Petroff elected head of IAM District Lodge 24

Bob Petroff has been elected directing business representative of International Association of Machinists District Lodge 24 in Portland. He defeated incumbent Dave Plant in a delegates' vote Saturday, Feb. 17.

Petroff began his four-year term March 1.

District Lodge 24 is a full service district headquartered in Portland with eight affiliated locals in Oregon and southwest Washington. Including the directing business representative, Lodge 24 employs seven full time union representatives and five office staffers who service approximately 6,900 active and retired members.

"We're a council heading in a new direction with a dual purpose of organizing new members and servicing the ones we have," Petroff said.

He said he will review assignments of all union reps before meeting with the national IAM to discuss staffing levels. The union will lose more than 800 members next month due to a layoff at Freightliner Corp. It recently lost nearly 150 members at Consolidated Metco Inc. at Rivergate.

Petroff, 47, has been a member of Machinists Lodge 63 for 27 years and a business representative assigned to organizing with the District Lodge since 1996.

In 1999 he was elected president of the Northwest Oregon Labor Council.

Petroff told the Northwest Labor Press that he will continue coordinating organizing campaigns for the district, but that union representatives will now play a much larger role in reaching out for new members.

Petroff joined the IAM while working at Radiation International (later acquired by Boeing Co.). He completed an apprenticeship training program at the Port of Portland's Ship Repair Yard at Swan Island and was a lead man on the Port's shipyard maintenance crew for 6 1/2 years. He spent one year selling antique automobiles before going to work as a lead man in the maintenance department at Nabisco Co. in north Portland in 1983.

Plant, who will retire, has directed the Machinist Council for the past nine years. For 11 years prior to that he served as an assistant to the directing business representative and as a business representative. He joined the Machinists Union at a newly-organized shop in Eugene in October of 1968.