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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 29, 2014)
O ctober 29, 2014 ®>* ^Jnrtlanò (Dhserner IN S ID E TheWeek Review This page Sponsored by: Page 3 Fred Meyer What's on your list today?, page 2 DOWN THE O pinion HOLE pages 6-7 M etro page 9 **■*»» t*«» ( / /,/cr, //c/t* / i cnair persona and scholarship chair Hillary Hampton, youth coordinator Justin Swoboda and Corvallis NAACP President Barry Jerkins. h u m NAACP Forming Leaders Civil rights group encourages participation The election of leaders for the Portland NAACP will be held on Saturday, Nov. 15 at the Red Cross Building, 3131N. Vancouver Ave., RoomC, from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. The civil rights group met on Saturday to introduce the nominees running for the offices of president, vice president, secretary and treasurer. Portland NAACP President Audrey Terrell invites and encourages the entire community to join the NAACP and vote in the upcoming election. Terrell is seeking a second term. Portland NAACP Unit 1120 has been brought back to life and is steadily growing in membership. The organi zation is in full compliance with the NAACP State Con ference and at the National level. Terrell says the group has also increased its partici pation in community activities, sponsoring its first Women of Honor Luncheon, First Pastors Breakfast, and sponsored and participated in the 50th anniver sary in the historical 1964 March on Washington. The group has held educational forums on afford able health care, met and conferred with stakeholders of the Trader Joes Project, and worked with the Albina Ministerial Alliance and the Department of Justice on the Settlement Agreement over police reforms. NAACP youth have surged in membership, meeting regularly and holding their own “Stop the Violence Rallies.” The Portland NAACP also sponsors various TV cable productions covering local candidates and issues. It has a radio segment on KBOO and works with other organizations such as the Urban League of Portland. For more information, visit portlandnaacp 1120.org. Daimler Civil Rights Probe Grows More employees at truck facility step forward F ood page 16 A civil rights investigation of Daimler Trucks at its Swan Island manufacturing plant in north Port land was expanded for the second time last week as four more employ ees have stepped forward to allege unlawful discrimination. The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries said the new civil rights complaints add to the agency’s in vestigation o f whether a pattern of racial discrimination and abuse ex ists at Daimler. In total, nine Daimler employees have open civil rights complaints, in addition to a com plaint filed last month by Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian on behalf of the people of Oregon. Besides the allegations of racial discrim ination against African American employees, the com plaints include charges that a Na tive Am erican em ployee faced threats of physical violence and intimidation as another employee pushed him against a truck and chal lenged him to a fight. Other allegations include unfair treatment, discrimination based on race, national origin and age, use of racial epithets, retaliation and fail ure of management to take appropri ate action to improve Daimler’s workplace. “Our investigators are working hard to determine whether there’s evidence of a pattern of severe ra cial discrimination and abuse,” said Avakian. “We have a duty to en sure that employees are treated fairly on the job. Our investigations will be thorough - and if we find sub stantial evidence, we will aggres sively prosecute any unlawful dis crimination uncovered.” Earlier, the director of public rela tions at Daimler, Dave Giroux, re leased a statement that the com pany “has a zero tolerance policy related to discrimination or harass ment on any basis” but said that they could not release any official statements on the current ongoing investigation.
