Northwest labor press., September 06, 2013, Page 8, Image 8

Back for August recess, Sen. Ron Wyden hears from labor
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) took ques-
tions on trade policy and banking regulation dur-
ing an hour-long Aug. 19 breakfast meeting with
about 70 Portland area union leaders, staffers, and
activists. The meeting was hosted by the North-
west Oregon Labor Council at Westmoreland’s
Union Manor, a union-sponsored senior living
center in Portland.
Opening the meeting, Wyden said he had labor
to thank for being elected to Congress in the first
place. That was in 1980. Since then, Wyden has
voted in accord with organized labor 90 percent
of the time, according to the national AFL-CIO’s
“lifetime” Committee on Political Education
(COPE) rating.
But trade policy has been a consistent area of
disagreement. Wyden has been a supporter of
NAFTA-style trade agreements for 20 years, start-
ing with a vote for NAFTA itself in 1993 when he
was in the U.S. House of Representatives. Since
then, he’s voted for every NAFTA-style trade
treaty except agreements with Chile and Singapore
in 2003 and Oman in 2006. Labor union leaders
hold the agreements responsible for accelerating
the offshoring of American manufacturing.
Now in his fourth Senate term, Wyden is in a
position to affect trade policy, as chair of the Sen-
ate Subcommittee on International Trade, Cus-
toms and Global Competitiveness. But he’s given
no sign that he’ll oppose the next big treaty — the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) — which the
PAGE 8
Obama Administration is negotiating in secret
with 11 Pacific Rim nations. Wyden has called for
the TPP talks to be more transparent, however, a
stance which garnered praise at the breakfast from
Elizabeth Swager of the Oregon Fair Trade Cam-
paign.
“I will lead a fight this fall to find out what’s
being talked about,” Wyden told the Portland labor
leaders. TPP negotiations are slated to wrap up in
October.
Wyden called TPP “our chance to have new
leverage with China,” though without explaining
how that would work. In 2000, Wyden voted with
82 other U.S. senators to grant permanent normal
trade relations to China.
Wyden also talked up a bill he sponsored that
would “take away tax breaks for sending jobs
overseas.” Since 1962, it’s been a feature of U.S.
tax law that U.S. taxpayers don’t pay federal in-
come tax on the foreign profits of their foreign
subsidiaries — until those profits are brought back
to the United States. Wyden’s bill would eliminate
that tax deferral and grant a one-time chance to
bring foreign earnings back at a low tax rate. His
bill would also reduce the U.S. corporate income
tax rate from its current top rate of 35 percent to a
flat 24 percent. Wyden’s bill, S. 727, had two co-
sponsors, but didn’t go anywhere after it was in-
troduced in 2011, and Wyden hasn’t reintroduced
it in the current session of Congress, which began
in January.
Northwest Oregon Labor Council Executive
Secretary-Treasurer Bob Tackett asked Wyden if
he supports a bill by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren to
reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, which kept com-
mercial banking separate from investment bank-
ing from 1933 until it was repealed in 1999.
Wyden said he eats lunch with Warren, is “looking
closely” at her bill, and will have more to say
about it this fall.
Members of the National Association of Let-
ter Carriers thanked Wyden for support of a bill
to return the U.S. Postal Service to fiscal health
by ending a legal requirement that it pre-fund re-
tiree health benefits.
Oregon Building Trades Executive Secretary-
John Mohlis updated Wyden about the Jordan
Cove Energy Project, a proposed liquified natural
gas export facility in Coos Bay. Mohlis said the
project’s front-end engineering and design work
has been completed. Construction contractors for
Jordan Cove signed a project labor agreement in
April, pledging to employ union construction
workers if construction moves forward. The pro-
posal is to construct a 234-mile pipeline from Ma-
lin, Oregon, to the Port of Coos Bay, where a nat-
ural gas fired power plant would be constructed
alongside storage tanks, a liquefaction plant, and a
shipping terminal.
Wyden is chair of the Senate Energy and Nat-
ural Resources Committee.
Jordan Cove — a subsidiary of Canada-head-
quartered pipeline and natural gas company Vere-
sen Inc. — is seeking construction, operation and
export permits approval from the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Department
of Energy.
...March on Washington revisited
(From Page 1)
and Portland. Speakers at both events talked about
workers’ rights, women’s rights, the right to vote,
preserving Social Security, good jobs, fixing the
criminal justice system, and comprehensive immi-
gration reform.
“So much of what we sought to achieve 50
years ago is gravely threatened today,” the Com-
munications Workers of America said in a state-
ment. “We gather together not as a commemora-
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
tion, but as a continuation and a call to action.”
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said, “The
unforgettable sounds and images from 1963 also
remind us that change is possible.
In the run-up to the anniversary march, the
AFL-CIO pledged to recommit itself to building a
strong social and economic justice movement in
the U.S. The national labor federation will initiate
a plan of action at its upcoming convention Sept.
8-11 in Los Angeles.
SEPTEMBER 6, 2013