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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (June 6, 2014)
Inside: MEETING NOTICES See Page 6 Volume 115 Number 11 June 6, 2014 Portland, Oregon City of Portland rolling back Walmart bond investments The City of Portland on May 15 put into action its new “socially responsi- ble investment policy” by disinvesting in a $9 million Walmart corporate bond. It is the first of five bonds total- ing $36 million that the City won’t re- new when they mature. The action was applauded by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555. “The Portland City Council is to be commended for the effort to create a socially responsible investment policy that respects workers’ rights, our envi- ronment and the responsible use of Oregon taxpayer dollars,” said Local 555 Secretary-Treasurer Jeff Anderson. The investment policy was intro- duced last October by first-term Com- missioner Steve Novick. The City’s investment portfolio ranges from $940 million to $1.29 bil- lion and averages about $1.08 billion during the year. It can’t invest in the stock market, but it can put money in low-risk U.S. Treasury securities, U.S. Government securities, bank CDs, and corporate bonds. “We have a bunch of bonds, and it turned out we had no criteria to deter- mine what company’s bonds we would or would not buy,” Novick said at a May 15 press conference announcing the disinvestment in Walmart. Novick talked to his colleagues last year and they concluded that it was rea- sonable to have a policy to guide the City on what bonds it would purchase. The policy they adopted in October looks at how a company treats its work- Portland City Commissioner Steve Novick announces the beginning of the City’s disinvestment in Walmart bonds. He was joined by members and leaders of UFCW Local 555, Yvette Brown of OUR Walmart (right), and Pastor Tara Wilkins (center) of Bridgeport United Church of Christ. ers — and its general ethical conduct, whether it abuses market power, its im- pact on human health and the environ- ment. “We looked at Walmart and we looked at its record of abusing workers, its record of abusing market power, the massive bribery scandal in Mexico, and Upcoming Supreme Court case bigger threat than unions realize WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) — A recently argued U.S. Supreme Court case pushed on the justices by the National Right to Work Committee is an even bigger threat to unions than everybody real- izes, says a top Service Employees International Union (SEIU) at- torney who worked on the union’s friend-of-the-court brief. And, anticipating that the majority of the justices may rule against her union in the case, Harris vs. Quinn, SEIU is already considering new ways of approaching and organizing workers, said we concluded that it was a company where it’s common knowledge that they violate a number of these princi- ples —we can put them on the do not buy list. So that’s what we did,” Novick said. In addition to prohibiting the pur- chase of any more Walmart bonds, the City Council created a temporary advi- sory committee to come up with a process to apply social criteria to its in- vestment portfolio. The advisory com- mittee will make its recommendations to the City Council sometime after July 31. “From what I can tell, no other U.S. union counsel Nicole Berner. Berner’s warning came at a May 13 panel discussion at the Cen- ter for American Progress, a progressive think tank. Panelists were scheduled to talk about the First Amendment — which guarantees freedom of speech — and campaign finance. They covered several recent High Court rulings, including one that opened the floodgates for unlimited flow of campaign dollars from corporations and the uber rich. The court uses the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee to declare that “money is speech” and let the cash flow. But Berner said the justices may use the amendment’s right of free association to grant the right-to-work crowd’s demand: To bar unions from col- lecting dues — even money specifically for contract bargaining and administration — from any worker. The Right to Work Committee and some dissident home care workers in Illinois said that by charging a fee for administering the contract, the union was violating their First Amendment right of free association, Berner explained. Lower courts tossed out the case, say- ing the Right to Work Committee had no right to sue because the pay- ments didn’t hurt that group. But the Supreme Court took the case. Illinois (the “Quinn” in the case is Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn) city has looked at socially responsible investing in quite the same way as Port- land,” Novick said. “I’m hopeful other cities and states take note and adopt similar investment principles to hold companies accountable and align our investment policies with our values.” At the May 15 press conference, Novick was joined byYvette Brown, a fired Walmart employee-turned-activist with the OUR (Organization United for Respect) Walmart campaign in Califor- nia; Pastor Tara Wilkins of Bridgeport United Church of Christ; and Bob Mar- shall, a Local 555 union representative and organizer. Marshall said the business model of many U.S. corporations is to privatize the profit and socialize the cost of do- ing business. “Many corporations get huge tax breaks and pay low taxes while throw- ing the cost of workers’ health care and food assistance programs on to the tax- payers,” he said. “The companies keep all the profit and the taxpayers foot the bill because corporations like Walmart do not pay a living wage or provide proper health care for employees.” A report by the Oregon Department of Human Services several years ago listed Walmart as the top employer whose workers receive public taxpayer assistance. Brown said in her two years work- ing at Walmart she barely made mini- mum wage, and couldn’t get enough hours to qualify for health insurance (Turn to Page 3) and the feds want the justices to dismiss the case. The court will is- sue a decision by the end of June. If the justices rule in the Right to Work Committee’s favor, they would in one stroke “turn all 50 states into right-to-work states” where public employee unions cannot insert provisions in contracts calling for dues deductions, Berner said. “By judicial fiat, right to work then becomes the law of the land.” The justices would be say- ing “our whole collective bargaining system violates the First Amendment.” As a result of such a ruling, public employee unions would have to rely on voluntary contributions, and the track record of that shows revenues fall drastically. Public sector unions in Wisconsin saw their revenues fall by half after Republican Gov. Scott Walker rammed legislation through cutting off dues collections. By yanking away the source of unions’ money, “this decision would weaken the entire labor movement and the whole progressive community, because of the strength labor provides to it,” Berner warned. Preparing for a worst case scenario, Berner says it leaves unions an alternative: To become a membership organization like the NAACP “where it could build power and people in the broad sense.” “This case is pushing us faster in that direction,” she said.
