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.