JUNE 19, 2009:NWLP
6/16/09
10:05 AM
Page 5
AFL-CIO praises draft
Senate health care bill
Justin May, a 10th term UA Local 290 apprentice
from Eugene, works on a threaded pipe project.
UA Local 290 apprentice Corby Campbell builds
a lateral as part of the welding competition.
UA Local 290 hosts regional apprentice contest
Plumbers and Fitters Local 290 played host to the Dis-
trict 5 Regional Apprenticeship Contest June 10-11 at its
training center in Tualatin.
Thirty-six apprentices from nine states competed in one
of five disciplines — plumbing, steamfitting, welding,
HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning), and sprin-
klerfitting. The competition consisted of timed, hands-on
skills, as well as a written exam.
Winners in each discipline qualified for the national
contest in Ann Arbor, Michigan in August.
The UA’s apprenticeship contest has been dormant for
more than two decades. It was revived last year, with the
regional contest in Seattle.
Winners of the regional contest were: Plumbing— Jeff
Love, Nevada Local 350; Steamfitter — John-Mark Carl-
son, Washington Local 32; Welding — Kyle Callies,
Washington Local 598; HVAC — Bradley Taylor, Wash-
ington Local 598; Sprinklerfitter — Joshua Cooper, Cali-
fornia Local 709.
An unidentified steamfitter apprentice
performs a rigging test at regional contest.
P HOTO COURTESY OF J OHN K LICKER
WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) —
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney
praised the Senate’s draft health care re-
form legislation for its plan to establish
a Medicare-like alternative to compete
against the private health insurance in-
dustry.
But a leader of one the federation’s
top health care unions —California
Nurses Association Executive Director
Rose Ann DeMoro, publicly dissented.
Sweeney said senators drafting the
health care overhaul are following prin-
ciples the labor movement campaigns
for: Providing an alternative to the in-
surers, letting people choose their own
doctors, controlling costs, and provid-
ing universal, affordable coverage.
President Barack Obama also agrees
with those principles and pushes them
hard in town meetings, speeches and
appearances.
But DeMoro called the Senate bill “a
sham” that wouldn’t work to control
costs and provide universal care. She
said a government-run single-payer
health care system would do that.
And DeMoro said the public is on
her side — in town hall meetings and
nationwide polls that show majority
support for a single-payer system that
would eliminate insurers, their high co-
pays, deductibles, huge profits, and de-
nial of care.
DeMoro declared single-payer
would cut down on the nation’s annual
$2.3 trillion health care bill by at least
$300 billion.
Senate committees began working
on details of the legislation the week of
June 15.
“We will introduce legislation that
will strengthen what works and fix what
doesn’t,” said Sen. Chris Dodd (D-
Conn.), vice chair of the Senate Health
Education and Labor Committee. “If
you like the insurance you have today,
you can keep it. If you don’t like what
you have today, we’ll give you better
choices, including a public option for
health care.”
The public option has drawn virtu-
ally unanimous condemnation from Re-
publicans, the insurance lobby, and
business groups, who oppose any gov-
ernment-run health care.
The AFL-CIO insists that any health
care reform legislation require all em-
ployers to either provide health insur-
ance to their employees or pay into a
system to make sure everyone is cov-
ered, and that workers’ health care ben-
efits must not be taxed.
Sen. Merkley open
to ‘public option’
Oregon U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley was
among 28 senators co-sponsoring a res-
olution that calls for the inclusion of a
public option in any health care reform
package that comes out of Congress.
The resolution says that “any reform
of our nation’s health care system
should give consumers a choice of an
affordable, federally-backed option to
introduce competition in the health in-
surance market ...”
“Health reform should provide con-
sumers with the full range of choices to
meet their needs,” Merkley said. “A
public option will provide competition
that will keep private insurance compa-
nies honest and help improve service
and lower health care costs for every-
one.”
The resolution was carried by Ohio
Democrat Sherrod Brown.
Merkley was the only senator on the
West Coast to support it.
Labor board issues formal complaint against nursing home
Elizabeth Lehr, a receptionist at Lau-
relhurst Village nursing home, was fired
because she engaged in legally-pro-
tected union activity, and to discourage
other workers from doing the same. It’s
not just the union she wants to join —
Service Employees International Union
(SEIU) Local 503 — that says so. That
was the conclusion of the National La-
bor Relations Board (NLRB), the fed-
eral agency that runs unionization elec-
tions and handles complaints of labor
law violations.
The NLRB issued a formal com-
plaint May 29 after an investigating
agent determined that management at
the Southeast Portland facility commit-
ted 11 separate violations of U.S. labor
law in late March and early April when
a campaign to unionize was heating up.
A July 14 date has been set for a federal
administrative law judge to hear the
case.
The NLRB found that Laurelhurst
JUNE 19, 2009
Vi l l a g e
changed what
had been a lax
policy on em-
ployees visit-
ing the work-
place
in
off-hours — in
response to its
employees’
union activi-
ties.
Once
workers started
coming in off
E LIZABETH L EHR
the clock to
talk with co-workers about the union, a
“No Access Rule” was announced and
enforced, “to discourage its employees
from forming, joining or assisting the
union,” the NLRB said in its complaint.
The agency found that manager Han-
nah Austin, director of operations, cre-
ated an impression among workers that
their union activities were under surveil-
lance, and interrogated employees about
their union activities. Other managers
surveilled pro-union workers, threatened
them with reprisals for distributing
union literature in non-work areas on
non-work time, and gave verbal and
written warnings for union activities. In
one case, managers even called the po-
lice on employees, “to threaten them
with arrest for engaging in union … ac-
tivities.”
And they fired Lehr April 2.
Laurelhurst Village is one of 16 nurs-
ing homes owned by Portland-based
Farmington Centers, Inc., none of which
are union-represented. Local 503
spokesperson Ed Hershey said the union
is still hopeful Farmington will switch
gears and join a partnership the union
has with six other nursing home compa-
nies. SEIU joins with the industry dur-
ing state legislative sessions to advocate
for better funding, and in return, compa-
nies agree to remain neutral on the ques-
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
tion of whether their employees should
unionize. That agreement has helped the
union grow to where it now represents
26 nursing homes.
But until the company comes around,
the union will continue legal and com-
munity pressure.
Hershey said the union is asking the
NLRB for a 10(j) injunction, a court or-
der reinstating Lehr.
The union is also asking that the
NLRB order Farmington to recognize
the union and begin bargaining a con-
tract. Such orders, known as Gissel bar-
gaining orders, are rare, but Hershey
said the conditions are right at Laurel-
hurst Village: SEIU can show, with
signed authorization cards, that it had
majority support before management’s
anti-union crackdown. After the crack-
down, Hershey said, some workers who
were taking a public role felt they could-
n’t afford to lose their jobs, and backed
off. The union isn’t sure it would win an
election if held today — because man-
agement lawbreaking poisoned the at-
mosphere.
Lehr, 23, was profiled in an article in
the May 15 issue of Northwest Labor
Press. She is still without work, has used
up her savings, and has appealed her de-
nial of unemployment insurance bene-
fits. Laurelhurst Village contested her
unemployment claim, saying she was
fired for cause. A hearing scheduled for
June 12 was postponed when an attor-
ney for the nursing home (from Stoel
Rives) demanded that the state adminis-
trative law judge assigned to the case re-
cuse herself because she is represented
by SEIU Local 503.
The judge did so. A new hearing had
not be scheduled at press time.
Lehr says she’s as committed as ever
to the union campaign, and wants to re-
turn to work, even if just to send a mes-
sage to co-workers about the power of
the union and the possibility of justice.
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