NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | October 6 , 2017 | PAGE 11
Guest Opinion
By DeMaurice Smith Director, NFL Players Association
Response to Trump attacks
on athlete free speech
The peaceful demonstrations
by some of our players have
generated a wide array of re-
sponses. Those opinions are
protected speech and a free-
dom that has been paid for by
the sacrifice of men and
women throughout history.
This expression of speech has
generated thoughtful discus-
sions in our locker rooms and
in board rooms. However, the
line that marks the balance
between the rights of every
citizen in our great country
gets crossed when someone is
told to just “shut up and play.”
NFL players do incredible
things to contribute to their
communities. NFL players
are a part of a legacy of ath-
letes in all sports who
throughout history chose to be
informed about the issues that
impact them and their com-
munities. They chose—and
still choose today—to do
something about those issues
rather than comfortably living
in the bubble of sports. Their
decision is no different from
the one made by countless
others who refused to let
“what they do” define or re-
strict “who they are” as Amer-
icans.
No man or woman should
ever have to choose a job that
forces them to surrender their
rights. No worker nor any ath-
lete, professional or not,
should be forced to become
less than human when it
comes to protecting their ba-
sic health and safety. We un-
derstand that our job as a
union is not to win a popular-
ity contest and it comes with
a duty to protect the rights of
our members. For that we
make no apologies and never
will.
...Faith group looks at Nabisco outsourcing
From Page 5
duction. Workers at other
Nabisco bakeries, including
Portland’s, have suffered tem-
porary layoff as their plants
closed down for a week at a
time — while shelves remain
full of Mexican-made Nabisco
products.
The BCTGM contract cover-
ing about 2,000 Nabisco work-
ers at five U.S. bakeries expired
Feb. 29, 2016, and 19 months
later, the union is no closer to
agreement with the company.
For BCTGM, the sticking
points are Mondelēz’ refusal to
commit to no further layoffs or
plant closures, its plan to dimin-
ish health benefits, and its pro-
posal to withdraw from the
union-sponsored pension plan,
which is headed for insolvency.
Commissioner
port of vancouver washington, dist. 1
Kris has the experience:
SAFETY: Encouraging safe
...NLRB nominee
has ties to PATCO
environment and development
•
GROWTH: Developing new
family wage jobs
27 years experience in risk
management and business ownership
•
9 years President of East Vancouver
Business Association
From Page 10
•
4 years President of Evergreen
SD Foundation
ing requirements.
Days before Emanuel’s con-
firmation, Trump also nomi-
nated former federal manage-
ment-side labor lawyer Peter
Robb to be the NLRB’s general
counsel, its top enforcement of-
ficer.
Robb, now an attorney in
Vermont, wrote the briefs and
made the arguments to get Pres-
ident Ronald Reagan to fire the
Professional Air Traffic Con-
trollers Organization (PATCO)
members after they went on
strike in 1981 over safety is-
sues.
Robb has been critical of re-
cent NLRB decisions including
protecting workers’ rights to use
social media, the Board’s re-
cently enacted rules removing
some employer roadblocks to
union representation elections,
and a policy pushed by Griffin
to hold both franchise holders
— your local McDonald’s —
and parent firms — McDon-
ald’s headquarters — jointly re-
sponsible for obeying or break-
ing labor law.
If confirmed, Robb would
succeed Richard Griffin, whose
term expires in November. Be-
fore entering the NLRB post
during the Obama Administra-
tion, Griffin was general coun-
sel for the International Union
of Operating Engineers.
No hearing date has been set.
EDUCATION: Policy for
business-linked educational
programs
Learn more at
GoForGreene.com
DeMaurice Smith has served as execu-
tive director of the NFL Players Associa-
tion since 2009. The Players Associa-
tion is an affiliate of the national
AFL-CIO.
The two sides have not met to
negotiate since mid-2016. Yet
there’s been no work stoppage
— neither strike nor lockout.
Nor has Mondelēz unilaterally
implemented the final offer it
presented last December. For
the time being, Mondelēz is
continuing to abide by the terms
of its previous collective bar-
gaining agreement with
BCTGM.
BCTGM leaders hope a new
Mondelēz CEO will break the
stalemate: Dirk Van de Put,
who is currently CEO of Cana-
dian french fry giant McCain
Foods, will replace Mondelēz
CEO Irene Rosenfeld in No-
vember.
@goforgreene
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(Editor’s Note: Press Associ-
ates Inc. contributed to this re-
port.)
12/31/17
2017