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.”
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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
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