Inside
MEETING NO TICES
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Page 4
V olume 108
Number 21
No v ember 2, 2007
P ortland
Labor Arts Festival
slated Nov. 10 at PSU
Multnomah ESD employees to consider strike
Employees of the Multnomah Educational Service District represented by AFSCME Local 1995 rallied
in front of the District’s main office in Northeast Portland Oct. 16 to protest stalled contract negotiations.
The union will conduct a strike authorization vote Nov. 13. That decision was triggered after MESD
declared impasse in the current contract negotiations. The contract fight comes barely 18 months after
the previous round of bargaining ended with some 380 MESD workers on the verge of a strike. In early
March 2006, over 82 percent of MESD employees voted to authorize a strike before settling the contract
later that month. However, that two-year contract was retroactive to July 1, 2005, meaning negotiations
began again earlier this year on a successor contract. MESD is governed by an elected, unpaid, seven-
member Board of Directors. MESD’s superintendent is Ron Hitchcock. Due to state labor laws, the
earliest workers can strike would be Nov. 25. On Nov. 9, AFSCME will hold a special “town hall” meeting
to present information and ramifications of the impending strike vote.
The Pacific Northwest Labor Arts
Festival will be held Saturday, Nov.
10, from 1 to 9 p.m. at Portland State
University. The first-ever event in
Oregon will feature music, art, drama
and film depicting the historical cul-
ture, values and struggles of the work-
ing class. The festival is free and open
to the public.
The Oregon Legislature in 1991
proclaimed November as Labor His-
tory Month. To celebrate, the History
Committee of the Northwest Oregon
Labor Council has staged events an-
nually to help tell labor’s story.
This year’s festival is its most am-
bitious project ever.
Headlining the Labor Arts Festival
will be Anne Feeney, one of Amer-
ica’s foremost labor singer/songwrit-
ers. Also performing will be Rebel
Voices from Seattle; hip-hop artist
Mic Crenshaw of Portland, and banjo
master Dick Weissman. Weissman,
who composed music for the Oil,
Chemical & Atomic Workers, toured
with the legendary Journeymen,
along with John Phillips (Mamas &
Papas) and Scott McKenzie (If You
Go To San Francisco, Be Sure To
Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair).
The AFTRA Radio Players will
present a stage reading of Studs
Terkel’s American Dreams. AFTRA
is the American Federation of Televi-
sion and Radio Artists.
Art will include works from inter-
nationally-acclaimed Swedish politi-
cal and labor artist Julie Leonardsson,
as well as selected Works Progress
Administration (WPA)-period pieces
from the Museum of People’s Art in
Bay City, Oregon. Union memora-
bilia, photography and murals also
will be on display.
Author/historians David A. Hor-
owitz (The People’s Voice: Populist
Cultural Expression) and Michael
Munk (The Portland Red Guide) will
lead panel discussions on local labor
struggles and solidarity and labor-re-
lated films will be shown throughout
the afternoon.
“This free multi-cultural event will
be inspiring, motivating and empow-
ering to all working people,” said Fes-
tival Coordinator Jim Cook, a re-
cently retired member of the National
Association of Letter Carriers and
chair of the History Committee.
The festival will take place at vari-
ous locations at PSU, including the
Smith Memorial Student Union
Multi-Cultural Center, the Native
American Student Center and rooms
at Neuberger and Cramer halls. For
more info, contact Cook at 503-703-
1693 or go to www.nwlaborarts.org.
(Donations to offset the cost of the
Labor Arts Festival are still needed. To
date, $8,500 of the $10,000 goal has
been raised. To donate, call Cook.)
AFL-CIO rates Oregon lawmakers on 2007 session
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
SALEM — The Oregon AFL-CIO has com-
pleted its ranking of state lawmakers for their
2007 session of the Oregon Legislature.
This year, the Oregon AFL-CIO used a new
and more complicated methodology to rate leg-
islators, in order to better describe the full pic-
ture of support or opposition to Oregon’s labor
movement priorities. In the past, the Oregon
AFL-CIO rated lawmakers according to their
votes on a list of priority bills, and expressed the
ratings as a percentage. For example, you could
say a given lawmaker voted in accord with the
Oregon AFL-CIO 90 percent of the time. Those
scores were known as COPE ratings, after the
AFL-CIO’s Committee On Political Education.
The national AFL-CIO still rates members of
Congress that way.
The new method weights different bills ac-
cording to how important they are, and gives
lawmakers “points” for acts besides voting, such
as co-sponsoring bills, giving bills hearings in
committees they chair, testifying or lobbying in
favor of bills, even walking union picket lines.
Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamber-
lain said the new method will ensure that those
legislators who go the extra mile for labor will
get credit for it. In cases where legislators are on
the opposite side of the AFL-CIO, points are de-
ducted. Legislators with the highest points are
grouped in gold, silver and bronze categories as
“Working Families Champions.”
In the Senate, five lawmakers — all Democ-
rats — tied for the top spot: Brad Avakian and
Kate Brown of Portland, Floyd Prozanski and
Vicki Walker of Eugene, and Ben Westlund of
Tumalo. All but Prozanski are running for higher
office in 2008.
All but three Senate Democrats got a gold,
silver or bronze designation. Those three, in ef-
fect the least labor-friendly as tallied by the Ore-
gon AFL-CIO, were Joanne Verger of Coos Bay,
Ginny Burdick of Portland, and Kurt Schrader of
Canby.
Among Senate Republicans, Frank Morse of
Albany was the most labor-friendly at minus-38,
while Ted Ferrioli of John Day took the title of
most anti-labor senator in 2007 at minus-347.
In the House, the top rankings went to De-
mocrats Diane Rosenbaum of Southeast Port-
land with a whopping 815 points, and Speaker
Jeff Merkley of East Portland with 725 points.
Rosenbaum, a long-time member of Commu-
nications Workers of America Local 7901 and
current president of the National Labor Caucus
of State Legislators, is vacating her House seat
in 2008 to run for an open Senate seat in District
21, where Kate Brown is giving up that post to
run for secretary of state.
Merkley is leaving the House to run for the
U.S. Senate.
All House Democrats received the Oregon
AFL-CIO’s gold, silver or bronze designation
for the session. John Lim of Gresham was rated
the most labor-friendly Republican with a mi-
nus-15, followed closely by Vicki Berger of
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