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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (March 18, 2016)
PAGE 6 | March 18, 2016 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE Oregon union members Oregon Senate labor stalwarts step down RUNNING FOR OFFICE Two state Senate Democrats What would it be like if the government were run by people like you? with long ties to organized labor One way to find out: Run for public office. The union members below leave office when their terms are running for office this year. They’re graduates of the Oregon Labor expire at the end of this year. Candidate School, a union-funded training program that gives union members the skills to get elected. Interested? The next Portland-area State Sen. Di- session begins in October. Get your union to sponsor you, and find ane Rosen- out more at oregonlaborcandidateschool.org. baum a former Ray Lister – a journeyman electrician who’s now a union organizer at IBEW Local 48 – is running as a Democrat for House District 26 in Wilsonville. If he wins the Democratic primary in May, he’ll face a Republican in November for the seat formerly held by Republican John Davis. Republicans have a slight registration advantage in the district, so he’ll need all the help he can get from organized labor. — RayLister.com Adrienne Enghouse – a Kaiser Permanente nurse and a tenacious union steward within the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals – is competing with a McDonalds franchise owner to become the Democratic nominee for House District 51 in Clackamas. But Enghouse, who runs ironman triathlons, is ready to go the distance. The seat is currently held by Democrat Shemia Fagan, who’s not seeking re-election. Roberta Phillip-Robbins is an AFSCME-represented youth and gang violence prevention specialist at Multnomah County and a former teachers union member in Florida. She only has to win the Democratic primary to succeed state rep Lew Frederick, who’s running for state Senate, because no Republicans have filed this year in overwhelmingly Democratic House District 43 in Northeast Portland. — RobertaForOregon.com Teresa Alonso Leon – the daughter of pro-union farmworkers – is an SEIU-represented diversity coordinator at Portland State University and a current member of Woodburn City Council. She’s unopposed for the Democratic nomination in House District 22, but to succeed Democrat Betty Komp, who’s not running, she’ll have to beat Republican former Marion County commissioner Patty Milne in November. —ElectAlonsoLeon.com Sheri Malstrom – a community health nurse at Multnomah County – helped get others elected as a member of the Oregon Nurses Association. Now she’s in a race of her own for House District 27 in Beaverton. She hopes to succeed Tobias Read, who’s running for state treasurer. She faces Darin Campbell in the Democratic primary. No Republican has filed to run. — SheriMalstrom.com union official with Commu- nications Workers of America (CWA)—de- cided not to Rosenbaum run for reelec- tion after 17 years in the Legisla- ture. Rosenbaum, 66, has a history of successes in raising the mini- mum wage: In 1989 as a lobby- ist for CWA, she helped get the Oregon Legislature to raise it from $3.35 an hour to $4.75. She later was chief petitioner on 1996 Ballot Measure 36, which raised it to $6.50, and 2002 Bal- lot Measure 25, which raised it to $6.95 with annual adjust- ments for inflation thereafter. This year, she was on the Senate committee that passed a tiered increase to $12.50 to $14.75. Besides the minimum wage, Rosenbaum says she’s most proud of Oregon’s sick leave law, the Oregon Family Leave Act, and laws requiring insur- ance companies to pay for con- traceptives and annual breast cancer screenings. Rosenbaum retired from the phone company in 2004. Before that she was executive vice pres- ident of CWA Local 7901, and served on the executive boards of the Oregon AFL-CIO and the Northwest Oregon Labor Coun- cil. She served in the Oregon House from 1998 to 2008. In 2001, she helped re-start a labor caucus within the National Con- ference of State Legislatures, and served for a time as caucus president. In 2008, she ran un- opposed for the Senate District 21 representing Southeast Port- land, Milwaukie, and Oak Grove. She served as Senate Majority Leader from 2010 to 2015. State Sen. Chip Shields is leaving of- fice after 10 years in the Legislature. Shields, 48, is best known as an advocate of criminal Shields justice re- form. He became a member of American Federation of Teach- Mark Reynolds – a retired Hood River high school teacher and member of the Oregon Education Association – is running in House District 52. If he wins the Democratic primary, he’ll challenge Republican incumbent Mark Johnson. Johnson, a nonunion contractor, is considered one of the most anti-labor members of the Oregon Legislature. —ReynoldsForOregon.com Tom Kane is a teacher, a soccer coach, and an Executive Board member in the Portland Association of Teachers. A longtime resident of Canby, he’s running unopposed for the Democratic nomination for House District 18 and will challenge incumbent Republican Vic Gilliam in November. Sally Cook – a Marion County health educator – is a member of SEIU Local 503. She’s running for a nonpartisan seat on Salem City Council in southwest Salem’s Ward 7, challenging incumbent Warren Bednarz, a real estate investor who has held that position since 2012. —sallyforsalem.org INCUMBENTS – Current or former union members in the Legislature Michael Dembrow (AFT-Oregon) SD 23 Diane Rosenbaum (CWA) SD 21 Chip Shields (AFT) SD 22 Laurie Monnes-Anderson (OEA) SD 25 Mark Hass (AFTRA) SD 14 Paul Holvey (Carpenters) HD 8 Rob Nosse (ONA) HD 42 Brad Witt (UFCW) HD 31 Barbara Smith Warner (NALC, AFT) HD 45 Margaret Doherty (OEA) HD 35 Jeff Barker (Portland Police Assn) HD28 Nancy Nathanson (SEIU) HD 13 Jeff Reardon (OEA) HD 48 Mitch Greenlick (AFT) HD 33 Chris Gorsek (AFT-Oregon) HD 49 Lew Frederick (AFTRA) HD 43 If a defective product causes your work injury, you may be able to sue the manufacturer for damages in a products liability claim. ers (AFT) when he taught crim- inal justice classes at Portland State, and he never forgot the early labor support he got for his first House race in 2004. It’s not widely known, but Shields also played an important role in raising the minimum wage in 2002. When labor groups were determining whether they had the resources to go forward with the ballot measure, Shields tipped the bal- ance by contributing $50,000 in family money. That earned him the designation “labor hero” at a 2003 AFL-CIO awards dinner. Over the 10 years he repre- sented House District 43 and Senate District 22, he earned top rankings from the Oregon AFL- CIO as a steadfast labor ally who went above and beyond. He helped win partial unemploy- ment benefits for workers whose hours were cut, and co-spon- sored bills calling for single- payer health care and urging Congress to renegotiate trade agreements like NAFTA. He fought for “fusion voting” on be- half of the union-backed Oregon Working Families Party. And outside the Capitol, he came out to support union campaigns; for example, urging Portland State University to agree to a fair union contract for professors.
