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
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