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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 15, 2017)
PAGE 6 | December 15, 2017 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS COLLECTIVE BARGAINING JOBS Rain was heavy but spirits were high as New System laundry workers walked off the job the morning of Nov. 28. “I am not here today to encourage deregulation,” said IBEW Local 48 representative Mike Bridges, center, at Nov. 29 House Natural Resources Committee hearing, “but that process needs to adhere to the actual regulatory re- quirements and follow a reasonable timeline.” Federal rules have delayed coal terminal 5 years, IBEW Local 48 rep tells Congress By Don McIntosh For a construction project to be delayed more than five years while federal agencies work on a 4,000-page environmental impact statement: Is that what Congress intended when it passed the National Environ- mental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1969? That’s the question a Longview union official took to Congress Nov. 29, testifying before the House Natural Re- sources Committee. “The Building Trades sup- port a thorough permitting process, but that process needs to adhere to the actual regula- tory requirements and follow a reasonable timeline,” IBEW Local 48 Business Representa- tive Mike Bridges told commit- tee members at a hearing on “Modernizing NEPA for the 21st Century.” Bridges repre- sents electrical workers in Southwest Washington, and serves as president of the Longview-Kelso Building and Construction Trades Council. IBEW flew him to Washington, D.C., to tell Congress the NEPA process has gone off the rails for projects like the coal export facility Millennium Bulk Terminals has proposed to build in Longview, Washington. Millennium proposes to re- develop the site — a Reynolds Aluminum smelter that closed in 2000 — as the West Coast’s largest coal export terminal. But the proposal has run into opposition from environmental and community groups, and has had great difficulty getting all the federal, state, and local per- mits it needs. Building trades unions have been supporting the project be- cause the company signed a project labor agreement pledg- ing to use union labor, to the tune of 1,350 direct jobs and $70 million in direct wages. Millennium submitted its permit applications in February 2012. It took three-and-a-half years for the Seattle office of the Army Corps of Engineers to complete the “draft” Environ- mental Impact Statement (EIS) that the federal NEPA law re- quires. And the final EIS is still unfinished. “I don’t think Congress would think that a federal NEPA EIS should take six years, especially given the scope of our project,” Wendy Hutchinson, Millennium Vice President of Public Affairs, told the Labor Press. “We’re really a trans-loading facility trying to build two docks on the Colum- bia River, no different than the hundreds of other docks that the Army Corps has permitted in the Columbia River.” In his testimony to the House committee, Bridges said NEPA has been used to protract and impede agency officials from making a permit decision, in- stead of serving as a useful tool to solicit input from the public and educate decision-makers about a proposed project’s en- vironmental pros and cons — as Congress intended. “NEPA was not enacted to function as a political process to allow members of the public to voice their approval or disap- proval of a controversial proj- ect,” Bridges said. “Yet the multiple NEPA hearings I at- tended on the Millennium proj- ect functioned as a public vot- ing booth of sorts. At these public hearings, I witnessed singing grandmothers, people dressed as their favorite endan- gered species, and other theatri- cal antics, designed not to in- form agency officials but to publically protest the project.” Bridges said building trades unions support responsible and consistent environmental regu- lations and have been involved in renewable energy projects and environmental improve- ments at industrial facilities for decades. But they also want jobs building infrastructure for fossil fuels, which are still the main source of energy. “We get accused even by our members: ‘Why are we sup- porting a dying industry?’” Bridges told the Labor Press. “I just always remind folks: We don’t get the opportunity to de- cide what the Port wants to in- vest in or what a private entity wants to invest in. But we’re going to support responsible, New System laundry strike ends after two days Workers at New System Laun- dry returned to the job Nov. 30 after two days on strike. The strike was called after the company proposed to pay mini- mum wage to its overwhelm- ingly female Vietnamese and Chinese workforce in negotia- tions over a new union contract with Service Employees Inter- national Union (SEIU) Local 49. New System also wants to double the employee contribu- tion to health insurance premi- ums to $213 a month. New System does laundry for hotels, hospitals, and restau- rants. During the walkout, groups of three to eight workers visited the company’s clients to introduce themselves, explain the strike, and ask for symbolic displays of support. Local 49 then tweeted pictures of work- ers, managers and owners at over a dozen restaurants holding signs saying “I support New System workers.” Dozens of community sup- porters also turned out to walk the picket line with strikers, in- cluding Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek. An overwhelming majority of the 71 members of the bar- gaining unit took part in the strike, but a handful of workers remained on the job. At press time, there was no word on whether further strikes are planned. The next negotia- tion session, aided by a media- tor, was scheduled to take place Dec. 13, after this went to press. From the Officers and Staff of ELEVATOR CONSTRUCTORS LOCAL 23 12067 NE Glenn Widing Drive, Suite 108 Portland, Oregon 503-252-5852 IUEC23.org Turn to Page 12
