DEC-Holiday-2008:Holiday Issue
12/16/08
10:05 AM
Page 8
Local Motion
November 2008
Union certifications and decertifications in Oregon and Southwest
Washington, as reported by the National Labor Relations Board and
the Oregon Employment Relations Board
Recognition elections
Name of employer
Date
Name of union
Results:
Union Union
Yes No
Location
Ridgeline Montessori Public Charter School
10/29 AFT-Oregon
Portland
13
8
Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company
11/17 Teamsters Local 670
3
12
9
20
14
57
The Dalles
ABC Car Rental Services
11/21 Teamsters Local 206
Eugene
Safeway ( DECERTIFICATION )
11/21 Teamsters Local 962
Klamath Falls
Requests for recognition election
Name of employer
Name of union
Location
Number of employees
Basin Transit Service ( DECERTIFICATION )
Service Employees International Union Local 503
Klamath Falls
25
Portland
100
CoHo Distributing, dba Columbia Dist. (Mt. Hood Bev.)
Teamsters Local 162
Rural/Metro Corp. (Fire Dept.) mechanics & trainers
Teamsters Local 962
First Student
Teamsters Local 206
Grants Pass
3
Junction City
26
Paragon Systems
Assn. of Security Professionals vs. SPFPA Local 50
Portland
100
White Bird Dance
Int’l Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 28
Portland
10
Prestige Care Incorporated
Service Employees International Union Local 503
Portland
49
To all our friends,
Happy New Year!
Donna Welsh Bruce Korter Jon Bettendorf
6600 SW 92nd Avenue - Suite 160 Portland, OR
503-248-9188
PAGE 8
President-elect Obama will instill
pro-worker spirit at Dept. of Labor
WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) —
Democratic President-elect Barack
Obama strongly supports changing the
Labor Department to make it pro-
worker and make it more activist in
enforcement, a top member of
Obama’s agency transition team says.
“I’m 1000 percent confident in the
interest, the will and the capacity of
the incoming Administration to imple-
ment the changes he (Obama) out-
lined in the campaign,” said Thomas
Perez, Maryland’s secretary of labor,
licensing and regulation.
Added another Obama adviser,
workers’ rights attorney Jill Ruck-
elshaus, change at DOL “is a top pri-
ority” for the incoming president, “in
my opinion.”
Ruckelshaus, Perez and Gov. Jon
Corzine (D-N.J.) all spoke at a Dec. 8
symposium called by the Center for
American Progress. The think tank
held the session to discuss and release
its comprehensive report on pro-
worker moves Obama could imple-
ment at the agency without waiting
for legislation.
Those moves would increase en-
forcement, notably in Labor’s Wage
and Hour Division, against companies
that break overtime pay laws and mis-
classify workers as “independent con-
tractors” to avoid paying Social Secu-
rity, Medicare and workers’ comp.
Other moves they recommended
involved better collection of data on
wage and hour and job safety and
health violations, and using that evi-
dence to target patterns of law-break-
ing, both by individual companies and
industries. That would be followed by
pro-active enforcement, multiple
fines, and wider-ranging investiga-
tions of targeted firms, both to catch
scofflaws and to deter other potential
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
corporate lawbreakers.
All of those moves can be done by
redirecting resources and emphasis
within DOL, and without waiting for
either a new law — such as the Em-
ployee Free Choice Act — to em-
power workers or for new Obama ex-
ecutive orders, the panelists said.
Obama has yet to name a Labor
Secretary, or deputies for key posts
there. Names floated for the top job
include former House Minority Whip
David Bonior (D-Mich.), now chair of
American Rights at Work; Mary Beth
Maxwell, the pro-worker organiza-
tion’s executive director; former
House Minority Leader Richard
Gephardt (D-Mo.), Rep. Nydia Ve-
lazquez (D-N.Y.) and Gov. Jennifer
Granholm (D-Mich.).
Whoever is labor secretary should
be a key part of Obama’s economic
team, panelists at the center said. But
that appears unlikely, as the economic
team has been named. It includes sev-
eral members of the more pro-busi-
ness wing of the Democratic Party, a
wing headed by former Clinton Treas-
ury Secretary Robert Rubin.
Regardless of who gets named to
the top job, Corzine and the panelists
said a top priority of the Obama Ad-
ministration should be to “change the
culture” in DOL away from its anti-
worker, pro-business bias under Presi-
dent Bush and Labor Secretary Elaine
Chao. Chao is the only original Bush
Cabinet member to serve all eight
years.
The panelists and their report “took
a broad view of enforcement across
DOL,” as panelists David Madland
and Karla Walter put it. That means
not just increased enforcement, but
also increased coordination in en-
forcement, because often violators
break a whole host of labor laws, in
wages, hours, health and safety and
other areas.
And while the Bush DOL has con-
centrated on individual violations, an
Obama DOL should administer the
law in those cases, too, but also use
them as signals pointing to more
widespread abuses in industries or
firms, the panelists said.
DOL is also handicapped by the
fact that the number of personnel in
key areas, notably the Wage and Hour
Division, has crashed. Panelist Kim
Bobo, of Chicago-based Interfaith
Worker Justice, reiterated her point
that the division has half as many in-
spectors as it had when it was founded
in 1941.
To augment its enforcement pow-
ers, the panel said DOL should reach
out to other organizations — unions,
non-profit groups such as Interfaith
Worker Justice, state enforcement
agencies, and community groups —
to become constant “eyes and ears”
against violators. Those organizations
are also more familiar with local
working conditions, have people
available, and are more credible with
workers, they said.
Corzine and Perez said several
states have stepped into enforcement
voids left by Bush’s DOL. And the
governor said the feds could adopt
some of their innovations, too. For
example, he cited the “independent
contractors” issue, a particular prob-
lem in construction and trucking. To
halt such practices New Jersey passed
a law tightening and unifying the defi-
nition of “independent contractor.” It
also now has the power to put “stop
work” orders on construction projects
where contractors harm workers by
misclassifying them.
DECEMBER 19, 2008