Inside
Workers Memorial Day
Edition
See
Pages 8 & 9
Volume 114
Number 8
April 19, 2013
Portland
Unions to remember fallen workers
Oregon workers who died on
the job last year will be
remembered at ceremonies
in Portland and Salem
Forty-seven workers died on the job in Ore-
gon in 2012. That’s down from 57 a year ago,
and equals the number who died in 2010, ac-
cording to the most recent Bureau of Labor Sta-
tistics (BLS) report.
To honor them, the Oregon AFL-CIO and
Northwest Oregon Labor Council will hold me-
morial services the last week of April. Both
services are part of the national AFL-CIO’s
Workers Memorial Day event, which recognizes
the thousands of U.S. workers who die each year
and the more than 1 million who are injured at
work. This year marks the 42nd anniversary of
the Occupational Safety and Health Adminis-
tration (OSHA) and the effective date of the Oc-
cupational Safety and Health Act. The Act—
which guarantees every American worker a safe
and healthful working environment—created
OSHA.
The Oregon AFL-CIO’s observance will be
at noon, Monday, April 29, at the Fallen Workers
Memorial outside the Labor and Industries
Building, 350 Winter St. NE, on the Capitol Mall
in Salem. The service will feature the reading of
the names of the Oregon workers who died on
the job in 2012, along with the names of Orego-
nians killed in military action in Afghanistan and
Iraq. (A list appears on Page 8 of this issue.)
On Monday, April 22, the Northwest Oregon
Labor Council will hold a memorial service at
its monthly delegates meeting. The service will
include a presentation of colors by the Oregon
Military Funeral Honors Program. Michael
Wood, administrator of the Oregon Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OR-OSHA),
will be the keynote speaker.
The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at the IBEW Lo-
cal 48 Hall, 15937 NE Airport Way, Portland.
According to the most recent BLS data avail-
able, 51 of the 57 workers killed in Oregon in
2011 were men; 17 (men and women) were be-
tween the ages of 55 to 64, and nine were 65 or
older. Trucking/transportation and farming/fish-
ing/ forestry occupations were the deadliest, ac-
(Turn to Page 10)
SEQUESTER OUT!
A group of Oregonians ‘sit-in’ with U.S. lawmakers Bonamici
and Schrader to talk about the impact of sequestration cuts on
workers and middle-class families
A group of about 50 concerned citi-
zens met with U.S. Representatives
Suzanne Bonamici and Kurt Schrader
at a “sequester sit-in” April 4 sponsored
by the Oregon AFL-CIO, the North-
west Oregon Labor Council, Oregon
Action, and Working America.
A panel of Portland-area labor and
community activists illustrated how se-
questration is impacting tens of thou-
sands of middle class jobs, and vital
services to children, seniors, people
with mental illness, and the military.
Sequestration is the term used for
the $85 billion in automatic, across-the-
board cuts to both defense spending
and domestic spending that went into
effect March 1. Congressional leaders
and President Obama set the self-im-
posed deadline in an effort to pass a
federal budget. Their thinking was that
the sequester cuts were so severe that
Republicans and Democrats would be
forced to reach agreement on a budget
to avoid them. But they failed to agree,
and the cutting began March 1.
The AFL-CIO’s Executive Council,
which says sequestration will cost more
than 750,000 jobs this year alone and
slash funding for the very programs
people need to get back on their feet,
has called on lawmakers to repeal it.
At the sequester sit-in on April 4,
representatives from labor unions,
Mercy Corp NW, and Partners for a
Hunger Free Oregon rattled off a series
of sequester impacts, ranging from job
cuts for teachers and law enforcement,
to longer waits for federal assistance, to
fewer safety inspections of the nation’s
food supply, to fewer loans for small
businesses.
Sequestration cuts are not limited to
federal employees — who have al-
ready given back over $100 billion
through unpaid furloughs and no pay
raises over the last three years, said
Amanda Schroeder of American Fed-
eration of Government Employees Lo-
cal 2157.
“As our families continue to earn
less, our families have less to spend in
their neighborhoods and cities. That’s
less money that we are spending at a
cafe where a waitress depends on our
business. It’s less money we have to
spend at grocery stores, movie theaters,
on bus tickets and at hardware stores.
Sequestration hurts all working Amer-
icans.”
Meanwhile, Schroeder continued,
“No tax loopholes for the wealthiest
Americans have closed. This is hardly
a balanced approach to the deficit re-
duction.”
Robyn Johnson of Partners for a
Hunger Free Oregon said federally
funded nutrition programs were for the
most part held harmless. She said
800,000 Oregonians rely on food
stamps and that the Oregon Food Bank
serves 200,000 people a month.
“We are most concerned about the
WIC program (Department of Agricul-
ture’s Special Supplemental Nutrition
Program for Women, Infants, and Chil-
dren). A 5.2 percent cut will eliminate
7,200 slots for pregnant women, infant
children, and kids up to the age of
five,” Johnson said. “It is untenable that
there is a discussion about taking a pro-
gram that is serving the most needy,
and the most vulnerable people in the
most vulnerable time of their life.”
Jeff Klatke, a member of AFSCME
Council 75, said business is booming
at Home Forward (formerly the Hous-
ing Authority of Portland).
The agency, which serves 15,000
low-income families, has seen demand
U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader (right) tells the audience that he is using his
smartphone to take notes of their concerns about sequestration. Joining him
at the AFL-CIO-sponsored “sit-in” was U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici.
for its services increase multiple times
since the Great Recession hit.
Klatke said six months ago a record
21,000 applications were filed after
Home Forward opened its wait list for
Section 8 vouchers. That’s in addition
to 26,000 public housing request ap-
plications that are already on file.
“And now, after this economic
downturn, which we are still not out of
yet, the community gets sequestered,”
Klatke said.
Home Forward relies on the De-
partment of Housing and Urban De-
velopment (HUD) for a majority of its
funding, and Klatke pointed out that
funding has been slowly declining for
years. “We have been forced to oper-
ate with the ‘do more with less’ philos-
ophy long enough that we simply can’t
do more and we can’t survive with any
fewer staff, ” he said.
Home Forward residents — the ma-
jority of whom are seniors and the dis-
abled on fixed incomes — likely will
see their rents raised and their utility
assistance reduced.
(Turn to Page 4)