NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | February 20, 2015 | PAGE 3
... Kitzhaber lauded for labor record
IN MEMORIAM
From Page 1
Robert Stanfill
1995 to 2003, Kitzhaber set a state
record for vetoes. With Republi-
cans in control of both legislative
chambers in 1995, 1997, and
1999, Kitzhaber vetoed bills that
would have: established a sub-
minimum wage for tipped em-
ployees; rolled back the state’s
family leave law; cut capital gains
taxes for wealthy individuals;
barred Oregon’s farm workers’
union from using boycotts; lim-
ited non-economic damages for
workers killed on the job; and low-
ered penalties on employers who
don’t pay employees their final
wages. He also used veto threats
to dodge attacks on the prevailing
wage law and proposals to priva-
tize prisons and mass transit.
Kitzhaber did sign a few bills
that ended up giving unionists
heartburn, including a 1995
change to the public employee
collective bargaining law, a 2003
law pre-empting local minimum
wage ordinances, and a 1999 bill
that would have moved the state’s
electric power industry toward
deregulation (luckily for Oregoni-
ans, the Legislature was able to re-
verse it after Enron price manipu-
lation caused an electricity price
crisis in California’s deregulated
electricity market the following
year).
Kitzhaber also sometimes
Nov. 26, 1923 - Feb. 4, 2015
HAPPIER TIMES: Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, with First Lady Cylvia
Hayes at his side, signs legislation at the 2013 Oregon AFL-CIO convention.
crossed labor, though he made no
secret of it when he did. In partic-
ular, he antagonized public sector
unions with cuts to public em-
ployee pensions. In 2013, he won
a law capping retirees’ cost-of-liv-
ing increases, and then convened
a special legislative session to
make further cost-of-living cuts,
while giving away over $500 mil-
lion in new tax breaks to owners
of certain kinds of businesses.
He alienated teachers unions at
times, signing a charter school bill
in 2009, and in 2013 a set of edu-
cation reforms opposed by the
Oregon Education Association
(OEA). Kitzhaber’s support for
teacher pay-for-performance pro-
posals were one reason OEA, the
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American Federation of Teachers-
Oregon, and Oregon School Em-
ployees Association endorsed his
opponent in the 2010 Democratic
primary.
Kitzhaber intervened to bring
about labor peace from time to
time. He arranged a 2002 meeting
that led the farmworkers union to
cease its boycott of NORPAC,
brokered an end to the 2002 nurses
strike at Oregon Health & Science
University, and got the University
of Oregon administration to drop
legal objections to a faculty union
in 2012.
In 2014, he got sponsors to
withdraw an anti-union right-to-
Turn to Page 8
Longtime Plasterers
Local 82 leader Bob
Stanfill passed away
Feb. 4 at the age of 91.
Stanfill served 16
years as executive sec-
retary-treasurer of the
Oregon State Building
and Construction Trades Coun-
cil. He retired from that post in
1984.
Stanfill began his labor union
career in 1946 after World War
II service in the U.S. Army Air
Corps, (now the U.S. Air Force).
He used his Federal GI Bill ben-
efits to enroll in Local 82’s plas-
tering apprenticeship program.
He was elected business
agent and financial secretary of
Plasterers Local 82 in April
1956. In that job he was instru-
mental in establishing a health
and welfare plan, vacation plan,
and pension plan for the mem-
bership. In 1959, he helped form
the non-profit Plasterers and
Lathers Administration Office,
which still exists today.
During his career, Stanfill
served as president of the Port-
land Building Trades Council
(later renamed Columbia Pacific
BCTC). He served as vice pres-
ident of the Union Labor Retire-
ment Association, which built
the Westmoreland, Marshall and
Kirkland Union Manors that
provide affordable apartments
for hundreds of retired workers.
He also was among the hun-
dreds of delegates to the
1956 merger convention in
Portland that produced the
Oregon AFL-CIO.
In the mid-1970s he was
appointed by Gov. Bob
Straub to the first State
Building Codes Advisory
Board. The board established a
uniform building code for all
cities and counties in Oregon.
Stanfill was inducted into La-
bor’s Hall of Fame in February
2001. The Hall was a program
of the now defunct Northwest
Oregon Labor Retirees Council.
R OBERT L ESTER S TANFILL
was born on Nov. 26, 1923, in
the Rose City and grew up in
southeast Portland in a family of
eight sons and one daughter. His
father, Bill, worked as a union
grain miller.
Stanfill is survived by his
wife of 42 years, Pinky; children
Barbara Hess, Cheryl Hem-
mingsen, Karen Bilyeu, Jeff
Woods, John Petty, Bob Petty,
and Laura Abernathy; 16 grand-
children; 15 great-grandchil-
dren; and two more on the way.
Hemmingsen is a member of
United Food and Commercial
Workers Local 555; Bilyeu is a
member of Office and Profes-
sional Employees Local 11; and
Woods is a member of Plumbers
and Fitters Local 290.