Labor council will hold memorial service April 28

PORTLAND, OR -- On Tuesday, April 28, the unions of the AFL-CIO will commemorate Workers Memorial Day -- a day set aside to remember the thousands of workers who lost their lives last year because of workplace hazards.

This year Workers Memorial Day takes on an extra-special meaning for many union members as several brothers and sisters lost their lives in 1997 and 1998, including Iron Workers Local 29 members Christopher Rider, Nick Colouzis and Donn Soto; Sheet Metal Local 16 member Paul Thoreson, and Portland Police Officers Thomas Jeffries and Colleen Waibel.

The iron workers were killed in the collapse of a parking garage under construction at Portland International Airport. Thoreson died after falling at a construction site in Eugene in which a plywood board covering a hole was not properly marked, and the police officers were killed in encounters with criminal suspects.

The Northwest Oregon Labor Council is making arrangements for an ecumenical service in Portland, at St. James Lutheran Church, 1315 SW Park Ave. The service will begin at 11:30 a.m. with songs and the reading of proclamations from the governor, mayor of Portland and Multnomah County Commission. That will be followed by a "Parade of Prayers," a mile-long march to several downtown locations. The final portion of the program will be back at the church with a massing of American flags and the reading of the names of 44 workers killed on the job in Oregon in 1997, plus the five who have died through March 30, 1998. The service will also remember another 56 workers who died in Oregon, but whose names cannot be read because of confidentiality requirements by the federal Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

Those attending the services are asked to wear everyday work clothes, said Ron Fortune, executive secretary-treasurer of the labor council. The service will conclude by 1 p.m.

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