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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 21, 2012)
IN MEMORIAM J IM R IDDERBUSCH , a retired member of Operating Engi- neers Local 701, died Jan. 6 af- ter being hit by a car crossing the street in Southwest Port- land. The accident occurred just before 7:45 p.m. at South- west Macadam Avenue and Southwest Pendleton Street, the neighborhood where he lived. Ridderbusch, 76, joined Operating Engineers Local 12 in Southern Cali- fornia in November 1966. He trans- ferred to Gladstone-based Local 701 in September 1973. He went to work for the local as a field representative in Central Oregon and was eventually made a field super- visor. He also served as a trustee and recording corresponding secretary on Local 701’s Executive Board. Ridderbusch left the union staff in 1991 for a position at Fair Contracting Foundation. He stayed in that post until 1998, when he went to work for Cas- cade General as a labor relations con- sultant and contract administrator. He retired in 2002. James A. Ridderbusch was born June 14, 1935, in Portland, Oregon and was a lifelong Ore- gon resident. He was raised in Bend, Oregon, and graduated from Bend High School in 1953. He served in the United States Marine Corps from 1957-1960. Ridderbusch enjoyed the outdoors and had a wide range of interests that included traveling, fishing, hunting and rafting. Ridderbusch is survived by four children: daughters Amy McCann of Battle Ground, Wash., Anne Holman of Bend, and Terry Ocker of Las Cruces, N.M.; and a son, Tony Jackson of Beaverton; seven grandchildren; and a brother, Chuck Ridderbusch of Bre- merton, Wash. A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 22, at the Local 701 Union Hall, 555 East First Street, Glad- stone, Oregon. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Local 701 scholarship fund in memory of Jim Ridderbusch. ...Postal workers rally to save USPS (From Page 1) with 227 co-sponsors, including the en- tire Oregon congressional delegation except Greg Walden. On Dec. 7, Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio introduced HR 3591. That bill mirrors the language in S. 1853. Postal unions adamantly oppose HR 2309 and S. 1789. Combined, the bills would end door-to-door and curbside delivery for 90 percent of postal pa- trons; end Saturday delivery; close JANUARY 21, 2012 mined that union members were violat- ing it. In retirement, Ahearn says he may do some work in labor arbitration. His wife is a retired associate dean at Seattle University Law School. They have two grown daughters. Hooks, Ahearn’s replacement, has been Memphis regional director since (Editor’s Note: NALC and USPS have been in bargaining for a new con- tract since August 2011. The 2006- 2011 National Agreement was set to ex- pire Nov. 20. Bargaining has been extended three times — first to Dec. 7; a second time to Dec. 16; and a third time to midnight Jan. 20, 2012. If the parties fail to reach an agreement, fed- eral law establishes a system of media- tion and binding arbitration to resolve the dispute. Federal law forbids strikes by postal workers.) ...Major battle looms in Longview (From Page 1) said members are being “methodically and maliciously prosecuted” for exer- cising free speech rights. “Locals need to be aware of the nar- row path that we must cut through a federal labor law (the Taft-Hartley Act) that criminalizes worker solidarity, out- law labor’s most effective tools, and protects commerce while severely re- stricting unions,” McEllrath wrote. “The ILWU’s labor dispute with EGT ...Richard Ahearn retires from NLRB (From Page 2) International Longshore and Ware- house Union (ILWU) Local 21, for ag- gressively picketing the EGT terminal in Longview. The NLRB asked for a court injunction to stop the picketers from blocking the facility. A judge is- sued an injunction, and then ordered fines totaling $315,000 after he deter- thousands of community post offices; close half the mail processing plants; eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs; and end overnight delivery of First-Class mail. Neither bill repeals the pre-funding requirement. Cook said Republican leaders of the House are pushing for HR 2309 and have buried bills favorable to the union. “We called for this rally to build public understanding of the current postal crisis and support for the very vi- able solutions available,” Cook said. 2000. He graduated from Lemoyne- Owen College in Memphis, and re- ceived a law degree from Rutgers Uni- versity School of Law in 1971. He went to work for the NLRB’s Memphis of- fice in 1972, later transferred to the Fort Worth, Indianapolis, and New Orleans offices, and returned to Memphis in 1992. NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS is symbolic of what is wrong in the United States today. Corporations, no matter how harmful the conduct to so- ciety, enjoy full state and federal pro- tection while workers and the middle class get treated as criminals for trying to protect their jobs and communities.” Activists don’t know when the ship will arrive, but they expect it to be in late January or early February. They may have as little as 12 hours notice. (Editor’s Note: ILWU and Operat- ing Engineers Local 701 are affiliates of the AFL-CIO at both the state and national levels. In September 2011, na- tional AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka nullified an Oregon AFL-CIO Executive Board resolution condemn- ing Local 701 in the dispute. “The work at issue involves a jurisdictional dis- pute,” Trumka wrote, pointing out that jurisdictional disputes are governed and settled by Article 20 of the AFL- CIO Constitution. “In view of these provisions, neither the Oregon AFL- CIO, nor any other AFL-CIO state, area, or local central body has author- ity to intervene or take sides.” “Let me be clear that this letter con- cerns simply the issue of the authority of the state federation to take action re- lating to jurisdictional disputes. This should not be construed as a judgment on the merits of the dispute,” Trumka concluded.) PAGE 5
