Inside
Workers Memorial Day
Edition
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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-
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