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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 2010)
Oct 1-2010:NWLP 9/28/10 Inside 10:01 AM Page 1 MEETING NOTICES See Page 6 Volume 111 Number 19 October 1, 2010 Portland, Oregon Bashing teachers unions: UFCW, Smithfield donate food to feed the hungry AFT TALKS BACK Volunteers from United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555 and Smithfield Foods delivered and unloaded 150,000 servings of pork products to the Oregon Food Bank on Sept. 21. The donation is part of Smithfield and UFCW’s “Feed the Hungry” national tour, which will donate more than 1.6 million pounds of pro- tein (over 6.4 million servings a year) to food banks coast-to-coast. Safeway and the Safeway Foundation also participated in the pro- gram. “The Great Recession has resulted in a record number of house- holds seeking help from the Oregon Food Bank Network for the third year in a row,” said Food Bank CEO Rachel Bristol. “With so many impacted, we are heartened by the caring response of the food indus- try, community volunteers, and financial supporters who have allowed us to increase the volume of food distributed by 25 percent in just three years.” According to Oregon Food Bank, more than 240,000 people per month in Oregon eat meals from an emergency food box. That com- pares to about 200,000 in 2007-08. A typical emergency food box pro- vides a three- to five-day supply of gro- ceries. Most food pantries serve a spe- cific geographic area and limit the number of times a family can receive help. Most households seek emergency food boxes fewer than four times a year. By DON McINTOSH Associate Editor Is a coordinated attack on teachers unions under way? In recent months, front-page magazine articles, op-ed pieces, and news stories have por- trayed public schools as failing, and teachers unions as the number one ob- stacle to fixing them. Now a new film, “Waiting for Superman,” tries to de- fine the issue, and paints teachers unions as the villain. The film, by the director of the Oscar-winning global warming documentary “An Inconven- ient Truth,” opens in Portland Oct. 8. But more often than not, teachers union leaders aren’t asked for their views. They’re bashed, but not given a chance to respond. To make up for that, the Northwest Labor Press con- tacted American Federation of Teach- ers (AFT) national headquarters and spoke with Rob Weil, AFT director of field programs. NW LABOR PRESS: Are we see- ing the ramp-up of a decades-old con- servative-tinted movement to reform public schools, with teachers unions as the target? WEIL: There’s been a so-called re- form effort going on. A lot of the re- forms aren’t necessarily targeted to ed- ucational improvement. They seem to have more political ideology than edu- cational soundness. Above, UFCW Local 555 staffer Patrick Reed helps load a grocery cart with donated pork products. At right, Local 555 Secretary- Treasurer Jeff Anderson (yellow shirt holding ham) and President Dan Clay (white shirt) join others unloading hams from a truck to the Oregon Food Bank warehouse. Can you give some examples? One of things we see all the time is the assumption that what’s wrong with our schools is teachers — so we have to figure a way to overcome the bad teachers. At AFT, we call that the “bad teacher” narrative. We don’t make those same judg- ments elsewhere in society. Like, we don’t say that high-crime areas are the fault of underperforming cops. No, we don’t. The difference is that this “bad teacher” narrative is very well funded. There’s a PR effort be- hind it, funded by foundations. Some of them are well-meaning, but some of them are “bash union” groups — the Walton Family Foundation, owner of WalMart, for example. The American Federation of Teachers is not saying the schools we have today are the schools we ought to have. We have to make sure that every kid gets a high- quality education. What we’re saying is there are good ways to address those issues, and there are bad ways. You re- member the attempt to fire all the teachers in Central Falls, Rhode Is- land? Nobody was saying perform- ance was good there, but it was actu- ally improving. Yet all of a sudden, people were calling for the mass firing of the teachers, saying every teacher was to blame. (Turn to Page 9) In Washington’s Third Congressional District Organized labor in agreement: ‘Give Congress Heck!’ By DON McINTOSH Associate Editor One of the most closely-watched electoral races in America is taking place in Washington’s Third Congres- sional District. Money is pouring into the contest between Democrat Denny Heck and Republican Jaime Herrera, as the two parties battle over control of Congress. This year in particular, South- west Washington voters — including more than 10,000 union members and their families — have a say in determin- ing the direction of the country. For union members, the choice is be- tween a union-endorsed 58-year-old businessman with a reliably pro-labor legislative past, and a 31-year-old one- term state legislator who bragged to The Columbian newspaper about her low union ratings. On economic and tax pol- icy and in life experience, the two can- didates have little in common. Heck grew up in Vancouver’s Lake Shore neighborhood. His father worked as a Teamster-represented truck driver; his mother was a union-represented tele- phone operator. After graduating Co- lumbia River High School, he attended The Evergreen State College, then worked as staff rep for a public school employees union. From 1977 to 1986, he was elected and served five terms in the Washington House of Representa- tives for District 17, which covers parts of Clark, Skamania and Klickitat coun- ties. Colleagues elected him House Ma- jority leader. From 1989 to 1993, Heck was chief of staff for Democratic gover- nor Booth Gardner. Then he went into business, founding TVW, a C-SPAN- like cable channel that covers Washing- ton government. He became an original investor in Real Networks, the software company that pioneered streaming me- dia on the Internet. Real Networks, which created widely-used software programs like RealPlayer, made Heck a wealthy man. He invested in other en- terprises, including a company that makes software for storing electronic medical records. Herrera’s background is Republican politics. A graduate of Vancouver’s Prairie High School, she interned at the White House Office of Political Affairs under George W. Bush while earning a bachelors degree in communications from University of Washington. From 2005 to 2007 she worked as a legislative aide to Eastern Washington Republican Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers. She was appointed in 2007 to a vacant spot as state representative repre- senting Washington’s 17th legislative district, which covers part of Cowlitz and Clark counties, and was re-elected in 2008. Heck says his return to politics is mo- (Turn to Page 2)
