Jeff Anderson, secretary treasurer of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 555, was elected president of the Northwest Oregon Labor Council (NOLC) in a special election held April 25. In a roll-call vote of affiliated unions, Anderson defeated Jeff Klatke, president of AFSCME Council 75, by a vote of 31,088 to 13,140.
The president’s seat opened earlier this year when incumbent Robert Petroff lost an election to represent his union, Machinists Lodge 63, as a delegate to the council, and was removed as a delegate for Machinists District W24. Petroff was in his fifth term as NOLC president, having just been re-elected in December 2015. He became ineligible to serve when he was no longer a delegate.
Anderson, who was NOLC’s first vice president, became interim president until an election was held. That happened on April 25.
Anderson is a 40-year member of UFCW. After graduating from high school in Dallas, Oregon in 1976, he took a job at the Salem Fred Meyer and joined Retail Clerks Local 992. He worked there for 10 years before joining the UFCW staff as an organizer. In 2008 he was elected secretary-treasurer of the 20,000-member local. He is currently in his third term in that post.
Isn’t that former Governor Barbara Roberts standing next to Jeff Anderson, UFCW’s newly elected president ? She certainly deserves mentioning I would think.
Hi caty. Yes, that’s her; good eye! But the photo you see her in is visible only on our home page, or when this article is shared via sites like Facebook. It’s there to illustrate Jeff in action, but it’s not displayed in the article itself, above, and we don’t have a way to caption it.