PASCI project

Eugene Springfield Solidarity Network

november 29, 2003, Springfield WA
by Francis Murchison and Johanne Pelletier
pictures available soon

Once upon a time there was a mill…

During the 1980s, Springfield, Oregon was the home of a lumber mill that employed a good number of well-paid workers thereby contributing to a thriving community. All was not well however, and, as the year 1987 swung around the mill began demanding that its employees do mandatory overtime and reduce their health benefits if they wished to keep their jobs. At the time the event was not a unique occurrence in the U.S., as between 1988 and 1994 the percentage of employees covered by a retirement plan plummeted from 75% to 42% and those covered by a health plan went from 60% to 45%. The workers were outraged and their union organized a general strike to protest this breaking of contract. In response, the mill locked out the strikers and hired replacement workers. At this point, the union members realized that they were at a standstill and that they needed help in order to win their jobs back so they began to do a lot of outreach into the community. Other unions who feared similar treatment as well as religious leaders, political leaders, and local businesses all joined together to support the mill workers in a strike that lasted a whole year before their jobs were given back. About two months later, the mill moved operations first to Tennessee where labor laws were more relaxed and then to Argentina.

ESSN…

Afterwards, when the fight against the mill was concluded, the coalition that has come to be known as the Eugene Springfield Solidarity Network (ESSN) stayed together. Their movement has continued and ESSN has now grown to a membership of some six hundred households and twelve member organizations. The organization is guided by a steering committee of eight people and has subcommittees for important areas such as popular education and outreach. Funds for the ESSN are raised through occasional grants from small, private foundations and membership fees of fifteen dollars a year. Members are also asked to attend at least five actions per year.

For some time after their formation in 1989, ESSN remained an organization mobilized only around individual situations. When employees were treated unjustly in a local workplace, ESSN would mobilize, organizing actions at the company in question to gain media attention in order to prevent the issue from being swept under the carpet. They would contact religious leaders, community leaders, and elected officials and have them meet with the company or make a public statement about the issue. Although the scope of their action has expanded, they continue to help workers claim their rights. For example, ESSN recently mobilized in just such a way in order to get two workers their jobs back in the local electronics store Circuit City, a nation wide chain. These two employees had been heard saying the word “union” while in the workplace even though they had no intention of organizing and were subsequently fired. When we met with the organization, they were continuing to address the situation at Circuit City, because employees were being further intimidated to discourage them from attempting to form a union.

At some point in the evolution of ESSN, its members realized that although they were largely successful in their campaigns against employers who don’t respect workers rights, there was a need for ongoing action to complement their counteraction. This is how the ongoing community campaign was started with the overall goal of improving the labor conditions in Eugene, Springfield, and Lane County. One of the most important ways in which ESSN began helping the future of local labor is by facilitating the formation of labor unions. ESSN puts the workers in touch with other unions and labor educators especially in situations where the workers are being exploited in some way. At the same time, the network will be mobilized to support the unionization in case the employer tries to quash the organizing.

One of ESSN’s main areas of action under the community campaign is to create a situation where the laws of the region better reflect worker’s interests. To this end, they helped locally in a statewide campaign that successfully increased the minimum wage in Oregon to one of the highest in the country at the time. ESSN also realized that big companies who set up shop in Eugene and Springfield receive tax breaks based on how many jobs they intend create and has been working on regulations controlling whether the jobs pay a living wage, are hired locally, or even whether they stay in the area. So far, their perseverance has seen several economic development resolutions be adopted in not yet binding agreements that insist on living wages, full family health benefits, and neutral employers should the workers decide to form a union. The battles fought by ESSN have significance all over the United States where globally speaking net salaries haven’t gone up since 1973. Furthermore, while in Eugene and Springfield they struggle for creation of living wage jobs, countrywide in 1998, 18% of all jobs were part time and 90% of “job creation” since then has been temporary or part time. ESSN’s activity has not been without opposition. When they tried to change the laws in Eugene in order to increase the amount of local living wage jobs, Eugene city council made statements to the effect that no changes in the law were necessary as the job situation in Eugene was perfectly fine. ESSN proceeded to make public the information about the personal salaries of the city councilors as well as what kind of cars they drove, to show that as overly rich individuals they were not in a position to accurately judge the local employment situation.

The current neo-con trend in the United States favors the privatization of all public functions such as education, health, and electricity. In order to push forward with privatization, the State and Federal governments have adopted an anti-tax, anti-government agenda. As a result, in spite of an increasing demand for existing public services in Oregon that are due in part to a growing population, a limit has been imposed on how much tax the State can raise. This has caused a State government without enough money to fund the public service sector and has been forced to make cutbacks to these essential services. In an effort to remedy this situation and the effects it can have on quality of life in Oregon, ESSN has joined the Oregon Tax Justice coalition. This has seen them become engaged in educating their members and the public on how larger economic situations such as taxes affect their local economy and their daily lives.

Free Trade…

On a broader level than State taxing limits, Free Trade agreements also reflect neo-con government policy in the U.S. and abroad. Sarah, a single employee at ESSN, told us just how much the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has changed employment both in Oregon and across the country. The principle employer in Oregon prior to NAFTA was the timber industry. NAFTA came into play at a time when the timber industry was being challenged to become environmentally sustainable. As a result of NAFTA, the timber companies in Oregon moved their timber processing operations overseas, predominately to the global South, thereby avoiding environmental standards being set in the U.S. This is something that has happened in many industries in Canada and the United States, as companies move abroad seeking lower wages, tax breaks, and open borders. What’s more, six years after NAFTA was signed, more than 2,300 production sites closed their doors or moved to Mexico, destroying more than 230,000 jobs in the United States. As such, Free Trade has caused a large increase in unemployment and shift from higher wage unionized labor to minimum wage, part time jobs in the service sector and in retail.

In the future ESSN plans to help with the organization of more unions in their region in order to help the workers help themselves. These plans will be carried out especially in situations of employee exploitation such as north of Eugene at a manufacturer called Monaco Coach. This is a very big employer where Recreational Vehicles that sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars are built. In stark contrast to these luxury products that fuse camping and fuel inefficiency are the employees of the company who earn minimum wage and receive no health benefits in spite of a risky job environment. Often existing unions, whose mission, although progressive, remains self-serving, avoid the construction of a new unionized workforce even when it is necessary. Frequently unions have few resources to deploy for the outreach that creating a new union would involve, and their reluctance is tinged with an old-guard fearfulness that a new affiliate might bring unwelcome influence and destabilizing new ideas.

In 1994 alone, the profits of large corporations in the U.S. increased by 40% while 520,000 jobs were cut. This implies that increasing amounts of money are being made by an ever-decreasing segment of the population. This is just the kind of process that the Eugene Springfield Solidarity Network is fighting in order to improve the quality of life.

Eugene Springfield Solidarity Network
PO Box 10272 Eugene, OR
97440
Phone: (541) 736-9041
E-mail: essn@efn.org


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Eugene Springfield Solidarity Network november 29, 2003, Springfield WA by Francis Murchison and Johanne Pelletier pictures available soon Once upon a time there was a mill… During the 1980s, Springfield, Oregon was the home of a lumber mill that employed a good number of well-paid workers thereby contributing to a thriving community. All was not well however, and, as the year 1987 swung around the mill began demanding that its employees do mandatory overtime and reduce their health benefits if they wished to keep their jobs. At the time the event was not a unique occurrence in the U.S., as between 1988 and 1994 the percentage of employees covered by a retirement plan plummeted from 75% to 42% and those covered by a health plan went from 60% to 45%. The workers were outraged and their union organized a general strike to protest this breaking of contract. In response, the mill locked out the strikers and hired replacement workers. At this point, the union members realized that they were at a standstill and that they needed help in order to win their jobs back so they began to do a lot of outreach into the community. Other unions who feared similar treatment as well as religious leaders, political leaders, and local businesses all joined together to support the mill workers in a strike that lasted a whole year before their jobs were given back. About two months later, the mill moved operations first to Tennessee where labor laws were more relaxed and then to Argentina. ESSN… Afterwards, when the fight against the mill was concluded, the coalition that has come to be known as the Eugene Springfield Solidarity Network (ESSN) stayed together. Their movement has continued and ESSN has now grown to a membership of some six hundred households and twelve member organizations. The organization is guided by a steering committee of eight people and has subcommittees for important areas such as popular education and outreach. Funds for the ESSN are raised through occasional grants from small, private foundations and membership fees of fifteen dollars a year. Members are also asked to attend at least five actions per year. For some time after their formation in 1989, ESSN remained an organization mobilized only around individual situations. When employees were treated unjustly in a local workplace, ESSN would mobilize, organizing actions at the company in question to gain media attention in order to prevent the issue from being swept under the carpet. They would contact religious leaders, community leaders, and elected officials and have them meet with the company or make a public statement about the issue. Although the scope of their action has expanded, they continue to help workers claim their rights. For example, ESSN recently mobilized in just such a way in order to get two workers their jobs back in the local electronics store Circuit City, a nation wide chain. These two employees had been heard saying the word “union” while in the workplace even though they had no intention of organizing and were subsequently fired. When we met with the organization, they were continuing to address the situation at Circuit City, because employees were being further intimidated to discourage them from attempting to form a union. At some point in the evolution of ESSN, its members realized that although they were largely successful in their campaigns against employers who don’t respect workers rights, there was a need for ongoing action to complement their counteraction. This is how the ongoing community campaign was started with the overall goal of improving the labor conditions in Eugene, Springfield, and Lane County. One of the most important ways in which ESSN began helping the future of local labor is by facilitating the formation of labor unions. ESSN puts the workers in touch with other unions and labor educators especially in situations where the workers are being exploited in some way. At the same time, the network will be mobilized to support the unionization in case the employer tries to quash the organizing. One of ESSN’s main areas of action under the community campaign is to create a situation where the laws of the region better reflect worker’s interests. To this end, they helped locally in a statewide campaign that successfully increased the minimum wage in Oregon to one of the highest in the country at the time. ESSN also realized that big companies who set up shop in Eugene and Springfield receive tax breaks based on how many jobs they intend create and has been working on regulations controlling whether the jobs pay a living wage, are hired locally, or even whether they stay in the area. So far, their perseverance has seen several economic development resolutions be adopted in not yet binding agreements that insist on living wages, full family health benefits, and neutral employers should the workers decide to form a union. The battles fought by ESSN have significance all over the United States where globally speaking net salaries haven’t gone up since 1973. Furthermore, while in Eugene and Springfield they struggle for creation of living wage jobs, countrywide in 1998, 18% of all jobs were part time and 90% of “job creation” since then has been temporary or part time. ESSN’s activity has not been without opposition. When they tried to change the laws in Eugene in order to increase the amount of local living wage jobs, Eugene city council made statements to the effect that no changes in the law were necessary as the job situation in Eugene was perfectly fine. ESSN proceeded to make public the information about the personal salaries of the city councilors as well as what kind of cars they drove, to show that as overly rich individuals they were not in a position to accurately judge the local employment situation. The current neo-con trend in the United States favors the privatization of all public functions such as education, health, and electricity. In order to push forward with privatization, the State and Federal governments have adopted an anti-tax, anti-government agenda. As a result, in spite of an increasing demand for existing public services in Oregon that are due in part to a growing population, a limit has been imposed on how much tax the State can raise. This has caused a State government without enough money to fund the public service sector and has been forced to make cutbacks to these essential services. In an effort to remedy this situation and the effects it can have on quality of life in Oregon, ESSN has joined the Oregon Tax Justice coalition. This has seen them become engaged in educating their members and the public on how larger economic situations such as taxes affect their local economy and their daily lives. Free Trade… On a broader level than State taxing limits, Free Trade agreements also reflect neo-con government policy in the U.S. and abroad. Sarah, a single employee at ESSN, told us just how much the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has changed employment both in Oregon and across the country. The principle employer in Oregon prior to NAFTA was the timber industry. NAFTA came into play at a time when the timber industry was being challenged to become environmentally sustainable. As a result of NAFTA, the timber companies in Oregon moved their timber processing operations overseas, predominately to the global South, thereby avoiding environmental standards being set in the U.S. This is something that has happened in many industries in Canada and the United States, as companies move abroad seeking lower wages, tax breaks, and open borders. What’s more, six years after NAFTA was signed, more than 2,300 production sites closed their doors or moved to Mexico, destroying more than 230,000 jobs in the United States. As such, Free Trade has caused a large increase in unemployment and shift from higher wage unionized labor to minimum wage, part time jobs in the service sector and in retail. In the future ESSN plans to help with the organization of more unions in their region in order to help the workers help themselves. These plans will be carried out especially in situations of employee exploitation such as north of Eugene at a manufacturer called Monaco Coach. This is a very big employer where Recreational Vehicles that sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars are built. In stark contrast to these luxury products that fuse camping and fuel inefficiency are the employees of the company who earn minimum wage and receive no health benefits in spite of a risky job environment. Often existing unions, whose mission, although progressive, remains self-serving, avoid the construction of a new unionized workforce even when it is necessary. Frequently unions have few resources to deploy for the outreach that creating a new union would involve, and their reluctance is tinged with an old-guard fearfulness that a new affiliate might bring unwelcome influence and destabilizing new ideas. In 1994 alone, the profits of large corporations in the U.S. increased by 40% while 520,000 jobs were cut. This implies that increasing amounts of money are being made by an ever-decreasing segment of the population. This is just the kind of process that the Eugene Springfield Solidarity Network is fighting in order to improve the quality of life. Eugene Springfield Solidarity Network PO Box 10272 Eugene, OR 97440 Phone: (541) 736-9041 E-mail: essn@efn.org