“. . .if it was just union vs. non-union, it wouldn’t be so bad-but to bring in out-of- state people to break the backs of those who live here—that’s just wrong.” ON THE WATERFRONT The Southemization of the Oregon Workplace By Peter Dammann In the dawn light of that damp winter morning, scores of angry, unemployed union workers gathered in clusters at the entrances to the parking areas, brandishing placards which proclaimed: “ARCO Imports Workers!”, “Are You Satisfied Just To Have A Job? So Are Workers in Poland and South Africa!” and “ARCO Unfair to Oregon Workers!” By six a.m., when the first workers began arriving at the Port of Portland’s Swan Island industrial complex, the demonstration was already, you might say, in low gear. As the picketers watched from the sidewalks, a dozen of their colleagues, driving cars three abreast, circled slowly—very slowly—around the Swan Island access loop. The traffic of inbound workers soon backed up North Going Street all the way to 1-5, eventually slowing travel in both directions along the expressway. During the three mornings they repeated this scene, the demonstrators had virtually paralyzed the flow of incoming traffic at various points. By the time it was all over, 18 drivers had been arrested and their vehicles towed—"The ARCO 18.” This wildcat action, the largest demonstration of labor unrest at Swan Island in more than a decade, had been organized by the Fair Jobs Committee, a loose-knit group of unemployed union workers, most of them from the construction trades, who were angered by the Atlantic Richfield Company’s use of out-of-state, non-union labor in Portland to construct buildings, drilling rig platforms and other equipment for the company’s Alaska oil operations. This $40 million project employing sone 1000 workers during its peak, is one of the largest projects landed by the Port in years. And it is the first significant project in decades undertaken at the Port facilities with non-union labor. Early t^is winter, ARCO had awarded its contractsjor this project to two of the largest, mpst stridently anti-union construction firms in the nation: Brown and Root, Inc. of’'Houston, Texas, and Daniel International of Greenville, South Carolina, both of which -have supplied considerable political muscle to open shop movements in various parts of the country. To construction unions, already reeling from several years of soaring unemployment and shrinking membership, the arrival of two firms eager to undercut prevailing wage and benefit levels has ominous implications. “Bringing in these two non-union construction companies,” concedes Earl Kirkland, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Columbia-Pacific Building and Construction Trades Council, “is a big step toward breaking the unions.” That ARCO, and its subcontractors, wouldn’t be here without some early cooperation from the unions, and some sizeable subsidies from the Port of Portland, is but one of the ironies of this situation plaguing labor. “ARCO came in here because Oregon is an economically depressed area and they knew they could take advantage of us,” says Richard Crabtree, an unemployed steamfitter and spokesperson for the Fair Jobs Committee. “But if it was just union vs/non-union, it wouldn’t be so bad —every union in this area is fighting that battle. But to bring in out-of-state people to break the backs of those who live here^-people who’ve worked here, paid taxes and sent their kids Jo schools here—that’s just wrong. Just how many of these new jobs are being held by these “boomers” from out of state is uncertain A spokesman for Daniel International swiftly responded to the February demonstrations with assurances to the local press that the company would “use as much local labor as possible” in the project. Port of Portland spokesperson Darrel Buttice similarly assured the press that “90 percent” of the workforce on the projects would be local. But by late April, one unemployed welder named George Smith found these words pretty hard to believe. Standing in the drizzle that morning, with a placard against his shoulder, at the entrance to the parking area used by Brown and Root workers, Smith watched another station wagon, carrying a half dozen hard-hatted Clinton St. Quarterly 41
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