Operating Engineers tap
Wilson business manager
Nelda Wilson has been elected busi-
ness manager/financial secretary of
Gladstone-based Operating Engineers
Local 701. She defeated Jim Anderson,
the local’s president,
531 to 514.
Wilson has been
serving as business
manager/financial sec-
retary for about a year.
She was appointed to
the post following the
retirement of longtime
N ELDA
business manager
W ILSON
Mark Holliday.
Anderson did not seek re-election as
president of the 4,000-member local,
opting instead to run for business man-
ager.
In the race for the open seat for pres-
ident, Robin Wicklander outpolled
Larry Lovelady 530 to 496.
In other contested election results,
Bo Ellis defeated Carren Glebe for
treasurer, 564 to 465. Ellis was running
as the incumbent, having been ap-
pointed to the post last year to succeed
Wilson, who vacated to become busi-
ness manager.
Robert Crane defeated Craig Lund-
gren for guard. The vote was 559 to
439.
In uncontested races, incumbents re-
elected were Vice President Kevin
Miller; Recording Corresponding Sec-
retary Steve Bradley; Conductor Dave
Carter; District 1 Representative Mike
Thun; District 2 Representative Harold
Chevrier; District 4 Representative Ray
Akers; and District 5 Representative
Richard Lauderback.
Clifton G. Smith was elected Dis-
trict 3 rep, and Dylan McComiskey
was elected District 5 at-large rep. Both
men ran unopposed and are serving
first terms.
Local 701 represents operating and
maintenance engineers in Oregon and
Southwest Washington. Those are the
folks who work as heavy equipment
operators, mechanics, and surveyors in
the construction industry, and as sta-
tionary engineers maintaining building
and industrial complexes — ranging
from community hospitals to the
Umatilla Chemical Depot in Hermis-
ton. The union also represents some
public employees.
Wilson, 52, has been a member of
the union for 33 years, having started
in the apprenticeship program in 1980
shortly after graduating from Waldport
High School on the central Oregon
coast.
After obtaining her journey-level
card, Wilson spent more than a decade
working mostly as a crane operator on
heavy and highway and marine con-
struction projects, including Terminal
2 at the Port of Portland, the railroad
bridge in St. Johns, the navigation
locks at Bonneville Dam, and at the
Oregon Zoo.
She left the field in 1995 after Holl-
iday was elected business manager and
hired her for a staff position.
Wilson currently sits on the gover-
nor-appointed State Apprenticeship
and Training Council, where she is vice
chair. In addition, she chairs the South
Waterfront Oversight Committee. The
committee makes sure that a certain
percentage of apprentices, minorities
and women are utilized on construction
projects on the Portland waterfront.
All officers and board members will
be installed at the next union meeting
Aug. 30. Terms are for three years.
Have a Great Labor Day Weekend!
Who’s On Our Side?
By Tom Chamberlain
T
he history of the labor movement
is wrought with the corpses of
failed organizations.
We can trace our roots back to
colonial guilds and lodges, and our
nation’s first strike may well have
been a Maine fisherman strike in
1636. But the groups were uncoordi-
nated and lacked power.
A coordinated workers’ move-
ment began with the formation of the
National Labor Union in 1866. It was
disbanded in 1873.
About that time, the Knights of
Labor formed. The Knights of Labor
allowed anyone to join, reaching its
peak membership of 750,000 — in-
cluding over 60,000 Black Ameri-
cans — before it disbanded in the
late-1880s. The Knights were a com-
munity- based organization that
flourished for almost two decades,
but they failed to adapt to the eco-
nomic changes of the industrial age.
At the time the Knights of Labor
was in decline, the American Federa-
tion of Labor (AFL) was founded, fo-
cusing on organizing workers accord-
ing to craft or trade by class or skill
level, instead of relying on commu-
nity support and haphazard power.
By 1920, the AFL reached a
membership of 4 million workers.
But its inability to adapt to the Great
Depression drove membership down
to almost 3 million.
The success of a workers’ move-
ment historically has hinged on its
ability to adapt to changing social,
political, and economic factors.
With a drop of 25 percent of its
membership in the 1930s, most econ-
omists predicted the demise of the
AFL. In-fighting of top leadership
could have proven them right. But,
instead, one group’s insistence on
change saved the movement.
That change wasn’t easy.
There were those within the AFL
who believed it should continue to
limit itself to representing workers by
craft. Others favored implementing
strategies to organize by industry,
opening up new ways to represent
workers in the steel and auto indus-
tries. This philosophical difference
resulted in 10 unions forming the
Congress of Industrial Organizations
(CIO) in 1935.
To compete with the CIO, the
AFL was forced to engage in indus-
trial organizing. By 1955, with three
out of 10 American workers repre-
sented by a union, the AFL and CIO
merged.
Survival requires the union move-
ment to continue to represent the best
interests of workers — and as those
interests change it requires us to
change.
In 1980, two out of 10 workers
belonged to a union. Today, one in
10 workers belong to a union.
As we approach a national AFL-
CIO convention in Los Angeles the
first week of September, the Ameri-
can union movement is poised to
make significant changes. We are
challenged to transform from a union
movement that is perceived as only
speaking for union workers, to a
workers’ movement that engages and
speaks for all workers.
Such a transformation will not be
painless. It will require union leaders
to get out of their comfort zones and
examine structures established in the
1950s to determine what it will take
to meet the challenges of the 21st
century. It will require that we are
open to all workers and their issues.
Our aggressive support of marriage
equality and comprehensive immi-
gration reform are steps in the right
direction.
Today’s efforts must be the begin-
ning of a new movement — growing
coalition partners and working to ad-
vance a workers’ agenda. Just as the
CIO changed the face of our workers
movement in the 1930s, we need to
develop new types of membership
for sectors of our economy where it
is almost impossible to organize by
traditional means.
Our leaders need to be bold, fear-
less and unselfish if we are to suc-
ceed. Those who are willing to take
that step are on our side. They recog-
nize that the very future of the Amer-
ican worker is at stake.
Tom Chamberlain is president of
the Oregon AFL-CIO.
Labor-management group LERA to discuss Obamacare Sept. 10
“The Affordable Care Act — on the
Dawn of Implementation,” will be the
subject of discussion at the Oregon
Chapter of the Labor and Employment
Relations breakfast, Tuesday, Sept. 10,
at 7:30 a.m., at PGE 2 World Trade
Center, 121 SW Salmon, Portland
(Mezzanine level).
Leading legal experts representing
both labor and management will pro-
vide an update on the changing health
care landscape. Federal agencies con-
tinue to issue regulations and interpre-
tations of the various aspects of the Af-
fordable Care Act, all of which can
have a dramatic impact at the bargain-
ing table as union and employers strug-
gle to understand the best course of ac-
tion.
Panelists will include Tom Doyle of
Bennett, Hartmann, Morris and Ka-
plan, LLP, and Iris Tilley of Barran
Liebman, LLP.
Cost is $25 for LERA members and
$35 for non-LERA members.
Register and pay online at www.ore-
gonlera.org, by mail to: Oregon
LERA, P.O. Box 230028, Tigard, OR
97281, or you can pay at the door. An-
nual membership dues are $40 for the
year.
For more information, contact Philip
Johnson at philip.johnson@state.or.us.
A United Way Community Partner
PAGE 22
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
AUGUST 16, 2013