SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
IN THIS ISSUE
MULTNOMAH COUNTY TAKES ON WAGE THEFT
Union reps could help the County enforce the law. | Page 4
SAY THEIR NAMES A list of workers who died on the
job in Oregon in 2018. | Page 5
Meeting Notices p.6 UA Local 290 apprentice contest p.9
VOLUME 120, NUMBER 8
PORTLAND, OREGON
Time to ban a slow-moving killer
WORKERS MEMORIAL DAY
remembering oregon workers
who died on the job
salem — The Oregon AFL-CIO will hold a
memorial ceremony at the Fallen Workers
Memorial on the Capitol Mall in Salem. The
service will feature remarks from elected offi-
cials, union leaders, and safety and health ad-
vocates, and the reading of the names of the
50 workers who died on the job in Oregon
in 2018.
■ When: Friday, April 26, noon
■ Where: Labor and Industries Building, 350 Winter St.
NE, Salem
Workers Memorial Day is observed every year
on April 28. It’s a day to honor workers who
have died on the job, to remember the suffer-
ing experienced by families and workers in all
trades, and to recommit to the fight for a safe
and healthy work environment for all workers.
portland — The Northwest Oregon Labor
Council will hold a memorial service at its
monthly delegates meeting. Delegates will
raise an American flag in honor of each Ore-
gon worker who died on the job last year.
■ When: Monday, April 22, 7 p.m.
■ Where: IBEW Local 48 Hall, 15937 NE Airport Way,
Portland
WORKER SAFETY
Two years after a horrifying bridge accident,
Abhe & Svoboda still hasn’t paid any fine
By Don McIntosh
It still stands out as one of the
most spectacular construction
accidents of recent memory:
Beneath Portland’s Ross Is-
land Bridge on the morning of
Feb. 8, 2017, bridge painter
Marco Dion Lilly tripped near
an unsecured ladder opening
and plummeted 37 feet, land-
ing on his adopted son
Christopher Montiel. Both
suffered permanent and severe
injuries and were lucky to
have survived at all.
The ensuing investigation
by Oregon’s Occupational
Safety and Health Administra-
tion (Oregon OSHA) found
that their nonunion employer,
Abhe & Svoboda, had done
just about everything wrong.
No guardrail had been in-
stalled around the hole. Work-
ers on the upper platform
wore fall protection harnesses
but weren’t attaching them to
anything. The scaffold had
been constructed improperly.
It had been an accident wait-
ing to happen.
APRIL 19, 2019
The daughter of a union plumber
wants to end the occupational
disease that claimed her father.
By Don McIntosh
Growing up in Astoria, Oregon,
Ann Samuelson remembers her fa-
ther as a man who worked hard. By
day, Stan Grimberg built up his
union plumbing business. By
night, he took his gillnetting boat
out on the Columbia River, earning
enough to buy her a horse and pro-
vide the family with a good life.
One day when Samuelson was
22, her father was re-piping one of
Astoria’s grand historic homes and
found himself unable to catch his
breath. He went straight to a doctor,
who sent him to a hospital. They
drained fluid from his lungs and
found asbestos fibers in the fluid.
Eighteen months later, Grim-
berg was dead of what the doctor
called “Steve McQueen’s disease”
— mesothelioma, a cancer caused
by asbestos. He was 53.
Ann Samuelson says it’s past time for
America to ban asbestos, the cancer-
causing mineral that killed her father.
That was June 6, 1982. Decades
later, Samuelson began speaking
about what happened to her father.
“I used to not talk about it,”
Samuelson said. “It used to scare
me to think about it. You watch
somebody die of that — it’s a hor-
rible way to die. You suffocate, ba-
sically. You’re emaciated, and you
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TRADE
Trump’s new NAFTA: Is America’s
trade policy at a crossroads?
From the underside of the Ross Island Bridge to the platform below, a
painter fell 37 feet and landed on his own son.
Yet, two years later, the
company has paid no price.
Oregon OSHA assessed a
$189,000 fine in June 2017
for knowingly and repeatedly
exposing its workers to injury
and death, but Abhe & Svo-
boda appealed, and the case is
still open. Meanwhile, the
company has continued to bid
on other bridge work for the
Oregon Department of Trans-
portation (ODOT).
That aggravates local
painters union leaders like
District Council 5 representa-
tive Scott Oldham.
“It seems to me at the very
least there would be a suspen-
sion of their bidding on proj-
ects,” Oldham said.
Since the accident, Abhe &
Svoboda has bid on at least
five other ODOT bridge proj-
ects, though in each case other
bidders won the work. Under
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nafta working as intended Citing “changes in product demand” Mon-
delez/Nabisco shut down an Oreo production line at its Portland bakery for two
weeks in late March, temporarily laying off at least 30 members of Bakers Local
364. That inspired several members to visit the nearest Fred Meyer grocery,
where they found Mexican-made Oreos on shelves.
By Don McIntosh
When Portland Congressman Earl
Blumenauer learned he’d be the
new chair of a House trade sub-
committee, the first call he made
was to Oregon AFL-CIO president
Tom Chamberlain. Blumenauer
has been considered a reliably pro-
labor Democrat, except on one is-
sue: trade. During 22 years in Con-
gress, he voted for seven NAFTA-
style trade agreements, supported
permanent normal trade relations
with China, and voted in favor of
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