O’Connor to retire from labor council

Judy O’Connor, executive secretary-treasurer of the Northwest Oregon Labor Council, the state’s largest central labor council, announced June 22 that she will retire before her term of office expires in December 2011. Her last day will be Aug. 28.

O’Connor, who turns 62 on July 6, said a change in her defined benefit pension plan was a primary reason for retiring. She is a 27-year member of Office and Professional Employees Local 11. The union’s Western States Pension Fund had investment losses of 32.5 percent last year and was declared to be in critical status. In response, pension trustees decided to increase the normal retirement age to 65 and eliminate the early retirement subsidy, among other things.

O’Connor has enough years of service and is at an age that she can collect 100 percent of her pension. Had she completed her term of office and retired at age 64, (after the rule-changes had been implemented), she would have seen her pension reduced.

“Retirement has been on my mind for a while now,” O’Connor said. “But when I received the letter from the pension fund explaining the changes, it made me look at it a little harder — and it changed my timeline. I feel blessed that I am able to retire before all the changes are implemented.”

O’Connor went to work as an office secretary at the labor council in 1982 under the leadership of Lon Imel. After Imel retired she managed the office throughout the tenure of his successor, Ron Fortune. When Fortune announced his plans to retire mid-term in 1998, O’Connor decided to step up and run. She was elected to finish that term (the first woman to ever hold the full-time position at NOLC), and has won re-election three times. The most recent election was in November 2007.

O’Connor said she will coordinate the Labor Day picnic at Oaks Park in September, but after that, it’s goodbye.

Her outer-Southeast Portland home is for sale, and as soon as it’s sold she and her husband Tony will be moving to Billings, Montana. O’Connor grew up in Kalispell.

Nominations to fill her unexpired term will be held at NOLC’s monthly meetings July 27 and Aug. 24.

O’Connor told the Northwest Labor Press that she will nominate Bob Tackett, the Oregon AFL-CIO’s Workforce Investment Act labor liaison. Tackett, a member of Steelworkers Local 330, confirmed that he is seeking the post.

Born in Wetaskiwin, Alberta, Canada, O'Connor was raised in Kalispell, Montana. She knew little about unions until she was hired for the council's office staff by Imel in 1982.

In high school she was a member of the Young Americans For Freedom, which promotes conservative values among high school and college students, and her family was involved with the conservative John Birch Society.

She came to Portland looking for work in 1970 with her former husband and two young children.

It was in the Rose City that she met Gloria Schiewe, then political coordinator of the labor council, at a square dance club, which led to her being hired in the office.

Once there she devoured her new-found knowledge of the union movement. "As a working person, it was an awakening for me," she said. "I really started seeing things in a different light. It really was the best thing that ever happened to me in my work career."

O'Connor quickly became involved in Local 11, serving on its Executive Board and representing union secretaries in collective bargaining and as shop steward and pension fund trustee.

© Oregon Labor Press Publishing Co. Inc.