Northwest labor press., April 20, 2012, Page 2, Image 2

Former Labor Press editor helped
pass workers’ comp law in Oregon
Former Oregon Labor Press Editor
William A. Marshall was considered “the
godfather” of Oregon’s workers’ compensa-
tion law. A member of the Multnomah Typo-
graphical Union No. 58, Marshall helped
push through a law to provide compensation
to injured workers and widows and orphans
of those fatally hurt.
In 1912, Gov. Oswald West appointed
Marshall to the first State Industrial Accident
Commission, where he served until 1927. In
that job he became known nationally as an
authority on what at that time was referred to
WILLIAM MARSHALL
as “workermen’s compensation.”
Later, he was appointed an administrator
in Seattle of the federal job-injury compensation program for long-
shoremen and harbor workers.
William Marshall died in Seattle in 1963 at age 88.
Day Two on strike at Cascade Steel Rolling Mills in McMinnville. Photo by Juan Mora.
300 workers strike at Cascade Steel in McMinnville
McMINNVILLE—Workers walked
out of Cascade Steel Rolling Mills on
Easter Sunday — to protest bad-faith
bargaining by parent company
Schnitzer Steel Industries. The strike be-
gan 11:30 a.m. April 8, a week after the
union contract expired. The McMin-
nville mill — powered by cheap hydro-
electricity from federal dams — melts
scrap metal from Schnitzer’s recycling
business and uses it to make rebar, wire,
and other products. The mill’s 300-plus
workers are members of United Steel-
workers Local 8378.
Last year, with the economy down,
workers offered to extend the previous
contract one year with no raise, and the
company agreed. Now that production
and profit are rising again, they want
raises. But the company offer of a four-
year contract with 0.5 percent annual
raises is unacceptable to members, says
Local 8378 President Joe Munger.
“The company is not interested in
getting a fair deal and is only interested
in spinning our wheels,” Munger told
members in an automated phone mes-
sage after one bargaining session.
Schnitzer Steel is demanding contract
take-backs, including proposals to:
• Double the amount workers pay
for health insurance;
• Obligate workers to work 16-hour
shifts; and
• Curtail workers’ right to have
union representation during discipline.
Meanwhile, Munger said, manage-
ment has goaded union members with a
series of provocations.
The company says its bargainers are
available only two days a week, four
hours at a time. Management walked
out of one bargaining session, refused
to answer calls, and even drew the
shades on the office window.
When bargaining team members en-
tered the mill to give co-workers an up-
date, they were followed by manage-
ment, and a representative of
management stood in the break room
listening until he was asked to leave. A
guard is posted outside the company
PAGE 2
president’s office, and escorts him to
his car when he leaves the building.
In charges filed with the National
Labor Relations Board, Local 8378 ac-
cuses the company of failure to bargain
in good faith.
In the year ending Aug. 31,
Schnitzer Steel Industries made $3 mil-
lion profit at its Cascade Steel Rolling
Mills subsidiary. Munger thinks it’s on
track to double that for fiscal year 2012.
Schnitzer makes most of its money sell-
ing auto parts and exporting scrap
metal.
In their recently expired contract,
union steelworkers were paid $18.79 to
$29.71 an hour for work in searing heat
and deafening noise. Meanwhile,
Schnitzer CEO Tamara Lundgren — a
former JP Morgan Chase investment
banker — was paid over $7 million in
compensation in the company’s most
recent fiscal year.
PICKET STRUCK BY CAR: A
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
striking worker was treated at Provi-
dence Newberg Medical Center after a
car driven by a security guard bumped
him on the picket line. The incident oc-
curred about 5 a.m. April 12 at the west
entrance to the employee parking lot.
Melt shop worker Lee Frakes, 36,
had just begun a picket shift when the
driver drove through the picket line as
he was walking. “He put his bumper
right up against my leg and then he hit
the gas,” Frakes said.
X-rays revealed no broken bones,
but doctors told Frakes, whose wife is
expecting a baby, he may have dam-
aged a tendon or his meniscus.
Police took statements from wit-
nesses and cited the driver for failure to
yield to a pedestrian — a traffic infrac-
tion. McMinnville police captain Matt
Scales said there were no injuries and
no damage to the vehicle, and that the
driver, an employee of Prostar Security,
had been arriving for work at Cascade.
APRIL 20, 2012