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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 7, 2009)
August 7, 2009:NWLP 8/4/09 7LUHG RI :RUNLQJ LQ 3$,1" 0RVW ,QVXUDQFH 3ODQV $FFHSWHG 3 528'/< 6 (59,1* 3 257/$1' : 25.(56 ) 25 2 9(5 < ($56 10:20 AM Page 8 %HHVRQ &KLURSUDFWLF KHOSV EULQJ WKH UHOLHI \RX QHHG 7UHDWPHQW IRU SDLQ GXH WR RYHUXVH DQG UHSHWLWLYH PRWLRQ &KLURSUDFWLF DGMXVWPHQWV 7UHDWPHQW IRU DFFLGHQW DQG VSRUWVUHODWHG LQMXULHV 5HKDELOLWDWLRQ H[HUFLVHV 7KHUDSHXWLF PDVVDJH ,QWHUQDO GLDJQRVLV DQG WUHDWPHQW /DE WHVWV DQG [UD\V 'U 'DQ %HHVRQ &KLURSUDFWRU 6( 7KLUWHHQWK $YH LQ 6HOOZRRG &$// Chase is backing union members with the Union Plus ® Mortgage Program — a home purchase and refinancing program exclusively for union members, their parents and children. • FREE Mortgage Assistance Benefit If you are unemployed or disabled. • A wide variety of mortgages Choose from fixed rate, adjustable-rate, and low- or no-closing costs options. • Special Lending First-time homebuyer and less-than-perfect credit programs. • Savings on closing costs Member-only savings on new purchases and refinance. It all adds up to more home-buying power. Contact your local Union Plus Mortgage Specialist Call Bob Krueger at: 503-490-0459 Union Plus is a registered trademark of Union Privilege. Eligibility for mortgage assistance begins one year after closing on a Union Plus Mortgage through Chase Home Finance. This offer may not be combined with any other promotional offer or rebate, is not transferable, and is available to bona fide members of par- ticipating unions. For down payments of less than 20%, mortgage insurance (MI) is required and MI charges ap- ply.All loans are subject to credit and property approval. Program terms and conditions are subject to change with- out notice. Not all products are available in all states or for all loan amounts. Other restrictions and limitations apply. ©2008 JP Morgan Chase & Co. All Rights Reserved. P-UP 104 2A-7604 PAGE 8 ...Stimulus plan: ‘It’s not having the effect we expected’ (From Page 1) bers would be first to wield them. When ground is broken in Oregon public works projects, odds are good it’s broken by members of Operating Engineers Local 701, which represents workers who run heavy equipment. And when it comes to shoveling as- phalt, Laborers Local 320 is the one to call. Neither union is seeing much stim- ulus work. “It’s not having the effect we ex- pected,” said Local 701 Business Man- ager Mark Holliday. Union-signatory contractors are finding work here and there on stimulus-funded projects, but that hasn’t stopped Local 701’s out-of- work list from approaching 25 percent. Likewise, Local 320 Business Man- ager Dave Tischer says he was disap- pointed at the amount of infrastructure spending in the federal stimulus pack- age. Highway construction and mainte- nance is the biggest line item in the in- frastructure spending portion of the federal stimulus bill, and the one that was supposed to generate the most jobs quickly, but Tischer is looking at about 30 percent unemployment among his members. “My job is to look down the road at the work ahead, and the picture is not that rosy,” Tischer said. Local 320’s parent organization, La- borers International Union of North America (LIUNA), has been waging a campaign called “I build America,” calling for even more federal invest- ment. The message: There’s plenty of work to do, and plenty of people who need work; all that’s missing is the jobs. Of course, there ARE some jobs out there that wouldn’t be there without the federal stimulus money. The Labor Press found some that employ local union members. • TriMet got $44.8 million in federal stimulus money. The funds can pay for vehicle and equipment purchases, pre- ventive maintenance, and new passen- ger facilities — but can’t be used to in- crease service or hire more drivers. So the transit agency will undertake about 30 construction projects even as a drop in payroll tax revenues forces service cuts. For example, work began May 29 on a new transit police building at the southern terminus of the future MAX Green Line. The project, thanks to $600,000 in stimulus funds, will em- ploy about two dozen people through September. Howard S. Wright is the general contractor, and union subcon- tractors include McBride Sheet Metal and EC Company. And construction began in June on a $3.8 million project to light a path along I-205, in order to increase Green Line ridership. That work went to Team Electric, which employs members of Electrical Workers Local 48. • Union-signatory Long Painting got a stimulus-funded contract to do inte- rior and exterior repainting for Univer- sity of Oregon. That could employ five NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS Echoes of an earlier stimulus: The stone building above, on Southeast Milwaukie Avenue, belongs to the Oregon Department of Transportation. It was built by the federal Public Works Administration, a 1930s job creation program, and re-roofed this year with funds from Go Oregon, a bond-funded $175 million state-level stimulus effort. or six members of Painters Local 1277, said Painters District Council 5 Busi- ness Representative Patrick Smith. An- other 35 to 40 painters may find extra employment, and likely overtime, as stripers at the tail end of stimulus- funded highway projects, Smith said. Close to 40 of Local 1277’s 120 mem- bers are out of work. • The Oregon Department of Trans- portation got $324 million in federal stimulus funds, and according to the rules, allocated them where the money could be committed in 90 days. That meant mostly small add-ons to projects that were already approved. So a mas- sive $130 million project to build a straighter, safer stretch of US 20 near Eddyville got $13.8 million extra. That means the 200 or so members of Local 701 who are currently employed on the project will have months of additional work before the project is complete. And on the $64 million project to re- place the MLK viaduct in Southeast Portland, $1.25 million in stimulus funds meant that ODOT could repave city streets on the truck detour route, which have been damaged by extra traf- fic. Subcontractor KF Jacobsen was put in charge of the add-on, and is employ- ing members of Locals 320 and 701. That last add-on makes for a strange parallel, since what is today the south- bound portion of the MLK viaduct was built in 1936 by the federal Works Progress Administration. Oregon’s landscape is full of reminders of the 1930s federal effort to put people back to work — Mt. Hood Timberline Lodge was also built by the WPA, as was the masonry on seven Portland tunnels. Meanwhile the New Deal’s Public Works Administration built five land- mark bridges on the coast, including the Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport. Just as this recession — the worst since World War Two — invites com- parison to the Great Depression of the 1930s, so Obama-era stimulus efforts are judged by the standards of FDRs New Deal. Machinists District Lodge 24 Representative Joe Kear recently fin- ished reading a book about the first 100 days of FDR’s first presidential admin- istration. Kear, a longtime Freightliner worker who became a union rep in 2005, said today’s approach fails to im- press. Using stimulus funds, the U.S. De- partment of Labor made a grant of $405,000 to assist 80 laid-off Freight- liner workers. That $5,000 each might have been a big help to pay for job train- ing or living expenses while they hunt for other jobs, except they won’t see the money. The money goes to Oregon De- partment of Community Colleges and Workforce Development, which will contract with Worksystems Inc., a pri- vate nonprofit, to provide career coun- seling, job search and job placement as- sistance, and follow-up. The grant, according to the official press statement, “will allow affected workers to access the employment-related services neces- sary to obtain employment.” In the ’30s, the federal government help to provide employment. Today it funds employment-related services. Kear said within 100 days of FDR’s inauguration, the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administra- tion were begun, which directly em- ployed both skilled and unskilled work- ers. The Home Loan Mortgage Corporation refinanced home loans at favorable terms to stop foreclosures. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was founded to insure bank deposits and restore confidence in the banking sys- tem. “All those programs were success- ful because they gave money directly to the people,” Kear said, “either directly refinancing mortgages or directly em- ploying them in jobs. There’s no com- parable initiative on the part of the cur- rent administration.” AUGUST 7, 2009
