SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 118, NUMBER 17
IN THIS ISSUE
WASHINGTON AFL-CIO RATES LAWMAKERS: SW
Washington’s were some of the best and worst. | Page 6
LABORERS LOCAL 737: Members elect Zack Culver as
first business manager of merged local | Page 10
Meeting notices p. 6
Labor Day picnic schedule p.11
PORTLAND, OREGON
SEPTEMBER 1, 2017
WORKERS’ RIGHTS
TRADE
TriMet Lift fires a driver for
answering the call of nature
Trump does NAFTA
By Don McIntosh
Portlander Teressa Stevens was
fired Aug. 21 from her job as a
driver for TriMet LIFT — for
urinating in a parking lot.
Drivers of all kinds will be
able to relate to her predicament.
Stevens says on June 18 she was
driving her TriMet LIFT wheel-
chair-assisted minibus. She was
trying to find the Tigard church
where she was supposed to pick
up her next disabled passenger
when she felt an urgent need to
urinate. Stevens says she had no
money in her pocket for a cus-
tomers-only restroom at a nearby
Burger King. Desperate, she
pulled into the empty parking lot
of a corporate office park, got
out, and squatted next to her bus.
At 4 p.m. on a Sunday, she didn’t
think there would be witnesses.
But an office worker was
watching from inside, took a
picture with her smartphone,
texted it to her boss, and posted
it to Facebook. Her boss called
the property manager to com-
plain. The property manager
called TriMet to complain. And
TriMet called First Transit, Inc.,
the outside contractor that runs
Teressa Stevens
TriMet LIFT service.
Two days later, Stevens’ man-
ager called her into the office to
confront her. She admitted what
she’d done. He suspended her. It
turned out to be her last day of
work.
On June 21, KOIN 6 TV
News determined that this vitally
important story was worth a seg-
ment on the nightly news, and
sent reporter Lisa Balick to the
Scholls Business Center parking
lot where Stevens had urinated
three days previously. The TV
news segment opened with the
Facebook photo, driver’s face
blurred, and left viewers the im-
pression that a male driver had
Turn to Page 2
UNION DEMOCRACY
Building Trades
back Gov. Brown
for re-election
LINCOLN CITY — Oregon Gov. Kate
Brown was endorsed by the Oregon State
Building Trades Council in her bid for re-
election in 2018. The endorsement took
place at the Council’s annual convention
Aug. 23-26. The 60 delegates in atten-
dance also endorsed Val Hoyle for labor
commissioner, they heard reports from
representatives of the Port of Portland, Jor-
dan Cove, NuScale Power, and Vancouver
Energy about upcoming projects worth
multiple billions of dollars, and they
Turn to Page 8
NAFTA is not a failed trade
agreement. Written by and for
the benefit of corporate elites,
the North American Free Trade
Agreement is a resounding suc-
cess — for them. It succeeded
in doing what it was intended to
do: make Mexico safer for U.S.
and Canadian investors, and
lock in opportunities for big
companies to sell back and
forth between Mexico, the
United States and Canada, tar-
iff-free. That’s why NAFTA is
still so popular on the pages of
Wall Street Journal. If the U.S.
has unending trade deficits with
Mexico, if 850,000 U.S. manu-
facturing jobs have been lost, if
millions of Mexican farmers
have been uprooted by Ameri-
can ag exports, it’s not because
NAFTA failed; it’s because it
succeeded. It’s the corporate
elites who failed — failed to
show any concern for the well-
being of the working people of
the United States, Mexico, and
Canada.
But that’s not the line you’ll
hear from President Donald
Trump as he undertakes a quick
fix of the 23-year-old agree-
ment. Trump’s narrative is that
What’s the view like two blocks
away from the White House?
What does the national AFL-CIO think
about Trump renegotiating NAFTA?
We talk to the labor federation’s top
trade expert on PAGE 3
NAFTA is an agreement be-
tween competing national inter-
ests in which wily Mexican ne-
gotiators outfoxed incompetent
American negotiators. That nar-
rative should be shelved in the
fiction section. But understand-
ably, Trump’s persistent criti-
cism of NAFTA was music to
the ears of American voters
who feel rightly betrayed by
their nation’s trade policy.
Now he just has to deliver.
On May 18, Trump’s trade
czar Robert Lighthizer gave
formal notice to Congress that
the president would begin ne-
gotiations with Canada and
Mexico. The first round of talks
took place behind closed doors
in Washington, D.C. Aug. 15-
20. The second round will take
place in Mexico Sept. 1-5, fol-
lowed by a third round in
Canada later in September.
If and when any agreement
is reached, we’ll definitely want
to read the fine print.
The White House published
its official objectives for the
NAFTA renegotiations on July
17. Trump talked repeatedly
about slapping 35 percent tar-
iffs on imports, but his Admin-
istration’s NAFTA goals sum-
mary says the United States
wants to “maintain existing re-
ciprocal duty-free market ac-
cess.” Other goals include elim-
ination of “burdensome re-
strictions of intellectual prop-
erty,” and “greater regulatory
compatibility.” There’s no men-
tion of eliminating NAFTA
Chapter 11, which lets foreign
investors sue governments in
private courts to overturn regu-
lations they feel are unnecessar-
ily burdensome.
“I think what we’re seeing
out of Trump is a guy who’s
anxious to look like he’s lived
up to campaign promises,” says
Russell Lum, director of the
union-backed Oregon Fair
Trade Campaign. “He got
elected on blue collar votes be-
cause he trashed NAFTA in
campaign speeches. Now he
feels cornered into renegotiat-
ing it, but he’s surrounded by
people who benefit from the
status quo.”
— Don McIntosh
HURRICANE
HARVEY
In response to cata-
strophic flooding in the
Houston area, countless
volunteers from the
labor movement are
assisting at shelters and
other locations. The
Texas AFL-CIO is asking
union members to
contribute to the Texas
Workers Relief Fund, a
charitable fund over-
seen by the Texas AFL-
CIO that provides direct
help to families in need.
texasaflcio.org/donate