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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 5, 2016)
SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900 NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS VOLUME 117, NUMBER 15 IN THIS ISSUE WYDEN CHALLENGER Labor-backed Working Families Party fields candidate for U.S. Senate. | Page 2 UNIONS REJOIN WASHINGTON BUILDING TRADES Carpenters and Operating Engineers are back in. | Page 7 Postal Rally p.2 Meetings p.4 Staff Changes p.8 PORTLAND, OREGON AUGUST 5, 2016 Bakers close Wells Fargo account for its link to an anti-union group For business leaders, actions sometimes have consequences. Portland’s OTHER school lead exposure problem? By Don McIntosh Associate editor Given the uproar this Spring over lead in the drinking water at Portland Public Schools, you’d think there’d be height- ened vigilance against further lead exposure. But at Franklin High School in Southeast Port- land, a massive remodel may be creating a worse lead problem than the minute concentrations that were found in the water of some classroom sinks. Franklin, built in 1917, is mid-way through a $104 million renovation thanks to a voter-ap- proved bond. Its fenced-off grounds have been a gigantic construction site for over a year. Because lead paint is present in virtually all structures built before 1978, construction con- tractors are typically required to carefully contain and dispose of lead-contaminated materials when they disturb painted sur- faces. But accompanied by a field rep for Painters and Allied Trades District Council 5, I vis- ited the construction site and saw firsthand that that’s not hap- pening everywhere at Franklin. General contractor Skanska Turn to Page 3 On core union issues, conventions showcase a growing partisan divide Democrats approve a strongly pro-union platform. Republicans call for a prevailing wage ban, and laws to weaken unions. Once upon a time, both Democ- rats and Republicans competed for union support and gave at least lip service to the value of a strong labor movement. No more. Increasingly, Democrats are adopting official positions right out of organized labor’s po- litical agenda, while Republi- cans adopt positions directly at- tacking labor. Nowhere is that more clearly demonstrated than in the party platforms adopted at the national conventions. Take Davis-Bacon, for exam- ple. That’s the name of the 1931 law that requires that on federal government projects, construc- tion workers be paid the local Oregon and Washington unions are under attack by the Freedom Foundation, a busi- ness-funded non-profit whose mission, as its spokesperson put it last August, is “making life miserable for government employee unions.” The group has filed numerous lawsuits against unions, and has cam- paigned with mailings and house visits to get workers to drop union membership. It even produces a weekly anti- union radio show. So to sup- port the Freedom Foundation is to make a statement: You’re an enemy of organized labor. One of the group’s largest funders is Vancouver-based M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust, set up by Tektronix founder Melvin J. Murdock. The Mur- dock Trust is led by three trustees, one of whom is Wells Fargo senior executive Jeffrey T. Grubb, executive vice pres- ident for private client services in the Pacific Northwest. To fight back against the Freedom Foundation, unions set up their own non-profit last year called the Northwest Ac- countability Project. The group has publicly targeted Mur- dock, noting that the Trust is also a big funder of other right- wing groups, such as the anti- gay-rights legal group Alliance Defending Freedom. Now the Northwest Accountability Project is targeting Wells Fargo too. Bakers Local 114 Secretary- Treasurer Terry Lansing heard of the campaign in February, and wrote to Wells Fargo: “We feel strongly that Mr. Grubb’s support for these groups, through his paid role as one of three trustees … undermines many of the values we hold dear as labor activists in the Pacific Northwest.” Local 114 has had an ac- count at Wells Fargo since 1963. But in July, it transferred its account balance of about $40,000 to IBEW and United Workers Federal Credit Union, and closed its Wells Fargo ac- count. “We cannot in good con- science continue doing busi- ness with a company where there is an executive officer such as Jeffrey Grubbs who supports philosophies that are the exact opposite of what we stand for,” Lansing wrote July 30 in a final letter to Well Fargo. WORKERS RIGHTS Oregon Democrat Kurt Schrader takes aim at Obama’s overtime rule At the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, labor union members and officers made up a sizable fraction of delegates. Oregon dele- gates with ties to organized labor, above, included supporters of both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, the ultimate nominee. “prevailing wage” for each craft specialty. It’s a big deal to build- ing trades unions. Davis-Bacon prevents federal spending from driving down construction wages — because contractors can’t gain competitive advan- tage from lowering wages. It’s named after Republican Sen. James Davis and Republican Rep. Robert Bacon, and was signed into law by Republican President Herbert Hoover. To- day, the official Republican po- sition, ratified in 2012 and 2016, is to repeal it, saying, “it drives Turn to Page 6 Democratic Congress- workers must be paid man Kurt Schrader time-and-a-half for can’t seem to stop tak- every hour they work ing stands that are di- over 40 in a week, but rectly opposed to the “executive, adminis- well-being of working trative and profes- people. The latest: sional” employees can He’s sponsored a bill be considered exempt to delay and limit a from the overtime pay long-overdue over- Kurt Schrader requirement. Increas- time update that is set ingly, employers have to take effect Dec. 1. been paying low-level man- The update has to do with agers on a salaried basis and which employees are eligible claiming they’re exempt from for overtime pay. Under the overtime. They get away with Fair Labor Standards Act, Turn to Page 3
