SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 116, NUMBER 7
INSIDE
Tilikum Crossing
Union meetings
Free classifieds
Retirees gather
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PORTLAND, OREGON
APRIL 3, 2015
Pacific Power plays hardball
against workers seeking to re-
cover concessions they gave in
previous contract, when the
economy was struggling
By Michael Gutwig
Editor & Manager
Nearly 100 Pacific Power work-
ers walked an informational
picket line March 17-18 at the
company’s headquarters in
Northeast Portland’s Lloyd Dis-
trict.
About 316 members of the
International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers (IBEW) Lo-
cal 125 have been working un-
der the terms of a contract that
expired in January. The bargain-
ing unit is comprised of line-
men, service coordinators, me-
ter readers, substation wiremen
and more who work in a region
that extends from Astoria, Ore.,
to Walla Walla, Wash.
Pacific Power is a regulated
electric monopoly that serves
over 700,000 customers. It is
the electricity distribution divi-
sion of PacifiCorp for Oregon,
Washington and California.
PacifiCorp is owned by Mid-
America Energy Holdings Co.,
which is controlled by Berkshire
Hathaway. Berkshire Hath-
away’s primary shareholder is
Warren Buffett, one of the
world’s richest people. The
company earned nearly $3.5 bil-
lion in gross profits during
2014.
In 2011, workers were mobi-
lizing for a Labor Day strike
when a new collective bargain-
Photo courtesy of Marcy Grail
IBEW Local 125 pickets
Pacific Power in Portland
Members of IBEW Local 125 walk information picket outside PacifiCorp headquarters in Northeast Port-
land. PacifiCorp is the parent company of Pacific Power, where IBEW is trying to secure a new contract.
ing agreement was reached and
ratified. It was a close vote
though, and many workers
weren’t happy with the freezes
and takeaways that were part of
the pact.
“Over the last three contracts,
it’s been all takeaways,” said
Randy Jamison, a 30-year em-
ployee.
The Great Recession of 2008
had a big impact on bargaining.
Union members walking the in-
formational picket line March
18 told the Labor Press they
were willing to concede on
some issues in order to help the
company get through a difficult
economy — and save customers
from a threatened rate hike.
“Today, the economy is in
much better shape, and the com-
pany has solid earnings,” said
Travis Eri, business manager of
Local 125. “Workers need to get
a little bit of what they gave up,
back.”
Berkshire bought PacifiCorp
from Scottish Power in 2005.
Since then, the new owner has
reduced family sick leave days,
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LABOR HISTORY
A look back at Astoria’s radical immigrant labor past
By Don McIntosh
Associate Editor
ASTORIA — In a museum
along the river bank in Astoria,
Oregon, union history buffs
gathered March 14 for a look
back in time. The Pacific North-
west Labor History Association
could hardly have picked a more
fitting conference site than the
Columbia River Maritime Mu-
seum: It memorializes the oldest
U.S. settlement west of the
Rockies, a faded waterfront
boomtown with a radical immi-
grant past.
Astoria was founded in 1811
as a fur-trading outpost, back
when the U.S. flag had 17 stars,
and California was a colony of
Spain. The settlement was
named for its funder, New York
fur tycoon John Jacob Astor,
who was then the richest man in
America. In 1836, Astor com-
missioned Rip Van Winkle au-
thor Washington Irving to write
a book about his outpost, enti-
tled Astoria. A bestseller at the
time, it’s now forgotten. So is
Astoria’s Labor Temple, built in 1924, may be the oldest union hall in
the Pacific Northwest. It’s still owned by a union group, the Astoria Labor
Temple Association, and provides office space to several unions. But to-
day it’s best known locally as the site of the Labor Temple Bar & Diner.
the continent-wide trade in
beaver pelts, which was already
well into decline from over-trap-
ping when Oregon became a
state in 1859.
Astoria’s labor story begins
with a salmon canning boom in
the 1870s. Astoria became the
salmon canning capital of the
world within a single decade,
and it’s easy to see why. It sits
next to a four-mile-wide channel
near the mouth of the Columbia
River, through which millions
of full-grown salmon must pass
through in order to return to
their spawning grounds in an
area from Idaho to British Co-
lumbia. Fortunes were to be
made, for cannery owners. But
not for those catching the fish,
or those canning it.
Overwhelmingly, Astoria’s
salmon catch came from inde-
pendent gill-netters, mostly
Scandinavian immigrants with
fishing experience in their home
countries. Gill-netters operated
their own small boats in crews
of one or two. At the peak, as
many as 2,000 gill-netting ves-
sels plied the Columbia, says
author and historian Irene Mar-
tin, a panelist at the labor history
conference.
Gill-netting at the mouth of
the Columbia was a dangerous
trade. Weather could change
quickly, and the sandbars and
shallows where some of the best
fish could be caught were un-
predictable and dangerous.
Boats capsized, and drownings
were common. To pay death
benefits to the widows, gill-net-
ters formed the The Columbia
River Fishermen’s Beneficial
Aid Society in 1875.
Soon after, the group began to
push for higher prices from the
canneries, and changed its name
to the Columbia River Fisher-
man’s Protective Union. In
1886, it affiliated with the newly
formed American Federation of
Labor (AFL). But the gill-net-
ters had no feelings of solidarity
for workers on the cannery
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