Painters embark on five-state organizing campaign

The newly-merged Painters District Council 5 has embarked on a five-state organizing drive and is offering a $100 reward for information on the whereabouts of a specific non-union contractor, announced Business Manager Bob Matson.

Council 5 recently merged with Portland-based District Council 55 and and Spokane-based District Council 54. Council 5, headquartered in Seattle, has satellite offices in Portland and eastern Washington.

Dave Town, the former business manager of Council 55, is now a general organizer for the International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades. He has teamed with General President's Representative Terry Lins to coordinate a 16-person organizing task force covering Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska and Colorado.

"We are using all of the tools at our disposal to organize the finish trades (painters, tapers, glaziers, paintmakers, floor coverers and more) - bottom up, top down or sideways," said Lins, who was the coordinator for the Painters in the successful multi-craft organizing campaign in Las Vegas known as "B-TOPS."

Matson said nationally the Painters and Allied Trades Union ranks grew by 4 percent - second in percentage growth of all AFL-CIO affiliates. "The multi-state campaign is a new venture for this District Council and the brotherhood in general," he said.

The primary focus of the organizing drive is industrial painting contractor Dunkin & Bush, a Redmond, Wash., company that at its peak employs approximately 200 painters.

Dunkin & Bush was signatory with the former District Council 55 from 1992 until 1998 - when it opened a branch office in Portland. But in November 1998 owner Tom Dunkin walked away from the union when he refused to sign a new pact that contained an "out-of-area clause."

A typical Painters' contract has language known as an out-of-area clause, Town explained, which says that if a contractor is signatory in Portland it is signatory in every state in which it works. Council 55 waived that language in the first contract with the understanding that the company would seek to be union in every state.

"We extended the contract for a year," Town said, "but as soon as it expired Dunkin decided he could not be union in Alaska, Idaho, Washington or Colorado."

"You're either a union contractor or you're not a union contractor," Lins said. "Dunkin is trying to play us off each other by being union in one place and non-union in another. We shouldn't have to spend our union members' hard-earned money trying to organize a contractor state by state."

Matson said his goal is to have Dunkin & Bush "union everywhere it works."

The Painters said they already have rank-and-file support at many of the locations where the contractor is operating, but the union is seeking support from local unions at any worksite where non-union painters are present.Any person who notifies Council 5 of a jobsite that Dunkin & Bush is at and the council doesn't know about it, it will pay a $100 reward for the information. All calls will be confidential.

Last month the Painters handbilled at a Potlatch Corp. mill in Lewiston, Idaho, during a weeklong shutdown for maintenance. Painters Union organizers handed out "anti-Dunkin & Bush" hardhat stickers and fliers notifying other craft unions of the non-union painting contractor.

"Idaho is a right-to-work state, but at Potlatch we got some of the best support from workers that I've ever seen. They are very concerned about their jobs and their wages being eroded," Town said.

Besides construction trades, the Painters have also received "tremendous support" from full-time in-house millworkers represented by the Paper, Allied Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union and the Association of Western Pulp and Paperworkers, Town reported.

Job actions are planned at the Weyerhaeuser mill in Springfield, a Willamette Industries mill in Albany and the Fort James plant in Wauna.