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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 2014)
Machinists, Metal Trades, DCU have void to fill with Scott Lucy retirement Scott Lucy, a 35-year member of Machinists Lodge 63, will officially re- tire at the end of August. Lucy, 61, has served as an elected business representative for Machinists District 24 since 2005. (It’s now Ma- chinists/Woodworkers District W24, following a merger in 2011.) Prior to retiring, Lucy also was serv- ing as president of the District Council of Unions at Portland Public Schools. His résumé includes stints as president of the Portland Metal Trades Council, and as vice president of the District Council of Trade Unions at the City of Portland. All are coalitions of many unions that deal with the same em- ployer. “I had some longevity with those or- ganizations, so I thought I should step up. It was challenging (and time con- suming),” he said. “But I really enjoyed working with the other crafts and the other unions.” Lucy joined the Machinists in Au- gust of 1979, after taking a job as a ma- chinist at Paul Brong Machine Works in Northeast Portland. “I was new to town, and I was actu- ally driving to Boeing to apply for a job there. I went the wrong way on Sandy Boulevard, so I stopped to ask for di- rections at Paul Brong. They hired me on the spot,” Lucy recalled. He worked at Paul Brong for eight years, serving as a shop steward and on SCOTT LUCY the union bargaining committee in 1983 and 1986. During that time, employees took part in an 8-week strike in 1980, and endured a 4-week strike in 1986. The labor dispute involved multiple ma- chine shops that bargained jointly. Lucy left the company in May 1987 for a job at Boeing. He remained active in the union, serving as vice president of Lodge 63, as a delegate to District 24, and on District 24’s Executive Board. He weathered two historic strikes at Boeing. The first was in 1989, which lasted 48 days (the longest strike in company history at the time). The sec- ond strike came in 1995. That one lasted 69 days — through Thanksgiv- ing and Christmas holidays — and broke the old record of 48 days. “I had a wife and two children. Three weeks after my son was born, I was out on strike,” he said. The issue in 1995 was subcontract- ing. Boeing wanted to allow subcon- tractors to work inside the plant. “We had to fight that off, and we did,” Lucy said. From 2000 to 2005, Lucy served as chief shop steward at Boeing. The post is devoted full time to union issues and comes with a furnished office supplied by the company. He enjoyed the job, but he had to work through some very diffi- cult times following 9/11. The terrorist attack hit the airline industry hard and Boeing had to lay off more than 600 workers. In December of 2005, Lucy was elected as a business representative. He came in with a slate of brand new union reps that included Joe Kear, Britt Corn- man and Phil Dilsaver. Lucy was assigned to represent 25 shops, including the Portland shipyards, Portland Public Schools, the City of Portland, Cummins NW, to name a few. “I did the best that I could,” he said. Reflecting on the last 35 years, Lucy said workers used to strike for better (Turn to Page 8) Longtime AFSCME rep Henson retires EUGENE — Eugene union rep Rick Henson, 62, retired July 11 after a union career spanning four decades and three unions. Henson grew up in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, and de- cided early on that he wanted to move to Oregon. After a stint in Job Corps and a Carpenters apprenticeship in San Jose, he made it to Eugene in 1972, and worked framing houses and doing resi- dential remodels. He took a job as a car- penter at Lane County Housing Author- ity in 1974, and became a member of AFSCME Local 2831. When the local needed a rep from his job classification on the bargaining team, Henson got in- volved, and found he had a knack for bargaining. He ran and was elected president of the local, and got active in the Lane County Labor Council. In 1988, 300 members of the West- ern Council of Industrial Workers went on strike at Springfield’s Morgan-Nico- lai door factory, and Henson threw him- self into solidarity efforts on their be- half, even traveling to the company headquarters in Oshkosh to protest. The strike ended with the closure of the plant two years later, but the commu- nity support network that had grown up around it kept going in the form of the Eugene-Springfield Solidarity Net- work, a local chapter of Jobs With Jus- tice. PAGE 4 RICK HENSON Henson was laid off by the Housing Authority, and in 1990 went to work as a union representative for Service Em- ployees International Union Local 49 — the Portland-based union of hospital support workers and janitors. He was lead negotiator for the support staff bar- gaining unit at Kaiser Permanente loca- tions from Longview to Salem. When Kaiser demanded that Local 49 mem- bers start paying a $80-a-month share of the health insurance premium, he helped lead a 26-day strike in Septem- ber 1997. “The employer was trying to lean on the lowest-paid workers and try and force them to pay more than higher- paid workers for health care,” Henson says. In the end, Kaiser backed off its pre- mium demand, and members went back to work. Henson succeeded Local 49 secre- tary-treasurer Tom Cunningham, and served a three-year term, but lost re- election in 2000 to Kaiser employee Don Weston. Oregon AFSCME Executive Direc- tor Ken Allen offered Henson a job. Henson remained on staff at Oregon AFSCME 14 years, commuting to the Portland office, and served as the state field services director for four years. When longtime Eugene AFSCME rep Lou Sinniger retired in 2010, Henson left that post to take a position working out of Eugene. He served as president of the Lane County Labor Council. Henson looks back at many years of involvement in campaigns worth fight- ing for, including the Kaiser strike, pay equity changes at Lane County, and a union arbitration at the City of Eugene that won over $1 million for members. “[As a union rep] you don’t win every fight, but you keep going, to help improve working peoples lives,” Hen- son said. “Folks should take on the big (Turn to Page 5) NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS Lee and Kathy Duncan, both members of IBEW Local 48, visit with participants at the 12th annual Unions for Kids motorcycle poker run in Portland. Lee, a co-founder of the non-profit, is stepping down as coordinator of the poker run. He recently retired as a business rep for Local 48. Since its inception, U4K has donated $465,000 to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital. Retirement sidelines popular motorcycle poker run for kids Co-founder Lee Duncan retires from U4K, and his job at IBEW Local 48 Lee Duncan, a 25-year member of the International Brotherhood of Elec- trical Workers (IBEW) Local 48, and a co-founder of the non-profit Unions for Kids (U4K), has officially retired from both organizations. For the past 12 years, Duncan and his wife Kathy (also a member of Local 48) have coordinated the annual motor- cycle poker run, Harley-Davidson raf- fle, auction and chili cookoff — with all the proceeds going to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital. Over that time- span, U4K has given away 12 new Harleys. More importantly, it has cut checks to the children’s hospital amounting to $465,000. Duncan, 60, told the Labor Press that for now, Unions for Kids will carry on as a non-profit and will continue to host its “Date Night for Doernbecher” event. But at this point no one has stepped up to coordinate the motorcycle poker run. Duncan says that anyone wishing to take it over will first have to convince him that they will be able to maintain the high bar that has been set. “I’ll be there for guidance, advice, and what needs to be done to keep it to the level it is at,” he said. Duncan joined the Marine Unit of IBEW Local 48 in 1989 after taking a job at WSI (West States Inc.) at the Portland Ship Repair Yard on Swan Is- land. He left the shipyard in 1994 to work as a low-voltage electrician on land. In 1999, while working for Chris- tensen Electric, then-Local 48 business manager Jerry Bruce hired him as an or- ganizer. [Bruce and Local 48 business rep Luigi Serio joined Duncan as co- founders of the Unions for Kids motor- cycle poker run.] Duncan remained on staff as an or- ganizer and later as a business rep until 2009. He went back to the tools for a couple years before being rehired as a business rep in 2011. He worked in that capacity until retirement. A veteran of the U.S. Navy, Duncan served on Local 48’s Executive Board, as a delegate to the Northwest Oregon Labor Council, and on the Executive Board of the IBEW & United Workers Federal Credit Union. He said two highlights of his career were creating a low-voltage exam for new electricians coming into the union, and introducing his wife to Local 48. An international vice president from IBEW’s 9th District asked Duncan to create the exam. Known as “Book 1,” it is still used today in both the 8th and 9th districts of the IBEW. Those dis- tricts cover 11 states in the Western United States. Duncan introduced Kathy to Local 48 in 1999, after she had left U.S. West (as a member of Communications Workers of America). They started dat- ing in 2001, and married in 2008 in a ceremony held at the IBEW Local 48 hall. Kathy, who serves on the local’s Executive Board, works as a low-volt- age electrician at Christensen Electric. Duncan made note to give special thanks to Kathy, and to Shannon Walker, sales manager for Sunrise Den- tal and president of the Southwest Washington Central Labor Council, and Rob Williamson, U4K treasurer and IBEW federal credit union staff mem- ber, for all their time and effort on the poker run. [There were many others he wanted to thank, but space didn’t allow it.] The Duncans and Walker are the only remaining U4K committee mem- bers, having served since its inception 12 years ago. For those interested in co- ordinating the poker run, Duncan can be reached at: lee@unionsforkids.org. AUGUST 1, 2014
