Let me say this about that
—By Gene Klare
Fame for Diamond
NORM DIAMOND, 63, of Portland, enters the Labor Hall of Fame this week
with the hall’s door being opened by the sponsoring Northwest Oregon Labor
Retirees Council, an affiliate of the Northwest Oregon Labor Council, AFL-CIO.
Diamond’s career includes making steel at age 17 in a South Chicago mill;
earning higher education degrees at the University of Chicago and Harvard; teach-
ing at Princeton, Antioch and a labor college in Portland; educating workers in
Ohio, Oregon and elsewhere; consulting on workers’compensation with the Hun-
garian government; conducting labor programs on KBOO radio in Portland, and
being a labor playwright and historian.
NORMAN WILLIAM DIAMOND
was born on July 26, 1944 in Detroit,
Michigan. For a time in his boyhood his
family lived in Chicago, Illinois, before re-
turning to Detroit, where he attended Cass
Technical High School. While in high
school, he did some work for the United
Auto Workers, appearing before commu-
nity groups to explain labor’s opposition to
the anti-union Landrum-Griffin bill which
was passed by a Republican-controlled
Congress.
AT AGE 15, Diamond left Detroit be-
fore his senior year at Cass Tech and went
to Chicago. He worked at several jobs, in-
cluding pumping gas, until he turned 17
and then got a job in a steel mill and joined
the Steelworkers. He was the first white
NORM DIAMOND
worker assigned to an all-black crew on a
blast furnace. His fellow workers helped
him learn the skills he needed for the hazardous job. He left the mill after a crane
accident killed his work partner. He decided to resume his education and entered
the University of Chicago, which accepted him without a high school diploma. He
paid his college expenses and supported himself by doing household chores for
several families. While at the University of Chicago, Diamond played shortstop
and second base on the University’s baseball team, of which he was captain. He
led the team in home runs and stolen bases. He turned down signing bonus offers
from the major league Chicago White Sox and the then-Milwaukee Braves be-
cause he had a chance to continue his education at Harvard. After receiving a
bachelor’s degree in political science at Chicago, he traveled to Germany and was
a guest worker with a group of Sicilians at a lumber mill in Stuttgart. This job gave
him an opportunity to save money for attending Harvard.
DIAMOND’S NEXT MOVE was to return to the United States and pursue
a doctorate in political science at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachu-
setts. Next, he obtained a job teaching political science at Antioch Collage in Yel-
low Springs, Ohio. He was on the Antioch faculty from 1969 to 1979. While at
Antioch, he was given a leave to teach at Princeton University in New Jersey.
Diamond said one of the attractions for him at Antioch was its policy of hav-
ing students intersperse their studies with periods of work. Diamond arranged for
his students to work for labor unions in Ohio and nationally. He also conducted
worker education classes at Antioch for members of the International Union of
Electrical Workers (IUE). He helped the American Federation of Teachers or-
ganize Antioch faculty members and assisted another union, an electrical indus-
try union known as the UE, in organizing non-teaching workers at the college. The
state of Ohio honored Diamond by naming him the State Humanist.
HIS MOVE to Portland came about because an Antioch student from Oregon
told him that the Pacific Northwest Labor College was looking for teachers.
PNLC had been started in 1977 by the Portland-headquartered International
(Turn to Page 11)
PAGE 2
Auto Workers end two-day
walk-out at General Motors
DETROIT — Some 73,000 active
members of the United Auto Workers
Union at 80 General Motors plants na-
tionwide will vote on a new four-year
contract offer this month, ending a two-
day strike.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and
union officials from across the U.S. are
recommending ratification of the pact.
If approved, it would then set a pattern
with the other two of Detroit’s “Big
Three” automakers — Ford and
Chrysler.
Auto workers walked off the job
Sept. 24 after negotiations broke down
over job security issues. The old contract
expired Sept. 14.
The last strike in the auto industry
was in 1970, when the UAW won a 67-
day strike at GM.
Local union leaders are meeting with
members to discuss terms of the agree-
ment. Voting should be wrapped up by
Oct. 10.
Gettelfinger declined to release de-
tails of the proposed four-year pact, but
news reports said it included a $3,000-
per-member signing bonus, a freeze in
base wages all four years — but with
bonuses every year — elimination of
cost-of-living increases, and a two-tier
wage system where new hires would
earn just over half of what present work-
ers get for the same jobs.
Associated Press reported that under
the new agreement, hourly workers will
get economic gains totaling $13,056
over the life of the four-year contract,
based on a 2,080-hour year and 10 per-
cent overtime. That includes a $3,000
bonus in the first year followed by a 3
percent bonus in the second year, 4 per-
cent in the third and 3 percent in the
fourth. An assembly worker’s hourly
rate will rise to $28.85 at the end of the
fourth year from $28.12.
AP also reported that some 3,000
temporary workers would get perma-
nent jobs at the full-time wage rate and
that GM agreed to a moratorium on out-
sourcing.
And some workers will be earning
less than before. New hires who aren’t
doing direct manufacturing jobs, such as
groundskeepers, will make between $14
and $16 an hour. There are 16,000 peo-
ple doing non-core work in U.S. plants.
The tentative agreement also creates
a Voluntary Employees Beneficiary As-
sociation (VEBA) trust. GM sought to
create the retiree-health trust to take
about $50 billion of future obligations
off its books.
GM has around 340,000 retirees and
spouses.
GM reportedly will put $24.1 billion
into the VEBA in January 2008, al-
though the fund won’t start covering re-
tiree health care until 2010. GM will
make up to 20 additional $165 million
payments to the VEBA anytime the
fund’s level is insufficient to provide
benefits for at least 25 years.
GM’s active workers also will be re-
quired to contribute 4 cents per quarter
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
for the VEBA.
“I think our retirees will be excep-
tionally pleased with this contract,” Get-
telfinger said. “For active members,
there will be some changes. I think over-
all they will be very, very pleased with
the outcome of these negotiations and
the job security associated with it.”
Only active members vote on ratifi-
cation of the contract.
In return, GM promises to invest
more money in plants in the U.S., not
overseas, and to promote job security for
the remaining UAW members. Tens of
thousands of workers have taken buy-
outs over the last year, after bargaining
over buyout details by GM and UAW.
But not everyone is happy with the
deal.
Former UAW Vice Presidents/board
members Paul Schrade, Warren Davis
and Jerry Tucker, who previously sent
an open letter to Gettelfinger against the
VEBA, also urged a vote against the
contract.
“We regret the decision by the UAW
negotiators to tentatively agree to place
b h
m k
future health care protection of hundreds
of thousands of UAW retired members
under a union-run VEBA. We believe it
irresponsible ... to shift the burden of risk
to the retired workers and their families
and release General Motors from its
commitment to the full and perpetual
coverage of health care for the workers
who built the wealth of the corporation
in the first place,” the three wrote.
“Springing a new and potentially
hazardous economic concept on an un-
suspecting membership, either active or
retired, is alien to the democratic princi-
ples in our governing constitution. That
a VEBA can be dangerous is well docu-
mented. UAW retired members covered
by a VEBA at Caterpillar can painfully
vouch for that. Their VEBA went bust
and they now have thousands of dollars
in unanticipated out-of-pocket costs per
year for reduced health care protection,”
the three warned.
(This article was compiled from Web
sites and newspaper reports, including
Press Associates Inc.)
Bennett Hartman
Morris & Kaplan, llp
Attorneys at Law
Oregon’s Full Service Union Law Firm
Representing Workers Since 1960
Serious Injury and Death Cases
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OCTOBER 5, 2007