May 20, 2011_nWLP 5/17/11 9:34 aM Page 1
Inside
Official
Meeting Notices
See
Page 4
Volume 112
Number 10
May 20, 2011
Portland
Clerics talk ‘labor’
with ATU Local 757
Middle school girls have fun at Women in Trades Career Fair
Angie Couture (left) of Iron Workers Local 29 shows middle school girls from the Vancouver School District how to
use a cutting torch at 19th annual Women in Trades Fair. The three-day fair May 12-14, sponsored by Oregon
Tradeswomen Inc., provided an introduction to the many trades available to women. The first two days of the fair
were designated for middle school and high school students, where the girls were able to talk to women who actually
work in the trades and take part in hands-on workshops. Approximately 600 students, some from as far away as
Tillamook, attended each day. “We hope to trigger their imagination on the exciting careers available to them —
careers that pay good wages,” said OTI Executive Director Connie Ashbrook. The third day was open to the public.
More than 70 apprenticeship training programs, community colleges, and companies were represented at the fair.
Faith traditions have something to
say about labor. To find out what,
Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU)
Local 757 invited several clerics to at-
tend its May 9 general membership
meeting, which coincidentally takes
place at a Salvation Army building near
the union hall.
Father Jack Mosbrucker, a retired
Roman Catholic priest, and Rev. Eu-
gene Ross of the United Church of
Christ accepted the invitation. Labor
lawyer Barbara Diamond, a member of
Havurah Shalom synagogue, stood in
for a rabbi who could not attend.
“In the Catholic Church, we have
what they call ‘Catholic Social Teach-
ing,’” explained Mosbrucker, former
pastor of St. Charles Borromeo and St.
Therese parishes in Northeast Portland.
“Some say it’s one of the best-kept se-
crets of the Catholic Church: Nobody
knows we have it.”
Catholic Social Teaching is a body
of doctrine, drawn from several papal
pronouncements, that outlines the
church position on social justice.
“[It] envisions a society where every
person has dignity, a society that cares
for every one of its members,” Mos-
brucker said. “For us, unions ought to
exist because they give the people the
possibility of working together and
building themselves up.”
Protestant denominations have sim-
ilar pronouncements, Ross said, based
on scripture.
“It’s easy for us to think we live in
the most unjust time, but if we look at
scripture, we recognize that injustice
has been around a long time,” Ross
said. “Our work as a faith community is
to call people’s attention to where there
is injustice, and to work for justice.”
Diamond, who introduced herself as
a Jewish mother, spoke of her surprise,
during preparations for her son’s bar
mitzvah, to see many analogies between
the commandments of the Torah and
modern-day workers’ rights protections.
“There’s nothing in religion that’s
against the union movement,” Dia-
mond said. “I think we’ve got a lot of
good stuff in spiritual teachings that can
help us get through to many of our
members for whom faith is a daily
force for enrichment.”
Over half of the ATU members in at-
tendance raised their hands when asked
how many belong to a church of some
kind. But only one hand went up when
Mosbrucker asked how many had spo-
ken to their cleric about the union.
“If you’re a member of the congre-
gation, you ought to be talking about
the union with your church leaders,”
Mosbrucker said, “and if they don’t
know about it, educate them.”
Anti-union campaign causes private school closure
Enrollment drops after
Portland French School
spends $170,000 opposing
efforts to join AFT
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
When seven teachers asked for union recogni-
tion March 22, 2010, Portland French School
(PFS) administrator Elimane Mbengue threatened
them: Unionizing would cause the school’s clo-
sure, he said. The threat was repeated four days
later at a mandatory employee meeting: Real es-
tate investor Bob Scanlan, a member of the pri-
vate school’s board, told employees that unioniza-
tion would cause closure within a year, because
Mbengue and board members would resign, and
anti-union parents would remove their children —
and annual tuition of $13,000 per student — from
the school.
It didn’t happen exactly as Mbengue and Scan-
lan threatened, but close enough. A union vote will
take place May 24. On May 31, PFS will close its
doors permanently — squeezed between a severe
drop-off in enrollment and a rapid run-up of ex-
penses stemming from the anti-union campaign
that school leaders waged.
The closure will mean disruption for pre-
kindergarten through middle school students, job
loss for nearly 40 employees, termination of a
bilingual education program accredited by the
French Ministry of Education, and the end of a
unique community. Teachers who are in the
United States on employment-related visas may
have to leave the country. And Portland Public
Schools will lose $297,000 a year in revenue if no
other tenant steps forward to rent the former Ter-
williger Elementary School at 6318 SW Corbett
Ave.
It didn’t have to happen this way. The school
could have voluntarily recognized the union and
begun bargaining a contract with the American
Federation of Teachers (AFT). Teachers had am-
ple reason to unionize: almost no job security pro-
tection, no real retirement benefit, and salaries
starting in the mid-20s and topping out at around
$40,000 — far less than public school teachers.
Instead, Mbengue and several board members
fought the union effort in ways that broke federal
labor law and polarized the parent community. In
individual and group meetings with employees,
Mbengue and board members made illegal prom-
ises to remedy grievances if employees would
withdraw the union petition; enforced a “no-com-
plaining” rule; threatened to institute more severe
discipline; and made numerous threats and im-
plied threats of job loss and school closure. Of the
seven teachers on the union organizing commit-
tee, three had their employment contracts termi-
nated at the end of the school year. [In one of the
terminations — third grade teacher Patricia Raclot
— the evidence for anti-union motive was strong
enough that the National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB) eventually asked for a federal court in-
junction, and was able to get the school to agree to
reinstate her with back pay.]
Meanwhile, board member Scanlan fomented
parent intervention in the union question with a
March 31, 2010, e-mail to parents announcing his
resignation from the board. In the letter, he urged
teachers to vote against the union, predicting harm
to the school if they unionized. “Parents in this in-
come bracket are more likely to be anti-union than
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