By DON McINTOSH, Associate Editor

Machinists Local 1005 moved into speed-up mode in March, as the union simultaneously prepares to help 632 members due to be laid off at Freightliner at the end of the month and gears up to bargain a contract for the 655 who remain.

Local 1005 — the largest of four unions at Freightliner — is also considering a political protest against politicians who voted for job-destroying trade agreements. And it expects to add a new group of Freightliner workers, even though they will most likely be laid off not long after joining the union.

Daimler-Chrysler announced in January that it will permanently cease production of Freightliner brand trucks at its Swan Island facility in Portland by March 30, though the company’s Western Star brand trucks will continue to be produced at the plant. Freightliner trucks will be made at plants in North Carolina and Mexico.

Unions, management and government and non-profit agencies teamed up to organize a massive job fair for the laid-off workers. The event will take place at Portland Memorial Coliseum from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesday, March 28. It will be open to workers and their families. As many as 100 employers, mostly in manufacturing, are expected to take part. Event organizers focused recruitment efforts on companies that are currently hiring, and that pay comparable wages and benefits.

Local building trades unions are also extending a coordinated welcome, not just to the downsized Freightliner workers but to other workers being laid off this spring, including workers at Georgia-Pacific’s Camas, Washington paper mill, Tigard truck throttle maker Williams Controls, and the U.S. Air Force 939th Air Refueling Wing, which is slated to close in June. Apprenticeship program coordinators from as many as 21 separate skilled construction trades will be available to discuss career opportunities at an open house Friday, April 6, from 10 a.m. to noon at the NECA-IBEW Electrical Training Center, 16021 NE Airport Way, Portland.

For members who remain, the current three-year Machinists Union contract is due to expire July 1. The union is planning a hot dog feed March 22 outside the plant to show appreciation for the members being laid off and to encourage members to get involved in the union’s political and contract campaigns. Then on March 24, hundreds of workers are expected to attend the union’s contract formulation meeting, at which they will decide negotiating priorities, elect a bargaining committee and take a preliminary strike vote. The vote is intended to underscore members’ willingness to strike if the bargaining team can’t get a satisfactory contract.

The last Freightliner truck is scheduled to roll off the assembly line on March 29 and the last day of work for the employees being laid off is March 30.

The layoff will cut in half the Machinists workforce at the plant — and that’s after previous waves of layoffs over the last seven years had already halved the local’s membership, which stood at 2,600 in 1999.

“They were making money here,” said Machinists Business Agent Joe Kear. “But they want to make even more money in Mexico.” At Local 1005’s March 17 general membership meeting, members will consider endorsing a protest against trade agreements that have greased the skids for jobs to go abroad. “We are a good example of what happens when trade agreements are negotiated without any consideration for maintaining job base in our local communities,” Kear said.

The Cross Border Labor Organizing Council will assist in the protest, which will take place outside the Edith Green Wendell Wyatt Federal Building in downtown Portland at noon, Wednesday April 4. U.S. Senator Ron Wyden’s offices are located in the building. Critics of so-called free trade agreements want to hold Wyden to account for past votes, like the 1993 vote he cast for NAFTA as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Investor protections and other guarantees contained in NAFTA have made it easier for manufacturers to shift production from the United States to Mexico. Wyden has voted for nearly every NAFTA-style trade agreement since, and labor unions want him to face the consequences of those votes, and join other members of Congress in opposing “fast track” negotiating authority, which is up for renewal in June. The protest will also call out Congressman Earl Blumenauer, who in defending his 2003 vote for a trade agreement with Chile, said Freightliner officials told him the agreement would make it easier for them to sell trucks in Chile.

Fourteen of 16 workers at Freightliner’s previously nonunion pre-delivery inspection facility recently signed a petition seeking to join the Machinists. The facility details and customizes new Freightliner trucks for customers, so the department could be working as long as a month after the last truck is assembled in Portland.