Inside:
MEETING NOTICES
See
Page 4
Volume 115
Number 23
December 5, 2014
Portland, Oregon
Three Walmart
workers strike
in Klamath Falls
Delivering literacy to east Multnomah County
Volunteers from Oregon School Employees Association coordinate with First Book
to get 40,000 new books where they’re most needed — in the hands of children
Union volunteers handed out more than 40,000 books to area
school districts and nonprofits serving children in east Multnomah
County. The book giveaway was staged at Centennial Middle
School on Saturday, Nov. 22. The event was spearheaded by Ore-
gon School Employees Association (OSEA) Centennial Chapter
113 President Vicki Nelson, in partnership with First Book, a na-
tional nonprofit dedicated to putting books into the hands of chil-
dren. Nelson and more than 100 OSEA members in east Mult-
nomah County talked to peers, called classified employees in
nearby school districts, and contacted social service agencies to tell
them about the program. Their efforts paid off, as they registered
2,000 people to take books to children.
On the evening before the distribu-
tion, more than 300 volunteers gathered
at the middle school to sort the books
by age group. Books are for children as
young as preschoolers and as old as 18.
Many of the volunteers were OSEA
members and staff. But members of
other unions, teachers, students, school
administrators and school board mem-
bers also pitched in. Keith Kordenat, ap-
Centennial OSEA Chapter 113
President Vicki Nelson, right, and
Vice President Melinda Wyffels
helped lead the effort to bring free
books to young people in east
Multnomah County. (Photos by
Michael Plett)
prenticeship coordinator for the Iron Workers Local 29 Appren-
ticeship Training Program, brought a forklift to unload pallets of
books from a tractor-trailer in the parking lot.
Besides the books going to school children, OSEA Chapter
113 donated hundreds of books to the Centennial School Dis-
trict’s Teen Parent Program and Closet to Closet, a district
program that provides clothing to needy families; to Do-
ernbecher Children’s Hospital, Presents for
Partners, SnowCap Community
Charities, and St. Timothy’s
Church.
THIS IS WHAT 40,000 BOOKS LOOK LIKE: Hal Meyerdierk, a field rep for OSEA, was one of 300-plus volunteers
who helped sort more than 40,000 books into age groups at Centennial Middle School. (Photo by Michael Gutwig)
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
If there’s growing worker unrest at
Walmart, Portland got a taste of it on
Nov. 29, Black Friday, when two Wal-
mart workers from Klamath Falls made
an appearance at a morning protest rally
outside the Walmart store on Southeast
82nd Ave.
About 100 demonstrators gathered
there to show support for Walmart
workers. It was one of 1,600 protests
nationwide, according to the group Or-
ganization United for Respect at Wal-
mart (OUR Walmart), which is backed
by United Food and Commercial Work-
ers (UFCW).
“I’m not afraid any more,” said Jen-
nifer Sanchez, who went out on strike
two days earlier along with her husband
Ismael Nuñez and one other co-worker,
Brian Garlock. Sanchez, 37, told the
Labor Press she struck once before, in
June, and showed co-workers that it
was possible. “Now I know that we
have the right to strike even though
we’re not in a union.”
This time, Sanchez and her husband
traveled the state to draw attention to
practices at the company, appearing in
Klamath Falls Nov. 26, Medford Nov.
27, and Portland Nov. 28. Garlock, the
third Klamath Falls Walmart striker,
wasn’t able to travel the state because
of his second job at Pizza Hut.
The immediate cause of this strike is
to protest retaliatory discipline against
previous strikers, the subject of unfair
labor practice charges pending before
the National Labor Relations Act. Fed-
eral labor law bars employers from dis-
ciplining workers who strike to protest
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United Food & Commercial Workers #555 rejoins Oregon AFL-CIO
Affiliation brings an
additional 17,000 members
to the state labor federation
United Food and Commercial Workers
(UFCW) Local 555 has rejoined the Oregon
AFL-CIO after a nine-year absence.
Local 555, which represents workers in gro-
cery, is Oregon’s largest private sector union.
The phased in re-affiliation, when completed,
will add as many as 17,000 union members to
the state labor federation, bringing its total to
about 147,000 (not counting the roughly
130,000 members of Working America, the
AFL-CIO’s affiliate for non-union workers.)
Local 555 left the Oregon AFL-CIO in 2005,
when its parent international union joined a
coalition that broke away from the national
AFL-CIO to form the Change To Win labor fed-
eration.
After the split, some locals of Change to Win
unions affiliated with state and central labor
councils of the AFL-CIO under specially
arranged “solidarity charters.” In Oregon,
UFCW Local 555 remained in local AFL-CIO
central labor councils under solidarity charters,
but not the state AFL-CIO.
Change to Win, meanwhile, proved to be
more a loose national alliance than a federation
with state and local structures, and it never re-
placed the AFL-CIO as a coordinating body of
organized labor. United Brotherhood of Car-
penters left Change to Win in 2009, and UNITE
HERE (the union for hotel, restaurant and gar-
ment workers) and Laborers left in 2009 and
2010, the latter two re-joining the AFL-CIO.
Then UFCW left and re-joined the AFL-CIO at
the national level in August 2013. [Three unions
remain in Change to Win: Service Employees
International Union, Teamsters, and United
Farm Workers.]
(Turn to Page 6)