PAGE 2 | June 17, 2016 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
NORTHWEST
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UNION ORGANIZING
PEOPLE
At McMinnville recycled rubber
factory, workers unionize
South Florida labor leader Sher-
man Henry will join the faculty
of the Labor
Education
and Research
C e n t e r
(LERC) at
the Univer-
sity of Ore-
gon
this
September.
Formerly a
c u s t o d i a n Sherman Henry
and rank-
and-file union activist at Miami-
Dade Public Schools, Henry be-
came president of AFSCME
Local 1184 in 1995. Local 1184
represents 9,000 school district
support workers, including bus
drivers, maintenance and food
service, at the nation’s fourth-
largest school system. Henry led
the union for 21 years as full-
time executive director, negoti-
ating and administering con-
tracts. Henry was also treasurer
and later co-chair of South
Florida Jobs with Justice. He
has a bachelor’s degree from the
AFL-CIO-affiliated National
Labor College, and a master’s in
adult education from Florida In-
ternational University, where he
also taught in the Center for La-
bor Research and Studies from
2011 to 2015. He is currently
A group of 61 workers at a rub-
ber recycling factory in
McMinnville has voted to join
the United Steelworkers
(USW). Ultimate RB, a sub-
sidiary of St. Louis-based Ac-
cella Performance Materials,
turns recycled rubber into prod-
ucts like high-density rubber
mats used in truck beds and
horse stalls, rubber flooring for
athletic facilities and play-
grounds, and ballistic tiles used
in shooting ranges.
Hourly wages there are low
by union standards, says USW
staff representative Jim Kilborn
— around $12.50 for produc-
tion workers, and about $22 for
experienced machine mainte-
nance workers. Workers would
like better wages and benefits,
Kilborn said, but a bigger factor
in the decision to unionize was
just having a voice in work-
place — to be able to impact
decisions that affect them, like
whether they have to work on
Saturdays, or a fair process for
determining who works over-
time.
The campaign began with a
phone call to the union by one
of the workers. Soon a commit-
tee formed, and they gathered
signed union authorization
cards. On April 24, the union
asked the National Labor Rela-
tions Board to hold an election,
and one was scheduled for May
19. Kilborn says that appeared
to take the company by sur-
prise. It mounted a conventional
anti-union campaign with
workplace anti-union meetings
led by managers. But Kilborn
said by then workers had al-
ready been inoculated against
anti-union talking points: “The
committee knew exactly what
the employer was going to tell
them.”
The vote was 34 to 23 for the
union. The bargaining unit will
consist of production, mainte-
nance, and shipping and receiv-
ing employees, but 30 to 40
temp workers who work there
won’t be in the union. Kilborn
said members should be ready
to begin contract negotiations in
July, after selecting a committee
of three workers who will be as-
sisted by USW staff members.
pursuing a doctorate from
Grand Canyon University. He’ll
work out of LERC’s Portland
campus at the UO White Stag
building.
Longtime labor educator Helen
Moss, 58, is retiring at the end
of June. Moss has been with the
Labor Education and Research
Center (LERC) at the Univer-
sity of Ore-
gon since
1999
—
mostly train-
ing union
stewards and
officers in
the nuts and
bolts of con-
tract negotia-
tions and
Helen Moss
grievance
handling, but
also contributing to research
about workplace safety. Prior to
LERC, Moss spent two decades
working for labor unions as a
union rep, business manager,
and organizer, starting in 1978
at the United Farm Workers in
La Paz, California. She worked
for the Hotel and Restaurant
Employees Local 86 in Reno;
for SEIU at Local 706 (Texas),
Local 790 (San Francisco), and
Local 503 (Oregon); and finally
at Oregon Federation of Nurses
and Health Professionals.
First Student
Corvallis bus
drivers stay union
A group of 72 bus drivers at
First Student Corvallis is stick-
ing to the union. First Student
runs both school bus and city
bus service in Corvallis, and its
drivers are represented by
Amalgamated Transit Union
Local 757. Some drivers wanted
to go nonunion, but in a June 6
election, the vote was 41 to 21
in favor of remaining union-rep-
resented.
“We were disappointed that
there was a petition for decerti-
fication,” said Local 757 Finan-
cial Secretary-Treasurer Mary
Longoria, “but we are proud of
the people who stepped up and
understand the importance of
having a union.”
Local 757 was in the middle
of negotiating a new contract for
the unit, but those talks paused
in the lead-up to the vote. Lon-
goria said she expects negotia-
tions to resume now that it’s set-
tled that workers want to remain
union.