Union leaders, Gov. Kitzhaber, join president at
White House ‘Insourcing American Jobs’ forum
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Steel-
workers President Leo Gerard and Auto
Workers President Bob King joined
President Barack Obama at the White
House Jan. 11 to call on companies
across the nation to invest in America
at an “Insourcing American Jobs” fo-
rum.
Gerard and King joined the vice
president, members of the Cabinet and
other senior administration officials,
along with Oregon Gov. John Kitz-
haber and representatives from compa-
nies that have brought jobs back or de-
cided to make significant investments
in the United States.
The forum focused on the increas-
ing trend of insourcing — where com-
panies are bringing jobs back to the
United States and making additional in-
vestments here in America.
In conjunction with the summit,
Obama released a $12 million proposal
to expand current U.S. programs that
lobby firms to invest and create jobs
here.
Gerard spent his time at the summit
reiterating points he has made before to
Obama, about the need for investment
in high-quality, high-paying factory
jobs and in rebuilding the crumbling
U.S. infrastructure.
The summit produced no specific
ideas to encourage insourcing, but pro-
vided examples of firms returning jobs
to the United States. They included sto-
ries from Ford, DuPont, Intel, Oregon’s
KEEN, Inc., and others.
“Ford’s competitive labor agreement
with its UAW partners is making it pos-
sible to build small cars profitably in
the U.S., invest $16 billion here at
home, and add 12,000 jobs in U.S.
plants by 2015,” an Administration fact
sheet on summit participants said.
“Ford is insourcing jobs from China,
Japan and Mexico. Instead of adding
production for the Fusion in Mexico,
Ford is planning to bring that additional
work to its Flat Rock plant in Michigan.
This insourcing effort will ensure the
viability of a key assembly plant in the
U.S. and add over 1,200 new jobs.
Also, Ford has committed to in-source
the production of F-650 and F-750
commercial trucks from a joint venture
in Mexico to Ohio Assembly Plant in
Avon Lake,” the fact sheet added.
Portland-based KEEN has grown
from its first trademark sandal with in-
novative toe protection, to more than
500 shoe styles, becoming a world-
wide leader in the footwear and ap-
parel industry. It operates nonunion.
The Administration released its own
blueprint, to be included in its budget
to be sent to Congress in a few weeks,
for federal “lobbying” for businesses
to invest and expand in the U.S.
Obama said his budget plan also
would include new investment tax in-
centives, but did not detail them. The
centerpiece of the White House plan is
expanding the SelectUSA program,
which the Administration launched last
year, by $12 million and 35 more
workers.
Obama called SelectUSA “the first
federal program to promote and facili-
tate U.S. investment in partnership with
our states.” The program will also work
with states on more than 300 cases per
year to overcome investment obstacles.
Obama also wants to increase cur-
rent federal small business interna-
tional trade loans to up to $5 million
per loan, with a 90 percent federal loan
guarantee. The loans would go to small
businesses trying to expand overseas,
which face competition from subsi-
dized foreign imports, or who are try-
ing to insource jobs from abroad.
Why it’s
Bonamici
Bakers, Teamsters scramble to protect for me
members in Hostess Foods bankruptcy
KENSINGTON, Md. (PAI) — The
Bakery, Confectionery,Tobacco and
Grain Millers (BCTGM), the Team-
sters, and other unions representing
Hostess Foods employees scrambled to
protect their members as the snack food
company filed for bankruptcy Jan. 11
for the second time this century.
The 2012 filing, like that in 2004,
could affect some 5,500 BCTGM
members at Hostess plants nationwide,
Union President Frank Hurt told Press
Associates Inc. Teamsters represent
7,500 Hostess drivers and merchandis-
ers, while several other unions have
smaller contingents there. There are no
Hostess plants in Oregon, and one in
Seattle.
Regardless of the final details, Hurt
predicted his members would be
harmed by whatever the federal bank-
ruptcy judge in New York City permits
the firm’s owners — mostly a group of
venture capitalists — to do.
“Those with the gold make the
rules,” Hurt said. “And hourly workers
are left holding the bag.”
The big question, Hurt said, will be
if the bankruptcy court gives the reor-
ganizers of Hostess so much leeway in
cutting workers’ pay, pensions and ben-
efits, and tearing up union contracts,
that it doesn’t make sense to continue
the effort to save Hostess.
“I haven’t heard from our attorneys
to what extent the law will let them gut
our contracts,” he added. “I’m telling
our members we want to keep the com-
pany in business.”
Bakers Union attorneys appearing at
a Jan. 11 hearing asked the court to or-
der the company to tell them their bot-
JANUARY 21, 2012
tom line to stay in business. “Then let
us decide whether we will work under
those conditions or not,” Hurt said.
Hostess, maker of Twinkies and
Wonder Bread, first flagged the unions
that it was headed for the financial
rocks last summer. The company
wanted to cut costs by proposing “a
lousy-ass” health insurance plan for the
workers, Hurt said.
The Teamsters said, and Hurt
agreed, that workers’ sacrifices helped
Hostess emerge in 2009 from its first
bankruptcy.
In a formal statement, Hurt said
Hostess’ financial problems — which
have prompted the company to stop its
payment into the labor-management
run Taft-Hartley multi-employer pen-
sion plan covering the industry —
were the result of mismanagement.
Hostess claims its pension obligation
of $ 1 billion is too much.
“I find it deeply offensive and
highly disingenuous for the company
to claim its financial woes are the re-
sult of its union contracts and pension
and health benefits obligations,” Hurt
said. “We contend the company is in
dire financial shape because of a string
of failed business decisions made by a
series of ineffective executives who
have been running this company for
the past decade.
“BCTGM has contracts with
dozens of baking companies across the
country, including Bimbo Bakeries
USA, the nation’s largest and most
successful. The vast majority of those
companies are doing just fine because
they have experienced baking industry
professionals managing them,” he
added.
Hurt said Hostess has been a long-
standing participant in the Taft-Hartley
pension fund. He said the $1 billion
number cited by management is Host-
ess’ “withdrawal liability” — the cu-
mulative amount it would have to pay
if it dropped out of the plan.
The union pointed out that contri-
butions Hostess paid into the fund
were negotiated through the collective
bargaining process and are part of an
overall economic compensation pack-
age. “Pension benefits that retirees re-
ceive each month are paid by the fund
and not the individual companies,”
Hurt noted.
Both the Bakers and Teamsters
hope Hostess gets back on its feet and
members retain their jobs. Both unions
said they will fight for that while work-
ing with other stakeholders to restruc-
ture the firm.
Dennis Raymond, director of the
Teamsters Bakery Conference, said
management must sacrifice, too. “Our
members have already given at the
well, and this time it will take sacrifices
among all parties — management,
lenders, equity holders and employees
— to restructure Hostess into a viable
enterprise well-positioned for future
growth,” he said.
Noting the venture capital firms that
control Hostess are in it to make
money for themselves, Hurt said their
interests “are driving” the bankruptcy
filing “and that doesn’t bode well for
us.”
Hurt concluded: “It’s criminal what
happens to workers in this country” in
corporate bankruptcies.
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
By former
Congressman Les AuCoin
As I watch the special election in
Oregon’s 1st Congressional District —
a seat I captured for Democrats 38
years ago for the first time in history —
I think of advice the iconic Senator
Wayne Morse gave me in my first cam-
paign in 1974. In the darkness of his car
at the end of a long day of campaign-
ing, the old warhorse tapped me on the
knee and said:
“Young man, always remember
who you are and what you’re willing
to lose an election for! The one who
cannot will do anything to win. And
that’s a dangerous man — because he
will always put politics above princi-
ple and self above country.”
Morse’s standard distinguishes the
Democrat in this race, Suzanne
Bonamici, from her contortionist Re-
publican challenger, Rob Cornilles.
Bonamici is an unapologetic Democ-
rat who will put government back on
our side — to create “trickle up” poli-
cies, to protect the environment, to
safeguard Medicare, to stop wars of
choice rather than necessity, and to
make the very rich pay a fair share of
taxes to help reduce the deficit.
Her weather vane Republican chal-
lenger is posing as a moderate because
he knows it’s the only way he can win
against Suzanne, a former Federal
Trade Commission lawyer and state
legislative star. So he talks about a flat
tax, while in truth, he supported the
Bush tax cuts that added $2.5 trillion
to the deficit to benefit the 1 percent.
Cornilles just told the Portland City
Club that he’d be an independent mod-
erate. But less than two years ago, he
called himself “the original Tea Party
candidate.” And two years ago last Sep-
“To maintain our manufacturing
base and to encourage even more pro-
duction in Oregon, we need to have a
long-term business plan, an educa-
tional system that provides students
and workers with advanced skills, reli-
able and affordable energy, and an en-
vironment that encourages investment
by lowering fixed costs such as health
care,” Gov. Kitzhaber said. “We are
working on all these things, and fol-
lowing through on them will mean a
sustained and robust advanced manu-
facturing sector in Oregon.”
O PEN
F ORUM
tember he was warmly received as a
pep talk speaker at a Portland Tea Party
rally.
The differences go on — Bonamici
protected consumers as a lawyer with
the Federal Trade Commission.
Cornilles exploited his workers by fail-
ing to pay his share of their payroll tax
— for which the government slapped
him with a $83,000 federal lien.
Bonamici will protect Social Security
and Medicare; Cornilles told the Daily
Astorian (January 2010) that he would
cut those programs before he’d cut the
Pentagon budget.
The 1st District’s Jan. 31 balloting
will be the nation’s only federal elec-
tion on that day.
Trust me, a Cornilles win will be
seen as a mandate for House Speaker
John Boehner and his Tea Party ob-
structionists to step up their war against
our values.
But a Bonamici victory will be an
unmistakable call to end the rise of Re-
publican Ayatollahs and Wall Street
flimflam artists who almost destroyed
the U.S. banking system and created
our current economic mess.
I urge you to vote for Suzanne
Bonamici, the only candidate in this
race who puts “principle above poli-
tics.”
[NOTE: 14 months ago, my wife
and I moved to Montana to spend our
remaining good years close to our
granddaughters. But having started the
Democrats’ 38-year hold on Oregon’s
1st District, I am compelled to com-
ment on this race.]
(Editor’s Note: Les AuCoin was the
labor-endorsed congressman in the 1st
District from 1975 to 1993. In 1992 he
ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate
against Bob Packwood. Today he is a
full-time author, writer, lecturer and
blogger.)
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