Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (April 21, 2017)
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | April 21, 2017 | PAGE 5 CULTURE Troublemakers take over Local 290 hall Over 200 rank-and-file union activists were welcomed to United Association of Plumbers and Steamfitters Lo- cal 290 training center April 8 for Portland’s third biennial “Troublemakers School.” The spirited gathering was a day of networking and panel presentations organized by the magazine Labor Notes to — as the publication’s masthead puts it — “put the movement back in the labor movement.” “As a worker, the second you ask about your rights, they call you a troublemaker,” ex- plained Labor Notes director Mark Brenner. “That’s why we call ourselves troublemakers.” Occupy Public Office The day’s keynote speaker was rank-and-file AFSCME mem- ber Jovanka Beckles, who is vice mayor of Richmond, Cal- ifornia, thanks to a union- backed coalition known as the Richmond Progressive Al- liance. Richmond is a racially diverse blue collar city of 100,000, best known in the Bay Area as the location of a Chevron refinery. Over the last “We need a revitalized labor movement that has the confidence of its members. Members are the union.” Jo- vanka Beckles, vice-mayor of Richmond, California — and a rank-and-file AFSCME member. decade, the Richmond Pro- gressive Alliance has success- fully challenged the city’s tra- ditional power structure, electing slates of City Council candidates who refused corpo- rate money, winning a rent control ballot measure, increas- ing taxes on Chevron, and ex- perimenting with the power of eminent domain to rescue homeowners from underwater mortgages. All that came about because residents, with union support, got organized. “Isn’t doing something bet- ter than sitting around watch- ing cable news?” Beckles said. —Don McIntosh AT THE LABOR NOTES SCHOOL “Union is my life. I’m third generation. We’ve been raised a union family. I can’t imagine what other people go through where they don’t have their union backing them.” — Brenda Bridger, ILWU Local 4 “Union means work- ers being able to de- fend themselves, by organizing collec- tively. Because there’s a power differential between an individual worker and a boss.… Unless we are organ- ized together, we are screwed.” — Hyung Nam, Portland Association of Teachers “ I am grateful that my predecessors before me organized the United Association, grateful that I have the ability to make a living wage, that I am a member of an organi- zation that shares pride in what they do, and grateful that I have chance to be involved in my local union and make a change for the better.” — Craig Spjut, UA Local 290 820 SW Second Ave., Suite 200, Portland, OR 97204 www.tcnf.legal THIS NEWSPAPER BROUGHT TO YOU BY AMERICA'S LABOR MOVEMENT.
