Morgan re-elected to third term as
business manager of Laborers #296
Kenneth (Kenny) Morgan was re-
elected to a third term as business man-
ager/secretary-treasurer of Laborers
Local 296. He ran unopposed.
Also elected by acclamation were
President Gary Lee Moore, Jr.; Vice
President Earl Browning, Jr.; Record-
ing Secretary Jack Roy; Sergeant-at-
Arms J.P. Wedge; and Trustees Nate
Worley, Shon Brinkmeyer and Dago
Aranda.
Greg Held, Paul Askew, and Zack
Culver were re-elected to the Executive
Board.
NECA-IBEW Electrical Training Center Safety Director Barry Moreland,
center, demonstrates safe use of a forklift to a group of pre-apprenticeship
program graduates. Behind him is Brian Beasley, who came to the IBEW
from Constructing Hope, a program started by Irvington Covenant Church.
To diversify, IBEW recruits
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
To boost the ranks of minorities in
the union electrician workforce,
NECA-IBEW Electrical Training Cen-
ter (NIETC) put on a free basic skills
class July 11-15 for eight black work-
ers interested in the trade. Most of them
put the knowledge to use the following
week as they were placed in jobs as ma-
terial handlers, with mentors assigned
to help them. In the inside wireman
trade, material handler is the $9.01-an-
hour starting rung of a career ladder that
can lead to a $36.05-an-hour journey-
man wage (plus $17.38 an hour in ben-
efits).
In the weeklong class at the training
center on Northeast Airport Way, ses-
sions were led by NIETC instructors
and members of International Brother-
hood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Lo-
cal 48’s Electrical Workers Minority
Caucus. Students learned how to safely
climb a ladder and operate a forklift,
and how to identify basic parts that go
into an electrical installation. By weeks’
end, the seven men and one woman had
OSHA 10, CPR/AED, and forklift cer-
tifications, and had been through IBEW
member orientation.
For Brian Beasley, 33, the training is
a second chance.
“I went through some hardships,
most of them brought on by myself,”
Beasley told the Labor Press, alluding
to past trouble with the law. But
Beasley, who has two uncles in the elec-
trical trade, credited the NIETC train-
ing and the Constructing Hope pre-ap-
prenticeship program — for helping
him find his way again.
Becoming an inside wireman ap-
prentice is a three-month process, ex-
plains NIETC Workforce Development
Coordinator Bridget Quinn. First you
turn in an application, and then the fol-
lowing month take an aptitude test. If
you do well on the test, there’s an inter-
view the month after that. The interview
score and aptitude score are combined,
and you’re placed on a ranked list of
PAGE 8
candidates for new classes when they
open up.
Apprentice wages start at $14.42 an
hour and rise to $30.64. Apprenticeship
consists of classroom learning and
8,000 hours of on-the-job training, and
can take several years. How long it
takes depends on the economy, because
how many apprentices are needed de-
pends on how much construction is be-
ing done.
Quinn said the union needs women
and minority apprentices in order to
meet quotas set by some local construc-
tion projects, like a South Waterfront
project run by the Portland Develop-
ment Commission.
“I think the greatest barrier has been
that a lot of these folks don’t come from
a community with a big construction
background,” Quinn said. If you don’t
see somebody or know somebody
growing up who works in the construc-
tion field, then you don’t think of it as
an option.”
Quinn said participants in the skills
training have a chance to become effec-
tive apprentices, and eventually effec-
tive journeymen.
“Later on down the road,” Quinn
said, “they can be role models for their
siblings or community.”
Moore and
Mike Anger-
meier were
elected dele-
gates to the
Portland Metal
Trades Coun-
cil; Moore and
Roy
were
elected dele- K ENNY M ORGAN
gates to the
Oregon State and Columbia Pacific
building trades councils; Held, Roy,
Moore, and Gary Jackson were elected
delegates to the Laborers District
Council; Aranda and Browning were
elected delegates to the Northwest Ore-
gon Labor Council; and Morgan, Roy
and Moore were elected delegates to at-
tend the international convention.
Terms of office are for three years.
Portland-based Local 296, with of-
fices in Central Point, represents labor-
ers in construction, at the shipyards, in
school districts, at the Housing Author-
ity of Portland, workers in weatheriza-
tion, hod carriers, and heavy and high-
way in Southern Oregon.
NLRB offers free training sessions in Portland
To promote better understanding of
labor law, the Portland office of the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
has begun holding free monthly “lunch
and learn” trainings. The NLRB is a
federal agency that conducts private-
sector union elections and investigates
and prosecutes labor law violations
known as “unfair labor practices.”
The Portland trainings take place in
UA Local 290 awards
$578,000 in scholarships
a conference room on the 19th floor at
601 SW Second Avenue. They’re
aimed at shop stewards, union business
reps, and managers — anyone inter-
ested in learning about the National La-
bor Relations Act and how it’s applied.
July 13, the topic was the workers’
rights that are guaranteed by Section 7
of the Act. No one ate lunch during the
session. But attendees did learn that
workers have the right to talk off-the-
clock to co-workers about wages, may
wear union buttons in most work-
places, and can’t lawfully be interro-
gated about their union sympathies.
The next session will be Tuesday,
Aug. 9 at noon. The subject is Section
10(b) of the Act — the details of how
and why workers lose out if they don’t
file unfair labor practice charge within
six months of when their employer
broke labor law.
Call 503-326-3085 or e-mail subre-
gion36@nlrb.gov to RSVP, get on the
e-mail list, or find out more about the
sessions.
Plumbers and Steamfitters Local
290 doled out $578,000 worth of schol-
arships to members’ children and
grandchildren this year.
Every child who applies receives
$2,000 to be used for furthering their
education. Each grandchild receives
$1,000. All told, 259 children and 60
grandchildren received a check.
The scholarships, which are
awarded annually, are funded by a
check-off of 7 cents an hour for every
hour worked.
Clarification:
In the July 15 issue, the Labor Press
reported that the Oregon State Building
and Construction Trades Council
pushed for a law in the 2011 session of
the Oregon Legislature that would have
required companies to pay the prevail-
ing wage on construction projects that
get the state’s Enterprise Zone property
tax abatements. The article correctly re-
ported that House Bill 2586 did not get
a hearing in the House Business and
Labor committee. But an almost identi-
cal bill, House Bill 2624, did get a hear-
ing, and passed out of that committee
only to die in the House Revenue Com-
mittee without a hearing.
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
AUGUST 5, 2011