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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
