Williams
Controls, and the U.S. Air Force
939th Air Refueling Wing, which is
slated to close in June. Apprenticeship
program coordinators from as many
as 21 separate skilled construction
trades will be available to discuss ca-
reer opportunities at an open house
Friday, April 6, from 10 a.m. to noon
at the NECA-IBEW Electrical Train-
ing Center, 16021 NE Airport Way,
Portland.
For members who remain, the cur-
rent three-year Machinists Union con-
tract is due to expire July 1. The union
is planning a hot dog feed March 22
outside the plant to show appreciation
for the members being laid off and to
encourage members to get involved in
the union’s political and contract
campaigns. Then on March 24, hun-
dreds of workers are expected to at-
tend the union’s contract formulation
meeting, at which they will decide ne-
gotiating priorities, elect a bargaining
committee and take a preliminary
strike vote. The vote is intended to un-
derscore members’ willingness to
strike if the bargaining team can’t get
a satisfactory contract.
The last Freightliner truck is
scheduled to roll off the assembly line
on March 29 and the last day of work
for the employees being laid off is
March 30.
The layoff will cut in half the Ma-
chinists workforce at the plant — and
that’s after previous waves of layoffs
over the last seven years had already
halved the local’s membership, which
stood at 2,600 in 1999.
“They were making money here,”
said Machinists Business Agent Joe
Kear. “But they want to make even
more money in Mexico.” At Local
1005’s March 17 general membership
meeting, members will consider en-
dorsing a protest against trade agree-
ments that have greased the skids for
jobs to go abroad. “We are a good ex-
ample of what happens when trade
agreements are negotiated without
any consideration for maintaining job
base in our local communities,” Kear
said.
The Cross Border Labor Organiz-
ing Council will assist in the protest,
which will take place outside the
Edith Green Wendell Wyatt Federal
Building in downtown Portland at
noon, Wednesday April 4. U.S. Sena-
tor Ron Wyden’s offices are located in
the building. Critics of so-called free
trade agreements want to hold Wyden
to account for past votes, like the
1993 vote he cast for NAFTA as a
member of the U.S. House of Repre-
sentatives. Investor protections and
other guarantees contained in NAFTA
have made it easier for manufacturers
to shift production from the United
States to Mexico. Wyden has voted
for nearly every NAFTA-style trade
agreement since, and labor unions
want him to face the consequences of
those votes, and join other members
of Congress in opposing “fast track”
negotiating authority, which is up for
renewal in June. The protest will also
call out Congressman Earl Blume-
nauer, who in defending his 2003 vote
for a trade agreement with Chile, said
Freightliner officials told him the
agreement would make it easier for
them to sell trucks in Chile.
Fourteen of 16 workers at Freight-
liner’s previously nonunion pre-deliv-
ery inspection facility recently signed
a petition seeking to join the Machin-
ists. The facility details and cus-
tomizes new Freightliner trucks for
customers, so the department could
be working as long as a month after
the last truck is assembled in Port-
land.
Freightliner management declined
an offer by Portland City Commis-
sioner Eric Sten to verify the petition.
Instead, the employees must wait for
the results of a government-super-
vised election. At the request of the
Machinists, Sten wrote a letter to
Freightliner asking them to remain
neutral toward the union campaign in
the department. Kear said it appears
managers are remaining neutral. The
union election is scheduled April 3.
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PAGE 12
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
MARCH 16, 2007
