Inside
Meeting Notices
See
Page 6
Volume 113
Number 7
April 6, 2012
Portland, Oregon
UO faculty file
cards to unionize
Unions picket grain terminal at Port of Vancouver
Construction unions held an informational picket March 15 at the Port of Vancouver, where out-of-state, nonunion
Younglove Construction is employing foreign and out-of-state workers to build an export terminal expansion for
United Grain. The Port is leasing the public land to United Grain under very favorable terms for the company. United
Grain also is receiving warehouse and grain elevator tax exemptions from the state. Given all the incentives, three
Southwest Washington legislators raised concerns about the use of foreign workers on the project at time when
unemployment in the construction industry hovers at 30 percent. A Portland television station reported that of 240
workers brought in to pour concrete at the grain terminal, 60 percent were from another country. Younglove has a
history of recruiting workers from Mexico. Last month, leaders of the Southwest Washington Central Labor Council
and State Rep. Jim Moeller met with staff of U.S. Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray seeking assistance to
determine if any guest worker visa programs are being abused, or if port security standards initiated after 9/11 are
being violated. “During these times of economic insecurity and record unemployment, it is imperative that we secure
work for our local businesses and workforce,” the labor council said in a letter. “We must also redouble our efforts to
protect workers’ rights — foreign or domestic.” Future projects are proposed at Port of Vancouver, Port of Kalama,
and Port of Longview.
By STEFAN OSTRACH
Special Correspondent
EUGENE — A majority of the
1,912 faculty at the University of Ore-
gon (UO) have signed cards requesting
union representation by United Aca-
demics of the University of Oregon
(UA-UO). The union will be affiliated
with both the American Federation of
Teachers (AFT) and the American As-
sociation of University Professors
(AAUP).
“I never thought it would happen,”
said history professor Daniel Pope,
who has been involved in efforts to
unionize the faculty in Eugene since
the 1970s.
Pope said several factors led to the
successful outcome, especially the
growing concern among faculty about
the “corporatization” of the university.
Workers in manufacturing, trans-
portation, and service industries are all
too familiar with the speed-up and
growing trend of employers to use con-
tingent workers, temps and/or part-
timers who have no job security or ben-
efits. These same trends are eroding
working conditions at universities and
prompting faculty to organize.
Also, the summary firing of UO
President Richard Lariviere by the
State Board of Education and Gov.
John Kitzhaber earlier this year
“showed the powerlessness” of the fac-
ulty, Pope said.
UA-UO is seeking certification un-
der Oregon public sector labor law’s
Public confusion and partisan divide as ‘Obamacare’ turns two
B Y DON M C INTOSH
A SSOCIATE E DITOR
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
(PPACA) — better known as “Obamacare,” the name
its opponents gave it — turned two on March 23.
Three days later, the U.S. Supreme Court heard argu-
ments on whether it should be struck down.
PPACA is an extraordinarily complex health insur-
ance reform law, and the public has been divided over
it ever since President Barack Obama signed it two
years ago — according to monthly tracking polls by
the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-partisan health
care information clearinghouse. In the group’s March
2012 poll, 41 percent of Americans had a favorable
view of the PPACA, while 40 percent had an unfavor-
able view.
Two findings stand out in the foundation’s two
years of polling — partisan polarization, and lack of
public knowledge about the law.
PPACA passed without the vote of a single House
or Senate Republican, and two years later, the poll
shows three-fourths of self-identified Republicans
have an unfavorable view of the law, while two-thirds
of Democrats view it favorably. Meanwhile, of the 40
percent who said they have an unfavorable opinion
about PPACA, a majority said it was more about their
general feelings about the direction of the country and
what’s going on in Washington, D.C., right now than
said it was based on what they know about the law.
In fact, the public doesn’t know much about the
law, the poll has found. Six in 10 say they don’t have
enough information about the law to understand how
it will impact them personally. That’s the same pro-
portion that said so in April 2010, immediately after
the law’s passage.
The poll also shows that some of the most popular
provisions of the law are among the least widely
known, whereas the law’s best-known feature — the
individual mandate — is its most unpopular part. Only
one in three Americans supports the mandate,
PPACA’s requirement that starting in 2014 all other-
(Turn to Page 11)
card-check provision. It is the largest
group to organize under card-check
since the law was enacted in 2007. If
the Employment Relations Board
(ERB) finds that the signed cards rep-
resent a majority of the UO faculty, the
union will be certified and the univer-
sity administration will be required to
start negotiating a first contract.
However, the collective bargaining
process could be delayed if 30 percent
of proposed bargaining unit members
sign a petition specifically requesting a
secret ballot vote. If they do so, the
ERB would set a date for an election.
The university administration also
could delay or even derail bargaining
by filing an objection to the definition
of the bargaining unit. Some observers
expect the administration will, but at
press time no objections had been filed.
[The deadline for doing so was April 4,
after this issue went to press.]
It is unusual — but not unprece-
dented — to include all faculty in one
bargaining unit. If certified, the unit
will be composed of tenured, tenure-
track, non-tenure track, adjunct, emer-
itus, library, research, and post-doctoral
scholars. Only faculty at the law school
would be excluded.
Tenured and tenure-track faculty
have much more job security, so they
are often thought not to share a com-
munity of interest with part-time and
temporary teachers. Although UA-UO
says it has majority support among
each of the faculty groups, its activists
much prefer a broader effort including
all of the faculty.
Tina Boscha, who has been teach-
ing English composition since 2003 on
short-term contracts with no job secu-
rity, says all faculty share the same in-
terests. “We all perform the mission of
the university — teaching, research,
and service,” she said. This effort is
“not just for non-tenure track — it’s
across the board.”
Tenure-track professor Jane Cramer
said she was inspired to join the union
campaign after seeing alarming trends
starting under former UO President
Dave Frohnmayer to “corporatize” the
university.
“There has been a dramatic increase
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