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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (June 7, 2013)
20% of all congressional work is naming post offices WASHINGTON, D.C. — Over the past decade, 20 percent of all legisla- tion Congress has passed has been to name post offices. The findings are contained in a re- port by the Congressional Research Service, and first reported by The Huff- ington Post. The height of the post office-nam- ing craze was in the 110th Congress (2007-2008), which passed 109 bills to name post offices —24 percent of all the legislation it passed. The last Congress (112th), which was the most unproductive since at least the 1940s, moved through 46 bills naming post offices, out of 240 total measures passed. (It also passed six bills regarding commemorative coins.) The numbers are especially striking when compared with those from previ- ous sessions of Congress. According to an analysis compiled by Knight- Mozilla OpenNews Fellow Noah Velt- man in January, in the 26 years before the 106th Congress (1999-2000), post office naming bills represented less than 5 percent of all the legislation signed into law. In the current Congress, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee — where most post office naming acts originate — has adopted a policy stating that these pieces of legis- lation should not take up too much time: “The consideration of bills desig- nating facilities of the United States Postal Service shall be conducted so as to minimize the time spent on such matters by the committee and the House of Representatives.” Oregon AFL-CIO convention Sept. 27-29 in Bend BEND — Union leaders and ac- tivists, mark your calendars for Sept. 27-29 and the 53rd biennial Oregon AFL-CIO Convention. The convention will be held at The Riverhouse Hotel and Convention Center: 3075 N Busi- ness 97, Bend. Registration opens Friday, Sept. 27. That evening a Welcome Party will be held. Convention business gets under way Saturday morning, Sept. 28. The popular Union Label Show is scheduled Saturday evening. For more information, call the Ore- gon AFL-CIO at 503-224-3169 or from Salem call 503-585-6320. JUNE 7, 2013 Walmart workers strike, attend annual shareholders meeting A group of more than 100 Walmart workers from stores in Northern Cali- fornia, Miami, Boston, Denver, and elsewhere started an extended strike on Memorial Day against the retail mega- monster. They caravanned to Ben- tonville, Arkansas, on June 1 for Wal- mart’s annual shareholders meeting. There, they called on Walmart board members and shareholders to address poverty wages, health care, retaliation against workers, and scheduling that hurts workers, customers and the econ- omy. NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS A rally in support of Walmart work- ers will be held in Portland Friday, June 7, from 5 to 6:15 p.m. at the Walmart store at 4200 SE 82nd Avenue (off Hol- gate), and in Longview at 3715 Ocean Beach Highway. ATU attorney will read from new novel June 13 at Powell’s Books Portland union attorney Susan Stoner will read from a new historical mystery novel June 13 at Powell’s Books on Hawthorne. Dry Rot is the third volume in her series about a fictional trade union spy named Sage Adair, set in the Portland of the early 1900s. Dry Rot takes place in 1902, and features a losing strike, a union leader framed for mur- der, a rag-picker poet, and a true-to- life story of construction fraud that led to the collapse of a city bridge. Timber Beasts, the first in the se- ries, deals with the savage exploitation of loggers; Land Sharks, the second, has to do with the Portland “under- ground,” where men were shanghaied and placed in service aboard ocean- going ships bound for China. A forth- coming book, Black Drop, will relate the 1903 visit to Portland of then- President Teddy Roosevelt. Stoner works for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757, and has a passion for researching labor history. The reading will take place at 7:30 June 13 at Powell’s Books on Hawthorne, 3723 SE Hawthorne. PAGE 7
