...Three Washington legislators write to Younglove
(From Page 1)
and the general contractor on the
United Grain project — Younglove
Construction LLC of Sioux City, Iowa
— turned up in a 2006 Wall Street
Journal article about how the use of
immigrant workers from Mexico is
driving down U.S. wages in construc-
tion. In the article, Younglove is men-
tioned as one of several Midwest silo
construction companies using re-
cruiters on the U.S.-Mexico border.
United Grain’s export terminal ex-
pansion is one of Vancouver’s largest
construction projects. When completed
in September 2012, 24 new silos will
provide 60,000 metric tons of storage
space for corn and soybeans. And at
299 feet, it’s now the tallest structure
in Clark County. United Grain,
founded in Portland in 1969, became a
subsidiary of the Japanese conglomer-
ate Mitsui in 1997.
Dave Ritchey, business manager of
Vancouver-based Laborers Local 335,
says he approached Younglove about
employing local union labor, but was
rebuffed. Local 335 has over 200
members out of work. The rate for a
general laborer on a project like that is
$28.51, but Ritchey said workers he
spoke with on the job were earning a
top rate of $12 an hour.
White, joined by other local labor
leaders, began complaining about the
project to any local politician who
would listen. On March 3, three Wash-
ington state representatives took ac-
tion. Vancouver Democrats Jim
Moeller, Tim Probst, and Sharon Wylie
wrote a letter to United Grain and
Younglove Construction, based on in-
formation White provided.
“It has come to our attention that
Oregon Building Trades
Council endorsements
The Oregon State Building and
Construction Trades Council inter-
viewed candidates for political office
March 5 and issued endorsements for
the May primary.
In the only statewide contested pri-
mary race, the Council is backing
Dwight Holton for attorney general.
Incumbent John Kroger is not run-
ning for re-election after one term.
Holten, a U.S. attorney, has compe-
tition from retired Appeals Court Judge
Ellen Rosenblum. The winner of the
primary will be the next state attorney
general, as no other political party
fielded a candidate for the position.
In contested Democratic state
House races, OSBCTC endorsed John
Lively in Dist. 12 (Springfield area),
Ben Unger in Dist. 29 (Hillsboro, For-
est Grove), Jennifer Williamson in
Dist. 36 (Southwest Portland), and Jes-
sica Vega Pederson in Dist. 47 (East
Portland).
Lively is running to succeed Demo-
crat Terry Beyer in the12th District. He
has one opponent, Sandra Mann.
Unger is facing Katie Riley in Dis-
trict 29. The winner will take on in-
cumbent Republican Katie Eyre.
Williamson is up against Benjamin
Jay Barber in the race to succeed De-
mocrat Mary Nolan, who is leaving to
run for Portland City Council.
Vega Pederson has two opponents
in District 47, which is being vacated
by Jefferson Smith, who is running for
mayor of Portland.
In uncontested primary races, the
Council endorsed Republican incum-
bent Brian Boquist in Senate District
12 (representing parts of Polk, Marion,
Yamhill, Benton and Linn counties);
and Democratic incumbents Mark
Haas in Dist. 14 (Beaverton area),
Ginny Burdick in Dist. 18 (Tigard), Di-
ane Rosenbaum in Dist. 21 (Southeast
Portland), Chip Shields in Dist. 22 (in-
PAGE 4
ner North/NE Portland), and Laurie
Monnes Anderson in Dist. 25 (Gre-
sham, Troutdale).
Neither Burdick nor Shields have
opponents in the general election.
Democratic State Rep. and co-
Speaker of the House Arnie Roblan
was endorsed in Senate District 5
(Coos Bay). Roblan is leaving House
District 9 to run for the Senate, where
incumbent Democrat Joanne Verger is
retiring.
OSBCTC endorsed State Treasurer
Ted Wheeler, Secretary of State Kate
Brown, and Labor Commissioner Brad
Avakian for re-election. Wheeler is
uncontested in both the primary and
general elections. Brown and Avakian
have opponents in the general election
in November.
In the Oregon House, OSBCTC en-
dorsed the following incumbents based
on their legislative voting records:
Republicans Sal Esquivel, Dist. 6;
Tim Freeman, Dist. 2; Vic Gilliam,
Dist. 18; Wally Hicks, Dist. 3; Bob
Jenson, Dist. 58; Wayne Krieger, Dist.
1; Andy Olson, Dist. 15; Greg Smith
Dist. 57; and Matt Wand, Dist. 49.
Esquivel, Freeman, Gilliam, Hicks,
and Smith are the de facto winners, as
they have no opposition in the general
election.
The only endorsed incumbent with
a contested race is Democrat Mike
Schaufler in District 48 (Happy Val-
ley).
Other Democrats endorsed are Jeff
Barker, Dist. 28; Margaret Doherty,
Dist. 35; Chris Garrett, Dist. 38; Paul
Holvey, Dist. 8; Val Hoyle, Dist. 14;
Betty Komp, Dist. 22; Tina Kotek,
Dist. 44; Greg Matthews, Dist. 50; To-
bias Read, Dist. 27; and Brad Witt,
Dist. 31.
OSBCTC delegates will meet again
later in the summer to consider en-
dorsements for the general election.
Younglove Construction hired approx-
imately 200 foreign workers under the
H1B1 Visa program and brought them
in Vancouver to build the grain silo,”
the lawmakers wrote. “We are con-
cerned that these 200 jobs could and
should have been filled by local work-
ers, at a time when local jobs are direly
needed. It is clear that the construction
method used in building this grain silo
is a skill that is readily available among
workers in our region.”
Legislators also asked Younglove
for a record of workplace accidents,
and confirmation of the company’s
workers’ compensation coverage.
Five days later, Younglove President
Michael Gunsch issued a 17-point
statement in response. Slipform con-
struction is very complicated and re-
quires specialized skills of employees,
Gunsch wrote, and Younglove is one of
a very small number of companies
with the experience and capability to
do it. In 14 months on the site, the vast
majority of employees have been hired
locally and live in the local area. About
20 locally-based subcontractors have
done portions of the work, and Youn-
glove plans to subcontract to at least 10
more before the project is complete.
The slip pour portion of the work was
only a very few weeks in total, in pours
that were weeks and months apart.
Moreover, Younglove has never used
the H1B1 Visa Program for short-term
slip workers, Gunsch wrote, and it uses
the Department of Homeland Secu-
rity’s E-Verify program to verify each
new hire’s legal right to work in the
United States. Finally, Gunsch said its
crew has worked 170,000 hours with
only one lost-time accident. And all its
employees on the project have work-
ers’ compensation insurance purchased
from a private insurance company un-
der the Longshoremen and Harbor
Workers Compensation Act.
KATU News reported that of 240
workers brought in to do the special-
ized work for a couple of weeks, about
60 percent of them were from another
country, mostly Mexico.
Younglove declined to divulge the
names of its local contractors, but calls
by the Labor Press turned up several.
Whitaker/Ellis — which employs
members of Cement Masons Local 555
— did the roughly one-and-a-half acre
concrete foundation for the silos. Rebar
for the foundations was installed by lo-
cal firm R2M2 Rebar and Stressing,
and hopper installation and structural
work were performed by Triad Me-
chanical; both employ members of Iron
Workers Local 29. Electrical work is
being performed by Cherry City Elec-
tric, signatory with IBEW Local 48.
And some crane work was performed
by Campbell Crane, which is signatory
with Operating Engineers Local 701.
But United Grain CEO Tony Flagg
told the Labor Press that slipform silo
construction doesn’t lend itself to re-
cruiting local workers. To avoid seams,
concrete is continuously poured in a
circular form that is raised about an
inch an hour.
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
“In our case, you need almost 240
people to do this work for about a
week, and they work typically 12-hour
shifts,” Flagg said. “It’s very difficult to
go out and find 240 people to do this
and train them to work as a team so this
can go up at a uniform speed. So crews
have developed
that travel around
the United States
and Canada, and
this is the work
they specialize in.”
But union lead-
ers express skepti-
cism. Ritchey said
he himself worked
on such a silo in
Vancouver. Brett
Hinsley, business
manager at 378-
member Cement
Masons Local 555, was glad to have
members working on the United Grain
foundation, but said his 50 to 60 out-
of-work members would have liked to
have done the slipform work as well.
Third generation Longshoreman
Cager Clabaugh, former president of
193-member Local 4 of the Interna-
tional Longshore and Warehouse
Union, said nearby longshore workers
can see the work going on from cam-
eras in their cranes.
“They say this is specialized con-
struction. We’re not that stupid,”
Clabaugh said. “Basically all those
guys are doing is pushing wheelbar-
rows. Anybody who’s got a garden is
qualified to work there.”
Union ironworkers, cement masons,
laborers, and operating engineers can
look up at silos in Portland, Longview
and Kalama that they helped build. But
that slipform work, which used to be
exclusively union on the West Coast, is
now exclusively non-union, says Mark
Sorensen, president of R2M2 Rebar
and Stressing. That’s because firms like
Sorensen’s can no longer compete
against low-wage nonunion firms from
the Midwest. Sorensen said R2M2’s
last slipform project was an Anheuser-
Busch silo in Idaho Falls six years ago.
When EGT took bids for work on its
grain terminal project in Longview,
R2M2’s bid to do rebar on the slipform
was triple the cost of
the winning bid,
Sorensen said. R2M2
did rebar on the foun-
dation at United
Grain, but wasn’t
given an opportunity
to bid on the slip-
form.
For White, the
overriding issue is
how to maximize lo-
cal development to
benefit local workers.
“We only have a
finite amount of industrial property we
can work with that’s supposed to bene-
fit the community at large,” White said,
“and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to
ask that we who live in the community
get more benefit out of the finite prop-
erty that we own.”
Rep. Moeller, who took the lead on
the letter to United Grain and Youn-
glove, said for the future he wants
more transparency when tax breaks are
given out. In January, Moeller intro-
duced a bill in the Washington Legisla-
ture to require companies receiving
warehouse and grain elevator tax ex-
emptions to file an annual accountabil-
ity survey that would list the total num-
ber of jobs, the percentage of those that
are full-time, part-time and temporary,
the number that have medical, dental,
and retirement benefits, and roughly
the wages. The survey — intended to
give legislators information to judge
the effectiveness of tax breaks — is
filled out by recipients of 32 other tax
exemptions. The bill went nowhere this
year, but Moeller says he plans to rein-
troduce it.
... slipform work,
which used to be
exclusively union
on the West Coast,
is now exclusively
nonunion.
March 16, 2012