Sheet Metal Local 16 strike at CleanPak is the longest in Oregon

The longest current strike in Oregon - one that has received virtually no coverage from the general media - is at CleanPak International in Clackamas where members of Sheet Metal Workers Local 16 have been off the job since July 9, 1998.

"We've done just about everything but put them out of business," said Local16 Business Representative Mike Smith. "They have used temporary workers, work-release workers, they've even changed their product line a couple of times," he said.

One-hundred-seventy-six workers originally struck the Clackamas facility located off Highway 212 after the Japanese-owned company implemented a contract that cut some wages by as much as $8 an hour, discontinued participation in the union-sponsored pension plan, and gutted seniority rights. The union has represented workers there since the mid- 1970s when it was locally-owned by Brod McClung. But in 1994 Sinko Kingyo of Japan bought the business and started making clean room equipment for the high-tech industry.

Since the strike began CleanPak has changed its product line several times, switching from clean rooms to manufacturing aluminum boat frames, boat parts and metal panels, and back to clean rooms again. Smith says the company has about 45 employees.

Today, there are 28 strikers who maintain a daily picket line in addition to regularly handbilling managers' homes, alerting CleanPak customers and vendors of the labor dispute, and setting up traveling picket lines on construction sites at high-tech plants where clean rooms are being delivered. Smith said earlier this year pickets shut down a construction site at Intel in Hillsboro for a day when CleanPak tried to deliver a clean room there.

"The company gave these guys every reason to strike, beginning with permanent layoffs in total disregard of seniority," said Smith, noting that most of those let go had 20 to 25 years of service. "They want to get rid of the older employees and bring in younger workers and pay them less."

That seems to be the strategy CleanPak is following with replacement workers. According to Smith, the company uses temp workers for the duration of their probationary period, then terminates them and begins retraining a new batch of temps. He said some salaried staffers at CleanPak have become so fed up with the turnover and uncertainty that they began quitting in June.

Last week at a "unity barbecue," half of the nearly two dozen temp workers at CleanPak joined the strikers for lunch, with several workers taking applications for union membership.

Local 16 is still waiting for a ruling from the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., on a company-filed appeal of a decertification election that CleanPak lost. In the March 12 election, CleanPak challenged 65 of the 125 ballots cast, claiming votes by strikers should be ineligible because they had "no reasonable expectation" to return to work.

An administrative law judge from Arizona was called in to sort it out. After a five-day hearing in late April the judge allowed 41 of the challenged ballots, giving the union a 56-45 victory. CleanPak appealed that decision to the full board in Washington, D.C., but the union doesn't know when a final ruling will be issued.

"The decision by the regional NLRB judge was made in June and we haven't heard anything since," Smith said. "I wish I knew (when a ruling will be made)."

From the outset the union has felt CleanPak was out to bust it. Coming off record years in 1996 and 1997, the company brought in a union-busting attorney to negotiate in 1998.

The old contract expired March 1, 1998, and employees worked without a contract until the strike began July 9 - when the company implemented its contract. And even as workers were being laid off, CleanPak bought "Help Wanted" ads in local newspapers while negotiations were under way.

Local 16 said parent company Sinko Kingyo initially poured "tons of money" into the strike, hiring security guards, putting up fences and paying for temp workers. "I think Sinko is still financing CleanPak, but not on the grand scale that they were," Smith said.

"I hate to say it, but I think CleanPak would rather shut their doors than welcome the union back," Smith continued.

Workers and the union would rather the company close, too, as opposed to accepting a contract gutted so severely. It took more than 20 years to obtain the gains in wages, pension and seniority that these workers enjoyed, Smith said. "We cannot allow companies to gut our contracts and take away all the things these employees have fought so hard for," Smith said.

Smith commended the union members still walking the picket line and his international union for its continued support and strike benefits. Labor's Community Service Agency has also helped many of the strikers, as have local union food banks, he said.

Smith is also asking union members to stop by the picket line to say hello and show solidarity with the strikers. "We will not stand for, nor tolerate our members - or any workers - being treated like laborers of Third World countries," he said.

CleanPak is located at 11241 SE Hwy. 212 in Clackamas. Take the Highway 212 exit off of I-205. Contributions to the strike fund can be made through Sheet Metal Workers Local 16, 2379 NE 178th Ave., Suite 16, Portland, Ore. 97230-5957.