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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 18, 2011)
Inside Official Meeting Notices See Page 4 Volume 112 Number 22 November 18, 2011 Portland Labor strives to keep the focus on Occupy message B Y DON M C INTOSH A SSOCIATE E DITOR The Occupy Wall Street movement, nine weeks old as of Nov. 19, has the nation’s attention. Yet much of the news media continues to focus on problems in the encampments or con- flicts that erupt when authorities try to evict occupiers — instead of on the economic and political problems that brought the movement about. Jim Oliver, a participant in Occupy Portland, made that point Nov. 11 in front of a national audience on the PBS NewsHour. Sitting next to Portland Mayor Sam Adams, Oliver was asked by interviewer Jeffrey Brown if occu- piers planned to heed Adams’ Nov. 12 deadline to clear out of Chapman and Lownsdale parks. “The mainstream media has been talking a lot about petty crimes,” Oliver replied, “in an effort to detract from the message of the Occupy movement. We’ve been staying focused on our message of social change, trying to call attention to who the real criminals are in our society — people like Jamie Di- mon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, [who] gave himself a $19 million raise last year while thousands of Americans are being thrown out of their homes.” “We are petitioning our government for a redress of grievances, as is out- lined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” Oliver said. “The viduals; it’s pension funds,” Digman told the Labor Press. “But the people that really run the corporations, man- agement … are running it to enrich themselves, not to defend or enrich shareholders. They’re there every day. They’re running the game. Is it unrea- sonable to think that they would run the game for themselves?” On Nov. 9, Digman was one of hun- dreds of people around the United States to lead a “teach-in” that was de- veloped by the group Rebuild the Dream and organized by MoveOn.org. Entitled “How the 1% Crashed the Economy,” the teach-in explained that since the 1970s, Wall Street has influ- enced politicians to rewrite the rules — to cut taxes on wealth and to allow banks to merge until they became “too big to fail.” Now it’s time to come to- gether to reverse that, Digman said. HHH goal of the Occupy movement is to make systemic changes in the eco- nomic and political systems in this country that are failing the 99 percent of Americans who see our wealth de- creasing as the wealth of the 0.01 per- cent of Americans who control policy in this country increases.” Such messages explain why organ- ized labor — from the local rank-and- file to top national leadership — con- tinues to support Occupy. “Sustaining this movement is some- thing that should be important to every progressive ally that they’ve made,” says Jessica Giannettino, Oregon AFL- CIO field organizer — who was one of a handful of unionists to overnight with the Portland occupation early on. “Their message resonates. It echoes one that we’ve been saying for a long time.” HHH Joe Digman is an organizer at Serv- ice Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 503. Through his staff union, he’s secretary-treasurer of Com- munications Workers of America (CWA) Local 7901. But for 20 years, Digman was a stock broker at Dean Witter (now part-owned by CitiGroup) and later A.G. Edwards (now part of Wells Fargo.) So Digman has a back- ground in finance, and a message to deliver. Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain delivers a message of union support for Occupy Portland at an Oct. 28 solidarity rally organized by the band Pink Martini at Pioneer Courthouse Square. Sharing the stage with Chamberlain were Ainsworth United Church of Christ pastor Lynn Smouse- Lopez, performer Storm Large, and Oregon State Rep. Lew Frederick (pictured) as well as Congressmen Peter DeFazio and Earl Blumenauer. “You hear, especially among the left and labor, that [Wall Street] is all crooked and corrupt and it’s going to be a disaster for working people,” Dig- man said. “You hear all this hyperbole. I’m here to tell you: It’s way worse.” “Most of the money invested in companies is not from wealthy indi- For Steve Hughes, the answer is banking local. Hughes is state director of the Oregon Working Families Party, a union-backed third party which has called for the state government to pull its money out of the big banks. Hughes argues that the big Wall Street banks actually hurt local economies, and calls their local branches, “deposit-collect- ing agencies.” (Turn to Page 2) ELECTION RESULTS: Clark County voters support C-Tran, Wylie Washington voters said “yes” to Costco, “no” to Tim Eyman, and “yes” again to standards for home care workers. It was a classic “mixed-result” election for the state’s labor movement, says David Groves, publications director for the Wash- ington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO. The Costco-backed ballot measure to privatize Washington liquor sales passed by a three-to-two margin, just a year after voters rejected two simi- lar measures. The difference? Costco, which wanted to sell liquor, put a record $23 million into the campaign. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 21 estimates nearly 1,000 mem- bers will lose family-wage jobs when the 166 state liquor stores close starting next April. Another hundred or so Teamsters will lose jobs in the state’s liquor warehouse and distribution system. “It’s worrisome,” Groves said. “It promotes the idea for other corporate interests, that maybe they should invest in circumventing the Legislature: pay petitioners, put money into ads, and get laws changed that way.” But Washington voters narrowly rejected Ini- tiative 1125, an anti-tolling measure authored by perpetual union foe Tim Eyman. “1125 would have had a far more direct and negative impact on the state of the economy and jobs,” Groves said, “so that was a big win to defeat.” And voters supported by a two-to-one margin a measure backed by Service Employees Interna- tional Union (SEIU) that will reinstate back- ground checks, training, and other requirements for long-term care workers and providers. In Southwest Washington: • A local sales tax measure to support C-TRAN passed 54-46 percent. The measure, backed by Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 and the Southwest Washington Central Labor Council, in- creases the local sales tax by 0.2 percent to pre- serve C-TRAN bus and paratransit service. • Washington State Labor Council-endorsed Sharon Wylie defeated Craig Riley in a special election for state representative in the 49th District (Vancouver). Wylie captured nearly 56 percent of the vote. Wylie, a former two-term Oregon Dem- ocratic legislator, was appointed to the seat in April following the resignation of Rep. Jim Jacks. She will have to run for re-election again next year. In Vancouver City Council races, labor-en- dorsed incumbents Bart Hansen and Larry Smith were handily re-elected, while challenger Anne McEnerny-Ogle lost to Bill Turlay. Turlay will succeed Pat Campbell, who lost in the August pri- mary. In LaCenter, Jim Irish was re-elected mayor with help from organized labor. In Washougal, labor-endorsed Joyce Lindsay unseated incum- bent Michael Delavar on the City Council. OREGON Congressional District 1 Oregon State Sen. Suzanne Bonamici easily won the Congressional District 1 Democratic spe- cial primary with 65 percent of the vote, while Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian got 22 percent, and State Rep. Brad Witt — a union rep for United Food and Commercial Workers Lo- cal 555 — placed third with 8 percent. Bonamici had the sole endorsement of just one union, Oregon Nurses Association. Avakian was backed by Oregon Education Association, Painters, Sheet Metal Workers, Operating Engi- neers, Laborers, Teamsters, Communication (Turn to Page 3)
