Inside
MEETING
NOTICES
See
Page 4
Volume 115
Number 22
November 21, 2014
Portland
On Election Day
Oregon bucks national trend, elects labor-friendly pols
Oregonians bucked the national
trend on Election Day, with the Oregon
AFL-CIO Committee on Political Edu-
cation (COPE) coming close to an elec-
toral “sweep,” electing or re-electing la-
bor friendly politicians and passing or
defeating ballot measures. (See Page 2
for national results.)
Every Democratic incumbent in
Congress and the governor’s office won
re-election; in fact, not one was even
close. Democrats also picked up two
more seats in the Oregon Senate and
one more seat in the House. That ad-
vantage — 18-12 in the Oregon Senate
and 35-25 in the Oregon House — will
give organized labor a fighting chance
of passing pro-worker legislation next
year, like raising the minimum wage
and guaranteeing the right to sick leave.
One ballot measure that was fiercely
opposed by most unions — a “top-two
primary” measure sponsored by cen-
trist millionaires and billionaires —
went down to defeat by a two-to-one
margin, despite outspending opponents
by three to one.
“I couldn’t be more proud of the
work that union members did, and I
hope the Koch brothers and their ilk
heard us loud and clear: ‘stay out of
Oregon,’ ” said Oregon AFL-CIO Pres-
ident Tom Chamberlain
Members of AFL-CIO-affiliated
unions took part in an eight-region field
campaign that spanned from Astoria to
Bend to Medford, Chamberlain said.
“We know that the hundreds of
thousands of conversations they had
with their fellow union members
helped pro-worker candidates like Sen-
ator Jeff Merkley and Governor John
Kitzhaber win, and beat back Measure
90, which would have made it harder
for working people to run for office.
This field program bucked the national
trend, and Oregon will be better for it.”
Voter turnout in Oregon was rela-
tively strong for a midterm election.
Out of 2.2 million registered voters in
the state, 69.5 percent, or 1.5 million re-
turned ballots. When including eligible
voters, however, turnout slipped to 52
percent, according to the United States
Election Project.
In Washington, only 51.2 percent of
registered voters cast ballots — and
only 38.6 percent of eligible voters
voted. It was worse nationally, where
only 36.6 percent of eligible voters cast
ballots. Census numbers from 2010
show that more than 70 million U.S.
ployee unions when he led pension cuts
that are being challenged in court. But
he fought hard for a new I-5 Bridge,
and he did broker a deal that kept an
anti-union measure off the ballot. And
he was better on labor issues than his
challenger, conservative Republican
state representative Dennis Richardson.
Kitzhaber won an unprecedented fourth
term with just under 50 percent of the
vote.
Suzanne Bonamici, Earl Blume-
nauer, Peter DeFazio and Kurt
Schrader were re-elected to Congress
by wide margins. [Republican Greg
Walden was re-elected to Congress in
District 2. He was endorsed by the Ore-
gon State Building and Construction
Trades Council, but not by the Oregon
AFL-CIO.]
Labor-endorsed John Kitzhaber was re-elected to an unprecedented fourth
term as governor of Oregon.
citizens of voting age are not registered
to vote.
What follows is a ballot scorecard:
Jeff Merkley for U.S. Senate. A
working class hero is something to be.
Merkley, 58, one of labor’s best allies
in the Senate, defeated Monica Wehby,
a rich doctor and first-time candidate
who cribbed even her health care policy
proposals from other Republican can-
didates’ talking points. Merkley won
with 56 percent of the vote.
John Kitzhaber for Governor.
Kitzhaber, 67, antagonized public em-
Measure 89, the Equal Rights
measure, passed 63.8 percent to 36.2
percent. It amends the state Constitu-
tion to guarantee that “equality of rights
under the law shall not be denied or
abridged by the State of Oregon or by
any political subdivision in this state on
account of sex.”
Measure 90, the top two primary,
(Turn to Page 3)
Postal workers cheer postmaster general’s resignation
Call for a moratorium on
USPS’s plan to close 82
mail sorting centers —
three of them in Oregon
Newly re-elected U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) joined postal workers and their allies at a Veterans Day rally
in Portland to protest the U.S. Postal Service’s plan to close 82 mail processing and distribution centers in January
— including ones in Springfield, Bend, and Pendleton, Oregon. (Photo courtesy of Tom Richardson)
Cheers went up from hundreds of
postal workers Nov. 14 when Postmas-
ter General Patrick Donahoe an-
nounced that he was resigning, effec-
tive Feb. 1, 2015.
Postal workers and their supporters
were rallying Nov. 14 at the U.S.
Postal Service headquarters in Wash-
ington, D.C. — site of a meeting of the
Postal Board of Governors — to urge a
halt to their plans to shutter 82 more
mail processing plants on Jan. 5. The
action, they warned, will further slow
mail delivery, and eliminate tens of
thousands of jobs, many of them held
by military veterans. [Veterans get
preference in hiring at the USPS.
Twenty-five percent of postal workers
are veterans.]
Similar rallies took place simulta-
neously at 150 locations throughout
the United States. In Oregon, rallies
were held in the three towns scheduled
to lose their mail plants — Springfield,
Bend, and Pendleton — plus Medford.
A rally and march took place in Port-
land on Veterans Day with U.S. Sen.
Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon).
Merkley and 50 other U.S. senators
(including Ron Wyden of Oregon),
and 160 U.S. House members (includ-
ing Earl Blumenauer and Peter De-
Fazio of Oregon) have called for a one-
year moratorium on the reduction in
service and the closure of the mail pro-
cessing centers, to allow Congress time
to enact postal legislation that would
improve postal service.
“The mail has already been slowed
(Turn to Page 5)