nORTHWEST LABOR pRESS |
May 5, 2017 | pAgE 9
unIOn DEMOCRACy
State Letter Carriers gear up to
AFT-Oregon holds convention in portland defend door-to-door delivery
The statewide convention of
American Federation of Teach-
ers (AFT)-Oregon drew 150
delegates from 17 locals to the
Portland Hilton April 21-23.
AFT-Oregon has grown in re-
cent years and now counts over
9,000 members.
But the union is working to
shore up support among repre-
sented workers, in anticipation
of a U.S. Supreme Court rul-
ing. About 4,000 workers rep-
resented by AFT-Oregon aren’t
members and pay only partial
“fair share” dues to cover the Convention delegates — including members of AFT Local 4671 (Hillsboro
costs of bargaining. Those pay- Classified United) above — took a recess April 22 in order to participate in
ments could become illegal na- the March for Science.
tionwide if the Supreme Court ing up new members in the last Rives to a fifth two-year term
rules as expected in a case year, including Local 111 as AFT-Oregon president. Ow-
called Janus vs. AFSCME. (Portland Federation of School ing to term-limits in the union
Last year, the court deadlocked Professionals), which gained constitution, it will be his final
over a very similar case, but 224 members; Local 3209 term. Also elected to terms be-
last month’s confirmation of (United Academics of the Uni- ginning July 1 were:
Neil Gorsuch means that an versity of Oregon), which
■ Belinda Reagan, executive VP
anti-union decision in Janus added 129 new members; and
could be only 12 to 18 months Local 4671 (Hillsboro Classi- ■ Jaime Rodriguez,VP for political
action
away.
fied United) which added 108. ■ Devin Hunter, secretary
Several locals were singled
Delegates reelected David
■ Jeff Grider, treasurer
out for praise for success sign-
About 150 delegates represent-
ing two dozen locals came to-
gether in Bend April 21-23 for a
convention of the Oregon State
Association of Letter Carriers.
They heard from national of-
ficers, took part in workshops on
stress management and on how
to contend with automation and
a new “performance enhance-
ment tool” (speed-up) being im-
plemented by postal manage-
ment. But more than anything
else, they focused on national
legislation pending in Congress.
“As federal employees, we’re
pretty vulnerable,” said state as-
sociation vice president Willie
Groshell. “Everything we’ve
got can be taken away with a
stroke of the pen by Congress.”
House Resolution 756, the
Postal Service Reform Act of
2017, passed the House Over-
sight and Government Reform
Committee on March 16. The
bill includes a number of union-
supported measures to shore up
the finances of the Postal Serv-
ice, but it also phases out door-
to-door mail delivery, replacing
it with centralized or cluster
mailbox delivery. That could
eliminate 80,000 letter carrier
jobs, and make the mail much
less convenient for the public.
Postal unions are rallying be-
hind a non-binding counter-
measure, House Resolution 28,
which urges the Postal Service
to take all appropriate measures
to ensure the continuation of
door delivery for all business
and residential customers. That
bill has 223 co-sponsors —
more than half of the 435 mem-
bers of the U.S. House of Rep-
resentatives; sponsors include
all four Oregon Democrats, and
Southwest Washington Repub-
lican Jaime Herrera-Beutler, but
not Oregon Republican Greg
Walden.
Convention delegates ap-
proved a resolution calling on
each local to appeal to city
councils and other local govern-
ments to pass resolutions calling
for preservation of door to door
delivery.
Delegates also elected offi-
cers, including:
■ Ricky Horton, president
■ Willie Groshell, vice president
■ Richard Strahm, secretary-treasurer
■ Kollin Luman, assistant secretary-treasurer
■ Mary Hackbart, director of retirees
unIOnIzATIOn ] MAR-ApR 2017
BuILDIng COMMunITy
Sewer pipe scuttles Oregon AFL-CIO
plan to turn HQ into worker housing
The Oregon AFL-CIO is
pulling the plug on plans to
redevelop its Portland head-
quarters as a mixed-use af-
fordable housing project.
The plan, conceived last
spring, was for union pension
funds to finance a four- or
five-story union-built project
combining office space with
underground parking and up
to 120 units of affordable
housing — helped by a public
subsidy in the form of a Low-
Income Housing Tax Credit.
The development was to re-
place the current headquarters
on its 0.78-acre property just
south of Powell Boulevard.
The statewide labor federa-
tion formed a committee last
June to explore the plan.
And it might have worked,
except for one obstacle: The
discovery of a 50-inch sewer
Photo by Andrew Gorry, courtesy of AFT-Oregon
As another anti-union case
heads to the U.S. Supreme Court,
priority will be shoring up sup-
port from represented workers
pipe running diagonally
across the property. That
meant the development
would have to consist of two
smaller buildings instead of
one large building, and at that
point, maintaining enough
parking to meet the needs of
the Oregon AFL-CIO would
have greatly increased project
costs.
The Oregon AFL-CIO
headquarters, known as the
Oregon Labor Center, is a
busy hub of activity, fre-
quently used by union and
community groups for meet-
ings and events, and the park-
ing made available by its
20,000-square-foot parking
lot is vital to those uses.
With help from the Hous-
ing Development Center, a
Portland nonprofit, the com-
mittee then explored the fea-
sibility of partnering with the
Portland Housing Bureau to
bring in additional funding.
But the Bureau is already de-
veloping a lot two blocks
away where the Safari strip
club now sits. The Bureau of-
fered that the Oregon AFL-
CIO could share space and
ownership in that develop-
ment, but it still would have
fallen short of the labor feder-
ation’s parking needs. And it
would have left the state fed-
eration in the position of jun-
ior partner in the develop-
ment. As Oregon AFL-CIO
president Tom Chamberlain
put it: “We wouldn’t be mas-
ters of our own destiny.”
For all those reasons, the
Oregon AFL-CIO Executive
Committee resolved April 21
to put the plan on ice.
The following are Oregon and Southwest Washington workplaces where workers have decided
whether to be represented by a union. The thumbs-up symbol means workers will be union-
represented. The information comes from the National Labor Relations Board and the Oregon
Employment Relations Board.
union election results
Employer (Location) Union
Yes-No =
koontz Machine & Welding (Coos Bay) Machinists District Lodge W24 2-0
^
■ 2 dry dock workers
Immigration Counseling Service (Portland) NOLSW (UAW Local 2320) 13-0 ^
■ 13 staff attorneys, paralegals, legal assistants, and other non-professional employees
peaceHealth Laboratories (Springfield and Eugene) SEIU Local 49 73-21 ^
■ 120 lab assistants and data entry specialists
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