SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 116, NUMBER 19
INSIDE
Oppose I-1366
Union meetings
Grocery talks
Heisman display
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PORTLAND, OREGON
OCTOBER 2, 2015
Furor over Mexican Oreos,
but no union boycott, yet
Ironworker strike now in Month 8
Stop eating Oreo cookies? Not so
fast, says the Bakers Union
Instafab employees Brandon Nelson (front) and Brian McCafferty walked off the job Sept. 22, joining a strike that
began Feb. 27. They were greeted outside by fellow strikers and supporters with Portland Jobs with Justice.
A strike at nonunion Instafab is
now in its eighth month, with
no resolution in sight.
The strike began Feb. 27
when five workers walked off
the job at the Vancouver steel
fabrication and erection com-
pany to protest wages and
working conditions.
“We want to be treated fair.
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A union for massage therapists?
AFL-CIO’s Working America is
helping LMTs campaign to raise
their industry’s standards
Janet Weiser may never have a
union. But with the help of
Working America, she and fel-
low licensed massage therapists
(LMT) in Oregon are trying out
the union principle — organiz-
ing and working collectively to
improve industry standards.
Working America is the
AFL-CIO’s outreach organiza-
tion for those who agree with
the labor movement’s eco-
nomic justice agenda but don’t
have a union in their work-
place. Nearly a year ago, its or-
ganizers started the campaign
with a mailing and survey sent
to all Oregon LMTs.
“There are no standards for
the industry at all,” says Aneta
Molenda, Working America’s
lead organizer in the campaign.
LMTs work as employees, as
independent contractors, or for
Janet Weiser, a member of Working America’s Massage Advocacy Project,
works at the Hawthorne Street Fair to raise awareness of the campaign.
their own private practices, and
do their work in spas, health
clinics, chiropractors’ offices,
or even homes. Most must cob-
ble multiple gigs together to
make ends meet, including jobs
outside their profession. Weiser,
for instance, moonlights as an
Uber driver, though she’s been
an LMT for five years.
LMT earnings vary widely,
from as high as $100 an hour to
as low as minimum wage. The
self-employed, and those work-
ing the health care side of the
profession — earn the most.
Earning the least are those who
provide massages at big corpo-
rate franchise operations like
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By Don McIntosh
Associate editor
Donald Trump says he’ll never
eat another Oreo. Stephen Col-
bert, spoofing him in his inaugu-
ral Late Show, devoured the
cookies. And 4,500 people have
signed an online pledge to stop
eating Oreos.
What’s it all about? Oreos, in-
vented by the National Biscuit
Company (Nabisco) in 1912,
have been made by the com-
pany in Chicago ever since. But
on July 29, Nabisco’s corporate
owner, Mondelēz International,
announced it will spend $130
million to install four new pro-
duction lines at its Salinas, Mex-
ico, bakery, and shut nine of its
16 production lines in Chicago,
laying off 600 of its 1,200
Chicago workers.
The Chicago workers are
members of Bakery, Confec-
tionery, Tobacco and Grain
Millers (BCTGM) Local 300,
Machinists District Lodge 8,
and Operating Engineers Local
399. Leaders of BCTGM, the
largest of the Nabisco unions,
say behind-the-scenes talks over
the decision were brutal. Com-
pany officials told union reps
May 15 they were considering
two locations for new capital in-
vestment — Chicago and Sali-
nas — but they’d only pick
Chicago if the unions opened
their contracts to offer conces-
sions amounting to $46 million
a year … and there’d still be 300
job losses even then.
BCTGM officials say they re-
fused to even consider such a pro-
posal: It would have amounted to
a cut of as much as $29 per hour
— for workers whose wage-and-
benefit package totals about $50
an hour.
“Mondelēz is a $35 billion
multinational corporation,” said
BCTGM President David Dur-
kee in an Aug. 5 letter to Presi-
dent Obama. “It may be head-
quartered 30 miles up the road
from Chicago, but it has no loy-
alty to Illinois workers or to the
United States of America.”
Mondelēz International may
or may not be “creating deli-
cious moments of joy,” as its
mission states, but its announce-
ment created a delicious irony:
a sizable fraction of the cookies
that used to be described as
“America’s Favorite” will soon
be made in Mexico.
So should American workers
stop buying Oreos — and Chips
Ahoy, Ritz Crackers, Trident
Gum, Tang, and dozens of other
Mondelēz brands?
“We understand where
Trump’s coming from,” said
Cameron Taylor, business agent
at Portland-based BCTGM Lo-
cal 364. But to be clear, the Bak-
ers Union is not boycotting
Oreos, Nabisco or Mondelēz …
yet. For the time being, anyway,
Oreos will continue to be made
by union workers in Portland,
Oregon; Atlanta, Georgia; Fair
Lawn, New Jersey; and Rich-
mond, Virginia.
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