SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
IN THIS ISSUE
UNION SPORTSMENS ALLIANCE USA teams up with
OSBCTC to raise money for conservation. | Page 3
UNION ELECTION IBEW Local 48 elects new business
manager: Garth Bachman. | Page 5
Meeting Notices p.4
VOLUME 120, NUMBER 14
New BOLI hire has union ties p.5
PORTLAND, OREGON
JULY 19, 2019
Cascade Steel Mills ready to strike
By Don McIntosh
Workers at Cascade Steel Rolling
Mills in McMinnville may go on
strike if they don’t have an accept-
able union contract offer by Aug. 1.
Profitable scrap metal recycler
Schnitzer Steel is paying CEO
Tamara Lundgren over $9 million a
year while offering raises that lag
behind inflation in negotiations over
a new contract for the 280 members
of United Steelworkers Local 8378.
Schnitzer also wants to diminish
dental benefits and make workers
pay a much greater portion of their
health insurance premiums.
Millworker Tim Davis, a mem-
ber of the union bargaining team,
says he and his co-workers made
concessions in previous contracts
and they’re in no mood to do that
again at a time when the company
is thriving. A continued construction
boom is creating demand for mill
products like rebar and wire rod
that’s used to make nails; both out-
put and prices are up. Meanwhile,
foreign competition is down thanks
to the 25% tariffs President Donald
Trump imposed on foreign steel.
And shareholders are reaping the
benefits of Trump’s 40% cut in the
corporate income tax rate.
But in bargaining with the union
over a new three-year contract,
Schnitzer Steel is proposing annual
raises of 2.25%. Consumer prices in
the region are rising 2.9% a year, ac-
cording to the latest figures. Local
8378 negotiators are proposing 4%.
Currently wages at the mill range
from $22.17 an hour for utility
workers to $31.58 for millwrights
and $35.05 for electricians.
Concessions last time
Workers already lost ground to in-
flation in their last contract, which
specified annual raises of 1% a year.
Workers also agreed in that contract
to a much less generous production
bonus formula (bonuses fell from
thousands of dollars a year to just
hundreds). And they agreed to pay
a greater share of the health insur-
ance premium: Their contribution
increased by 1% a year and now
stands at 16%.
Now Schnitzer wants to ratchet
up workers’ share of the premium
even more—by 4% a year, which
would bring them to 28% by the
end of the contract—close to what
management calls “the Schnitzer
standard” in which employees now
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Butch Lewis Act advances in House
House Democrats could pass a
bill to rescue distressed union
pension plans
Following five-and-a-half-
hours of debate and voting on
Republican-member amend-
ments, the U.S. House Ways &
Means Committee on July 10
approved legislation to estab-
lish federal loans for troubled
multi-employer pension plans.
The Rehabilitation for Multi-
employer Pensions Act of 2019
(H.R. 397) passed on a party-
line vote of 25-to-17.
In June, the House Educa-
tion & Labor Committee ap-
proved a similar version of the
bill, addressing changes that
fell within its jurisdiction. The
26-18 vote also was on party
lines.
The House Appropriations
Committee also shares jurisdic-
tion over the legislation, but it
is not clear when the committee
will act.The various changes to
H.R. 397 will have to be recon-
ciled in the House Rules Com-
mittee prior to the bill moving
to the full House, where it is
likely to pass.
Also known as the Butch
Lewis Act—named after an
Ohio truck driver and member
of the Teamsters Central States
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From left, Corey Hanley, Justas Porta, William Jackson outside the soon-to-be-completed Hyatt Hotel in Portland.
ON THE JOB with Elevator Constructors #23
By Don McIntosh
Corey Hanley, 45, found his call-
ing in 2007.
Back then he worked a desk
job as an engineering draftsman
for a dental equipment maker,
and couldn’t seem to rise above
a wage ceiling of $20 an hour.
Twelve years later he builds
and maintains the elevators and
escalators that make possible
Portland’s high-rise skyline. As
a journeyman member of Inter-
national Union of Elevator Con-
structors Local 23, he earns a
wage of $54.32 an hour plus
$39.74 an hour in benefits.
“I love this trade, because
there’s so much to it,” Hanley
says. “You have to know mathe-
matics, physics, mechanical, en-
gineering, and electrical.”
Elevator constructors are
among the first and last workers
on a high-rise construction site.
The work begins when a several
ton “cassette” is lowered by
crane onto rubber isolation pads
on machine beams at the top of
a building. [The cassette is the
machine that raises and lowers
the elevator cab that will be con-
structed below.] Once the cas-
sette is welded to the beam, ele-
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