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SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 118, NUMBER 8
IN THIS ISSUE
SCHOOL LAYOFFS COMING State budget cuts have put
140 jobs at risk at Portland Public Schools. | Page 4
NEW UA LOCAL 290 CONTRACT The six-year deal will
raise compensation $16.03 an hour. | Page 11
Meetings p.6 Oregon job fatalities increase p.12
PORTLAND, OREGON
APRIL 21, 2017
WORKERS MEMORIAL DAY: APRIL 28
remembering OregOn wOrkers
whO died On the jOb
-
Workers Memorial Day is observed
every year on April 28. It’s a day to
honor workers who have died on the
job, to remember the suffering experi-
enced by families and workers in all
trades, and to recommit to the fight for
a safe and healthy work environment
for all workers.
WORKER SAFETY SPECIAL ISSUE
Every year the Northwest Labor Press
publishes a special issue in late April
focusing on worker safety and health.
Inside this year’s:
salem — Oregon AFL-CIO will hold a memo-
rial ceremony at the Fallen Workers Memorial
on the Capitol Mall in Salem. The service will
feature remarks from elected officials, union
leaders, and safety and health advocates, and
the reading of the names of the 66 workers
who died on the job in Oregon in 2016.
UNSAFE AT WORK Under the Ross Island
Bridge, an ODOT contractor is putting workers at
risk. | Page 1
■ Time: Friday, April 28, noon
■ Place: Labor and Industries Building, 350 Winter St. NE,
Salem
AFTER THE FLAMES The Fire Fighters union is
sounding the alarm about carcinogenic fire
retardants and household chemicals. | Page 1
pOrtland — Northwest Oregon Labor
Council will hold a memorial service at its
monthly delegates meeting. Delegates will
raise an American flag in honor of each Ore-
gon worker who died on the job last year.
SAY THEIR NAMES A list of all workers who
died on the job in Oregon in 2016. | Page 8
■ Time: Monday, April 24, 7 p.m.
■ Place: IBEW Local 48 Hall, 15937 NE Airport Way,
Portland
ARE RED STATES LESS SAFE? States where
Trump won have higher rates of worker injury –
and more hazardous blue-collar jobs. | Page 15
THE TIRELESS CRUSADER Six questions for
Peg Seminario, the national AFL-CIO’S top
campaigner for worker safety. | Page 16
Revolt of the
Managers
At the City of Portland, a group
of managers rewrote a project
labor agreement template —
by taking out the ‘labor’.
By Don McIntosh
A group of city bureau man-
agers is asking Portland City
Council to scrap a union-
friendly template that has in-
creased minority and women
participation in City construc-
tion projects, which a previous
City Council approved in 2012.
A counter-template written by
the managers was scheduled to
go before City Council Wednes-
day, April 26, at 2 p.m. — when
this issue went to press.
Turn to Page 2
UNSAFE AT WORK
An ODOT bridge-painting con-
tractor is under investigation af-
ter a 40-foot fall injured two
workers. Former employees –
let go after they raised safety
concerns – paint a picture of
dangerous work conditions.
By Don McIntosh
“Next time you have a problem
with safety, talk to me. Then get
in your car and hit the f***ing
road.” That’s what painter
Shane Duane Luey says he was
told by Abhe & Svoboda super-
intendent Leon Wagner last
June — in front of 30 co-work-
ers. That’s after he raised a
safety issue at a safety meeting.
Abhe & Svoboda is the non-
union firm that won a $22 mil-
lion contract with Oregon De-
partment of Transportation
(ODOT) to sandblast and paint
the underside of the Ross Island
Bridge.
After that public rebuke,
Luey felt he wasn’t going to get
anywhere complaining to man-
agement, so on June 8, 2016, he
made an anonymous safety
complaint to Oregon OSHA
(Occupational Safety and
Three steel arch spans underneath the Ross Island Bridge have aged and
rusted since they were last painted in the 1960s. Using temporary support
structures and containment, nonunion contractor Abhe & Svoboda is sand-
blasting and repainting them.
Two OSHA investi-
Health Administra-
gators showed up the
tion). In the com-
following week. They
plaint, he warned
met the project man-
the agency that em-
ager and safety man-
ployees could fall
through holes on the
ager in the construction
scaffolding decks
trailer, read company
while sandblasting
logs and safety meeting
and painting the
minutes, and walked
bridge.
Shane Duane Luey around the site escorted
“There was unfin-
by managers. An hour
ished scaffolding, skeleton scaf- and 45 minutes later, they left,
folding to get where you had to having found nothing wrong.
go,” Luey says. “It wasn’t built
After the OSHA visit, Luey
properly with levels filled in, felt like he had a target on his
handrails, none of that.”
Turn to Page 14
Long after the flames, firefighters
at risk from cancer chemicals
It’s no secret that fighting fire is
a dangerous job. Against the
flames, firefighters have their
equipment to protect them. But
the International Association of
Fire Fighters (IAFF) union has
increasingly been sounding the
alarm about the danger that con-
tinues after the fire is out: Dur-
ing the “overhaul” phase of
fighting a fire — when fire
fighters are opening walls, ceil-
ings, voids, and partitions to
make sure fire hasn’t spread to
unseen areas — they are still be-
ing exposed to a potpourri of
carcinogenic chemicals and
gases. Adhering to their gear
and on their skin, those toxins
can go back with them to the fire
station and even living quarters.
That’s why firefighters are
now being diagnosed with cer-
tain kinds of cancers at 20 or 30
times the rate of the general
population. Among IAFF mem-
bers, death by cancer has come
to be considered death in the
line of duty.
To confront the danger, IAFF
has been trying to educate mem-
bers and promote best practices
to reduce exposure. Last June,
thanks to a $100,000 grant from
the Washington Department of
Labor and Industries, a group of
IAFF members from around the
state of Washington released a re-
markable video and guidebook:
“Healthy In, Healthy Out.”
It starts with how firefighters’
Turn to Page 13