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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (April 20, 2012)
Inside Workers Memorial Day Edition See Page 6 Volume 113 Number 8 April 20, 2012 Portland Unions to remember fallen workers Oregon workers who died on the job last year will be remembered at ceremonies in Portland and Salem Thirty-five Oregonians died on the job in 2011. Two were working out-of-state at the time of their mishaps; one is a missing crab fisherman presumed dead. Another 16 workers died on the job from heart attacks or other heart ailments. They aren’t included in the count. To honor workers killed on the job, the Oregon AFL-CIO and Northwest Oregon Labor Council will hold memorial services the last week of April. The Oregon AFL-CIO’s observance is at noon, Thursday, April 26, at the Fallen Workers Memorial outside the Labor and Industries Building, 350 Win- ter St. NE, on the Capitol Mall in Salem. The service will feature the reading of the names of the Oregon workers who died on the job in 2011, along with the names of Oregonians killed in military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. (A list appears on Page 6 of this issue.) Michael Wood, administrator of the Oregon Oc- cupational Safety and Health Administration, and Oregon AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Barbara Byrd, will be among the speakers at the ceremony. On Monday, April 23, the Northwest Oregon La- bor Council will hold a memorial service at its monthly delegates meeting. The service will include a presentation of colors by the Oregon Military Fu- neral Honors Program. Wood will be the keynote speaker. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at the IBEW Local 48 Hall, 15937 NE Airport Way, Portland. Both services are part of the national AFL-CIO’s Workers Memorial Day, which recognizes the thou- sands of U.S. workers who die each year and the more than 1 million who are injured each year at work. The observance is traditionally held on April 28 because that is the date in 1970 that Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act. “Workers Memorial Day is an important opportunity to set aside the statistics for a moment and fo- cus on the individuals,” Wood said. “Whether rates go up or go down, each of the names we read at the ceremony is an individual tragedy, involving real people with real hopes and dreams for the future. It’s those real stories that give the day meaning.” IBEW #48 plugs in nine EV charging stations at hall Wyden says he opposes vouchers The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 48 and the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) unveiled nine new electrical vehicle charging stations at their union hall and training center on Northeast Airport Way in Portland. U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley and Oregon Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici had the honor of charging the first elec- tric car — Local 48’s own Chevy Volt — following a press conference April 11. Also speaking at the unveiling were Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality; Oregon’s First Lady Cylvia Hayes; Carol Dillin, vice president of customer strategies and business de- velopment at Portland General Elec- tric; and Jeff Allen, executive director of Drive Oregon. “This is one more example of how NECA-IBEW continues to bring the latest electrical technologies to the Portland area,” said IBEW Local 48 Business Manager Clif Davis. “From electric vehicles to wind power and more, our members have the training to make it happen.” The charging stations — which are open to the public — were installed by NECA contractor Christenson Electric. Some of the funding for the project came from the U.S. Department of En- ergy. Sutley, who is President Obama’s principal environmental adviser, said the new charging stations highlight the president’s “all-of-the-above energy approach that doubles down on clean energy to reduce pollution, increase our nation’s energy security, and cre- ate American jobs.” Sutley said the Obama Administra- tion has invested more than $2 billion in advanced vehicle technologies, and has proposed new fuel economy stan- dards that will nearly double the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks by 2025, save consumers $1.7 trillion at the pump, and cut oil consumption by 2.2 million barrels a day. Sen. Merkley called it a “win-win” in terms of improving national security by decreasing America’s dependence on oil from the Middle East; for creat- ing jobs and wealth in the U.S., and for protecting the environment. “We need U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley and Oregon Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici had the honor of plugging in the first electric car at a charging station at IBEW Local 48’s union hall and training center in Northeast Portland. to do more of the things (like electric vehicles) that have such a series of pos- itive effects,” he said. Hayes, who was there representing Gov. John Kitzhaber, pointed to a re- cent study commissioned by the gov- ernors of Oregon, Washington, Cali- fornia, and the premier of British Columbia, that found transitioning to a cleaner economy over the next decade could generate more than a million net new jobs on the West Coast, provide a GDP contribution of up to $143 bil- lion, and attract hundreds of billions of dollars of new investment to the region. “It’s already accounting for an eco- nomic contribution of $47 billion, and there are 500,000 Pacific Northwest residents who are earning full-time paychecks in clean economy sectors right now,” she said. “These sectors are producing jobs faster and they’re pay- ing better than shrinking sectors of the economy.” Dillin announced that the Public Utility Commission recently approved PGE’s Electric Vehicle Highway Pilot Project that will add 20 EV quick charging stations along the I-5 and 1- 205 corridors. “If you’re familiar with ‘range anx- iety,’ this will eliminate some of it” for owners of electric vehicles, she said. The nine charging stations at Local 48 are available to all electric vehicles in the region and are free with a Blink card/key. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told the Northwest Oregon Labor Council Executive Board April 9 that he ab- solutely opposes turning Medicare into a voucher program. “I’m totally against vouchers. I’ve always been against vouchers. I voted against (U.S. Rep. Paul) Ryan’s origi- nal proposal because I thought it was a voucher,” Wyden said. Last year, Rep. Paul Ryan, (R-Wis- consin), chair of the House Budget Committee, presented a budget blue- print that called for overhauling Medicare by replacing the traditional government-run system with vouchers to buy private insurance. The proposal passed in the House but was rejected by the Senate. Since then, Wyden has been work- ing with Ryan to co-author a revised plan to overhaul Medicare. The Ryan- Wyden proposal, announced last De- cember, keeps traditional Medicare open, but it also includes an option to receive a government subsidy (they call it premium support) to purchase insurance through a Medicare-ap- proved private plan. The proposal has angered Wyden’s constituents in labor, seniors, and fel- (Turn to Page 5)
