May 1, 2009 :NWLP
4/28/09
Inside
9:55 AM
Page 1
MEETING NOTICES
See
Page 4
Volume 110
Number 9
May 1, 2009
Portland
DePaul workers learn how hard it is to unionize in America
At a food packaging plant
in North Portland, a
group of workers learn
what can happen when
they try to assert their
right to join a union
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Before April 2008, Frito-Lay snack
packs sold in local stores were put to-
gether by unionized workers earning
$16.96 an hour, plus health, retire-
ment, and vacation benefits. Then the
unionized Frito-Lay bakery in Van-
couver, Washington outsourced its va-
riety pack assembly line. As many as
30 positions were eliminated. Leaders
of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco
Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM)
Local 364 thought maybe they should
find out where the work went, to see if
workers would want to join the union.
Frito-Lay managers wouldn’t tell
them where the chips were going, but
the company’s Teamsters-represented
drivers would — they were being
trucked to a non-descript warehouse
in a Hayden Island industrial park just
Joe Crane, an organizer for Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and
Grain Millers Local 364 found a receptive workforce at DePaul Industries.
off I-5, with a sign for “DePaul Indus-
tries” on the front door.
DePaul Industries is registered as a
non-profit charity. Started in 1972 as
a sheltered workshop for people with
disabilities, today it describes itself as
“the Northwest’s most comprehensive
outsourcing specialist.” DePaul has
500 employees and earns $20 million
a year — tax-exempt — selling secu-
rity services, staffing services, manu-
facturing and assembly, document im-
aging, and food and consumer goods
packaging to companies and govern-
ment agencies.
DePaul Industries employee Jef-
frey Taylor was on break in the park-
ing lot when BCTGM International
Representative Eric Anderson drove
by the Hayden Island plant in late Au-
gust. Anderson introduced himself as
a union organizer and handed him a
business card.
“What took you guys so long?”
Taylor asked.
Taylor had learned from a Frito-
Lay manager sent to train DePaul as-
sembly line workers that outsourcing
to DePaul was saving Frito-Lay a lot
of money: $8-an-hour DePaul packers
had replaced Frito-Lay’s $17-an-hour
union workers.
The Frito-Lay union wages
sounded a lot better to Taylor, 43, who
earned $13 an hour as a machine op-
erator. Plus, Taylor — who is black —
was still smoldering over the com-
pany’s response to his complaints
about racist pranks: The month before,
Taylor said, a supervisor had thrown a
noose at him, and another yelled out
that he sold crack cocaine. The two
had been scolded, but nothing more.
Taylor called Anderson, who put
him in touch with Local 364 President
Cameron Taylor (no relation) and Ex-
ecutive Board member Joe Crane.
Crane, 28, is the kind of union mem-
ber who puts the “movement” back
into the labor movement — a work-
place steward, bargaining committee
member, and in his free time, a volun-
teer union organizer.
To spark a union drive, Taylor
turned out to be an ideal first contact:
He was the one who drove the com-
pany van to pick up workers at the
Jantzen Beach Mall bus stop. That
gave him a chance to talk about the
union away from the eyes of company
managers. Workers would fill out
union authorization cards on the way
to work. The campaign spread rapidly
as other workers got involved.
One was Claudel Pierre, 41. Pierre
had been a political activist in Haiti
until a coup made that a dangerous oc-
cupation. Now he was a $12-an-hour
quality assurance inspector at DePaul.
He saw the union as a chance to win
human rights on the job.
Pierre’s job required walking
around and interacting with other
workers, so talking about the union
(Turn to Page 2)
Fred Meyer remodels stores nonunion, stymies UFCW in The Dalles
Fred Meyer, at one time a reliable
employer of union labor, has been
using nonunion contractors in re-
modeling projects at Portland-area
stores. Meanwhile, some workers
on the inside — represented by
United Food and Commercial
Workers Local 555 — are having
trouble getting a first union contract.
Parent company Kroger has con-
tinued to be profitable during the re-
cession, even paying dividends. But
it is cutting corners when it comes
to a store-by-store remodeling proj-
ect, say local building trades union
representatives. Fred Meyer merged
with Cincinnati-headquartered
Kroger in 1999.
“We don’t even have a chance to
bid,” said Bob Childers, an interna-
tional representative of the Opera-
tive Plasterers and Cement Masons
International Association.
Members of Portland-based Ce-
ment Masons Local 555 would have
had lots of work on the remodels:
The company is moving from
linoleum tile to polished concrete,
with as many as 250 locations slated
for remodel. The work involves re-
moving tile and adhesive, grinding
concrete, adding densifier, and fin-
ishing with fine-grain sanding and
staining. But Kroger signed a na-
tionwide re-flooring deal with a
nonunion contractor that is using
$12-an-hour Craigslist recruits,
Childers said. The going rate for
union members to do that work
would have been $30 an hour plus
$13 an hour in benefits.
OPCMIA top leadership met in
Cincinnati with Kroger and offered
a break on the union rate, but didn’t
come away with a deal.
The shut-out burns local cement
masons, Childers says, because the
union’s health and welfare trust con-
tracts with Kroger as a pharmacy
benefit manager. Union members
get a deal on prescription drugs, but
agree to buy them only at Fred
Members of UFCW Local 555 march along the streets of The Dalles April 23
to protest slow progress in attaining a first contract for non-food workers at
the Fred Meyer store there. Workers voted to unionize in November 2007.
Meyer pharmacies (where, inciden-
tally, pharmacists are also union-
represented.)
“They’ve got union health trust
money going in their door, and they
turn around and hire nonunion con-
tractors that don’t even provide
health benefits to their workers,”
said John Mohlis, executive secre-
tary-treasurer of the Columbia Pa-
cific Building and Construction
Trades Council.
To deliver that message, Mohlis
joined Tim Foster and Clif Davis of
Electrical Workers Local 48 at a
March 18 meeting with several
Kroger representatives — one local
manager in charge of construction
and a Kroger official from Cincin-
nati from the pharmacy benefit
management division.
“Every hour one of our members
works is money in Fred Meyer’s
pocket, so I don’t understand why
they’re not using us,” said Foster,
who is assistant business manager at
Local 48.
Through the union-affiliated Har-
rison Health and Welfare Trust, Lo-
cal 48 members spent almost
$800,000 last year at Fred Meyer
pharmacies, but union electrical
contractors aren’t being considered
for work on the remodel. Foster said
union-signatory contractors bid on
10 large remodeling projects, even
using union market recovery funds
(Turn to Page 8)