Over the past 11 years, the Labor Bowl has generated over $138,000 to benefit the program services of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. These services include medical care at the MDA clinic at
OHSU, provision of wheelchairs and braces, a week-long summer camp for young clients, support groups, referral services and worldwide research into treatments and eventual cures for 43 neuromuscular disorders. Continuation of these programs for over 1,200 families in Oregon and southwest Washington is possible because of your support.
Local 247 Trustee Christy Kern is going to assemble a Local 247 bowling team for the benefit. Please contact the office or Christy if you are interested. You need not be a skilled bowler to participate, although it helps. Packets including everything you need to know are available at the union office.
Last year, 82 people from different unions participated and raised over $28,144 for
MDA. We are anticipating even more participation this year, so sign up now and recruit your friends and relatives to participate.
The event will take place Sunday, April 8, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Rockwood Lanes, 18500 SE Stark St., Portland. There will be food, a silent auction, and prizes.
Is there something you want but don’t see in the Local 247 newsletter?
Contact Bruce Dennis, 503-289-9632, with ideas.
The Jan. 9, 2001 meeting was well attended, with 80 members on hand. There was a short presentation by two United Steelworker activists about their issue with Oregon Steel and the upcoming award for railroad steel on the Tri-Met Light Rail expansion project. We had reports from the representatives and training updates. Organizers Jerry Auvil and Mike Bridges were in attendance, updating the members on our Safeway Campaign and other organizing goals. Mentor leader Rob Aichele had a mentor meeting at 6 p.m. prior to the regular meeting. Rob gave an update on the Mentor Program. Anyone interested in mentorship can show up at 6 p.m., prior to the regular meetings on the second Tuesday. There was a motion passed to eliminate the Social Security number from the 247 work card and to investigate its removal from the medical benefit card. Anyone who has a card with the number on it and would like a new one without the number, please stop by or send the card to the office and we will replace it. We passed out Journeyman certificates to Darcey
Warneke, John Hallstrom, Paul Thornberg and Robert Clark. I thought the meeting was one of the best meetings we have had. We adjourned by 9 p.m. Steward Joe Whitney won the top door prize, which was a DeWalt Reciprocating Saw.
General membership
Meets the second Tuesday, Feb. 13, at 7 p.m. at the Carpenters Hall, 2205 N. Lombard, Portland.
Mentors Network
Mentors Network meets second Tuesday, Feb. 13, at 6 p.m. at the Carpenters Hall, 2205 N. Lombard, Portland.
Retirees
Retirees meet for lunch the second Monday, Feb. 12, at 11 a.m. at JJ North’s, 10520 NE Halsey, Portland.
Executive Board
Executive Board meets the fourth Tuesday, Feb. 27, at 7 p.m. at the Carpenters Hall, 2205 N Lombard, Portland.
Mike Humphrey, Local 247 member and scaffold instructor, inspects a local job for scaffold safety. Anyone who would like to become a certified scaffold erector should contact Willamette Carpenters Training Center or check the “On the Level” training newsletter.
Kaiser Aluminum pulls the plug on its workers in order to resell its electricity on the open market
The newly deregulated energy market has become a two-headed monster for Oregon workers. First, workers were laid off when electricity became too costly for producers to maintain production and continue to turn a profit, as happened at the ALCOA (formerly Reynolds Metals) plant in Troutdale and at Northwest Aluminum plants in The Dalles and in Goldendale, Wash. Now more layoffs and furloughs are occurring because companies with cheap sources of electricity are finding they can make greater profits by laying off workers and diverting their electricity to the open market.
Kaiser Aluminum reared the second head of the monster when it decided to curtail production at its Spokane Mead smelter in early December in order to re-sell its low-cost
BPA-provided electricity. Kaiser pays the Bonneville Power Administration $28 to $29 per megawatt hour for its electricity, but is reselling that electricity back to BPA for as much as $500 a megawatt hour.
The corporate greed factor here is appalling. Kaiser gets bargain-priced electricity from BPA because it is classified as a “Direct Service Industry,” a special status justified by its alleged contribution to the region’s economy. But the company has chosen profiteering over production by reselling a publicly-subsidized commodity that was supposed to support family-wage jobs.
David Foster, director of District 11 of the United Steelworkers of America, estimates Kaiser has already netted $100 million in windfall profits from the resale of BPA power, and stands to realize $300 million more. He called on BPA to require that profits from reselling its power be dedicated to constructing new environmentally-sensitive generating capacity and maintaining the wages and benefits of workers whose jobs are cut as a result of such re-sales.
The union negotiated an agreement requiring Kaiser to continue to provide benefits for its laid off workers and to pay them at their base rate for a 40-hour week through January. Strikers who had not yet been recalled at the time of the layoff would receive a $1,000 bonus. The union is continuing to negotiate for protections extending after January.
But the orgy of speculation in the deregulated energy market is not abating. For manufacturing workers, the orgy of speculation means more layoffs. Cascade Steel Rolling Mills in McMinnville has shut down a line to save money by declining to purchase power. Wah Chang in Albany is extending a Christmas shutdown, putting 650 workers out of work due to the cost of power. As for the rest of us, we know that we will pay for the speculative profits of a few when we purchase electricity for our own homes and when we buy locally-made products.
Carpenters Local 247 member Bill Parker is hard at work at the Multnomah County renovation on Southeast Grand Avenue. (Photo by Dan Carter of the Daily Journal of Commerce)
Your Executive Board recommended that the local provide the other issue of the Labor Press to any members who would like to receive it. The Labor Press comes out twice a month. Currently, we provide one issue per month, in which we insert this newsletter. If you would like the other issue, or if you would like us to remove you from the list for this issue, please call the office at 289-9632.
