NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | June 5 , 2015 | PAGE 9
From Page 1
working people’s lives better
and more fair. Whether it’s get-
ting a pathway to citizenship and
eliminating a broken immigra-
tion system that hurts people and
drives your wages down, or
eliminating mass incarceration
so that a whole generation of
black men don’t get disenfran-
chised from society, or eliminat-
ing pay discrepancy, so that
women get paid a dollar for a
man’s dollar, rather than 78
cents. We’re all about lifting up
the lives of working people, and
the best and the most enduring
way to do that is with collective
bargaining and with a contract
on the job. Organizing is the
lifeblood of unionism. Collec-
tive bargaining built the middle
class.
But inequality is surging in
America today. It doesn’t have
to be that way. We don’t have to
be an economy, a country, that
does real well for the top couple
percent but the rest of us get left
behind. We don’t have to be a
country where racism can pre-
vent people from getting oppor-
tunities, or any other ism that
stops people from getting more
of the American Dream. We
know we can have a more just
society, an economy of rising
wages and shared prosperity, not
just for a few of us, but for all of
us. Together, we’re going to turn
America right-side up. We’ll
start shrinking the gap between
the rich and the rest of us. We’ll
bring justice to America’s tax
system. And we’ll end the era of
corporate trade deals like TPP
(the Trans-Pacific Partnership).
Think about this: The real
wages of 90 percent of working
people have been falling for al-
most 40 years, while corporate
profits keep rising. They’re at
record levels. It’s time for us to
get a raise. It’s going to take
unity. We’re going to rise to-
gether, because if we don’t rise
together, none of us will actually
rise. It’s like Whac-A-Mole: If
they see one group of workers
rise up, they’ll want to whack
them. What do you think the as-
sault on public employees is all
about? First they came after pri-
OPEN FORUM
Vietnam vet objects to TPP trade deal
To The Editor:
I’m a Vietnam veteran who
objects to the Republic of Viet-
nam being afforded trade equal-
ity with our country through the
proposed Trans-Pacific Partner-
ship trade agreement.
I am distressed that our politi-
cians care so little about the ul-
timate sacrifice paid by so many
Americans in the attempt to se-
cure liberty and democracy for
the people of Vietnam that they
would enter into this treaty to
victimize the citizens of that
country, just so some transna-
tional corporate executives can
make more money than they
will ever be able to spend in
their lives.
Corporations currently oper-
ating in Vietnam are operating
as criminal enterprises using
slave and prison labor, and those
workers who are paid, suffer at
sub-human wages with no envi-
ronmental or wage protections.
These corporations are fund-
ing the regime’s oppression of
the people, and the creation of
chemical dumps and polluted
waterways that the regime ig-
nores at the peril of death and
disease for local inhabitants.
They have continued these prac-
tices with impunity, while “ne-
gotiating” with “our” corporate
lawyers for inclusion in the
“treaty.”
We are expected to compete
with these conditions? There is
no compelling reason to lower
our standards to compete with
criminals oppressing their peo-
ple!
By the way, 58,000 Ameri-
cans that U.S. politicians sent to
that country were killed. I flew
with about 30 of them who died
in the back of my helicopter, so
I take this personally.
Now, all these politicians
who talk often about “honoring
our heroes” care nothing for ei-
ther as they do the bidding for
their really rich patrons—no
matter the cost to “We the Peo-
ple” or the sovereignty of our
constitutional democracy.
The shame of it all is that
they’re selling us veterans out so
cheaply. They think they’re such
big shots, while we actually
have homeless schoolchildren
and homeless vets in this coun-
try, which only shows these
politicians don’t know what
they’re doing.
vate sector employees, indus-
trial workers, whacking us —
closing plants, taking pensions,
taking health care, lowering
your wages. And then they
came after the public employ-
ees. They came after the build-
ing trades. And they came after
the maritimes. Everybody will
get your turn in the barrel if we
don’t stick together. We have to
have to lift all of us up if any of
us are going to get very high.
Right now, brave workers at
Target and Walmart are organiz-
ing without even the protection
of a union on the job. And these
workers, more than 2 million,
have won raises this year, be-
cause they demanded a raise and
we supported them. Money in
the pocket of workers; that’s
what we stand for.
Working people need relief.
We need it now: Raising wages,
shared prosperity. We’ll march
for it. We’ll organize for it. We’ll
picket for it. We’ll vote for it.
We’ll fight for it. And we will
win for it, because of your ef-
forts. Let’s go back and kick
some ass for the working class.”
One thing for sure, if you join
the military nowadays you are a
fool—unless you’re happy to
die for a corporation!
I’m sorry for that, but my dad
was a World War II veteran and
he’d feel the same way.
Christopher Warren
Plumbers and Fitters 290
Portland, Ore.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Northwest Labor Press wel-
comes letters to the editor.
Letters should be 300 words
or less and should include
contact info as well as which
union you belong to. Send to
editor@nwlaborpress.org or
Attn: Editor; PO Box 13150;
Portland, OR 97213.
Photos courtesy of Oregon Food Bank
...Organizing is front and center
Letter Carrier Pamela Durley with volunteer Doug Phillips at Creston
Post Office.
Letter Carriers
deliver more
than the mail
More than 4,000 letter carriers
in urban and rural areas of Ore-
gon and Southwest Washington
delivered 1.2 million pounds of
food to the Oregon Food Bank
on May 9—part of the National
Association of Letter Carriers
(NALC) Stamp Out Hunger
Food Drive.
Wrapping up its 23rd year,
the food drive is held on the sec-
ond Saturday in May in 10,000
cities and towns in all 50 states,
the District of Columbia, Puerto
Rico, the Virgin Islands and
Guam. On that day, postal cus-
tomers are asked to leave bags
of non-perishable food next to
their mailboxes for letter carriers
to pick up. The bags are then
dropped off at post offices,
where volunteers sort through
the food and load it into ship-
ping containers. From there, the
food is taken to the Oregon
Food Bank for distribution.
The amount of food collected
nationally was not available at
press time, but typically it’s
around 70 to 75 million pounds.
Donated food stays in the
community where it was col-
lected.
The Oregon Food Bank col-
lects and distributes food
through a network of four Ore-
gon Food Bank branches and 17
independent regional food
banks serving Oregon and Clark
County. The Food Bank net-
work helps nearly 1 in 5 house-
holds fend off hunger. Oregon
Food Bank also leads statewide
efforts to increase resources for
hungry families and to eliminate
the root causes of hunger
through advocacy, nutrition ed-
ucation, garden education, and
helping communities strengthen
local food systems.
For more information, go to
oregonfoodbank.org.
Caregivers at Sacred Heart in Springfield unionize
SPRINGFIELD—Frontline
care providers at PeaceHealth
Sacred Heart Medical Cen-
ters—Riverbend and University
District—voted 524-367 May
29 to be represented by Service
Employees International Union
Local 49. It is the largest health-
care election to take place in
Oregon for nearly two decades.
The bargaining unit consists
of 1,100 certified nursing assis-
tants, emergency room techs,
monitor techs, housekeepers,
food service assistants, patient
access representatives, surgical
support aides and others.
Issues in the campaign in-
cluded chronic short-staffing,
affordable healthcare, fair
wages, and respect on the job.
Nurses at the hospital are rep-
resented by Oregon Nurses As-
sociation, and doctors are mem-
bers of Pacific Northwest Hos-
pital Medicine Association.
Sacred Heart is part of Van-
couver, Wash.-based Peace-
Health, a not-for-profit health
care system with medical cen-
ters in Oregon, Washington and
Alaska. The company is in the
midst of a massive shakeup in
its executive ranks, with five top
officers leaving.