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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (May 18, 2012)
Motorcycle Poker Run, raffle June 9 The Unions for Kids Motorcycle Poker Run and Chili Cook-off, a bene- fit for Doernbecher Children’s Hospi- tal, will be held Saturday, June 9, at the IBEW Local 48 Hall, 15937 NE Air- port Way. The poker run starts and finishes at the hall. Registration is from 8:30 to 10 a.m. and costs $10. A pancake break- fast will be available for participants. The poker run itself is a scenic and challenging 90-mile round-trip ride with four checkpoints. Riders will re- IN MEMORIAM T OM D REW of Portland, a retired federal mediator who is a former local union presi- dent and international union representative, died April 28 from congestive heart failure due to complications from pneumonia. He was 76. Drew retired in 1999 from the Federal Mediation and Concilia- tion Service’s Portland office, where he had worked for 21 years. From 1958 to 1967, he served as a shop steward, recording secretary, presi- dent, and business agent for Chemi- cal Workers Local 109 (now merged with United Food and Commercial Workers) working at the Pennwalt in- dustrial chemical plant in Portland. In 1967 the International Chemi- cal Workers Union, headquartered in Akron, Ohio, appointed him to its staff, first as an organizer and later as its international representative for Oregon and Southwest Washington. Drew’s job with the Chemical Workers took him on assignments to Los Angeles to serve locals in South- ern California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah; and to Kansas City, Missouri, to help locals in that state, plus those in Kansas and Nebraska. In 1973, the Chemical Workers re- assigned Drew to Los Angeles. In the course of his work, Drew met a fed- eral mediator who suggested that he apply for a job with the Federal Me- MAY 18, 2012 ceive a playing card at the IBEW hall and one at each checkpoint. An option of one extra (draw) card before the first card and one extra (draw) card after the last card will be available for $5 each. Visa gift cards will be awarded to the high and low poker hand. The chili cook-off pits chefs from the various trades. Chili will be sold and customers will vote on their fa- vorite. Hot dogs, hamburgers and soda also will be on sale. A drawing for a 2012 Harley-David- son “Big Blue” Heritage Softail Clas- sic motorcycle will take place at 4 p.m. In commemoration of the event’s 10th anniversary, the bike will be auto- graphed by Willie G. Davidson, the company’s senior vice president and grandson of Harley-Davidson co- founder William A. Davidson. Tickets are still available for $10 each. Only 5,000 tickets will be sold. Money also is raised through a silent auction, a 50/50 raffle, and through a program called “Hour of Help,” whereby individuals donate one hour of pay to the cause. Donations are tax de- ductible. All money raised is given to Doern- becher Children’s Hospital. Since its in- ception in 2003, the Poker Run has raised $271,000. For more information or to register to ride, go to www.unionsforkids.org or call Lee Duncan at 503-260-5905. ...Baby steps to restoring shop classes diation and Conciliation Serv- ice. Drew did so in 1977 and was hired, then sent to Seattle for training, followed by 21 years of duty at the Portland office. THOMAS EDWARD DREW was born in North Portland on Oct. 19, 1935, to George and Alice Drew. His father was a bus driver for Rose City Transit Com- pany and was a member of Amalga- mated Transit Local 757. Drew attended Holy Cross Grade School and Central Catholic High School, then transferred to Benson Technical High School, from which he graduated in 1953. After graduation he worked at Crown-Zellerbach’s Western Wax plant as a member of the AFL-CIO Pulp, Sulphite Union, followed by three years in the United States Navy. After the Navy he worked at Pa- cific Telephone & Telegraph, where he was a member of the Communi- cations Workers of America. Drew is survived by his wife, Linda, of 38 years; three sons, Dan, Sean, Kevin; and seven grandchil- dren. A private burial was held in Willamette National Cemetery. Messages of condolence may be sent to Linda Drew, PMB #426, 5331 SW Macadam Ave. Ste. 258 , Port- land, OR 97239. (From Page 1) West Albany High School — plus the use of instructors and equipment at the IBEW-NECA Central Electrical Train- ing Center in Tangent, Laborers Train- ing Center in Corvallis, and Linn-Ben- ton Community College. Linn County Regional Trades Acad- emy will be a two-year program for juniors and seniors — and a major shift from the idea of shop class as a one-off elective. Each day, participating stu- dents will attend their first four classes as normal, then be bused to trades acad- emy classes for the last three hours of the day. In Year One, students in co- horts of 20 to 25 will spend half the year rotating through three-week intro- ductions to six different trades — elec- trical, carpentry, automotive, welding, building construction, and machine technology. Each student will then pick one trade for more advanced training in the second half of the year. Those re- turning for Year Two will continue to develop their skills in internship or pre- apprenticeship programs, or do hands- on work in weatherization, home build- ing, or renovation projects with Lebanon Habitat For Humanity. There’s even a plan for students to use welding and carpentry to construct classroom tables, which would be sold to the district at a lower cost than they could obtain elsewhere. On comple- tion, successful participants will earn community college credits, and be con- sidered good candidates for apprentice- ship programs. Each of the three schools is commit- ted to recruiting two cohort groups; if not enough students sign up, participa- tion will be opened up to nearby Cres- cent Valley High School and Corvallis High School. National Frozen Foods and Oregon Freeze Dry are also taking part in the academy, and so are the Al- bany and Lebanon chambers of com- merce. “These classes really are the arts,” Avakian says. “You’re learning how to create, to imagine, and to me those are the things that build well-rounded hu- man beings.” Oregon Building Trades Council Executive Secretary John Mohlis called the grants a first step. “If the governor is really serious about education reform, and we think that he is, then getting shop classes back in the high schools needs to be part of the conversation,” Mohlis said. Avakian said he plans to return to the Legislature in 2013 to ask for more – $10 million. Who’s On Our Side? By Tom Chamberlain A s I write this article, the election is four days out. And by the time the Labor Press reaches you, the elec- tion will be three days past — a fad- ing memory. We will have experi- enced victories and defeats. Tens of thousands of doors and phone calls made. As we knocked, called and talked with voters, a disturbing trend was revealed: Many Oregonians be- lieve that they can’t make a differ- ence, that their vote doesn’t matter. The 2008 election was an election of hope and change. America was en- gaged and revitalized. Record num- bers volunteered to work on cam- paigns, registered to vote, and went to the polls while our country slipped into the abyss of the Great Recession. Within heartbeats of President Obama taking office, Republican Congressional leadership stated that their agenda was to deny President Obama a second term. No wonder an agenda of hope and change that could have provided the path to get our peo- ple back to work stalled. If 2008 was the election of hope, 2010 was an election of hopelessness. We learned what an agenda to defeat a president was, as job creating legis- lation such as the transportation bill came to a standstill. Washington’s po- litical brinksmanship combined with NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS high unemployment soured America on Congress. We watched hope-leg- islation get filibustered to death. With no hope in sight, middle Amer- ica stayed away from the polls as cor- poratist candidates won elections, cre- ating further dysfunction in Wash- ington, D.C., and within our state and local governments. Our nation slowly crawled out of the shadow of the Great Recession, thanks to quick actions by the 2009 Democratically-led Congress and President Obama, who were able to pass job-creation legislation. But the recovery has been slow and Ameri- cans have completely tuned out the dysfunction in Washington, D.C. The 2012 election could become the election of apathy, an election where millions of voters don’t en- gage, don’t vote, and don’t volunteer. If that occurs, Karl Rove, Wall Street, and those who subscribe to the Ayn Rand philosophy of “me first,” will win. Their election strategy is to stop you from voting. A change agenda doesn’t happen overnight, or even in a month. It takes years. And it never occurs without a prolonged struggle. Take marriage equality. Over 52 percent of America now supports marriage between two consulting adults not limited to a man and a woman. Such support was decades in the making. It occurred be- cause the LBGT community had the courage to face a storm of personal risk and challenges as they told their family, friends and community who they were. Courage and hard work are bring- ing change. We need every union member, working family, and middle- class Oregonian to take up that atti- tude of not giving up; the attitude of no surrender and fighting on. Other- wise, we will be giving our votes away, and our economy with them. 2012 can be the real election of change. If we work together, vote and fight this could be the election that will put our country back on track to- ward fairness and equity. If we sit on our hands and remain apathetic, big money will win and we will continue down the path of low wages, no ben- efits, and underfunded education and health care. The choice is yours. Whose side will this election fall to? Tom Chamberlain is president of the Oregon AFL-CIO. PAGE 7
