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