August 21, 2009:NWLP
Inside
8/19/09
11:26 AM
Page 1
MEETING NOTICES
See
Page 4
Volume 110
Number 16
August 21, 2009
Portland, Oregon
Oregon construction
unions ready for work
Washington
unions
plan to
‘Bring
Change
Home’
But Congressman
David Wu won’t
support two large
private projects
WSLC President Rick Bender discusses formation of a new political action fund that will be used in 2010 to back “real
labor champions” at the labor federation’s annual convention Aug. 6-8 in Wenatchee.
Washington AFL-CIO convention delegates say there will be
no more business as usual when it comes to state politics
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
WENATCHEE — Washington
State Labor Council delegates, meeting
over three days Aug. 6-8, resolved to
“bring change home,” in several senses
of the phrase. State labor federation
delegates want to see the Obama Ad-
ministration bring “to home plate”
plans for health care reform, labor law
reform, and rescue of the economy.
They also want to see an Obama-style
spirit of change come to the state of
Washington, where this year Democ-
rats in the State Legislature catered to
big business and
ignored organ-
ized labor.
That betrayal
was one of the
most energetic
themes of the
convention. Del-
egates showed
their support for
a change in polit-
ical practice with a boisterous chant of
“not another dime.”
“Last year at this convention we
were making investments in our Dem-
ocratic leadership,” said WSLC Presi-
dent Rick Bender. “We heard their
promises and we believed them.”
But top state Democrats broke those
pledges when they refused to hold a
vote on the federation’s priority bill, the
Worker Privacy Act, Bender said.
“Boeing pulled out all the stops.
They threatened to leave the state,
again, and then we began to see exactly
how easily our so called friends — the
Democrats
who prom-
ised to help
us get this
bill passed
— we saw
how easily
they crum-
bled.”
Delegates
applauded
the formation of a new political action
fund, DIME PAC, and representatives
of WSLC affiliates stood up during the
convention to pledge $100,000 to the
fund, bringing its total to $300,000.
WSLC spokesperson Kathy Cum-
mings said none of that money will be
going to candidates this year, but rather
will accumulate in a war chest to be
used to back real labor champions in
the 2010 election.
The convention's keynote address
was delivered by national AFL-CIO
Executive Vice President Arlene Holt
Baker, the highest ranking African-
American official in the union move-
ment. Holt Baker shared a message
from President Obama to labor leaders:
“Do not underestimate me on health
care.” And she assured delegates that
the Employee Free Choice Act will
pass before the year is out.
Holt Baker also said the national
AFL-CIO hopes to foster greater labor
unity by inviting local affiliates of the
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LINCOLN CITY — “Jobs, jobs,
jobs” was a theme of the Oregon State
Building and Construction Trades
Council annual convention held Aug.
11-14 at Chinook Winds Resort.
“We’re in a depression — we’re
long past a recession in our industry,”
said Executive Secretary Bob
Shiprack.
Unionized construction workers
have enjoyed a run of full employment
for more than five years now. How-
ever, as larger projects such as high-
rise condominiums in Portland’s South
Waterfront and biotechnology giant
Genentech’s new plant in Hillsboro are
completed, no new projects are break-
ing ground.
“With the exception of ongoing
work at Intel, and a Kaiser hospital in
Hillsboro, private investments have
virtually ground to a halt,” Shiprack
said. “Banks aren’t loaning money.”
So, throughout the convention,
Shiprack and other union leaders re-
minded legislators and state adminis-
trators, who had been invited to speak
from the Oregon Department of Trans-
portation, the Oregon Department of
Energy, and the Oregon Economic and
Community Development Depart-
ment, that construction unions have
highly-trained workers ready to go to
work.
Those administrators responded in
kind, telling delegates that federal and
state monies are in the pipeline for
work on roads, bridges, and “green”
renewable and energy efficiency proj-
ects.
Lincoln County Commissioner
Terry Thompson said that in 2011 the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration’s Marine Operations
Center will relocate from Seattle to
Newport, which means a new $38 mil-
lion headquarters building and port for
six research vessels needs to be built.
Tim McCabe, director of the Eco-
nomic and Community Development
Department, said Oregon is ready to
explode in solar work.
“Around the solar panel industry
there are thousands of potential jobs
installing solar panels,” he said, noting
that Oregon — the largest solar manu-
facturer in the United States — cur-
rently has 20,000 solar systems in-
stalled, with an opportunity for
another 100 million down the road.
“For every installed megawatt,
that’s 20 full-time jobs. Next year
alone, that’s over 19,000 installers,”
McCabe said.
Mark Long, acting director of the
Oregon Department of Energy, said
his agency is sitting on $1 billion in re-
quested wind, solar, wave, volatiles,
and biomass projects using the state’s
Business Energy Tax Credit incentive
program.
Long is realigning the Department
of Energy into a business development
center that offers developers “a one-
stop shopping experience.” He said
the agency has $200 million available
for loans over the next biennium and
that it will get $60 million in federal
stimulus dollars from the feds and has
$100 million in BETC tax credits to
offer.
“We’re the only bank really loaning
on the commercial side. A lot of folks
aren’t aware of that,” he said. “We
have decent interest rates at 6 to 7 per-
cent, and flexible terms as far as pay-
back period.”
Long said his agency is working
with the Economic Development De-
partment “to try to get your folks back
to work.” He suggested that training
centers, if they aren’t already, “get up
to speed” in areas of biomass, solar
and wind. “You need to be up to speed
in training so you are ready to get
those jobs when they come.”
During a question and answer ses-
sion, Clif Davis, business manager of
International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers Local 48, said, “We keep
hearing the need for money to train
workers for solar. We’re already
trained.”
IBEW officials estimate that they
have 1,600 people trained in solar who
are ready to go to work now.
ODOT director Matt Garrett said
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