SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
IN THIS ISSUE
UNION VOLUNTEERS FIGHT WAGE THEFT
Multnomah County looks to expand pilot program. | Page 3
UNION PRESIDENTIAL ENDORSEMENTS In a crowded
field, two Democrats have a few early supporters. | Page 8
Meeting notices p. 4
VOLUME 121, NUMBER 4
Union day care? p. 5
PORTLAND, OREGON
FEBRUARY 21, 2020
U.S. House passes labor law reform
The PRO Act would restore the
power of workers to unionize,
bargain collectively, and strike.
By Don McIntosh
The most far-reaching pro-
union labor law reform in 85
years passed the U.S. House
Feb. 6 on a 224-194 vote.
Known as the Protect the Right
to Organize (PRO) Act, HB
2474 would crack down on un-
lawful anti-union tactics by
employers, make it easier and
quicker for workers to unionize
and get a first contract, and
eliminate so-called “right to
work” laws on the books in 27
states that are intended to keep
unions weak.
The PRO Act had the sup-
port of five Republicans and all
but seven Democrats, but it’s
not expected to get a vote in the
Republican-led Senate, and
even if it did pass the Senate,
President Donald Trump would
veto it, according to a White
THE DAY OF THE VOTE “In more than 40% of all union organizing drives,
employers simply break the law,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said
at a Feb. 6 press event with Congressional allies. “They lie, they coerce, in
some cases they fire union supporters. Workers are forced to attend
mandatory meetings with one item on the agenda, and that’s to make
people afraid to exercise our right to form a union. …That’s how you end
up with an economy where over 60 million people say they would vote
to join a union today, but only one in 10 actually have one.”
House statement on the bill.
Still, backers say the vote
sends a message, shows voters
what side members of Con-
gress are on, and is a possible
sign of what Democrats could
do if they retake the Senate.
The PRO Act has been the
national AFL-CIO’s top priority.
Leading up to the vote, HB
2474 had 218 co-sponsors, in-
cluding two Republicans.
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ANALYSIS
Nationwide strike wave continued in 2019
The strike wave that began in
2018 continued in 2019, ac-
cording to the annual work
stoppages report by the Bureau
of Labor Statistics (BLS), re-
leased Feb. 11.
BLS has tracked “large”
work stoppages involving over
1,000 workers since 1947. Judg-
ing by the agency’s figures,
strikes were a basic feature of
collective bargaining from the
1950s to the 1970s, with hun-
dreds of large strikes a year, but
strikes fell off dramatically in
the 1980s, becoming nearly ex-
tinct by 2009, when there were
just five strikes nationwide of
over 1,000 workers, and 2017,
when there were seven.
Then in 2018, BLS reported
20 large strikes involving an
estimated 485,000 American
workers, the most in 33 years.
The strike wave continued in
2019, with 25 major work stop-
pages involving 425,000 work-
THE TEN BIGGEST STRIKES OF 2019
92,700
46,000
36,400
33,000
32,000
31,000
25,000
20,400
20,000
18,900
North Carolina Association of Educators vs. NC Legislature
United Auto Workers vs. General Motors
West Virginia Education Association vs. W.V. Legislature
United Teachers Los Angeles vs. LA Unified School District
Chicago Teachers Union vs. Chicago Public Schools
UFCW vs. Stop & Shop Supermarket in Mass., Conn. and R.I.
AFSCME Local 3299 vs. University of California
Oregon Education Association vs. Oregon Legislature
CWA vs. AT&T in nine southern states
South Carolina Association of Educators vs. SC Legislature
ers.
The strike wave started with
West Virginia teachers in Feb-
ruary 2018, and teachers
unions led the way again in
2019, with 13 large strikes in-
volving 270,000 teachers in
North Carolina, West Virginia
(again), Los Angeles, Chicago,
Oregon, South Carolina, Ken-
tucky, Denver, Oakland, Sacra-
mento, and Kennewick, Wash-
ington. The year’s largest strike
involved 92,700 teachers in
1 day
29 days
2 days
6 days
11 days
7 days
3 days
1 day
2 days
1 day
North Carolina. The largest pri-
vate sector strike was by
United Auto Workers at Gen-
eral Motors, with 46,000 work-
ers out for 29 days.
One large strike continued in
2019 and is still under way:
1,800 members of IBEW Local
3 walked off the job March 28,
2017 at Charter Communica-
tions in New York and New
Jersey and have been on strike
for 1,060 days since then.
Judge could lower ILWU jury award
By Don McIntosh
The fate of the International
Longshore and Warehouse
Union (ILWU) is in the hands of
a judge. Last November, a jury
ruled that the 38,000-member
West Coast longshore union and
its Portland Local 8 must pay
$93.6 million in damages for or-
chestrating an on-the-job slow-
down that harmed ICTSI, the
Philippine-owned company that
operated Port of Portland Termi-
nal 6. That’s more than 10 times
the union’s total assets, and
ILWU has let members know
that bankrupcty is possible as a
result. On Feb. 14, ILWU attor-
neys asked U.S. District Judge
Michael Simon to reduce that
amount.
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Machinists and electricians get
raises of up to $10,000 at Nabisco
Bargaining dragged on and on.
Then workers got ready to strike.
By Don McIntosh
After two years of negotiations,
only when 32 union machinists
and 10 electricians at Mondelēz’
Portland Nabisco bakery started
preparing for a strike did the com-
pany give them an acceptable of-
fer. On Feb. 2, members of Ma-
chinists Local Lodge 63 and
IBEW Local 48 ratified a pair of
union contracts that raise wages
$6,000 to $10,000 year or more.
Members of the two unions
work together to maintain and
repair the machines that turn
flour and sugar into Oreos and
Ritz crackers. Their unions also
negotiate together. But for the
longest time, it wasn’t going
well: Mondelēz pushed propos-
als that members wanted no part
of, like a shift to a workweek of
three 12-hour days.
“In terms of the duration and
the amount of effort it took to
get a contract, it was like noth-
ing I’ve experienced,” said Lo-
cal 48 business representative
Mike Bridges, a union negotia-
tor since 2011. Six union mem-
bers and staff met with six com-
pany negotiators 41 times over
more than two years. So high
was Mondelēz management
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