Top Rosarian is a longtime member of AFSCME Local 350
In this, the centennial year of the
Royal Rosarians, the man overseeing it
all as the Rosarians’ prime minister is
longtime Oregon AFSCME activist
Rob Hungerford.
Hungerford, a member of Local 350
at Clackamas County since 1984, was
installed Oct. 8 at the Rosarians’ Prime
Minister’s Ball, accompanied by his
wife, Roxanne, who holds the title of
First Lady.
The Royal Rosarians are a beloved
Portland civic institution, the official
greeters for the City of Portland as well
as the designated ambassadors for the
Portland Rose Festival.
Hungerford became a Rosarian in
1993. It was, he says, an opportunity to
do something meaningful with his fa-
ther, who was already a Rosarian.
Hungerford’s father passed away in
1995, but his mother was on hand to see
his coronation, and, he says, “I know
Dad would be proud.”
So what exactly do the Rosarians
do?
“Well, first off, to be clear, we do not
put on the Portland Rose Festival,” says
Hungerford. “We are greeters and am-
bassadors. We have a long list of func-
tions associated with the Rose Festival,
but we also ‘work’ for the City of Port-
land as well. We are ‘ambassadors of
goodwill,’ in whatever form that may
take. We frequently greet trade delega-
tions or other dignitaries and such at the
airport, for example.”
Hungerford says things will be es-
pecially busy during this 100-year an-
niversary celebration. The 275 Royal
Rosarians (including life members)
typically donate some 30,000 hours a
“There is mutual admiration and re-
spect, but we’re sort of competitors,”
Hungerford said.
Hungerford is currently the vice
president of Local 350; he has held nu-
merous local union offices, including
president, over the past 27 years. As if
he’s not busy enough, he is also the
head wrestling coach at Rex Putnam
High School.
Hungerford works for Clackamas
County’s Water and Environmental
Services Department, where he is a
technical services specialist. Translated,
Hungerford says that means he pro-
vides customer services and manages
several small projects for the county’s
WESD.
He and Roxanne live in Gladstone
and have three grown children.
Longtime AFSCME Local 350 member Rob Hungerford (center) was
crowned prime minister of the Royal Rosarians Oct. 8. Rosarians serve as
official greeters and ambassadors of goodwill for the City of Portland and the
Rose Festival. The organization is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.
year in service. Hungerford, whose
term runs through Sept. 30, 2012, says
that number will rise dramatically this
centennial year.
“We have a lot of extra rose plant-
ings and extra events going on,” said
Hungerford, who expects to spend “a
massive amount of time” in service
over the next 11 months.
“In a normal year we have 50 differ-
ent Rosarian committees,” said
Hungerford. “This year, due to the cen-
tennial, we’ve added another 27. As the
prime minister, my goal was to attend at
least the first meeting of each of those
committees. I’m already finding out
that’s simply not possible with 77 com-
mittees, but I’m doing the best I can to
get to as many as possible.”
The job also requires a lot of travel,
both in-state and outside of Oregon’s
borders. Hungerford recently returned
from an event in Honolulu, for exam-
ple.
“We have a traveling float that we
take to as many outside events as possi-
ble, hoping those cities will reciprocate
and attend our Rose Festival in June,”
says Hungerford, who must foot his
own bill for such junkets. There is, in-
terestingly enough, no official ex-
change with the annual Jan. 1 Tourna-
ment of Roses festival in Pasadena,
Calif.
Unions fight back against
GOP attacks in Midwest
The fightback continues in Mid-
west states, where earlier this year
Republican governors and lawmakers
took aim at union collective bargain-
ing rights.
In Wisconsin, epicenter of massive
protests in February, union activists
will begin collecting signatures Nov.
15 to recall Republican Gov. Scott
Walker. Walker led passage of a bill
that decimated public employee col-
lective bargaining rights. The recall
campaign, backed by the state AFL-
CIO and its affiliates, will have 60
days to collect 540,208 valid signa-
tures; the plan is to collect 700,000, in
order to provide a cushion in case
some signatures are ruled invalid. Or-
ganizers do have a kind of head start:
As of press time, the coalition United
Wisconsin had over 200,000 people
pledged in advance to sign the recall
petition. If they meet the signature
goal, the Walker recall election would
likely be in May or June 2012.
Meanwhile, in Ohio, unions and
allies collected enough signatures to
refer Senate Bill 5 to the voters of
Ohio, which is now on the Nov. 8 bal-
OCTOBER 21, 2011
lot as Issue 2. Passed earlier this year,
the law supersedes collective bargain-
ing agreements and requires all public
employees to pay at least 15 percent
of their health care premiums and
prohibits governments from picking
up any portion of employees’ 10 per-
cent pension contribution. Most Ohio
public employees already paid about
10 percent of their health insurance
premiums and more than 90 percent
paid the 10 percent pension contribu-
tion; but those things were arrived at
in collective bargaining. The We are
Ohio coalition is urging voters to
overturn the law by voting “no” on Is-
sue 2.
CORRECTION
In an article on the Oregon AFL-
CIO convention in the Oct. 7 issue of
the Northwest Labor Press, David
Rives of American Federation of Teach-
ers was inadvertently omitted from the
list of newly elected members of the
Oregon AFL-CIO Executive Commit-
tee. The Northwest Labor Press regrets
the oversight.
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
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