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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (July 3, 2020)
PAGE 2 | July 3, 2020 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS (International Standard Serial Number 0894-444X) Established in 1900 in Portland, Oregon as a voice of the la- bor movement. Published on a semi-monthly basis on the first and third Fridays of each month by the Oregon Labor Press Publishing Co. Inc., a non-profit mutual benefit corpo- ration owned by 20 unions and councils including the Ore- gon AFL-CIO. Serving more than 120 union organizations in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Office location: 4275 NE Halsey St., Portland, Oregon Mailing address: P.O. Box 13150, Portland, OR 97213 Phone: (503) 288-3311 Web address: http://nwlaborpress.org Editor & Manager: Michael Gutwig Senior staff reporter: Don McIntosh Office manager: Jill Lukens Printed on recycled paper, using soy-based inks, by members of Teamsters Local 747-M. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Individual subscriptions are $15 a year for union members, $23 a year for all others. Pay by credit card online at nwlaborpress.org/subscribe, or send a check to our mailing address (above) along with your name, address and union affiliation, if any. Group rates of 48 cents an issue per member —$11.52 a year— are available for 25 or more subscriptions; call 503-288-3311. CORRECTIONS: See an error? Please let us know at editor@nwlaborpress.org or by phone at 503-288-3311. PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT PORTLAND, OREGON. CHANGE OF ADDRESS: If you move, let us know at nwlaborpress.org/subscriber-services or by mail at our mailing address (above). Be sure to provide your old and new addresses and the name/number of your local union. Please allow three weeks for the change to take effect. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS P.O. BOX 13150 PORTLAND, OR 97213-0150 New Temporary Hours: Mon-Sat 12-6 pm CORRECTIONS Oregon law says you must notify oth- ers if you record in-person.A story in our June 19 issue about audio recordings of Co- lumbia Sportswear managers plotting to fire union supporters didn’t explain Oregon law very well. Oregon law says you can record a telephone call that you’re part of without telling the other party, but if you record an in-person conversation, you must notify others. They don’t have to agree, you just have to inform them. LIFE GOES ONLINE In the era of COVID-19, the union hall is going virtual By Don McIntosh In the internal life of local unions, it’s been lonely few months since COVID-19 turned life upside down in mid-March. Meetings, fundraisers and con- ferences have been canceled. Union organizing house calls are off limits. But unions are adapting by moving nearly everything online. They’re find- ing that Zoom and other tele- conference apps have their lim- its, but the new methods also have advantages. A number of unions are find- ing that holding meetings online is actually increasing atten- dance. Members are spared the drive to and from the meeting, and they can attend from home without having to find child care. Protec17, a 900-strong City of Portland technical employees union, polled its members and found that many prefer the new meeting format. Some meetings have had over 100 attendees. AFSCME Local 189 switch- ed to holding all manner of meetings on Zoom, including regular membership meetings and sessions explaining contract language. As many as 80 mem- bers are attending, more than LIVESTREAMED CONVENTION: Presidential candidate Joe Biden was a keynote speaker at the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO convention April 6-7, the first to be held online. were regularly attending before. Meetings also increased to as frequent as once a week. One meeting was joined by Mayor Ted Wheeler for half an hour. American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 111 Pres- ident Belinda Reagan says her union of Portland Public Schools support staff had over 300 members at one online in- formational meeting about fur- loughs, and the format also makes it easy for the union to hold meetings at different times to accommodate varying de- mands on members’ schedules. From July 28-30, AFT will become the first to hold a na- tional union convention entirely online. Local 111’s Reagan said she immediately saw one ad- vantage to that: Local chapters like hers often don’t have the funds to send their full allotment of delegates to the convention. Now that won’t be an issue. Of course, live meetings are without a doubt more exciting, And Zoom can’t replace a cru- cial function of such gatherings: The fellowship of informal meetings in which union mem- bers from around a state or na- tion get to know each other one- on-one. The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO was actually the first to hold a union convention online on April 6 and 7, after the Pitts- burgh hotel where they planned to meet announced it would close. To be sure, it was a greatly pared down convention. Many affiliated unions had ex- pected to elect their delegates in March, but those meetings were canceled as the epidemic shut down gatherings. The Pennsyl- vania AFL-CIO convention nor- mally draws over 600 delegates and lasts three days. Instead, it took place over two days, with 305 delegates registered and as many as 270 online at any one time. Being online did make it possible for AFL-CIO leaders from 10 other state federations to take part without having to travel. And unions were also spared the expense of hotel stays and other meeting costs, at a time when many members are out of work. Still, Zoom was no substitute for the personal con- nections that would have been forged in person, and Blooming- dale said the 2022 convention would return to tradition. “We certainly missed the face-to-face interaction,” Penn- sylvania AFL-CIO President Rick Bloomingdale told the La- bor Press.
