New leadership at Painters Local 10
Mike Keebaugh has been elected
president of Painters and Drywall Fin-
ishers Local 10. He succeeds Roben
White, who did not seek relection after
his term expired June 18.
Local 10 represents about 750
painters and drywall finishers in Ore-
gon and Southwest Washington. It is
one of 14 locals in five states that are
part of Painters District Council 5.
Most Local 10 members work un-
der master agreements with the Signa-
tory Painting Contractors Association
and the Associated Wall & Ceiling
Contractors of Oregon and Southwest
Washington. Local 10’s president leads
general membership meetings, heads
the Executive Board, and represents the
local at the district council and central
labor councils. It’s an unpaid office.
White opted not to run for re-election,
for health reasons, and Keebaugh ran
unopposed.
Keebaugh, 43, has been a Local 10
member since he went to work as a
painter for the City of Portland Parks
and Recreation Bureau 13 years ago.
He’s one of five Local 10 members em-
ployed by the City. It was a discipline-
happy manager that first motivated him
to get involved in the union.
“I wasn’t getting what I thought I
needed in terms of representation,” Kee-
baugh said, “so I decided to show up to
meetings and start educating myself.”
Over time, Keebaugh became more
involved in Local 10, and served as a
trustee, sergeant-at-arms and Executive
Board member. And at the City, he be-
came a steward, and twice served on
the bargaining team for the seven-union
District Council of Trade Unions.
Keebaugh said he ran for president
so he could serve on the City’s budget
action committee. He also hopes to get
members more active in the union.
White, 57, has been a member of the
Painters Union since the late 1970s,
starting with Local 101 in Eureka, Cal-
ifornia, and transferring to Local 10 in
2000 when he moved to the Portland
area to be near his mother.
“I feel if you’re in a union, it’s your
responsibility to be active in it,” White
said.
White was elected Local 10 presi-
dent in 2010 to serve the remainder of
the term of Bob Potter, who resigned.
He was re-elected in 2011. He was ac-
tive in the Southwest Washington Cen-
tral Labor Council.
White said he didn’t run for re-elec-
tion because health reasons prevent
him from working in the trade: He suf-
fers from chronic obstructive pul-
monary disease, and years as a painter
may have contributed to that. White
plans to stay active in the local labor
movement. He’ll also lead Food Sys-
tem Care, a native American-led non-
profit organization dedicated to im-
proving the food system in Clark
County, Washington. White was born
on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation,
and is a member of the Lakota Oglala
tribe of Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Be-
fore becoming a painter, he worked up
and down the West Coast as a con-
struction contractor, commercial fisher
and diver, paramedic, motel and restau-
rant operator, and in the electronics in-
dustry in Singapore.
Besides Keebaugh, other Local 10
members sworn into office June 18
were: Wyatt McMinn, vice president;
Jack Johnson, financial secretary; Mike
Bokamper, recording secretary; Kevin
Davis, warden; and Brian Meyers,
George Ranum, and John Madewell,
trustees.
Oregon Letter Carriers collect more
than 1.3 million pounds of food
Letter carriers had a lot to carry on Saturday, May 10. Not only did they
deliver the mail, they also collected food donations for the annual Stamp Out
Hunger Food Drive. The nationwide event is a collaboration of the National
Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), the National Rural Carriers’ Associ-
ation and food banks.
This year the food drive collected 1.3 million pounds of nonperishable
food in Oregon and Clark County, Washington. In the Portland metro area,
538,208 pounds of food was gathered. Nationally, the food drive brought in
more than 73 million pounds of food in more than 10,000 cities in all 50
states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and
Guam.
Since the food drive began in 1992, more than 1.3 billion pounds of food
have been collected and distributed by NALC and community supporters.
To pull off the event in Oregon, hundreds of volunteers assisted letter car-
riers in picking up food, loading food into shipping containers and sorting
food for distribution. Postal customers were asked to leave bags of non-per-
ishable food next to their mailboxes on May 10 for letter carriers to pick up.
Susannah Morgan, CEO of Oregon Food Bank, said “a food drive this big
will help fill the summer gap. During the school year kids have access to free
and reduced price meals at school. In the summer they lose that food source.
Many families find themselves needing additional food assistance.”
NALC International President Fredric Rolando applauded the work done
by his organization’s members: “This demonstrates the value of the unique
postal network, which goes to 151 million addresses six days a week. It also
shows the strong connection between letter carriers and the communities
they serve — a bond that serves the nation well. Letter carriers see firsthand
the needs in the communities where we work, and we’re honored to be able
to help people in need by leading an effort that brings out the best in so many
Americans.”
...SCOTUS rules against unions
(From Page 1)
sonal Support Workers Sub-Local 99,
told Public News Service it isn’t clear
yet how the case would affect Oregon’s
20,000 state-paid home care workers,
who also are contractors.
Sandoval said home care aides were
once considered domestic workers in
Oregon — paid less than minimum
wage, with no benefits, training pro-
grams or career ladder. She said that
since workers unionized and secured a
collective bargaining agreement,
turnover has dropped considerably.
“It’s pretty dramatic, from where it
was to where it is,” she told Public
News Service, noting that making
home care more of a profession is one
reason Oregon’s long-term care system
gets high marks compared to other
states. Last month, AARP and two na-
tional foundations ranked Oregon third
in the nation for helping seniors and
people with disabilities remain in their
homes.
SEIU Local 775 Northwest repre-
sents 35,000 individual home care
providers who assist Medicaid clients
for the State of Washington.
Spokesman Jackson Holtz told Pub-
lic News Service the union is studying
the Harris v. Quinn decision and, at
first glance, doesn’t think it will make
much of an impact in Washington.
“We believe we’ve had a far more
robust collective bargaining model,”
Holtz said. “We’ve been able to achieve
not just a 40 percent increase in wages,
but also vacation time, training and
other benefits that we just don’t see re-
flected in the Illinois worker that the
Harris v. Quinn decision applies to.”
“We’re going to use this as a chal-
JULY 4, 2014
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
lenge to prove how valuable our union
is,” said Local 503’s Sandoval. “Not just
to home care workers, but to our clients
and then even further, to the state and
the taxpayers of Oregon. I mean, that’s
exactly what this does for me is, it’s
kind of a defining moment.”
The union argument in the Supreme
Court case was that state workers’ rights
are determined by state law, so the Leg-
islature would have been the place to try
to change them, not the court.
Illinois home care workers voted to
unionize in 2003. The National Right
To Work Legal Defense Fund, an ex-
treme anti-union group whose funders
include the Charles Koch Charitable
Foundation and the Walton Family [of
Walmart] Foundation, then recruited a
half dozen caregivers who didn’t want
to be part of the union to sue the state.
A lawsuit was filed in 2010. It was dis-
missed first by a federal district court
and then again on appeal by the 7th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The
U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear it
in October.
The National Right to Work Legal
Defense Foundation was hoping for a
decision that applied to all public-sec-
tor workers. But the Quinn v Harris
ruling made a distinction between
home care workers, which it called
“partial public employees,” and “full
fledged” public employees such as fire-
fighters, teachers and others.
Megan Parke, organizing director
for the Washington Federation of State
Employees, told Public News Service
the union is pleased the court didn’t go
as far as it could have — but she warns
it’s part of a battle that isn’t over.
“Absolutely, this case is about try-
ing to weaken unions,” she said.
PAGE 9