NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS |
Laborers leader Dave Tischer clocks out
“I owe everything I have to the
Laborers union,” Dave Tischer
says. Tischer, 54, retired Jan. 1,
2017 after 19 years as a local
leader of the Laborers. For 11
years he was business manager
at Laborers Local 320, a Port-
land-headquartered local with
about 1,000 members in the
heavy highway side of the con-
struction industry. Local 320
merged with Locals 296 and
121 in 2015 to form a new
state-wide construction local,
Laborers Local 737, and Tis-
cher served as its first president.
Born in Minnesota, Tischer
moved to Aloha, Oregon, at
age 11, and graduated from
Aloha High School in 1980.
After working four years
nonunion building apartments,
he joined Laborers Local 320
in 1988. As a member of Local
320, he poured concrete at a
wastewater treatment plant, the
west-side light rail tunnel, on
reservoir projects, and on the
airport light rail line.
He went to union meetings,
got involved, and was elected
to the Executive Board in 1998.
In 2000, he was hired as a field
rep by then-business manager
Dale Sabroski, and in 2004, he
Dave Tischer
succeeded Sabroski as business
manager. A resident of Keizer,
Tischer also served as president
of the Marion-Polk-Yamhill
Central Labor Council for a
decade.
Looking back on his time as
business manager, Tischer is
proud to have maintained good
relationships with contractors,
and proud of members’ record
of involvement in projects that
were completed on time and on
budget, including light rail
projects and the City of Port-
land’s combined sewer over-
flow project. Tischer’s biggest
regret is that the I-5 replace-
ment bridge never broke
ground. But Local 320 mem-
bers did dirt work and concrete
placement for over 1,000 wind-
mills during his tenure.
“Sustainable energy is the
future,” Tischer says. “And nat-
ural gas, which is a clean burn-
ing fuel compared to coal, is a
great bridge fuel to that future.
That’s why I think the opposi-
tion to natural gas is off track.
And opposition to natural gas
expansion, in Oregon, has been
definitely detrimental to the
trades.”
Going forward, Tischer says
the biggest challenge, for all the
building trades, will be to re-
cover market share that’s been
lost since the 1980s. Unions
can maintain high wages and
standards only if they are ac-
count for a significant share of
the labor force in their industry.
“We have to be the big dog
in the room,” Tischer says.
“They say you’re either at the
table or on the menu.”
“The new [Trump] adminis-
tration definitely concerns me,”
Tischer said. “I think we’re at a
crossroads in the labor move-
ment.… You can’t get frus-
trated. You gotta keep pushing
ahead, and you have to fight the
fight.”
March 3, 2017 | PAGE 3
ATU vs. TriMet case headed
for Oregon Supreme Court
By Don McIntosh
A legal dispute between TriMet
and Amalgamated Transit Union
(ATU) Local 757 is now headed
for the Oregon Supreme Court.
The case has to do with whether
public sector unions and their
employers have the right to al-
low the press and members of
the public to observe union con-
tract negotiations. Normally,
both sides prefer to negotiate pri-
vately, on the assumption that
grandstanding and showman-
ship would otherwise get in the
way of reaching agreement. But
ATU leaders think they’ll win in
the court of public opinion — if
the public is allowed to witness
what they see at the bargaining
table from TriMet labor relations
director Randy Stedman.
State law pretty clearly lets
either side open up bargaining to
the public. “Labor negotiations
shall be conducted in open
meetings unless negotiators for
both sides request that negotia-
tions be conducted in executive
session,” says ORS 192.660(3).
In fact, that provision in the law
was proposed by a Republican
legislator who thought public
employers would be less likely
to give away the store if press
and the public could sit in on
union contract negotiations.
But lawyers for TriMet have
argued that provision doesn’t
apply to them because their bar-
gaining sessions aren’t “meet-
ings” as defined by Oregon’s
Public Meeting Law, which
ORS 192.660(3) is a part of.
“They have attempted to use
every kind of technical defini-
tion to destroy what to me seems
like a pretty plain statute,” says
Aruna Masih of the Bennett
Hartman law firm, who’s repre-
senting ATU in the case.
The case has been under way
since late 2012.
In 2013, Multnomah County
Circuit Court Judge Leslie
Roberts ruled in favor of
TriMet’s position. But the Ore-
gon Court of Appeals over-
turned her decision in February
2016, and on Jan. 13, 2017, the
Oregon Supreme Court ac-
cepted a request to review the
case. A hearing is scheduled for
June 14.