Let me say this about that
...A coincidence?
(From Page 2)
“As of this writing, gasoline prices, averaging $3.07 nationwide, are the high-
est in 20 years. Ironically, the price per barrel of crude oil has fallen to around
$60 per barrel.
“LESS THAN a year ago, in August 2006, a mere 90
days before the big congressional elections, prices rose
to around $3 per gallon because, according to the indus-
try, the per barrel price for crude oil was more than $76 a
barrel. Then, pump prices dropped dramatically to a little
more than $2 per gallon in the days just before the elec-
tions.
“So, if today’s prices aren’t driven by the cost of crude,
then why are they so high? The industry says this time
it’s not a matter of the cost of crude, but the loss of supply
because not enough oil is being refined for gasoline. A
CHARLIE
MERCER
BP refinery in Indiana, for example, needs unexpected
repairs, slowing its normal output of 400,000 barrels a day to a mere trickle. An-
other plant in McKee, Texas, that normally handles 170,000 barrels a day was
shut down for a month. Another, in Texas City, Texas, that refines 470,000 barrels
a day, is at half-capacity.
“COINCIDENCE?”
★★★
AN UPDATE on Merchant Marine legislation: Oregon U. S . Representatives
David Wu, First District; Greg Walden, Second Dist.; Peter DeFazio, Fourth Dist.;
and Darlene Hooley, Fifth Dist., have agreed to co-sponsor House Resolution 23
to provide a $1,000 monthly pension to World War II veterans of the U.S. Mer-
chant Marine. Representatives Earl Blumenauer, Oregon Third Dist.; and Brian
Baird, Washington Third Dist., support the legislation but are not co-sponsors.
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon also
supports the legislation — Senate Bill 961 in
the upper chamber — but is not a co-sponsor.
The preceding information comes from
Christ Vokos, president of the Columbia-
Willamette League of U.S. Merchant Marine
Veterans of World War II, and Bill Fast, a
member of the League. Vokos is a retired sec-
retary-treasurer of Portland Bakers Local 364,
and Fast is a retired Portland port agent of the
Marine Engineers Beneficial Association.
Both unions are affiliates of the AFL-CIO.
VOKOS SAID HR 23 AND SB 961 are
in
committees in their respective chambers
CHRIST VOKOS
but are not expected to be acted upon before
the upcoming House and Senate recesses. Vokos also said that there were some
250,000 World War II veterans of the Merchant Marine but that fewer than 9,000
are still living.
★★★
EMSIE HOWARD, who worked from 1952 to 1962 as associate editor of the
Labor Press, merits having her name added to the Labor Honor Roll. In addition
to being associate editor, she was the office manager and advertising manager in
the days when this newspaper bore the Oregon Labor Press logo. The name was
expanded to Northwest Labor Press two decades ago. Jim Goodsell was the edi-
tor when Mrs. Howard worked here.
The Labor Press started the Labor Honor Roll to give a posthumous salute to
labor people of the past. The Labor Hall of Fame honors retired unionists while
they are still living.
Howard was born in Portland, a descendant of the pioneer Failing family. While
with the Labor Press, she was a member of Portland Newspaper Guild Local l65
and active in the Oregon State Congress of Industrial Organizations prior to the
1956 merger with the Oregon Federation of Labor that produced the Oregon AFL-
CIO. She was a delegate to the merger convention held in Portland. Assertive in
her opinions, she publicly criticized the national leadership of the Guild over its
handling of the Portland newspaper strike and its failure to support the 1960 start-
up of the striker-staffed Portland Reporter.
EMSIE WAS ACTIVE in the Democratic Party and in civic groups. She was
vice chair of the Multnomah County Democratic Party, then the highest post a
woman could hold. Her other interests included music, golf and swimming.
Stories she wrote for the Labor Press won several awards from the Interna-
tional Labor Press Association.
Howard took a leave of absence for medical reasons in October 1962 and later
retired on the advice of her physician. She died at age 71 on June 30, 1985.
AUGUST 3, 2007
U.S. citizens would take jobs
held by illegals at Del Monte
To The Editor:
The raid at the Portland Del Monte
plant shows that illegal aliens are tak-
ing away jobs from U.S. citizens. Port-
land is not at full employment and Del
Monte has hired illegal aliens to work
for them instead of U.S. citizens.
The method for showing unem-
ployment rates is to use people who
recently have become unemployed.
When that person runs out of unem-
ployment benefits they are taken off
the unemployment rolls. This is a way
to purge unemployment rolls.
The illegal aliens are being used as
strikebreakers to lower the standard of
living of U.S. workers. This has noth-
ing to do with the company not being
able to find people to fill those jobs.
This has everything to do with the
company wanting to lower wages.
There are U.S. citizens right now
who are lining up to go to work at Del
Monte. This reminds me of when I
was in Sundown, Texas, in 1984. I was
at the Chevron CO2 recovery plant.
There was a line of people a mile long.
This carload of people came in waving
green cards in the air. They were hired
immediately. This was unreal. There
were fliers on the job that encouraged
those people to seek a career in the
petrol-chemical industry.
The company hiring was Brown &
Root. You were given a paper to sign
that said you would cross a picket line.
With that information, as well as their
hiring policies, it is obvious that their
agenda was to break the unions and
the wages of U.S. citizens.
When I was at the shipyards there
were people who would go in the
sewage tanks of the ships and clean
them out. Then the tanks would be
Open
Forum
pressure-tested to make sure there
were no leaks in them. If we can find
U.S. citizens who are willing to climb
in sewage tanks and clean them out by
hand, then there is no other job that we
can’t find U.S. citizens to do.
This is not the U.S. I was born in.
In the late 1970s I was making more
than $10 an hour. Right now, more
than 25 years later, we have a lot of
people in the U.S. who are unable to
find a job making more then $15 an
hour. This is not right and we should
do something about it.
These actions send a message that
the government is engaging in class
warfare and is trying to wipe out the
middle class.
Jeff Lyles
Plumbers & Fitters 290
Tualatin
Blumenauer reflects on passage of public Medicare Advantage
employee collective bargaining legislation program is corporate
To The Editor:
Participating in the debate on pub-
lic employee collective bargaining in
the Oregon Legislature in 1973 was
one of my first experiences as an
elected official. As a young freshman
legislator just out of college and from
a union family, it was eye-opening for
me to listen to some of the arguments
against collective bargaining rights of
public employees. As history showed,
we prevailed, and it has provided a
good framework for all Oregon’s pub-
lic employees.
Because of my experience and
steadfast belief in collective bargaining
rights, I have co-sponsored in the last
seven congresses legislation that
would extend federal collective bar-
gaining protections to public safety
employees in the 28 states that don’t
already have them.
This bill has always had bipartisan
support, but the Tom Delay Republi-
can Congress refused to allow the leg-
islative process to work and repeatedly
Law is needed to
stop corporations
from running U.S.
To The Editor:
A declaration that “corporations
are not people” would be the most im-
portant law that has come before the
people for a vote.
We no longer claim that the United
States is a democracy. The U.S. is run
by and for corporations. This is a law
that should be in the national Constitu-
tion, but it would be great to have Ore-
gon be the first to vote for it.
Joe Hamm
Machinists Lodge 63
Portland
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
kept this bill bottled up in committee
to die.
There is no clearer indication of
what difference the new leadership
means than watching this legislation
finally see the light of day in the U.S.
House of Representatives. With
Speaker Nancy Pelosi in charge,
House Committee on Education and
Labor Chairman George Miller
quickly passed this bill out of commit-
tee on a 42 to 1 vote. The Public
Safety Employer-Employee Coopera-
tion Act of 2007, HR 980, garnered
280 co-sponsors and passed over-
whelmingly on the floor by a vote of
314 to 97.
It was a special honor for me to be
presiding in the chair during the de-
bate and passage, watching first-hand,
not only important legislation being fi-
nally passed, but giving me a vital re-
minder of what it meant to be part of
this new Democratic majority.
I want to thank all of our friends,
especially in organized labor and pub-
lic safety, for their commitment, work,
patience, and enduring hope in contin-
uing the fight for worker protections
for their brothers and sisters across the
country.
I deeply appreciate that effort and
look forward to seeing this bill move
through the Senate.
U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer
Portland
welfare that must stop
To The Editor:
Congress has a chance to end an
outrageous example of corporate wel-
fare — the Medicare Advantage pro-
gram. A vote is expected soon.
Right now the advantage is all for
the big insurance companies. Our tax
dollars subsidize them to offer
Medicare programs. We overpay
them 12 percent more — $7.5 billion
each year — than it would cost
Medicare to directly serve the same
people.
Lately the newspapers and televi-
sion news have been filled with horror
stories of these Medicare Advantage
companies using bait-and-switch mar-
keting tactics to confuse and mislead
seniors and deny them medical care.
The Bush Administration failed in
privatizing Social Security. Now,
Congress must stop Medicare privati-
zation by standing with Oregon sen-
iors and not with Wall Street and the
insurance industry.
I urge Representatives Earl Blume-
nauer, Darlene Hooley, David Wu,
Peter DeFazio and Greg Walden to
vote in favor of this legislation.
Verna Porter
President
Oregon Alliance for Retired
Americans
Portland
Salem retiree suggests new initials
To The Editor:
Old saying, new meaning for “BC” and “AD.”
It could now mean: Before Clinton (BC) and After Dummy (AD).
John Theodore
AFSCME
Retired
Salem
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