JULY 3, 2009:NWLP
6/30/09
Inside
10:25 AM
Page 1
MEETING NOTICES
See
Page 4
Volume 110
Number 13
July 3, 2009
Portland, Oregon
H a p p y F o u r t h o f J u l y !
O’Connor to retire
from labor council
Promoting IBEW Local 48
In a lighthearted effort to increase union “brand awareness,” International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
Local 48 is renting a pair of billboards and giving out bumper stickers with the slogan “Keep Portland Wired.”
The motto is a spinoff of “Keep Portland Weird” — a popular bumper sticker that celebrates Portland’s
quirkiness. Some people may think Portlanders keep wired enough as it is, considering how much coffee they
consume. But that ambiguity is eliminated by the IBEW name and logo next to the slogan. Union electricians
have been keeping Portland “wired” for nearly 100 years. The idea was generated by an apprentice member
working on a Habitat for Humanity volunteer project. Local 48 Business Manager Clif Davis heard it, liked
it, and ran with it. The billboards are visible to eastbound traffic on Sandy Boulevard at NE 96th Avenue
(above), and to westbound traffic on I-84 near the Troutdale exit.
Judy O’Connor, executive secretary-
treasurer of the Northwest Oregon La-
bor Council, the state’s largest central
labor council, announced June 22 that
she will retire before her term of office
expires in December 2011. Her last day
will be Aug. 28.
O’Connor, who turns 62 on July 6,
said a change in her defined benefit
pension plan was a primary reason for
retiring. She is a 27-year member of Of-
fice and Professional Employees Local
11. The union’s Western States Pension
Fund had investment losses of 32.5 per-
cent last year and was declared to be in
critical status. In response, pension
trustees decided to increase the normal
retirement age to 65 and eliminate the
early retirement subsidy, among other
things.
O’Connor has enough years of serv-
ice and is at an age that she can collect
100 percent of her pension. Had she
completed her term of office and retired
at age 64, (after the rule-changes had
been implemented), she would have
seen her pension reduced.
“Retirement has been on my mind
for a while now,”
O’Connor said.
“But when I re-
ceived the letter
from the pension
fund explaining
the changes, it
made me look at
it a little harder
— and it changed
J UDY O’C ONNOR my timeline. I
feel blessed that I am able to retire be-
fore all the changes are implemented.”
O’Connor went to work as an office
secretary at the labor council in 1982
under the leadership of Lon Imel. After
Imel retired she managed the office
throughout the tenure of his successor,
Ron Fortune. When Fortune announced
his plans to retire mid-term in 1998,
O’Connor decided to step up and run.
She was elected to finish that term (the
first woman to ever hold the full-time
position at NOLC), and has won re-
election three times. The most recent
election was in November 2007.
O’Connor said she will coordinate
(Turn to Page 7)
ATU #757’s Ron Heintzman named to international post
Ron Heintzman, former president of Portland-
based Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local
757, has been appointed to the number-two posi-
tion in his international union.
Heintzman, 56, will be executive vice president
— responsible for assigning and overseeing the
work of 18 international vice presidents and four
special representatives. He’ll also be in charge of
the union’s organizing efforts, and he would be
next in line if the international union presidency
becomes vacant.
ATU has about 148,000 active members and
37,000 pensioners, with 264 locals across 44
states and nine Canadian provinces. The union
represents mass transit workers in most large
cities in the United States and Canada, plus school
bus drivers and mechanics, and emergency med-
ical service personnel.
In ATU, international vice presidents are full-
time paid staff, responsible for negotiating con-
tracts as assigned by the union. They also make
up the international’s General Executive Board,
which makes decisions between conventions.
Heintzman has been an international vice presi-
dent since 2002, and has helped bargain union
contracts in Wash-
ington, Oregon, Ida-
ho, Montana, Cali-
fornia, Colorado,
Nevada, and Texas.
In that time, though
there have been sev-
eral short strikes and
some negotiations
that dragged on 18
months, Heintzman
said he has never
failed to reach ag-
reement.
R ON H EINTZMAN
Heintzman’s new
position came open when its current occupant an-
nounced plans to retire July 31. Heintzman
leapfrogged more senior members of the General
Executive Board to win the appointment, bucking
tradition within the international. But ATU Inter-
national President Warren George’s choice of
Heintzman received majority approval at the May
1 meeting of the General Executive Board. Heintz-
man will need to run for re-election at the next
ATU convention in September 2010.
Heintzman told the Labor Press he plans to
ramp up organizing at the international, particu-
larly among paratransit workers, who transport
senior and disabled riders.
He also expects to take more of an interest in
D.C. politics than he has in the past. Heintzman
and others at ATU are sensing that mass transit
could have job growth potential as society shifts to
combat global warming. Heintzman attended the
United Nations climate change talks in Poland
October 2008 as part of a U.S. labor delegation,
and he’ll observe the next round of talks this De-
cember in Copenhagen.
“If we going to reduce greenhouse gas emis-
sions,” Heintzman said, “one way to do that is to
take cars off the road and replace them with tran-
sit.”
Driving a bus is both a “green job” and a union
job that can’t be shipped overseas. And yet, with
nationwide mass-transit ridership at a 50-year
high, 90 percent of transit agencies have cut serv-
ice or raised fares, according to a recent survey by
the American Public Transportation Association.
ATU is pushing a bill in Congress that would
allow federal transit money to be used for operat-
ing expenses, not just new equipment and con-
struction.
Heintzman’s early background was in criminal
justice. He spent most of his childhood in North
Dakota, but finished high school in Seattle. He
graduated from Washington State University in
Pullman in 1975 with a bachelors’ degree in po-
litical science on an Army ROTC scholarship, and
then served two years active duty as a second lieu-
tenant in the Military Police in Fort Hood, Texas.
That was followed by 15 years in the reserves. He
moved to Oregon in 1977 to take a job as an agent
for the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, then
attended the police academy in Monmouth, and
earned a master’s degree in criminal justice at the
University of Portland. He joined TriMet as a tran-
sit police officer in 1982, and ran for union presi-
dent in 1988 on a platform of drivers’ safety.
The new job starts Aug. 1 and will require
Heintzman to relocate to the Washington, D.C.,
area. The farm near Mt. Angel where Heintzman
and his wife Linda have lived and raised horses
the last 13 years is for sale. The couple’s two
daughters, 17 and 19, will accompany them in the
move.