Sept.21, 2009:NWLP
9/15/09
10:34 AM
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Lafer goes to Washington
LERC professor will be adviser to U.S. House labor panel
Gordon Lafer, assistant professor
at the Labor Education and Research
Center (LERC) at the University of
Oregon, is moving to Washington,
D.C., to work as senior labor policy
adviser for the U.S. House of Repre-
sentatives’ Committee on Education
and Labor. The job starts Sept. 21;
Lafer will take a one-year leave of ab-
sence from the UO.
The committee is responsible for
laws on labor, health care, job train-
ing, and retirement security for work-
ers. Lafer will provide the committee
with analysis and advice on labor law
legislation, including the Employee
Free Choice Act, labor’s top priority
bill in Congress.
Besides the Employee Free Choice
Act, Lafer said he will be working on
a bill called the RESPECT Act (Re-
Empowerment of Skilled and Profes-
sional Employees and Construction
Trades Workers), which would undo a
Bush-era National Labor Relations
Board decision that took away union
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rights from charge nurses, construction
foremen and other workers who do
some limited amount of supervising.
He’ll work on the guestworker pro-
visions of the upcoming immigration
reform bill — spelling out what rights
guest workers should have, and under
what conditions companies should be
allowed to bring in guest workers.
He’ll be working on federal legisla-
tion aimed at extending union rights
to police and firefighters in states
where they don’t have those rights. He
will also work on proposals to attach
labor conditions to federal green jobs
initiatives and a second round of stim-
ulus spending.
“I feel like if there’s ever a time
when it should be possible to move
legislation that helps workers, this
should be it,” Lafer told the Labor
Press.
Lafer, 49, joined LERC faculty in
1997, two years after earning a PhD in
political science from Yale University.
He soon became known in the lo-
cal and national labor movement as
LERC’s go-to person for research. He
has done work for unions around the
country on strategic planning and con-
tract campaigns, including Las Vegas
building trades unions, longshore
unions in Hawaii and on the East
G ORDON L AFER
Coast and Gulf Coast, and Bay Area
locals of the United Food and Com-
mercial Workers. He helped Oregon
building trades unions with technical
questions about prevailing wage cal-
culations, researched nursing short-
ages for Oregon Nurses Association,
conducted a salary survey for an engi-
neering employee association, and co-
authored two studies on contracting
out school support services — which
helped Oregon School Employees As-
sociation resist privatization.
In 2002, he published “Job Train-
ing Charade,” a book criticizing politi-
cians’ promotion of job training as the
answer to unemployment and job-
killing trade treaties like NAFTA.
In recent years, Lafer researched
Commissioners in Clatsop
County face recall effort
for supporting LNG plant
ASTORIA — Three Clatsop
County commissioners who support a
liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal,
proposed for a site 20 miles east of As-
toria on the Columbia River, are facing
a recall effort by opponents of LNG.
The recall targets are commission-
ers Jeff Hazen, Ann Samuelson, and
Patricia Roberts. All three support
building the $650 million LNG termi-
nal, in line with the Oregon AFL-CIO
and the Columbia Pacific Building
Trades Council, which already has a
project labor agreement in place with
the developer, NorthernStar.
“This terminal will not only provide
hundreds and hundreds of construction
jobs for our members and their fami-
lies, it’s also going to ensure a safe, re-
liable supply of energy for our area,
which will result in good jobs in the Pa-
cific Northwest,” said John Mohlis, ex-
ecutive secretary-treasurer of the Co-
lumbia Pacific Building and
Construction Trades Council.
After it is built, the terminal —
which will import, store and process
liquefied natural gas — will have an
operating budget of $30 million a year.
Tom Chamberlain, president of the
Oregon AFL-CIO, said stabilizing en-
ergy costs is crucial for the region’s fu-
ture. “And while we should vigorously
pursue renewable energy, natural gas
can serve as a bridge to the cleaner en-
ergy future we all want,” he said.
Some residents are angry because
SEPTEMBER 18, 2009
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
and wrote several influential studies
of the failings of U.S. labor law for
the union-backed group American
Rights at Work. That led to invitations
to train congressional staffers and tes-
tify about the Employee Free Choice
Act at hearings in the U.S. House and
Senate, including the House Educa-
tion and Labor Committee, whose
general counsel recruited him to the
new job.
Joining Lafer in the move to DC
are his partner Rachel Kirtner and their
three-year-old daughter Merav. Kirtner
is a labor attorney and union organizer
who was working with the American
Federation of Teachers to help UO fac-
ulty unionize. Lafer said they’ve
leased a place 12 blocks from the
Capitol, and are renting out their home
in Eugene with an eye to returning.
“Obviously we will miss Gordon’s
skills and talents for the year he’s
gone,” said LERC director Bob Bus-
sel. “But this is an opportunity for him
to do really good work on major
pieces of legislation that will benefit
the union movement and working
people.”
the three commissioners voted to ap-
prove land-use zone changes to allow
construction of the terminal at Brad-
wood Landing, site of a shuttered lum-
ber mill. Last month, some of those
LNG opponents filed paperwork with
Clatsop County to start collecting sig-
natures to force an election to recall
them.
The number of signatures to trigger
a recall election is determined by tak-
ing 15 percent of the voters who voted
for governor in the 2006 election.
A recall petition for Hazen would
need 445 valid signatures from voters
in District 1. For Samuelson, the num-
ber is 447. The deadline to get signa-
tures is Oct. 19. The election would be
held Dec. 8.
A petition to oust Roberts was ap-
proved Aug. 26. Petitioners need 441
signatures by Nov. 23. That election
can be held no later than Jan. 12.
District 2 covers the area south of
Warrenton to the center of Seaside and
includes the city of Gearhart.
Hazen is county commissioner for
District 1, which takes in Warrenton
and Hammond and a portion of Asto-
ria.
Samuelson is county commissioner
for District 5, which covers portions of
Seaside east of U.S. 101, and Cannon
Beach, Arch Cape south to the Tillam-
ook County line, east to the Columbia
and Washington county lines, includ-
ing Hamlet and Jewell.
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