SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 119, NUMBER 10
IN THIS ISSUE
HOW CONGRESS CREATED THE PENSION CRISIS ...
and how Congress can fix it. | Page 3
PORTLAND FIRE FIGHTERS UNION TURNS 100
Senator Merkley presents a flag from the Capitol. | Page 8
Meeting Notices p. 4
Unionization elections p. 7
PORTLAND, OREGON
MAY 18, 2018
RETIREMENT
Pension crisis sparks reform debate
Over a million union members
are in pension funds that are
headed for insolvency. But
unions are not united about
what to do about it.
By Don McIntosh
By 6:15 p.m., pickup trucks and
cars snaked along NE 162nd
Avenue in Portland waiting to
turn into a complex of Team-
sters union buildings. Near the
union hall entrance, co-workers
socialized in small groups or
lined up to sign a petition. By
6:30, May 2, about 150 Team-
sters were in their seats, and the
meeting got under way with the
pledge of allegiance. Chuck
Mack, the man they came to
hear, took the microphone.
Mack is co-chair of Amer-
ica’s largest multi-employer
pension fund. The Western
Conference of Teamsters Pen-
sion Trust, with 591,619 partic-
UNION ORGANIZING
DON’T MESS WITH OUR PENSIONS: Teamsters lined up to sign petitions
opposing the GROW Act, a bill in Congress that its critics say would shift
the risk of pension investments to workers.
ipants concentrated in 13 West-
ern states, has paid guaranteed
monthly benefits to retired
Teamsters since its founding in
1955. Its investments lost 20
percent of their value in the
2008-2009 financial crash, but
bounced back by the end of
2017. But today, its fate is
linked to the failing Central
States Teamster pension plan,
America’s fourth largest multi-
employer pension. The Central
States pension is projected to
run out of money in six years.
Its collapse won’t just be a dis-
Turn to Page 2
Nabisco’s final final offer: $15k signing bonus
By Don McIntosh
To end a two-year contract
standoff with about 2,000 union
members at its six Nabisco bak-
eries in the United States, Mon-
delēz International is offering to
triple its proposed contract rati-
fication bonus to $15,000 per
employee. All workers would
have to do to get that money is
… let the company withdraw
from their union’s pension plan
and reduce their health insur-
ance benefit.
It’s a limited-time-only offer,
Mondelēz labor relations direc-
tor Pamela DiStefano said in an
April 25 letter to Bakery Con-
fectionery Tobacco and Grain
Millers (BCTGM) vice presi-
dent Jethro Head. The offer ex-
pires at midnight May 20.
Is the company planning to
impose its own contract offer
after that? Laurie M. Guzzinati,
Mondelēz Global LLC’s senior
director for corporate and gov-
ernment affairs for North
America, wouldn’t say, but said
GIVE UP OUR PENSION FOR
$15,000? NO THANKS! At the
Portland Nabisco bakery, a letter
from the plant manager about a
company contract offer got a
chilly reaction. Union members
wrote “Return to Sender,” “No
thanks!!!!” and other messages on
the unopened envelopes.
in an email to the Labor Press
that more than two years have
passed since the previous con-
tracts expired.
“During this time, the
BCTGM has not allowed our
employees the opportunity to
vote on our offer,” Guzzinati
wrote.
BCTGM — which has re-
jected company proposals to
withdraw from the pension —
declined to respond to the
Mondelēz offer to triple the rat-
ification bonus. That’s when
the company began contacting
employees directly, in what
would appear to be a violation
of federal labor law. Employers
aren’t supposed to negotiate di-
rectly with workers if they’re
union-represented. But Mon-
delēz, in letters and meetings
with workers, is pitching the
tripled bonus and urging them
to put pressure on the union to
allow a vote on it.
“[I] urge you to ask … your
union representatives for the
opportunity to vote as soon as
possible on the company’s of-
fer,” Portland bakery general
manager Jan Beunder wrote in
a May 3 letter to employees.
Turn to Page 7
Yes, welders can unionize at
Precision Castparts, NLRB rules
A group of 100 highly skilled
welders at Precision Castparts
Corp. (PCC) can have a union
after all, the National Labor Re-
lations Board (NLRB) has
ruled.
The Portland-area welders
voted 54 to 38 to join the Ma-
chinists union on Sept. 22, 2017,
but Precision Castparts filed a
legal appeal with the NLRB, ar-
guing that a welders-only bar-
gaining unit wouldn’t be appro-
priate, because the welders
work in 18 separate departments
at three separate campuses.
When workers seek to union-
ize, the NLRB determines
which of their co-workers do
and don’t belong in their pro-
posed bargaining unit, if em-
ployer and union don’t agree
about that. Under federal law,
units can include all of an em-
ployer’s workers, those at a par-
ticular location or department,
or those in a particular craft spe-
cialty.
PCC said the only appropri-
ate unit would consist of all
2,500 Portland-area workers.
No doubt it argued that because
Turn to Page 7
Gladstone Burgerville becomes the
second store to vote in union
In ballots counted May 13,
workers at the Gladstone Burg-
erville restaurant
at 19119 SE
McLoughlin
Blvd. voted 17 to
5 to unionize
with the Burg-
erville Workers
Union, which is
affiliated with
the Industrial
Workers of the
World (IWW).
That marks the second win for
the grassroots union in an elec-
tion administered by the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board.
The first was the store at South-
east 92nd and Powell Boulevard
in Portland, which voted “Union
Yes” by 18 to 4 on
April 23 — be-
coming the first
officially union-
ized fast food
restaurant in the
United States. The
union and com-
pany management
have set May 22
as the date for
their first bargain-
ing session for the 92nd Avenue
store. The union is calling on
members of the public to boy-
cott the company until it signs a
fair union contract.