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.
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