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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 16, 2009)
OCT. 16, 2009:NWLP Inside 10/13/09 10:21 AM Page 1 MEETING NOTICES See Page 6 Volume 110 Number 20 October 16, 2009 Portland, Oregon Portland City Council gets earful from AFSCME About 350 City of Portland employees and their supporters turned out for a “Rally for a Real Recovery” Sept. 30 in front of City Hall. Leaders of the City of Portland’s largest union blasted city managers and Portland City Council at a lunchtime rally Sept. 30 outside City Hall. American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AF- SCME) Local 189 represents nearly 1,100 city workers. Officers of the union say the Bureau of Human Re- sources and the city attorney's office are obstructing labor-management agreements worked out by city man- agers and the union, and blame City Council members for not getting in- volved. “We used to be able to work things out,” AFSCME staff rep James Hester told the Labor Press. “Now they’re not even resolving simple disputes.” Local 189 has seven pending unfair labor practice charges being looked into by the Oregon Employment Relations Board — each of them an allegation that the city is violating Oregon’s Public Employee Collective Bargaining Act. In one of the charges, the union alleges that managers are retaliating against and coercing union officers and union mem- bers in the Portland Police Bureau and Portland Water Bureau. Meanwhile, at the Bureau of Devel- opment Services, about 130 workers have been laid off, including 57 mem- bers of the City of Portland Profes- sional Employees Association. COP- PEA is an independent union rep- resenting some 700 workers. The layoffs have generated numer- ous complaints. AFSCME members said frontline employees are being cut in disproportionate numbers, while managers are keeping their jobs. Some workers were told they would be laid off and then weren’t, while others did- n’t find out they would be laid off until almost the day before. The cuts stem from a drop in build- ing permit fees. AFSCME says every effort by union employees at BDS to be (Turn to Page 4) Union members, cardiac resuscitation device, help save a life By MICHAEL GUTWIG Editor ESTACADA — Terry Anglin lay motionless on the floor. His skin color- less. Eyes open and fixed. No pulse. “I thought for sure he was dead,” said neighbor John Kirkpatrick, who re- sponded after hearing Anglin’s girl- friend screaming in the front yard across the street from his rural home. Kirkpatrick, a volunteer firefighter and retired Painters and Allied Trades District Council 5 representative, started CPR as his wife ran to call 9-1-1. Less than six minutes later, the Esta- cada Fire Department rolled onto the scene. The team of firefighters immediately went to work, first strapping Anglin to a device called an AutoPulse, a relatively new piece of equipment that performs the action of chest compressions. Over the next 45 minutes Anglin was shocked with a defibrillator three times and injected with vasopressin, epineph- rine and atropine — all while receiving perfectly-administered CPR. “We followed protocol by the book and he took everything we had,” said Estacada Fire Lt. Bruce Courtain. Paramedics from American Medical Response Northwest arrived and trans- ported Anglin to Mt. Hood Medical Center, then to Providence Hospital, and finally to Kaiser Sunnyside, where he remained in an induced coma for 18 days. Terry Anglin (second from right) is shown life-saving AutoPulse by Estacada firefighters, from left to right: Sam Em, Brandon Smith, Tim Corner (kneeling), Lt. Bruce Courtain, and volunteer firefighter John Kirkpatrick. When he awoke, the 62-year-old re- cently retired pipefitter and longtime member of Plumbers and Fitters Local 290 thought his union brothers had pranked him. After all, he hadn’t even cashed his first retirement check. “A heart attack? Yeah, right. Where are they? This is the best joke ever,” An- glin recalled telling nurses as he looked for his buddies to come in laughing. In fact, Anglin had not had a heart at- tack. It was worse than that. He had ex- perienced sudden cardiac arrest (no heart beat). Cardiac arrest claims more than 325,000 lives each year in the U.S. and is the leading cause of unexpected death worldwide. Fortunately for Anglin, he had a neighbor trained in CPR and willing to help, and a fire department with state- of-the-art equipment. Statistics show that the chance of surviving cardiac arrest outside a hos- pital setting are poor — only 2 percent of victims make it without long-term damage. According to the American Heart Association, for every minute that goes by without CPR, the survival rate decreases seven to 10 percent. “Quick thinking and proper training made the difference in Mr. Anglin’s case,” said Estacada Fire Department public information officer Tim Trickey. “Had John (Kirkpatrick) not been there to start CPR, having all of the equip- ment in the world wouldn’t have mat- tered.” But the AutoPulse definitely helped. “I would like to see one of those in every fire station, ambulance, and hos- pital in the country,” said Anglin, who on Oct. 1 met for the first time the fire- fighters who saved his life Aug. 29. For victims of cardiac arrest, circula- tion of blood has to be returned to the brain and vital organs as soon as possi- ble (known as perfusion). Standard manual compressions, even when they are done perfectly, can only provide up to 20 percent of normal blood flow to the heart and up to 40 percent to the brain. “And one person can’t do CPR for very long,” Kirkpatrick said. “Just the few minutes that I did it, I was ex- hausted.” (Turn to Page 9)
