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November 4, 2016 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
...Election night
From Page 1
history. If it passes, Oregon no
longer will have the nation’s
third-largest class sizes and
shortest school year. The state
might also benefit from
spillover effects. One legislative
legal opinion says Measure 97
would result in $250 million a
year in additional road mainte-
nance funds. (To the extent that
gas companies are taxed, the
Oregon Constitution may be in-
terpreted to require those funds
be spent on roads.) And that
doesn’t count the hundreds of
millions of dollars of infrastruc-
ture investments that the meas-
ure would enable: The state’s
capacity to issue bonds depends
on its income, and Measure 97
would increase its income.
Meanwhile, in Washington,
the big deal ballot measure is I-
1433, which would raise the
state minimum to $13.50 by
2020 and guarantee up to seven
paid sick days to all workers.
Washington is one of five states
to vote on the minimum wage
Nov. 8. Arizona, Colorado, and
Maine will vote on measures to
raise it to $12 by 2020, and the
Arizona measure, like Washing-
ton’s, also mandates paid sick
leave. And in South Dakota, vot-
ers will get a chance to veto a
Legislature-passed law that low-
ered the minimum wage for
workers under 18.
In Alabama and Virginia,
anti-union groups have placed
right to work measures on the
ballot—to make union dues
strictly voluntary in order to de-
fund and weaken unions.
Finally, there’s the choice of
president, and what a choice.
Donald Trump, a billionaire
who hasn’t paid taxes in
decades, is proposing a massive
tax cut for the rich. He made
American-made a cornerstone
of his campaign, but his private
label clothes are made in China,
and he used Chinese steel and
undocumented labor to con-
struct his buildings. Hillary
Clinton, backed by almost the
entirety of the labor movement,
is an 11th hour critic of NAFTA-
style trade deals, but she’s called
for greater infrastructure invest-
ment, and is proposing to raise
the minimum wage and guaran-
tee paid family and medical
leave for the birth of a child.
Whichever of them is elected
will make lifetime judicial ap-
pointments, and determine
who’s in charge of federal agen-
cies that are vital to the wellbe-
ing of working people, includ-
ing those that enforce workers’
union rights, occupational
safety, and wage and hour laws.
UNION DEMOCRACY
Greg Pallesen elected president of AWPPW
THIS NEWSPAPER BROUGHT TO YOU BY AMERICA’S LABOR MOVEMENT
In ballots counted Oct. 26, Greg
Pallesen won election as presi-
dent of Association of Western
Pulp and Paper Workers (AW-
PPW).
AWPPW,
headquar-
tered in Port-
land, repre-
sents 4,500
workers at
pulp and pa-
per mills in
Oregon,
Washington,
Greg Pallesen
Idaho, Cali-
fornia and Virginia. Formerly
independent, it’s now an au-
tonomous division of the United
Brotherhood of Carpenters. It’s
a union that’s been hit hard by
the steep decline of the pulp and
paper industry in the Pacific
Northwest.
Pallesen, 61, has been vice
president and political director
at AWPPW for 13 years. He’s
an outspoken critic of NAFTA-
style trade policy, which he
holds responsible for multiple
closures of pulp and paper mills.
Pallesen first became a mem-
ber of AWPPW Local 580 in
1986, as an electrician at Wey-
erhaeuser’s Longview pulp and
paper mill. That mill was sold
earlier this year to Japan Nippon
Paper Industries.
In the race for president,
Pallesen outpolled AWPPW Lo-
cal 153 president Kurt Gallow,
a millwright at the Kapstone pa-
per mill in Longview.
Pallesen succeeds John
Rhodes, who’s retiring after 14
years as president.
Members also elected a new
vice president, Bill Spring of
Local 5 in Camas, Washington;
a new secretary-treasurer, Rick
Craft of Local 747 in Nampa,
Idaho; and area reps, relief reps
and trustees. All new officers
will be sworn in to five-year
terms at the union’s Jan. 26 gen-
eral membership meeting.