Northwest labor press., July 03, 2015, Page 7, Image 7

NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | July 3, 2015 | PAGE 7
You take one of
us on, you take
all of us on
Portland Jobs With Justice carried out a three-hour-
long protest June 17, including a rally outside City
Hall calling for a $15 minimum wage, a delegation
to Skanska in support of striking ironworkers, and
the brief occupation of a downtown intersection to
protest the Pittock Building’s switch to a nonunion
janitorial firm.
About 90 people took part in the City Hall rally, in-
cluding ironworkers on strike at Instafab and a group
of orange-shirted Laborers union members from
around the country who were at the Hilton for a
union training. A small group visited the nearby of-
fices of general contractor Skanska to ask that the
company stop subcontracting ironwork to Instafab
while the strike continues. Rally-goers then marched
through downtown, and were joined at O’Bryant Square by about 75 purple-shirted
members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU,) at which point the group
blocked the intersection of Southwest 10th and Washington for about five minutes.
Ride to the beach Aug. 22
for Machinists’ Guide Dogs
The 9th Annual Chuck Drake Memorial Guide Dog Dash will
be held Saturday, Aug. 22. The event is sponsored by Ma-
chinists Lodge 63 and IAM District W24, and all proceeds
go to Guide Dogs of America.
Riders will begin at the IBEW Local 48 Union Hall, 15937
NE Airport Way, Portland, and finish at Lakeside Hideaway
Family Restaurant & Sports Bar in Rockaway Beach. Regis-
tration starts at 9 a.m., with the last rider out at 10:30 a.m.
Registration is $25 per rider and $10 per passenger, and in-
cludes a T-shirt, food after the ride, and raffle prizes.
For more information, contact John Hall at 503-449-0969,
John Kleiboeker at 503-863-7304, or go online to
www.iamll63.org or www.iamw24.org.
The intersection is just outside the Pittock Block, an eight-story 273,000-square-foot
Class B office building built in 1914. In February, the Pittock’s building manager
dumped union-signatory GCA Services Group, which employed six union janitors at
$13.45 an hour plus benefits, and brought in nonunion Millennium Building Services
instead. SEIU Local 49 Property Services Division Director Maggie Long thinks Millen-
nium janitors make close to minimum wage with no benefits. Local 49
has not yet persuaded building owner Alaska Copper to reverse the
change of contractor. In April, SEIU protesters filled the Pittock lobby,
and building managers turned the lights off. This time, the protest was
in observance of the 25th anniversary of the Century City protest at
which striking union janitors were beaten by Los Angeles police when
they tried to occupy an intersection. The famous attack, dramatized in
the movie Bread and Roses, turned public sentiment in favor of the jan-
itors' cause.
Oregon Shakespeare Festival files legal
objection after stagehands vote to join IATSE
ASHLAND—Instead of ac-
cepting the results of last
month’s union vote and starting
negotiations on a first contract,
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
(OSF) has filed legal objections
with the National Labor Rela-
tions Board (NLRB).
On June 10, a group of 71
stagehands and theater techni-
cians voted 37 to 25 to join In-
ternational Alliance of Theatri-
cal Stage Employees (IATSE).
The newly unionized group is
the “run crew” that runs back-
stage operations during the nine
months of the year plays are
showing, but OSF previously
argued that the bargaining unit
should also include year-round
employees who construct sets
and make costumes. Those
other groups showed less inter-
est in unionizing, so adding
them to the proposed bargaining
unit could derail the union ef-
fort. The NLRB’s regional di-
rector rejected OSF’s argu-
ments, and ruled that the run
crew was an appropriate bar-
gaining unit.
On June 25, OSF executive
director Cynthia Rider emailed
employees saying that she and
artistic director Bill Rauch
“have decided to exercise OSF’s
legal right to request a review of
the NLRB regional director’s
decision.”
If the NLRB accepts the re-
quest for review, Rider wrote, it
could take three to six months
for a final decision.
ONLINE EXTRA
Read management’s letter online at
http://bit.ly/1LQXu5D