SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 116, NUMBER 6
INSIDE
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PORTLAND, OREGON
MARCH 20, 2015
Labor ramps up fight
against free trade deal
As a national campaign against
new NAFTA-style trade deals
picked up steam, the Oregon AFL-
CIO led protesters into the streets
of Portland with a March 9 Rally
and March to Push Back Fast Track.
Fast track is an agreement by Con-
gress to give rush treatment to
any trade agreement negotiated
by the president. The rally, at
downtown Portland’s Director
Park, drew about 150 supporters,
including Portland City Council
member Steve Novick.
Union leaders and rank-and-file
supporters have in recent weeks
ramped up pressure on members
of Congress to vote no on “fast
track.” Fast track is a Congres-
sional agreement that would
make it easier for Congress to
pass NAFTA-style international
agreements like the secretive
Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)
— a deal being negotiated be-
hind closed doors by representa-
tives of 12 Pacific Rim nations.
On March 11, the national
AFL-CIO announced that
unions are freezing all political
contributions to federal candi-
dates until further notice in order
to conserve resources for the
historic legislative battle around
fast track and the debate over
the TPP. Defeat of fast track has
been declared a top federation
priority.
“Fast track has been used
since the Nixon Administration
to advance deals, like NAFTA,
that are sold to the American
people as job creation meas-
ures,” said a March 2 letter to
Congress signed by more than
60 national labor officials. “But
these deals, written largely by
and for the world’s largest cor-
porations, don’t create jobs:
their main purpose isn’t even re-
lated to trade; it’s to enshrine
rules that make it easier for
firms to invest offshore and in-
crease corporate influence over
the global economy.”
On March 4, union leaders
from more than 20 states gath-
ered in Washington, D.C., to
lobby members of Congress.
And they’re putting the pressure
on back home too. A labor-led
March 9 protest moved into the
streets of downtown Portland.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore-
gon), was met by fast track op-
ponents all around Oregon in a
week of town hall meetings, and
was trailed by a 30-foot protest
Turn to Page 6
Airlines threaten to sue over modest labor reforms at PDX Right to work
Port of Portland proposal would
require $13 total hourly compen-
sation in future airport service
contracts
By Don McIntosh
Associate Editor
The Port of Portland has beefed
up a soon-to-be voted on pro-
posal to improve worker condi-
tions at the Portland International
Airport (PDX) — so much that a
national airline group is threaten-
ing to sue.
UNITE HERE and Service
Employees International Union
(SEIU), which represent low-
wage airport service workers,
have been campaigning to get
the Port of Portland Commis-
sion to pass pro-worker policies
similar to those at several other
West Coast airports. And as re-
ported in the Feb. 20 issue of the
Northwest Labor Press, the first
draft of the management-written
policy looked pretty unpromis-
ing, full of vague pledges and
complicated, unenforceable em-
ployer mandates.
But a second draft, presented
at the March 11 meeting of the
Commission, added notable
specifics: Going forward, new
airport service and concession
contracts would require employ-
ers to provide wages and bene-
fits totaling at least $13 an hour.
And when contracts change
hands in the future, incoming
companies with more than 50
PDX employees would have to
hire the employees of the outgo-
ing contractor. Such a “worker
retention” policy would give air-
port workers greater job secu-
rity. The Port would also main-
tain a list of laid-off airport
service workers. Smaller con-
tractors would have to consider
hiring from the list before hiring
outside workers.
The proposed policy would
apply to food and retail outlets
in the airport, and to “certain air-
line subcontracted service
providers as determined by Port
staff.”
That last part elicited a March
9 threat letter from Airlines For
America (A4A), an industry
trade association that represents
the interests of its 11 member
companies: Alaska, American,
Atlas Air, Delta, Hawaiian, jet-
Blue, Southwest, United, US
Airways, FedEx and UPS.
A4A sent Rob DeLucia, its
vice president for labor and em-
ployment, to make sure Port
leaders got the message.
“We are here largely to avoid
litigation with you,” DeLucia
told commissioners at their
March 11 meeting. “We have
sued Los Angeles and Seattle in
the federal courts over what
they’ve done. We started to do
so in Alabama, but the airport
there pulled back from what
they were considering.”
DeLucia also warned of unin-
tended consequences: If costs
go up, airlines might have to cut
service to out-of-the-way areas
of the state.
“Service providers are key to
our operations,” DeLucia said.
DeLucia didn’t put it this
way, but basically the issue is
this: Airlines have eliminated
unionized workers in the last 30
years, instead outsourcing
everything they could to low-
wage nonunion contractors:
from baggage handling and
cabin cleaning to jet fueling and
customer service. If public bod-
Turn to Page 6
initiatives
filed in Oregon
SALEM—Anti-union forces
are campaigning across the
United States to pass so-called
“right-to-work” laws, which de-
plete union resources and divide
union-represented workers.
On March 9, Republican Gov.
Scott Walker signed legislation
making Wisconsin the 25th
“right-to-work” state. The law
was passed in a rush-job special
legislative session that Walker
convened only days before.
The very next day, two
prospective ballot measures
were filed in Oregon — aimed
at the November 2016 ballot —
to make Oregon a right-to-work
state for public employees.
In Vancouver, Washington, the
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