SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 117, NUMBER 6
IN THIS ISSUE
UNION BOYCOTTS NABISCO Check the label, Bakers
Union says, so you don’t buy Mexican-made. | Page 5
COLD CASE UNIT WANTS TO SOLVE 1974 MURDER
Sheriff asks for help from shipyard workers. | Page 7
Labor History p.3
Meetings p.4
Classifieds p.7
PORTLAND, OREGON
MARCH 18, 2016
UNION ORGANIZING
OREGON
Union drive begins at DirecTV
Up to 400 technicians in Oregon
and Washington could join IBEW
A $3.25 TO $5.50 MINIMUM WAGE RAISE BECOMES LAW: Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (seated at center) signs SB
1532 as union staff and officers look on. From left: Beth Cooke, Kevin Billman, Jeff Klatke, Berely Mack, Tom Chamber-
lain, Jeff Anderson, Jessica Giannettino-Villatoro, Jason McDaniel, Graham Trainor, Melissa Dronen, and Chris Hewitt.
Historic gains in 2016 Legislative session
Top issue was minimum wage,
but Oregon lawmakers made
progress on other fronts as well.
By Don McIntosh
Associate editor
The Oregon Legislature passed
the largest set of minimum wage
increases Oregon has ever seen
last month, putting the state on
track to have the highest mini-
mum wage in the nation. Under
the new law passed by the Dem-
ocratic majority and signed
March 2 by Gov. Kate Brown,
the minimum wage will rise by
2022 to $14.75 in the Portland
area, $13.50 in Northwest Ore-
gon plus Jackson and Josephine
counties, and $12.50 in sparsely
populated Eastern and Southern
Oregon. At that point even Ore-
gon’s lowest rate — in areas
comprising 10 percent of the
state’s population — will be
higher than any other state’s
minimum wage. Oregon’s high-
est rate will cover not just Port-
land but all 25 cities within the
Metro urban growth boundary,
totaling 38 percent of the state
population.
The raises will have a big im-
pact on Oregon workers. Ac-
cording to the Oregon Employ-
ment Department, a third of the
Oregon workforce — 618,000
workers — currently earn less
than $13.50 an hour, and
100,000 workers earn exactly
the state’s current $9.25 mini-
mum wage. All of those workers
Minimum wage SB 1532 raises the
wage over seven years to $12.50,
$13.50 and $14.75 in different regions.
Unemployment insurance HB 4086
extends benefits an additional six
months for workers locked out by their
employer in a labor dispute. SB 1544
extends UI benefits for workers in
apprenticeship programs.
Wage theft SB 1587 adds three wage
and hour investigators, makes certain
prevailing wage violations a Class C
felony, and requires employers to
provide pay stubs and keep payroll
records for three years.
Affordable housing HB 4143 prohibits
can expect raises. The first in-
crease takes place July 1, fol-
lowed by annual increases until
2022, after which the wage will
rise based on the rate of infla-
tion. By 2022, full-time Port-
land-area minimum wage work-
ers will be earning $11,440 a
year more than they do today.
The minimum wage measure,
Senate Bill 1532, passed 16-12
in the Senate and 32-26 in the
House, but not a single Repub-
lican voted for it. The only De-
mocrats to vote against it were
state Sen. Betsy Johnson of
Clatskanie and state Reps. John
Lively of Springfield and Caddy
McKeown of Coos Bay.
Increasing the minimum
wage has always been broadly
popular with the public, but the
Oregon Legislature hadn’t voted
to increase the minimum wage
since 1989. Instead it took
rent increases during the first year of
month-to-month tenancies and
requires 90-day notice for increases
after one year. SB 1533 makes limited
exceptions to a ban on inclusionary
zoning and ends a state ban on
construction excise taxes.
Construction Jobs HB 5203 approves
$30 million in bond funding for partial
renovation of the Capitol building.
Global warming SB 1547 requires PGE
and Pacific Power to end the use of
coal to generate Oregon electricity by
2030, and get 50 percent of their
electricity from wind and solar by
2040.
union-backed ballot measures
— in 1996 and 2002 — to raise
the wage. This year, the prospect
of two more such measures
aimed at the 2016 ballot were a
big factor pushing the Legisla-
ture to act. One ballot measure
proposed to raise the wage to
$15 within three years, and the
other to $13.50 — while lifting
a pre-emption on local jurisdic-
tions going higher than that.
In December, Gov. Brown
brought stakeholders including
business groups and the Oregon
AFL-CIO together for private
meetings to work out a compro-
mise measure she would pro-
pose to the Legislature. Brown’s
proposal had two tiers. Law-
makers later amended it to cre-
ate three tiers, but resisted other
changes that would have wa-
Turn to Page 2
Beginning the first week of
March, organizers for Interna-
tional Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers (IBEW) began contact-
ing workers in Washington who
install and repair satellite TV
dishes for DirecTV. They’ll
launch a similar effort in Oregon
in the coming weeks. Last year,
nonunion DirecTV was ac-
quired by AT&T, a heavily
unionized company which has
neutrality agreements with
IBEW and Communications
Workers of America (CWA).
Under the agreements, AT&T
doesn’t oppose union cam-
paigns, and grants union recog-
nition if a majority of workers in
a unit sign cards within 60 days
of the beginning of a union cam-
paign.
IBEW represents other satel-
lite TV workers in the Pacific
Northwest, including subcon-
tractors for DirecTV’s competi-
tor Dish Network. If IBEW
signs up a majority of the
roughly 400 Oregon and Wash-
ington DirecTV workers, they
would begin bargaining a first
contract and would eventually
become members of IBEW Lo-
cal 89, a telecommunications lo-
cal headquartered just north of
Everett, Washington.
Labor fights back against
Freedom Foundation
A coalition of 19 labor and al-
lied groups in Oregon and
Washington is urging the Inter-
nal Revenue Service to revoke
the tax-exempt status of the
Freedom Foundation, an anti-
union group operating in Wash-
ington and Oregon. Contribu-
tions to Freedom Foundation are
tax-deductible because it’s or-
ganized as a charitable/educa-
tional non-profit under section
501(c)(3) of the Internal Rev-
enue Code. But so-called
501(c)(3) groups aren’t allowed
to do explicitly political work.
Freedom Foundation took
part in an April 2014 fundraiser
for Vancouver Republican
Lynda Wilson, who went on to
defeat Democrat Monica Stonier
for state Senate. Freedom Foun-
dation has also filed a series of
anti-union lawsuits in Oregon
and Washington, and its leaders
have said on several occasions
that the group’s purpose is to
drain union resources to weaken
them politically. Needless to say,
that’s not a legitimate charitable
purpose.
Labor leaders are also calling
on Oregon Attorney General
Ellen Rosenblum to perform an
independent investigation to en-
sure that the group is operating
for a charitable purpose in ac-
cordance with the state Charita-
ble Trust and Corporation Act,
and to determine if tax exemp-
tion under Oregon law is appro-
priate.
KGW-TV
on trial for labor violation
In contract bargaining with that would justify such a pro-
IBEW Local 48, KGW-TV is
proposing to end exclusive
union jurisdiction — and let oth-
ers do the work of union camera
operators and technicians. Man-
agers say they’re proposing that
in order to better compete with
companies like Google and
Amazon. But when Local 48
asked for detailed information
posal, parent company Gannett
(now Tegna) refused. The Na-
tional Labor Relations Board
thinks that refusal violated the
law’s requirement to bargain in
good faith. A federal judge will
decide the matter based on argu-
ments from the two sides in a
three-day hearing that took
place March 8-10.