Let me say this about that
...Long IAM career
(From Page 2)
council’s tradition of holding a Christmas Party for area children in the Elsinore
Theatre in downtown Salem, serving as master of ceremonies for the well-at-
tended event. Greer remained with the labor council until he was hired for the
IAM staff in 1989. In the years in-between, he served as a business agent for
IAM District 163 representing the members of Local 1506. When the IAM
merged District 163 into Portland-based District Lodge 24, he started working
out of the Machinists Building on SE 32nd Ave. around the corner from the SE
Powell spot where he performed as a musician years earlier. Divorce ended the
marriage of Gerry and Mary Jo in 1980.
GEORGE MILLER, then the directing business representative of IAM Dis-
trict Lodge 24, appointed Greer as his administrative assistant after Dick Schnei-
der was called up by the International Union. While working out of the District
24 building, Greer met his second wife, Annie, who was the manager of the
union’s financial office. She was a member of Office and Professional Employ-
ees Local 11. They’ll mark their 25th year of marriage this year. Lee Hunsaker
was Gerry’s best man at the wedding. A few years after their wedding, Annie left
her IAM job to become a secretary at United Food and Commercial Workers
Local 555’s office in Tigard. Ken MacKillop, Local 555’s president, had been
secretary-treasurer of the Salem-based Central Labor Council during some of
the time when Gerry was its president.
WHILE WITH DISTRICT 24, Greer was elected to represent the Salem-
based labor council’s three counties on the Oregon AFL-CIO Executive Board
and later was elected first vice president of the state labor federation. Also, Greer
attended Machinists leadership classes at Placid Harbor, Maryland, and union
classes conducted by the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research
Center. This education added to his earlier college-level studies in Kansas and
Colorado. Greer’s political work brought him in contact with Oregon Governors
Bob Straub, Vic Atiyeh and Neil Goldshmidt.
In 1989, Greer was appointed by the IAM as a grand lodge representative —
an international rep — and assigned to Phoenix, from where he assisted local
unions in Arizona, New Mexico and Southern Nevada. While the Greers were in
Phoenix, Annie worked as a secretary for Teamsters business agents. Gerry was
next assigned to the IAM’s 13 state Western Regional Headquarters in Sacra-
mento, California, from where he handled assignments in many states, including
Hawaii, where he was stationed for a while. When the Greers were in Sacra-
mento, Annie worked for the California State Building and Construction Trades
Council as its assistant legislative director. Sometimes Gerry, working on IAM
assignments, accompanied Annie to National AFL-CIO Building Trades Leg-
islative Conferences in Washington, D.C., where the Greers met with President
Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton and Vice President Al Gore and his
wife, Tipper.
U.S. labor backs efforts to stop
ratification of CAFTA in Costa Rica
To The Editor:
While the Bush Administration is
pushing Costa Rica’s President Óscar
Arias Sánchez to finally ratify the
Central American Free Trade Agree-
ment (CAFTA), the international labor
movement is closing ranks against it.
CAFTA has been approved by
every other signatory country in Cen-
tral America and by the Dominican
Republic. But in Costa Rica, public
outcry against the treaty has stopped
ratification so far. Many Costa Ricans
know the devastating impact CAFTA
is having elsewhere.
In October 2006, a two-day general
strike was held against the treaty. On
Feb. 26, 2007, more than 80,000
unionists, students, farm workers, en-
vironmentalists, feminists, indigenous
people and other activists protested
CAFTA in the streets.
Despite popular resistance, Presi-
dent Arias and the pro-CAFTA major-
ity in the Costa Rican Congress had
vowed to push through approval of the
treaty this spring. However, on April
13, Arias changed course and an-
nounced plans to hold a national refer-
endum on the issue.
U.S. labor support for Costa Rica’s
anti-CAFTA forces grows. In re-
sponse to a request for help from
Costa Rican labor leaders, the national
AFL-CIO and a number of labor or-
ganizations in Washington, Oregon
and other states are sending strong
anti-CAFTA messages to President
Arias and Costa Rican legislative
leaders.
The Washington Federation of
State Employees (WFSE) Local 304
in Seattle adopted a resolution of soli-
darity with the Costa Rican labor
movement in their fight against
CAFTA that also calls for “repeal of
CAFTA and NAFTA by the U.S. Con-
gress.”
The Martin Luther King County
Labor Council and statewide WFSE
Council 28 unanimously endorsed the
resolution and forwarded it to the
Washington State Labor Council
(WSLC) and national AFL-CIO.
Backing in Oregon has come from
United Food and Commercial Work-
ers Local 555, Portland Jobs with Jus-
tice and the Industrial Workers of the
World Portland branch.
In a March 2007 letter to Arias,
WSLC President Rick Bender reiter-
ated the U.S. labor movement’s reason
for opposing CAFTA, which the U.S.
Congress barely ratified by two votes
in August 2005.
“We believed then, and we believe
Open
Forum
now, that free trade agreements based
on the failed NAFTA model lead to
loss of jobs, privatization of essential
government services such as health
care, water distribution and energy
services, and interference with the
rights of citizens in the U.S. and Costa
Rica to enact laws and regulations in
the public interest,” Bender wrote.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney
is also sending a message to President
Arias that the labor federation stands
in solidarity with Costa Rican labor on
this issue and urging his government
to refrain from retaliating against trade
unionists and others who oppose
CAFTA.
Union members and their unions
can help by writing letters to Costa Ri-
can officials calling on them to aban-
don efforts to ratify CAFTA. Address
your e-mails to President Óscar Arias
Sánchez at lsolis@casapres.go.cr.
Send copies to Sadie Bravo Peréz, Par-
tido Acción Cuidadana, at
sbravo@asamblea.go.cr, and Francisco
Antonio Pacheco Fernández, Partido
Liberatión Nacional, at
lrosales@asamblea.go.cr.
For more information, contact Fred
Hyde at fhyde@igc.org.
Fred Hyde
WFSE Local 304
Seattle, Wash.
AFTER HIS RETIREMENT in 2005, the Greers returned to the North-
west, making their home in Washougal, across the Columbia River from Oregon.
Gerry transferred his membership to Vancouver Local 1374, which is affiliated
with District 24. Gerry and Annie enjoy camping and boating with family mem-
bers. Gerry has a son, Douglas, an assistant director of public instruction in Wi-
chita, Kansas; a son, Joel, a real estate developer in Salem; and a daughter, Jen-
nifer, of Chicago, where her husband works as a research analyst at the Ben May
Institute, University if Chicago. Annie has two sons, Sean Smith, a building con-
tractor in Beaverton, and Erin Smith, a Portland Police sergeant. Gerry and An-
nie have nine grandchildren. Gerry is the rear commodore of the Vancouver Yacht
Club; the Greers have a 27-foot, twin-engine Carver.
★★★
Book announcement
A BOOK about the leftist and labor history of the Rose City, titled “The Port-
land Red Guide: Sites and Stories From Our Radical Past,” will make its debut at
6 p.m. Tuesday, May 1, at The Great Northwest Bookstore, 3314 SW First Ave.
on the corner of SW Gibbs St.
The May Day event will feature comments by the book’s author, Michael
Munk, and music by General Strike, a band of unionists who will play and sing
songs appropriate for the occasion. General Strike performs at union strike rallies,
Labor Day programs and other events.
The Red Guide, a 256-page illustrated book, is published by Portland State
University’s Ooligan Press, and will be available at the bookstore for $16.95.
Author Munk, a Portland historian, is a retired professor who taught political
science at New Jersey’s Rutgers University. He graduated from Portland’s Reed
College, which he attended on a scholarship from the Oregon State Federation of
Labor, which later became the Oregon AFL-CIO.
APRIL 20. 2007
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
PAGE 15