Inside
Meeting
Notices
See
Page 6
Volume 114
Number 5
March 1, 2013
Portland, Oregon
Organized labor campaigns for immigration overhaul
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Few topics are as touchy and divisive
as immigration, and opportunities to re-
form U.S. immigration policy are rare.
That’s why, with President Obama and
a group of U.S. senators proposing a
package of reforms with bipartisan ap-
peal, U.S. labor leaders are campaign-
ing to make sure the reforms benefit
workers, not just employers.
In mid-February, the national AFL-
CIO held events with local labor leaders
in 14 cities to promote labor’s standards
for reform. On Feb. 19, Service Em-
ployees International Union (SEIU) an-
nounced a $250,000 nationwide Span-
ish language radio ad — the first in
what it said would be a multi-week me-
dia and field campaign to win congres-
sional enactment of immigration reform
that includes a pathway to citizenship.
And on Feb. 21, the AFL-CIO and the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce jointly an-
nounced agreement on a set of common
To promote a union movement campaign for immigration reform, Oregon
AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain stages a Feb. 19 press conference
outside Portland’s immigration office, alongside Francisco Lopez of the
immigrant rights group CAUSA (left), and Brenda Mendoza (right) of the
farmworker advocacy group PCUN.
principles for immigration reform.
Immigration has sizable labor mar-
ket impacts. Industries with lots of im-
migrant workers can see wages fall, and
the downward pressure is worse in the
case of illegal immigrants, since their
tenuous status leaves them more open
to exploitation. The latest U.S. Census
Bureau estimate is 40 million foreign-
born residents out of a total U.S. popu-
lation of 312 million. And 28.5 percent
of the immigrants — 11.1 million —
were unauthorized, having either en-
tered illegally or overstayed visas.
While the foreign-born are 12.8 percent
of the overall population, immigrants
make up 42 percent of the 1.6 million
workers in farming, fishing, and
forestry; 31 percent of the 8 million in
building and grounds cleaning and
maintenance; 23 percent of the 9.6 mil-
lion in construction; 22 percent of the 4
million in computer and math occupa-
tions; 22 percent of the 11.1 million in
manufacturing; and 20 percent of the
11.3 million food preparation and serv-
ing.
Re-establishing control over immi-
gration is key to the compromise pack-
age being discussed in Washington,
D.C. The package would include fur-
ther increases in border control, and in-
creased enforcement against employers
who hire undocumented workers (while
also making it easier for them to verify
eligibility for employment). It would
also include a process whereby the esti-
mated 11.1 million illegal immigrants
now in the United States could become
legal permanent residents and ulti-
mately attain the full rights of U.S. citi-
zenship. And it would include a more
efficient and sensible system for bring-
ing in future immigrants to work.
The union position on these details
is spelled out in an August 2009 joint
statement of principles by the AFL-CIO
and Change To Win labor federations.
That statement outlines five key pieces:
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SPEEA units reach split decision in Boeing contract votes
SEATTLE — Engineers and tech-
nical workers at The Boeing Co. re-
turned a split decision in voting on new
four-year contract offers. Engineers ac-
cepted their offer, and technical work-
ers rejected theirs, while also giving
their negotiation team authority to call
a strike if necessary.
In votes tallied Feb. 19 by the Soci-
ety of Professional Engineering Em-
ployees in Aerospace (SPEEA) Local
2001, engineers in the Professional
Unit accepted Boeing’s offer 6,483 to
5,514. The Technical Unit rejected their
offer 2,868 to 3,203 and granted strike
authorization by a vote of 3,903 to
2,165.
The engineers (aerospace, electrical
and other fields) and technical workers
(designers, technical writers, planners
and others) work on plans for new
planes and solve problems that arise on
the factory floor. The assembly of the
planes is performed by members of the
Machinists Union, which agreed to a
four-year contract in 2011.
SPEEA, an affiliate of the Interna-
tional Federation of Professional &
Technical Engineers, represents 22,950
employees at Boeing (15,550 engi-
neers). Most work in the Puget Sound
region of Washington state, but the con-
tracts also cover 200 employees at the
Gresham plant in Oregon, as well as
workers in Utah and California.
The union bargains contracts for the
Professional Unit and Technical Unit at
the same time, but the agreements are
separate and independent from each
other.
Negotiating teams from both units
had recommended that workers reject
the offers and support strike authoriza-
tion.
SPEEA last struck Boeing in 2000
when all workers walked off the job for
40 days. That strike slowed airplane
production to a crawl and prevented
Boeing from delivering aircraft.
A key sticking point in the most re-
cent bargaining has been Boeing’s de-
mand to switch new hires to a defined
contribution pension plan, i.e., a
401(k). Union officials say the new re-
tirement plan slashes benefits by 41
percent. Boeing’s analysis shows a 33
percent cut.
“Pick your favorite analysis, or do
one of your own; it’s a significant cut
in the retirement contribution,” said
SPEEA Executive Director Ray Go-
forth in a website video to members.
Boeing also refused to ensure exist-
ing employees their benefits would not
be affected by changes to the Social Se-
curity cap on taxable income (scrap the
cap) or raising the Medicare eligibility
age to 70. Both are being considered by
Congress and, according to union offi-
cials, would dramatically impact exist-
ing retirement packages.
“Interestingly, The Boeing Com-
pany has amended the executives’ pen-
sion so that it is protected from ‘scrap
the cap,’” Goforth said. “We asked for
similar protections for (members) and
their answer was, ‘why are you worry-
ing about it; you don’t need to worry
about this.’”
Boeing did agree to extend most el-
ements of the previous contracts, in-
cluding 5 percent annual wage pools
and no increases to employees for med-
ical coverage. Union officials said it
was members’ activism and their over-
whelming rejection of the company’s
first contract proposals in October 2012
that forced Boeing to improve its offer.
SPEEA contracts expired Nov. 25,
2012. Negotiations started in Novem-
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UFCW grocery workers ratify more contracts
Some 14,000 grocery workers, meatcutters and central
checkout clerks at major supermarkets in Oregon and South-
west Washington have wrapped up voting on new three-year
collective bargaining agreements.
Workers are represented by United Food and Commercial
Workers Local 555. A 45-member Unity Bargaining Com-
mittee has been in negotiations for more than 22 months with
Allied Employers Inc., a Kirkland, Washington-based firm
that represents Fred Meyer and QFC (Kroger), Albertsons,
and Safeway at the bargaining table.
It is the first time in the union’s history that contracts from
each geographic region within its jurisdiction — from Kla-
math Falls, Oregon, to Longview, Washington — were bar-
gained simultaneously.
Voting began in early February and wrapped up Feb. 20
with the ratification of contracts in Klamath Falls, Tillamook,
and Longview.
The union had scheduled a series of strike vote meetings
for the month of February because employers had moved
very little on their demands to increase the minimum waiting
time to receive full health care coverage; to double the maxi-
mum out-of-pocket costs for family health insurance to
$12,000; and to schedule workers seven days a week without
any days off or having to pay overtime, effectively eliminat-
ing the five-day work week.
The possibility of strike pushed the employer group to en-
gage in a four-day, 68-hour marathon bargaining session start-
ing Jan. 29. Those talks resulted in an offer the union was
willing to take to its membership for a vote.
Local 555 Secretary-Treasurer Jeff Anderson told the La-
bor Press month that “This was some of the toughest bar-
gaining in bad times that I’ve ever seen.” Anderson is a 36-
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