SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 118, NUMBER 23
IN THIS ISSUE
UNION-MADE GIFT GUIDE: Yes, you can still fill a
stocking and put some solidarity under the tree | Page 6
NO MADE-IN-MEXICO OREOS: Outside a Portland
Walmart, Nabisco Boycott Day of Action. | Page 2
Meeting notices p. 4
Trump’s NAFTA talks p.7
PORTLAND, OREGON
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
DECEMBER 1, 2017
UNION ORGANIZING
At Volunteers of America, still no contract New Seasons rebuffs call
The publicly funded non-profit
adopts a ‘right-to work’ stance
More than a year after workers
at the Oregon chapter of Volun-
teers of America (VOA) voted
46 to 3 to join Oregon AF-
SCME, they still don’t have a
first union contact. The roughly
65 workers staff two residential
alcohol and drug treatment fa-
cilities in Portland where ad-
dicts undergo six months of
court-ordered treatment.
VOA executive director Kay
Toran has opposed the union
from the beginning. She hired
lawyers, and tried but failed to
talk workers out of unionizing.
Then to represent VOA in con-
tract bargaining she brought in
Jim Frazer, a negotiator associ-
ated with many bitter labor dis-
putes over the last few decades.
In bargaining sessions, Frazer
refers to VOA as “the com-
pany.”
for meeting with union
UFCW Local 555 says the
nonunion grocer has already
fired one union supporter
NO CONTRACT, NO PEACE Before heading into another fruitless bar-
gaining session, union drug treatment manager Vialante Vieira took part
in a rainy 8 a.m. picket Nov. 22 outside Volunteers of America offices in
Southeast Portland.
“That shows he really does-
n’t understand the difference
between non-profit mission
and a for-profit company,” says
Oregon AFSCME Executive
Director Stacy Chamberlain,
who heads the union bargain-
ing team.
In bargaining, VOA has
adopted a “right-to-work” pos-
ture: Insisting that the bargain-
ing unit be a open shop, in
Turn to Page 8
By Don McIntosh
The right of workers to speak to
the CEO is a “sacred value” at
New Seasons Market, CEO
Wendy Collie wrote to employ-
ees. Yet Collie, a former Star-
bucks executive, has so far
snubbed a group of workers who
asked for a meeting. Supporters
of the brand-new New Seasons
Workers United union visited
corporate headquarters Nov. 1 to
present a letter and petition
signed by 260 New Seasons
workers asking her to agree to
principles of neutrality — and to
call United Food and Commer-
cial Workers (UFCW) Local 555
Organizing Director Peter Diaz
by Nov. 21 to set up a meeting.
FIRED FOR BACKING A UNION?
The National Labor Relations Board
is investigating whether New Sea-
sons deli worker Adrian Mendoza
was unlawfully terminated.
Collie didn’t give pro-union
workers the courtesy of a reply,
but she did react later that day —
with a letter posted in stores. The
letter asserts that “speaking up”
is “a value we hold dear.”
“You’re welcome to talk di-
Turn to Page 3
NATIONAL
ON STRIKE FOR LIVING WAGES AND AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE: Striking New System laundry workers
Phung Nguyen, Tram Nguyen and Yim Chin say they and their 70 coworkers can’t get by on minimum wage.
Pushed to the limit, laundry workers strike
After more than 20 years laun-
dering linens for Portland’s top
hotels and restaurants, Yim Chin
makes $11.75 an hour at New
System Laundry, a city-block-
sized industrial facility at North-
east 10th and Flanders. Next
year, the Portland-area mini-
mum wage will surpass that
union-negotiated wage, which
was set in 2013 when the
statewide minimum was $8.95.
But in negotiations with Service
Employees Local 49, New Sys-
tem is proposing to pay no more
than the new minimum wage —
and to double what she and her
70 co-workers pay toward
union-sponsored health insur-
ance premiums, from $105 a
month to $213 a month by 2020.
“Because our wages are so
low, if they raise the premium,
we can’t make it,” Chin says.
Local 49 Representative
Melissa Espinosa says the com-
pany hasn’t claimed poverty; it
just doesn’t want to shoulder the
premium increases and pay
above minimum wage.
So on Nov. 28, a week after
their contract expired, the over-
whelmingly Vietnamese and
Chinese workforce went out on
strike. They remained on strike
when this issue went to press.
As this issue went to press, Re-
publican leaders in the U.S. Sen-
ate were preparing to vote on a
tax plan that favors the super-
rich and corporations over work-
ing people. Here’s why the AFL-
CIO says the plan is a bad idea:
■ Millions of working people would
pay more. People making under $40,000
would be worse off, on average, in 2021;
and people making under $75,000 would
be worse off, on average, in 2027.
■ The super-rich and Wall Street
would make out like bandits. The
richest 0.1% would get an average tax cut
of more than $208,000, and 62% of the
benefits of the Senate bill would go to the
richest 1%. Big banks, hedge funds and
other Wall Street firms would be the
biggest beneficiaries of key provisions.
■ Tax breaks for outsourcing. The
Republican tax plan would lower the U.S.
tax rate on offshore profits to zero, giving
corporations more incentive to move
American jobs offshore.
■ Working people would lose health
care.Thirteen million people would lose
health insurance, and premiums would rise
10% in the non-group market.
Meanwhile, Republicans want to cut
Medicaid and Medicare by $1.5 trillion—
the same price tag as their tax bill.
■ Job-killing cuts to infrastructure and
education. Eliminating the deduction for
state and local taxes would drastically
reduce state and local investment in
infrastructure and lead to $350 billion in
education cuts, jeopardizing the jobs of
350,000 educators.
If the vote hasn’t happened
yet when you read this, the AFL-
CIO asks you to call your sena-
tors right away at 844-899-9913
and tell them to vote no.