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