workers, speed by into the parking lot. “Texas,” he said, noting the passing license plate. Bundled against the damp chill in a sheepskin jacket, bluejeans and cowboy boots. Smith had joined two dozen others of the Fair Jobs Committee for their second Swan Island protest action. The last three of his 11 years as a union welder have been hard. Since the first of the year, he had so far logged just three weeks’ work. Last year he got in only eight months’ work, the year before that, even less. With four kids to support, his wife had gone back to work for the first time in 10 years, he said, “and at a minimum wage job.” As he spoke, a blue and purple airbrushed van passed: Colorado. “These people,” he said flatly, “are taking our jobs.” Happy Days Are Here Again The announcement last October that ARCO would be bringing some $80 million in new business to Oregon was greeted with predictable fanfare. Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield, breaking the news from his Pioneer Square office, flanked on either side by oil company and Port of Portland officials, concluded, “Clearly the efforts of Oregon ports are paying off. When we unite in our efforts and demonstrate that Oregon is open for business, we can succeed.” ARCO, a $25 billion a year company, planned to use sites in Oregon, Washington and California to construct huge “modules” for its Alaska projects. These modules—a generic term for everything from multi-story bunk houses and machine shops to drilling rig platforms and oil-separation facilities—each weigh up to 2000 tons. After being assembled in these moderate climates, they’d be sealifted to Alaska by barge during the summers of 1985 and 1986. In addition to the Portland project, two other sites were selected. In Astoria, construction of 35 small drill sites and support facilities for ARCO’s Lisburne oil fields was slated to bring $23 million in business and 540 jobs during peak construction to that port. In Coos Bay, manufacture of equipment for ARCO’s Kuparek field in Prudhoe Bay brought the state another $12 million and 260 peak jobs. In Portland, the unions worked closely with the Port for more than a year to woo ARCO. The Port offered the oil company Swan Island leases at substantially below market rate—one of the best deals the Port’s ever made anyone—and then threw in $1.5 million in site preparation. The unions meanwhile agreed to a Many of the former breadwinners of these families have been out of work as long as two years. “When you have unemployment for that length of time, it backs you up against the wall.” twenty percent slash in the wage scale and a number of other concessions to make Portland look attractive. ARCO spokespeople said the area’s labor situation, as well as the Port’s “fine facilities” had won them over. To the unions, hard hit by Reagan’s recession and yet to cash in on the touted “recovery,” the ARCO bonanza seemed a godsend—a $40 million project employing a peak workforce of 1100. But a strange thing happened after ARCO put out the contracts to bid. While in Washington and California union construction firms landed the ARCO contracts, in Oregon, ARCO awarded the contracts to non-union, out-of-state firms at each site. In Coos Bay, KRI Constructors, a Texas-based consortium, put together to bid on the projects, subsequently went to considerable effort to thwart a unionization attempt there, and now faces National Labor Relations Board charges. Though ARCO maintained it had used its usual, competitive bidding process in awarding the Oregon contracts, labor leaders here suspect more than coincidence was involved. “ARCO wanted to cut construction costs so they could make more money for their stockholders,” says Trades Council Secretary Earl Kirkland. “They decided they couldn’t cut union construction wages, so they shopped the bids.” ARCO decided beforehand it would go non-union in Oregon, where high unemployment rates would greatly ease such a move, and simply informed its pre-selected contractors what the magfc numbers would have to be. Brown and Root's winning bid in Portland was so low, Kirkland says, the company must be losing money on the project. “They took that bid for nothing,” he says, “to get a foothold in the Northwest.” Brown and Root established that “foothold” in a cavernous, windowless building along North Channel Avenue in the Port shipyard complex. According to one worker there, “Boyd George,” the jobsite was disorganized and poorly managed. "The tool situation was ridiculous,” he says. “A whole group of us would have to use the same jigsaw.” Safety precautions, including proper ventilation and face masks for those working with insulation, were “very inadequate.” An unemployed carpenter, George had started working there for $10 an hour. “They asked me to work for $8, but I refused.” Soon after he began working, he discovered that the crew of out-of- state workers who had followed Brown and Root to Portland were making up to $13.50 an hour for the same work. “That pissed me off at first, until I realized how little some of the local people on this job were making. Some of these guys hired out of the employment offices were getting $6 for the same work I was doing. A lot of them were pretty broke, and would work for whatever they could get. My first day at work, I bought lunch for one guy who didn’t even have enough money for a sandwich.” The ratio of local to out-of- state workers, he said, “was maybe 50-50.” Nuclear Fallout Brown and Root has built oil refineries, power plants and other multi-million dollar projects across the South. Local outcries about the company’s non-indige- nous labor force and “ignoble hiring practices”, are nothing new. In one of the largest demonstrations, 5000 angry citizens in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, turned out in June, 1982, to protest the company’s use of non-local labor in construction of a Texaco refinery there. (According to the Baton Rouge State-Times, Brown and Root had hired a film crew to gather footage of the demonstrators— the company likes to keep track of its adversaries.) Some of the most revealing and frightening anecdotes about this company come from its forays in the nuclear industry. In 1980, the company was fined $100,000 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the largest penalty until then levied by that agency, for lax quality control in construction of the South Texas Nuclear Plant. Soon thereafter, Brown and Root was canned as the designer of the project. During NRC hearings, former workers charged that the company had falsified construction documents and harassed and wiretapSUPPORT LIGHT RAIL MERCHANTS Stark Street Hair Designs Wc can help you find your total image! Hair designs, facial make-up & nail artistry. Ann Tomlinson Image Designer 223-8695 126 SW Stark 42 Clinton St. Quarterly Cafe & Delicatessen 404 S.W. 10th Portland CATERING SPECIALISTS Weddings. Anniversdries and special occasions. Italian Specialties Wine Bar • Cheeses • Sandwiches Desserts • Salads • Sundries THE MARTINOTTI FAMILY ARMAN D'DIXIE FRANK-VINCE CECELIA-DIONE EDDIE 224*9028
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