SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 117, NUMBER 10
IN THIS ISSUE
LABOR 100 YEARS AGO A look back at the front page
stories of the Labor Press a century ago. | Page 3
TREASURY REJECTS PENSION CUTS Proposed cuts to
Teamsters plan deemed unfair and confusing . | Page 7
Meetings p.4
Pipeline to Good Jobs p.8
PORTLAND, OREGON
Verizon strike goes national
By Don McIntosh
Associate editor
America’s biggest strike in four
years has been under way since
April 13, pitting 29,000 mem-
bers of Communications
Workers of America (CWA)
and 10,000 members of Inter-
national Brotherhood of Elec-
trical Workers (IBEW) against
telecom giant Verizon. The
strikers are customer service
representatives and repair and
installation technicians in Ver-
izon’s wireline division, which
provides land-line phone serv-
ice and fiber-optic internet and
cable service in nine East Coast
states — New York, New Jer-
sey, Pennsylvania, Massachu-
setts, Rhode Island, Delaware,
Maryland, Virginia and West
Virginia — plus Washington,
D.C.
CWA and IBEW are fram-
ing the strike as a struggle
against corporate greed. Veri-
zon, which the unions have be-
gun calling “Verigreedy,” made
almost $18 billion in profit in
2015, and gave lavish payouts
Will Google Fiber be laid union?
Portland Jobs with Justice organized a May 5 picket outside the downtown
Portland Verizon Wireless store. Staff of IBEW Local 48 took part, as did
members of CWA Local 7901 from Portland’s First Unitarian Church.
to its top executives, including
CEO Lowell McAdam, who
made over $18 million last
year. Yet the company is de-
manding concessions from its
union workers, including the
right to require wireline techni-
cians to work away from home
for months at a time; an in-
crease in health-care costs for
retirees; and a 30-year limit on
pension service credit, for
those of its workers who still
have a pension (those hired
since October 28, 2012, have
only a 401(k) under the previ-
Turn to Page 7
PSU graduate assistants unionize
When it becomes official in
about 3 weeks, PSU will have
800 new union members.
Graduate student employees
are about to have a union at
Portland State University. On
May 5, the recently-formed
Graduate Employees Union
(GEU) turned in authorization
cards signed by a majority of
the school’s 793 graduate stu-
dent teaching, research, and ad-
ministrative assistants to the
Oregon Employment Relations
Board. The state agency is ex-
pected to check the cards and
certify the union, at which
point grad student employees
would begin getting ready to
negotiate a first union contract
with university administrators.
PSU would be the third pub-
lic university in Oregon to have
a graduate student employee
Jenn Mora and her fellow PSU
graduate student assistants
posted union-themed selfies in a
social media campaign in support
of their union drive.
union, after University of Ore-
gon and Oregon State Univer-
sity. GEU is a joint project of
the American Federation of
Teachers and American Associ-
ation of University Professors.
Union organizing committee
member Andrés Oswill, a grad-
MAY 20, 2016
uate research assistant in the ur-
ban studies department, said the
union is likely to push for im-
provements to insurance, com-
pensation, and workload. PSU
graduate assistants typically
work part-time in exchange for
tuition remission and a stipend
that amounts to $600 to $700 a
month after taxes — far below
what it takes to live in Portland.
And they’re required to pay stu-
dent fees and premiums for the
student health insurance plan
out of that.
“Even with a job on campus
that’s paying my tuition, I still
have to take out loans to live,”
Oswill said.
Oswill said faculty supervi-
sors and university administra-
tors remained neutral toward
the union effort during the
three-month campaign, as
mandated by a 2013 state law.
Google is ready to roll out a
high-speed fiber-optic network
in Portland. In March, it reached
a deal with PGE and PacifiCorp
to use their poles, and it re-
quested a city land use permit to
install its first 12-by-30-foot
“fiber hut.” Will it employ local
union members at a living wage
and benefits in its estimated
$300 million rollout?
Tracy Harness — chapter
manager of the union-signatory
contractors group Northwest
Line Constructors, NECA —
says at least five general con-
tractors are submitting bids to
manage the work: Henkels and
McCoy, a union-signatory con-
tractor that would employ
IBEW members; Black and
Veatch, and Kiewit, which
sometimes employ union sub-
contractors; and Dycomm and
Ericsson, which are not known
to employ union labor.
In Kansas City, the first city
to install Google fiber, the job
has been done all-union, han-
dled by union-signatory Parr
Electric. IBEW Local 53 Busi-
ness Manager Stephen White
says that has meant full-time
work for about 150 members
since 2012 — laying line and
setting and changing out as
many as 9,000 poles.
Travis Eri, business manager
of Portland-based IBEW Local
125, is seeking to meet with
Google managers to pitch the
value of using the skilled union
linemen who do pole work for
PGE and PacifiCorp. It’s also
possible the work could go to
members of IBEW Local 89 or
659, locals that represent tele-
com specialists.
Elsewhere, Google has in-
stalled fiber neighborhood by
neighborhood, offering Internet
at 40 times the speed of broad-
band for $70 a month, cable tel-
evision for an extra $60, and
“Fiber Phone” service for $10
per month. If it goes forward in
Portland, the work could start as
early as this summer.
Workers to vote on union at
PeaceHealth Vancouver hospital
American Federation of Teachers
(AFT) is campaigning to repre-
sent 310 licensed technical work-
ers at PeaceHealth Southwest
Medical Center in Vancouver.
Nurses there are represented by
Washington State Nurses Asso-
ciation (WSNA), an AFT affili-
ate, but previous attempts to
unionize among the hospital’s
support workers have failed.
The hospital was known as
Southwest Washington Medical
Center until it merged with the
PeaceHealth network in 2010. In
a multi-union election held Aug.
7, 1998, nurses voted to join
WSNA, and stationary engineers
voted to join Operating Engi-
neers Local 701, but Service Em-
ployees (SEIU) Local 49 lost
among the technical workers and
among non-professional support
workers. Office and Professional
Employees Local 11 later cam-
paigned in 2008 to represent 26
surgical technicians, but dropped
the effort when the National La-
bor Relations Board decided that
was not an appropriate bargain-
ing unit.
But AFT organizer Joe Crane
says worsening conditions led to
renewed interest in unionizing.
Workers recently lost a paid
leave provision, and some are
unhappy with a costly high-de-
ductible health insurance plan.
The union campaign has been
under way since last summer
among technical workers, in-
cluding MRI, surgical, radiology,
CT, ultrasound, anesthesia and
pharmacy techs, physical and oc-
cupational therapists, and LPNs.
If workers unionize, they would
become members of Peace-
Health Southwest Caregivers
United, a unit of Oregon Federa-
tion of Nurses and Health Profes-
sionals.
The vote will take place June
1 and 2. After AFT filed for an
election, Local 49 also expressed
interest, so workers will choose
between AFT, SEIU or no union.