...Community benefits agreement
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ent discrimination.”
Maurice Rahming, immediate past
president of the Oregon chapter of the
National Association of Minority Con-
tractors, explains that in the past, con-
struction contractors didn’t hire women
and minorities. Racial and gender dis-
parity continued after overt discrimina-
tion ended, Rahming says, in part be-
cause sons tend to follow fathers into
careers in construction. And access to
these jobs matters a great deal, because
journeymen can earn $39 an hour or
more plus benefits — depending on the
trade — on public construction jobs
that are subject to state and federal pre-
vailing wage laws.
The community benefits agreement
is a breakthrough, Francesconi told the
Labor Press, for several reasons: It’s the
first time in Oregon that a government
has required project labor agreements
on its construction projects, and it rep-
resents a new unity between unions and
minority communities.
Nonunion contractors have often de-
feated proposals for project labor agree-
ments, Francesconi said, by forming al-
liances with minority contractors or
community members and arguing that
unions don’t work well with minorities.
“Here the opposite has happened,”
Francesconi said. “Minority contractors
SEPTEMBER 21, 2012
and community representatives want a
relationship with the unions, and advo-
cated for this project labor agreement.
And the unions went a long way to pro-
vide training and support for minority
and women workforce and minority
businesses, and carved out this excep-
tion for disadvantaged minority- and
women- owned businesses where they
didn’t have to join
the union.”
Rahming, who is
both a black busi-
ness owner and a
signatory contractor
with IBEW Local
48, agrees: “Minor-
ity contractors have been pitted against
the unions as if they’re opposing sides
of an argument. This agreement says,
‘You know what? We’re not on oppos-
ing sides.’”
To test run the community benefits
agreement, City Commissioner Randy
Leonard offered up two Water Bureau
projects that are already under way: the
Kelly Butte reservoir replacement, and
the Interstate Maintenance Facility ren-
ovation. The Kelly Butte project — to
replace the 10-million-gallon above-
ground steel tank with a 25-million-gal-
lon reinforced concrete underground
reservoir — had already been awarded
to Hoffman Construction, but the City
is modifying that contract. In the Inter-
state Maintenance Facility Renovation,
the City will construct a 28,000-square-
foot LEED Gold building to replace a
1925 building that rates poorly for seis-
mic and fire safety and disabled access.
An adjacent 38,000 square foot build-
ing will be built in a second phase.
The day the community benefits
agreement was approved, City Council
chambers were
packed to the
edge of the sec-
ond-floor gallery
with 175 people
who turned out
in support, most
wearing red T-
shirts made by CAWS bearing the slo-
gan, “community benefits for all.”
Portland Mayor Sam Adams told
the crowd the community benefits
agreement is about “taking another step
to become a city of the most equal op-
portunity for all Portlanders.”
Doug Tweedy, executive secretary-
treasurer of the Pacific Northwest Re-
gional Council of Carpenters, com-
mended the City Council for being the
first agency to “step up to the plate and
do the right thing.”
“Opportunity is what this is all
about,” he said. “The disparity within
our workforce and our contracting
community is documented and does
exist.”
... it represents a
new unity between
unions and minority
communities.
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
IN MEMORIAM
Oregon AFSCME Council
75 Staff Representative J AMES
H ESTER lost a three-year battle
with lung cancer. He passed
away peacefully in Portland on
Sept. 9. He was 55 years old.
J AMES R EED H ESTER was
born in Tacoma, Wash., on
Aug. 14, 1957. His father died
when Hester was six, and the family
moved to Portland when he was 11. He
graduated from Cleveland High
School in 1975, and received an asso-
ciates degree in journalism arts from
Mt. Hood Community College in Gre-
sham in 1977.
Hester lived for several years on the
Lummi Indian Reservation in Wash-
ington, where he helped his in-laws
(his sister is married to a tribal council
leader) establish the communications
department for the government of the
Lummi Nation in 1981.
Hester enjoyed a varied profes-
sional career. He spent 12 years as a
West Coast district manager for Sears
& Roebuck, followed by a four-year
stint as director of operations for the
Portland Beavers baseball team. He
spent three years working with an in-
vestment firm in Los Angeles, Calif.
In 1997 he returned to Portland and
took a police records specialist position
with the Portland Police Bureau — a
job he intended to keep only a
short period while he attended
Warner Pacific College to get
a degree in business adminis-
tration. But jobsite issues led
him to become a union stew-
ard and activist with the Amer-
ican Federation of State,
County and Municipal Em-
ployees Local 189.
Hester held a variety of positions
with Local 189, ultimately becoming
the elected president.
In August 2004 he was hired by
Oregon AFSCME Council 75, serving
primarily as the Local 189 staff rep. He
also worked with Oregon AFSCME
Executive Director Ken Allen negoti-
ating the first AFSCME contract at the
Portland Development Commission.
“James was a great member-leader
and then a strong staff person for our
members,” Allen said. “He had a
strong commitment to making sure
members got treated fairly on the job.”
Hester is survived by his mother,
Helen; sisters, Barbara Howe and Pam
Thomas; brothers, Rick Hester, Scott
Hester, and Gary Lichty; and many
nieces and nephews.
In lieu of flowers, the family sug-
gests donations to either the Pongo
Fund, Oregon Humane Society, or the
American Cancer Society.
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