PAGE 2 | February 19, 2021 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
NORTHWEST
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PEOPLE
Taking a building trades agenda to the Oregon Capitol
Electrician Wayne Chow knows first hand the
difference a union makes.
By Don McIntosh
When Robert Camarillo was chosen to head
the Oregon Building Trades Council in
2018, taking the construction union agenda
to the state capitol was a one-person opera-
tion. Last year, reinforcements arrived:
IBEW Local 48 president Wayne Chow.
Chow, 43, brings a unique perspective to
the job, as someone who suffered wage theft
in the years before he found his union.
Born and raised in Toronto, Chow worked
as a motorcycle mechanic when he moved
to Portland in 2000, but entered an electrical
apprenticeship on the encouragement of his
then father-in-law. Unfortunately for Chow,
it was the non-union program. Unlike the
free-to-participants IBEW/NECA training
program, that meant he had to pay for tuition,
books, tools, and lab fees, while earning just
over minimum wage. Without a union hiring
hall and dispatch, he had to solicit his own
work. One nonunion contractor said flat-out
that he wouldn’t hire Chow because of his
last name.
“I’m not white,” Chow points out. “My
father is from Hong Kong.”
Working nonunion, he was fed antiunion
propaganda even as his employer cheated
him out of wages by setting expectations for
off-the-clock work.
“They’d make you start 15 minutes early
to take your tools out, put up the laydown
area, and get everything set up,” Chow says.
“Then they’d make you work past your quit-
ting time. That’s wage theft, but I didn’t
know any better. When you’re in a situation
like that, without a collective bargaining
agreement, they have a lot of power over
you. You’re going to do what you need to do
to keep your job.”
Chow’s lucky break came in 2006 when
a union electrical contractor was employed
alongside his company on a big job. His
foreman told him not to talk with the union
workers, but Local 48 members saw him
working and approached him.
“This older guy pulled me over at lunch,
and said ‘You might want to think about go-
ing union. You look like you know what
you’re doing. We could use a guy like you.’”
“One of the guys actually said, ‘I’ll show
you my paycheck and you show me yours.’
I took a look, and I was like ‘Holy shit!’”
Chow went to the union hall and signed
on in 2007. He says he found not just better
pay and unbeatable benefits, but a more col-
laborative workplace culture.
“I experienced how open people are in
sharing their craft,” Chow says. “In the non-
union world, you don’t want to share your
skill set, because everyone’s competing
against each other. But in the IBEW you
want to teach next generation everything, be-
cause you’re going to rely on them one day
to keep your pension funded.”
In 2010, he joined Local 48’s Volunteer
Organizing Committee and got active, even-
tually becoming chair. The group organized
the union’s entry in the Rose Festival
Starlight Parade, and put together a union
education program for members. In 2013 he
was hired by the local as an organizer. In
2016 he was elected Local 48 president, and
reelected unopposed in 2019.
Now he spends 80% of his time as politi-
cal coordinator for the Oregon State Build-
ing Trades, and 20% for the Columbia Pa-
cific Building Trades.
“What I’ve experienced shows why do
need better labor standards,” Chow says. “I
see myself speaking the truth, and fighting
for our priorities. I come from the field, so
when I have conversation with lawmakers
it’s from the heart.”
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