SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 121, NUMBER 15
IN THIS ISSUE
FOOD BOX DISTRIBUTION AUG. 15 Union program
will hand out food boxes at OE 701 in Gladstone | Page 3
SUBSIDIZED CHILDCARE Through LCSA and the Pre-
Apprenticeship Child Care Initiative. | Page 5
Meeting Notices p.4
Labor Day Picnics Canceled p.4
PORTLAND, OREGON
AUGUST 7, 2020
Broadway Corridor breakthrough
Reopening schools: What do teachers think?
The 12-block public-private
project on the former post
office site will use union labor.
Is it possible for schools to reopen
safely? Can online education substi-
tute for in-person instruction? As
school districts debated those ques-
tions and ultimately pushed back in-
person reopening to at least Novem-
ber, the Labor Press turned to
Madison High School English
teacher Elizabeth Thiel, the newly
elected president of Portland Associ-
ation of Teachers (PAT), for answers.
By Don McIntosh
Three minutes before a planned
July 20 meeting with Portland
Mayor Ted Wheeler and Com-
missioner Jo Ann Hardesty, ne-
gotiations over a new neighbor-
hood called the Broadway
Corridor ended with the Zoom
equivalent of a handshake. After
a year of talks, the City’s devel-
opment agency Prosper Port-
land, Denver developer Contin-
uum Partners, and a union-
community alliance called the
Healthy Communities Coalition
cleared the final hurdles to reach
a wide-ranging agreement to
guarantee living wage jobs for
workers and provide opportuni-
ties for women and minorities.
The development centers on
the 12-block former U.S. Postal
Service (USPS) mail processing
plant that was bought by the City
of Portland in 2016. If approved
as expected by Prosper Portland
and Portland City Council, the
community benefits agreement
(CBA) will require that all con-
struction work on the site, public
or private, pay the state-deter-
mined prevailing wage. Only
contractors that provide full-
family health benefits can bid,
though that requirement can be
waived for state-certified
women- and minority-owned
contractors bidding on less than
$1 million of work. Union and
community groups will help
oversee compliance with com-
mitments by contractors to em-
ploy women and minorities as
apprentice and journeymen con-
struction workers. Continuum
has also committed to negotiate
a project labor agreement (PLA)
once it has selected its general
contractor, assuring that it will
use union construction labor on
the project, with limited excep-
tions. The deal also commits to
respecting union rights for jani-
tors and security guards on the
properties once the project is
complete.
Neither side is releasing full
details yet, but the CBA will be
presented to the Prosper Portland
board Aug. 12.
Early work on the site has al-
ready begun in preparation for
demolition.
Sheet Metal union restructures
The new SMART Northwest Re-
gional Council covers 9,500 mem-
bers in five locals in seven states.
By Don McIntosh
Five Sheet Metal union locals
across the Northwestern United
States have been reorganized into
a new regional council, headquar-
tered in Everett, Washington. Un-
der the reorganization, members
will elect delegates to the regional
council, and local business man-
agers and staff will be appointed
and paid by the regional council.
The change came at the direction
of the locals’ parent organization,
the International Association of
Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Trans-
portation Workers (SMART).
SMART Northwest Regional
Council is the union’s second re-
gional council, following the for-
mation of the Southwest Gulf
Coast Regional Council, a four-
local council headquartered in
San Antonio. Several other build-
ing trades unions—including La-
borers and Carpenters—have
also moved toward a greater role
for regional councils in recent
years.
SMART Northwest Regional
Council became official June 1,
2020. It includes Locals 16, 23,
55, 66, and 103, covering mem-
bers in Washington, Oregon,
Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Wyo-
ming, and Nebraska. All told, it
brings together about 9,500 active
members. Most are in construc-
tion, but more than 1,000 work in
production at manufacturing fa-
cilities and shipyards. The five lo-
cals employ roughly 50 business
representatives, organizers, and
office staff at more than a dozen
Turn to Page 6
What was PAT members’ re-
action to the plan to reopen at
half capacity? The vast major-
ity of our members believe that
the best and only option is on-
line, because of safety. Nobody
wants to be back in classrooms
with students more than teach-
ers. Distance learning is not
what we want. It is absolutely
not the best educational model.
It’s not what we were trained to
“So many of our teachers have con-
tacted me to say, ‘I feel like I’m begin
asked to play Russian roulette with my
life or with my immunocompromised
child’s life.’”
— PAT president Elizabeth Thiel
do, and it’s not how we best
connect with our students. But
we have a responsibility for our
students’ safety as well as our
workers’ safety and the safety of
all our family members in the
community. Talking with our
superintendent, it seems more
and more clear that the hybrid
model would not be sufficient to
keep people safe. Part of it is we
don’t have answers to basic
questions, like so many of our
classrooms don’t have good
ventilation. We don’t have oper-
able windows in all of our class-
room. We don’t have touch-less
sinks; in fact most schools have
sinks where you have to hold
the faucet with one hand in or-
der to put the other hand under
the water or it automatically
springs back. So even washing
hands is tricky in our schools.
And then you think about things
like fire drills, earthquake drills,
Turn to Page 2
Introducing IUPAT Local 101
By Don McIntosh
For the first time since their
craft was born 70 years ago,
Portland-area drywall finishers
in Oregon and Southwest
Washington have their own
union local: On June 1 the In-
ternational Union of Painters
and Allied Trades (IUPAT)
chartered Local 101 as the
union for drywall finishers.
Since at least 1953, when
drywall started being widely
used in construction instead of
lathe and plaster, local drywall
finishers had been part of Port-
land-headquartered Painters
Local 10. But their numbers
have been growing, and dry-
wall finishers wanted their own
local. Drywall finishers within
Painters Local 300 of Seattle
made a similar move, forming
Local 364. Meetings to talk
about forming a local were the
best-attended ever, says Kirk
Malcom, a drywall finisher and
24-year union member who
was appointed by IUPAT Dis-
trict Council 5 to be Local 101’s
business representative.
“There’s a sense of pride
with crafts that have their own
locals,” Malcom said. “Mem-
bers had seen the success of
Seattle, and Portland has grown
significantly.”
Drywall finishers tape the
joints between pieces of dry-
wall, fill seams and holes with
compound, and add textures
and finishes. It’s a skilled trade,
and the most skilled workers
are on the union side of the in-
dustry.
“If it’s going to be a real
showpiece, they hire a union
contractor,” Malcom said. “Of-
ten, we go in and fix nonunion
work.”
The new Local 101 has 454
members. They work for 33
signatory contractors, including
12 companies that belong to the
employer group Associated
Wall and Ceiling Contractors of
Oregon and Southwest Wash-
ington (AWCCO).
And they earn good money.
Under their master agreement
between AWCCO, journey-
man drywall finishers make
Turn to Page 7
TOOLS OF THE TRADE: Drywall Fin-
ishers Local 101 member Robert
Hewitt, an employee of Fred
Shearer and Sons, handles what
members of the trade call a
“bazooka” — an automatic taper
that applies joint compound and
tape to drywall seams.