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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 2, 2009)
OCT. 2, 2009 :NWLP Inside 9/29/09 9:53 AM Page 1 MEETING NOTICES See Page 4 Volume 110 Number 19 October 2, 2009 Portland, Oregon Freightliner won’t close Portland plant Rallying for reform Stuart Fishman, a member of United Food & Commercial Workers Local 555, shows support for single-payer health care at a Portland rally Sept. 22 targeting health insurance companies, in this case Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon. The rally took place at Pettygrove Park downtown, next to the insurance company headquarters. Organized by Health Care for America Now, it was part of a national series of more than 100 events with the theme “Big Insurance: We’re Sick of It.” Health Care for America Now, a coalition that includes AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions, is organizing to support the “public health insurance option” proposed by Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign. At this rally, supporters of the public option and single payer found common ground in criticizing insurance companies for being part of the problem. Company may seek concessions from union workers in upcoming bargaining Workers at the Portland Freightliner plant got a reprieve Sept. 28 when Daimler Trucks North America an- nounced their facility won’t close June 2010 as previously announced. The heavily-downsized plant em- ploys 425 members of Machinists Lodge 1005; 90 members of Teamsters Local 305; 66 members of Painters Lo- cal 1094; and 18 members of Service Employees Local 49. The plant makes Freightliner mili- tary vehicles and the Western Star line of specialized trucks. Daimler just got a large order from the U.S. Army’s Tank Automotive Command, and that may have figured in the decision to halt the planned closure. Roger Nielsen, Daimler Trucks North America chief operating officer, said in a press state- ment that the company would prefer to focus on timely delivery, without the in- terruption or distraction of a move. The company was planning to switch the military production to its North Carolina plant, and Western Star production to its plant in Santiago Tian- guistenco, Mexico. Instead, the military trucks will be made in Portland and in Cleveland, North Carolina, while plans (Turn to Page 6) AFL-CIO convention endorses single-payer plan PITTSBURGH — In a historic vote, the AFL-CIO at its national con- vention Sept. 15-18 unanimously en- dorsed a single-payer health care sys- tem as the best way to guarantee health care to everyone. Resolution 34 — sponsored by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, the In- ternational Longshore and Warehouse Union, and the Alameda County (Cali- fornia) Central Labor Council — puts the AFL-CIO on record in support of single-payer, which would essentially expand and improve Medicare to cover all Americans. At least 70 “single-payer” resolu- tions were submitted to the convention by various unions and labor councils. Those resolutions were combined into one resolution. More than 575 labor organizations, including 136 central labor councils, 22 international and national unions, and 39 state AFL-CIOs (Oregon and Wash- ington among them) have endorsed a specific plan introduced in the House of Representatives — HR 676. Resolution 34 notes that “the expe- rience of Medicare (and of nearly every other industrialized country) shows the most cost-effective and equitable way to provide quality health care is through a single-payer system. Our nation should provide a single high standard of comprehensive care for all.” It also cites HR 676, which has 86 co-sponsors in Congress. The vote came shortly after the con- vention was addressed by President Barack Obama, who repeated his call for comprehensive health care reform. The night before, the California Nurses Association co-hosted a recep- tion featuring filmmaker Michael Moore. In his speech, Moore recalled that 65 years ago President Franklin Roosevelt proposed a second bill of rights which called for a right to uni- versal medical care, a fight that contin- ues. He noted that every day the health care industry spends over $1 million to block reform while thousands of Amer- icans continue to lose coverage, and urged labor and community activists to keep up the fight. Rich Trumka, in his speech to dele- gates immediately after being elected president of the AFL-CIO on Sept. 18, reiterated his support for single payer health care telling the delegates: “Now, I know that a lot of us would prefer a single payer plan. I sure would.” Union officials were in agreement that regardless of the outcome of the current health care legislative action, organized labor will continue to fight to make sure every single American gets high quality health care. “The labor movement needs to set our flag on the top of the mountain, and that we will not rest until we have sin- One in six Oregonians lack health insurance As congressional debate on reform- ing the nation’s health care system con- tinues, a federal survey released Sept. 22 confirms that about one in six Ore- gonians lacked health insurance at some point in 2008. The U.S. Census Bureau’s Ameri- can Community Survey (ACS) also re- ported that the income of the typical Oregon household in 2008 remained unchanged from the year prior and the start of the decade. The current levels of health cover- age and household median income are “likely worse today,” because the ACS did not cover the deepest period of the recession, said Joy Margheim, policy analyst with the Oregon Center for Public Policy. Inquiring for the first time on health coverage, the ACS found that 16.4 per- cent of the state’s population — about 614,562 Oregonians — lacked health insurance coverage. “Today’s data offer yet another clear message to Congress of the urgent need for affordable, comprehensive health insurance coverage for everyone,” Margheim said. An estimated 110,421 Oregon chil- dren, or 12.8 percent, lacked health in- surance, the survey reported. The survey results on health cover- age are in line with the results of the Current Population Survey (CPS), re- leased last month, though Margheim cautioned that because of differences in the questions and survey designs, the two surveys cannot be compared di- rectly. The Oregon Center for Public Pol- icy is a non-partisan research institute that does in-depth research and analysis on budget, tax and economic issues. gle-payer health care for all," said Greg Junemann, president of International Federation of Professional and Techni- cal Engineers and chair of the HR 676 Labor Caucus. California Nurses Association Ex- ecutive Director and AFL-CIO Vice President Rose Ann DeMoro wel- comed the many international guests attending the convention, and noted how most of them represent industrial nations where no one dies from lack of health coverage or goes bankrupt or loses homes due to unpayable medical bills. “The reason? Because they have single-payer or other national health care systems, and because your labor movement led the fight for health care,” DeMoro said. “Here, insurance compa- nies are at the apex of power, control- ling our lives. It is not the public option we should be questioning, it is the pri- vate option and its horrendous power over our families. “When we meet again in four years, perhaps if we adopt single-payer,” she continued, “we will be like all our in- ternational brothers and sisters in this room, and no longer be the richest na- tion in the world but just 37th in health- care.”
