Resolutions map out AFL-CIO agenda

NORTH BEND - Nearly three dozen resolutions were passed at the 44th annual convention of the Oregon AFL-CIO, many of them outlining political action labor will take in 2000.

Delegates called for the state labor federation to hold an annual "Organizing Conference" and "Political Issues Conference" to map out organizing strategies and to discuss and prioritize political issues such as ballot measures and candidates and then develop recommendations for campaigns to support or defeat them.

The AFL-CIO was instructed to query all political candidates as to whether or not they support the right of workers to freely choose a union and to test candidates' willingness to challenge employers who interfere with that right. Answers to those questions will weigh heavy on candidate endorsements by the Committee on Political Education.

The Oregon AFL-CIO committed to become more involved with affiliates and other like-minded organizations in the initiative petition process and will draft and test for the 2000 general election such initiatives as a minimum wage defense plan, a patients' bill of rights, an equal right to political participation act, a living wage policy for establishments that offer video poker, and another that would require state health care facilities to use safety needles to protect employees.

The "minimum wage defense initiative" would halt ongoing efforts to lower Oregon's voter-approved minimum wage and establish a cost-of-living formula for future adjustments in the wage rate.

The living wage proposal will attempt to change the state's policy on video poker commissions to require that all establishments as a condition of retaining current payments of 20-35 percent, pay living wages and provide health insurance to all employees.

Delegates supported the efforts of Health Care For All - Oregon as it works to place a universal health care initiative on the ballot in 2000.

The AFL-CIO will strongly oppose Oregon Taxpayers United's prospective initiative petition number 10. Dubbed a "windfall for the wealthy," the initiative would make all federal income taxes paid by individuals and corporations fully deductible from personal income and corporate profits subject to state income tax in Oregon.

Delegates specifically opposed Ballot Measure 72, saying it would slash timber harvests and fail to improve forest health. They also opposed dam breaching in general unless a plan can be devised to restore the lost power and maintain the social economic impact of lost jobs, tax dollars, property values, affordable transportation and more.

The AFL-CIO will reach out to the estimated 27 percent of union members who are registered Republican in Oregon with the intent of using their collective voices to help remove such anti-union planks from the party's platform as support for right-to-work-for-less laws, contracting out and its questioning the need for federal prevailing wage requirements such as the Davis-Bacon Act.

Delegates voted to amend the Oregon AFL-CIO constitution and bylaws in order to attract larger locals to affiliate. It will do so by offering temporary at-large seats on the Executive Board for each 5,000 members brought in. The members can be from one union or a combination of union locals of the same international union.

The convention placed Oregon Steel Mills and its subsidiary Rocky Mountain Steel on its boycott list and will lobby public entities such as Tri-Met and Metro to ask them to stop buying rail produced by those companies.

The AFL-CIO also changed its bylaws regarding the Unfair List by now requiring a two-thirds vote of the Executive Board or convention to remove a firm, corporation or public body from the boycott list. Prior to that it took a simple majority for removal.

Delegates supported a resolution to name the Salem office of the state labor federation at 2110 State St. the "Irvin H. Fletcher Building" in honor of the man who has served as president for the past 18 years. Fletcher also received the title "president emeritus."

Fletcher convened over his last convention Sept. 13-15. He received many gifts of local union T-shirts, jackets, caps, some cash and other novelties.

Choking back tears in his closing remarks to delegates, Fletcher thanked his mother and wife Eva specifically, and all of organized labor in general. "There are too many of you to thank to name individually," he said.