Plasterers Local 82 has hired an organizer, Cory DePoppe. DePoppe, a 20-year member, has served on Local 82’s executive board as sergeant-at-arms since 2017.
Business manager Kent Sickles said he wanted to bring on an organizer because running the local across three states was becoming unmanageable. Local 82 has long represented plasterers in Oregon and Southwest Washington and added Southern Idaho to its jurisdiction a few years ago. Local 82 has just 110 members but business is booming in the Boise area with projects like the Micron chip plant, giving it an opportunity to grow.
To encourage smaller locals to hire an organizer, the Operative Plasterers and Cement Masons International Association offers a grant that covers half of the new organizer’s salary for the first year.
DePoppe started in September. His job as organizer entails recruiting plasterers and the contractors that employ them, assisting the business manager, monitoring publicly-funded construction projects to make sure workers are getting the prevailing wage, and researching future construction projects to help union contractors get the jobs.
DePoppe said he’ll be traveling to Idaho frequently, as Sickles already does, in an effort to spread awareness about Local 82 and what the union can offer both workers and employers.
“The local here (in Oregon) has been established for quite some time, but over there, we’re kind of starting from fresh,” DePoppe said.
Idaho, a right-to-work state, has far less union activity than Oregon across industries. Union members make up just 5% of workers in Idaho, compared to 16% in Oregon.
DePoppe said his new position is an opportunity to help members and learn the ropes, with the potential to move up to the position of business manager in the future.
Sickles plans to retire next spring. Members will vote for his successor, so DePoppe isn’t guaranteed the job — but having someone already on staff would ease the transition.
“When I came in, it was a real learning curve,” Sickles said of starting his tenure as business manager in 2017. “I didn’t want the next guy to have to go through that. I wanted the local up and running when I left.”
DePoppe started plastering after school and on weekends as a high schooler outside Bellingham, Washington. He says he got into plastering for the artwork of it, and to be proud of leaving something behind.
“I’ve always wanted to experiment with plaster and just keep learning. You never stop learning in this trade — I still am learning,” DePoppe said.
He moved to Corvallis more than 20 years ago with a non-union plastering job lined up, but when it fell through, he found a job on a union plastering crew — his first exposure to union work. After a couple years, he moved up to the Portland area and went to work for Cascade Acoustics, where he stayed for nearly two decades and got involved in the union.
