Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian paid a visit to the Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council Executive Board meeting Nov. 27 to thank union officials for their help in his recent re-election campaign.
Avakian turned back a challenge from Republican state Sen. Bruce Starr, winning the nonpartisan race with 52.6 percent of the vote.
Rank-and-file union members played a big role in the outcome, leafleting jobsites prior to, and after work, for weeks before Election Day. A key talking point was Starr’s support of a right-to-work law for Oregon, and his pledge to lower prevailing wages.
Avakian told union officials that he will push for more funding for high school shop classes in the 2013 legislative session. Avakian championed a bill in 2011 to fund new and expanded career and technical education (CTE) programs at high schools. The result of that legislation, he said, was 21 schools opened the school year with full shop classes.
Avakian said he will seek $20 million in the next session. “This will get us three times as many shop classes if we get this,” he said.
In response to a question about the Columbia River Crossing, Avakian said he is a “huge advocate” for a new bridge and will do all that he can to make sure that it gets built.
Avakian reported that he is down to a short list of candidates to replace Legislative Director Kate Newhall, who resigned following the election to travel the world. Newhall has worked for Avakian since he was first appointed labor commissioner in 2008. Prior to that she worked on his 2006 campaign for state Senate.
Gone, too, will be Deputy Labor Commissioner Doug McKean, who is retiring at the end of the year. His successor is Christie Hammond, the administrator of BOLI’s Wage and Hour Division. She started in her new post Dec. 1.
McKean has served more than 20 years at BOLI, including six years as deputy commissioner.
Hammond is a 36-year veteran of the agency, beginning as a clerical specialist with the Apprenticeship and Training Division. As administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, she has been the state’s top enforcement official for ensuring that fair wages are paid to workers.
Avakian is interviewing candidates for all the open positions at BOLI and will announce his new hires as soon as possible.
Avakian also reminded union officials that this term as labor commissioner is only for two years. In 2009 the Oregon Legislature passed a bill establishing procedures for filling mid-term vacancies in certain state offices — specifically labor commissioner. Lawmakers did that to put the labor commissioner’s race back on its original cycle in years when the governor is elected. It got off track in April 2008 when then-labor commissioner Dan Gardner, a member of IBEW Local 48, resigned mid-term to take a job with his international union in Washington, D.C.
Avakian was a state senator at that time and in the middle of a four-way race for the Democratic nomination for secretary of state when Gov. Ted Kulongoski appointed him to succeed Gardner. The office was then put on the ballot in the 2008 general election in November — two years before it would normally be up, but with the understanding that it would be for a full four-year term, and not to finish Gardner’s term.
Avakian ran and defeated two unknown candidates.
