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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 19, 2018)
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | October 19, 2018 | PAGE 5 U.S. MAIL: NOT FOR SALE American Postal Workers Union Local 128 legislative director Daniel Cortez presents Oregon Congressman Earl Blu- menauer a ‘Thank You’ plaque signed by hundreds of Oregonians, including Bob Gross and Alice Muccio (photo above right). Oregon’s Congressional Democrats unanimously oppose privatizing the U.S. Post Office. U.S. Postal Service (USPS) em- ployees, joined by community supporters, held rallies at 140 sites across the nation Oct 8 to sound an alarm against a Trump Administration proposal to priva- tize the agency. In Portland, sev- eral dozen people gathered in the plaza in front of Congressman Earl Blumenauer’s and Senator Ron Wyden’s offices in Northeast Portland at Lloyd Center. Blume- nauer made a brief appearance to show support. Blumenauer, Wyden, and Oregon’s entire Democratic congressional dele- gation are co-sponsors of resolu- tions that call for the USPS to re- main “an independent establishment of the Federal Government … not subject to privatization.” In the House, 219 members from both sides of the aisle are co-sponsors. Missing from the list is Oregon Republi- can Greg Walden. “We [USPS] have been part of the American fabric for over 200 years,” said Kevin Card, a former Branch 82 letter carrier and now an officer with the National As- sociation of Letter Carriers (NALC). “There’s no reason to A UNION MEMBER – FOR 75 YEARS Two days after he turned 16, Elmer Heffner got his union card. “Steam Fit- ters Union 235,” it said. That was Sept. 29, 1943. Seventy-five years later, Heffner, 91, is believed to be the longest-standing member of what’s now UA Local 290, a distinction that earned him honors at a well-attended Sept. 20 meeting of the union’s retiree chapter. Heffner began his union work life at Al- bina Pipe, bending pipes used in Port- land’s wartime shipyards for four hours a day while he continued to study at Benson High School. A year in, an on- the-job injury cost him a kidney, but he was soon back up, welding pipe on the waterfront. After World War Two, he be- gan an apprenticeship in Plumbers Lo- cal 51. [Plumbers Local 51 and Steam Fitters 235 merged in the 1980s to be- come Local 290.] Heffner spent the next three decades as an employee of two union-signatory construction con- tractors, Ideal Plumbing and Dales Plumbing. Laying pipe for medical clin- ics, gas stations and apartment build- ings was hard work. “It’s a lot easier today. Everything’s plas- tic,” Heffner told the Labor Press. “When I first started out out, everything was concrete, cast iron or steel. There was nothing light. That’s why I had four back surgeries. Everything was heavy.” Thirty-seven years after joining the union, Heffner retired with a union disability pension March 14, 1980, at age 52. “I’m glad I was a union member all my life,” Heffner says. “It’s a good living.” privatize us, except for a bunch of greedy billionaires who want to reach their hands in the pockets of every American and pull out as much money as they can.” In a 2018 Pew Research Cen- ter poll, the Post Office got the highest ratings of any major gov- ernment agency, with 88 percent of Americans expressing satisfac- tion. The Postal Service, which is mentioned in the U.S. Constitu- tion, delivers 40 percent of the world’s mail without receiving a dime in taxpayer money. In May, Trump created a task force to evaluate USPS opera- tions and finances. The executive order creating the task force sug- gested that USPS’s universal service obligation (which re- quires it to deliver to every ad- dress in the nation for the same price) is no longer necessary. While the task force has yet to re- lease its findings, the Administra- tion tipped its hand in the Office of Management and Budget’s goverment-wide reorganization plan released in June. Notably, the plan called for eventual priva- tization of the Postal Service. Oregon Rural Letter Carriers Association president Scott Mu- rahashi says if USPS is sold, pri- vate contractors will pick off the lucrative inner city routes and leave rural communities stranded. America’s top pointer Matt Botts of Bricklayers Local 1 Oregon won first place in the Pointer-Cleaner- Caulker category of an inter- national apprentice competi- tion. The International Apprentice Contest, spon- sored by the training arm of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts (BAC), takes place once every three years, and draws contestants from all over the United States and Canada. Botts is a third-year ap- prentice, a member of Local 1, and an employee of Tigard-based Pioneer Water- proofing. He outperformed 15 other contestants in the 2018 contest, which took place Oct. 6 at the Interna- tional Masonry Institute in Bowie, Maryland. Botts had qualified for the national contest by winning the same category at the BAC’s Western States Apprenticeship Contest, held May 18-19 in Las Vegas. Pointer-Cleaner-Caulker specialists specialize in restoring old masonry. A pointer replaces mortar between ma- sonry units, a cleaner cleans all masonry surfaces, and a caulker applies sealants to expansion joints. In the contest, com- petitors show their skill on beaded and grapevine joints, fix limestone precast to make it look original, infill brick over iron after it is flashed and sealed to sim- ulate a window opening, and correctly answer questions on a written test.
