It wasn't a political convention, but delegates to the 1997 Oregon AFL-CIO gathering in Seaside, stepped up to the plate to begin getting ready to promote tax reform in Oregon.
Striking workers at the Kaiser Permanente health maintenance organization in Oregon and southwest Washington received a big boost from delegates attending the 1997 Oregon AFL-CIO convention. Delegates unanimously endorsed a resolution calling on labor to "strongly reconsider its commitment to Kaiser Permanente during the next open enrollment period unless Kaiser brings the contract dispute to a quick and favorable resolution."
The Oregon AFL-CIO is asking state and county officials to require a notoriously anti-union steel company to sign a "good corporate citizen" pledge in order for it to qualify for property tax waivers, income tax cuts and other incentives -- by far the most generous in Oregon history, when measured in relation to the number of jobs it will create.
Delegates to the state labor federation convention passed a resolution agreeing with that request.
