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100 Years of a Powerful Partnership

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1913 to 2013 100 Years of a Powerful Partnership International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local No. 48

and Oregon-Columbia Chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA)

Written and researched by Alan Guggenheim

Produced for The Barnes-Allison Labor Management Cooperation Committee of NECA/IBEW Local 48

Project managed and published by Pac/West Communications 8600 S.W. St. Helens Drive, Suite 100 Wilsonville, Oregon 97070

2014

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PROLOGUE In 2012, the Barnes-Allison Labor Management Cooperation Committee (BALMCC) undertook historical research of one of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’ most influential and powerful local unions, Local No. 48, and their signatory contractor partner, the OregonColumbia Chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association. The objective of the BALMCC was a public exhibition in the museum of the Oregon Historical Society (OHS) that would honor the legacy of that powerful partnership on its 100th anniversary, in May 2013. The OHS museum exhibit opened to public fanfare and was extended because of its popularity through November 2013. At that time, the exhibit including custom designed and fabricated panels, cabinets and pedestals, was moved to a permanent home in the NECA/IBEW Electrical Training Center. The exhibit itself tells the story of the partnership between three generations of IBEW electricians and their NECA contractor partners, who by working together for mutual gain, generated profits for the companies, and created jobs and guaranteed job security for the workers. In the course of their uncommonly harmonious relationship the past century, the powerful partnership of NECA/IBEW Local 48 avoided labor-management strife to a degree that by any standard is remarkable. They wired Oregon and southwest Washington, and improved the quality of life in the Columbia River Basin and Oregon coastal community for themselves, their neighbors and future generations. That is indeed a legacy worthy of note. As project managers for the BALMCC research and resulting exhibition, Pac/West Communications presents here the Final Report with sources that will form the basis for future research and the preservation of the legacy of the men and women of NECA/IBEW Local 48.

Chris West

Vice President of Operations Pac/West Communications 8600 S.W. St. Helens Drive, Suite 100 Wilsonville, Oregon 97070 (503) 685-9400 www.pacwestcom.com

Researched and written by Alan Guggenheim Exhibit design by Fig. Studio Architecture + Interiors Exhibit fabrication by FAB PDX Exhibit printing and vinyl graphics by Markon Signs, IUPAT Local 1094 Exhibit signage and past/present wall section by NIETC Exhibit companion video by Galaxy Sailor Productions Final Report cover and design by Pac/West Communications 2


CONTENTS Introduction 4 100 Years of a Powerful Partnership

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Early 1900s Portland Loves Its Lights!

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1910 Formative Years of NECA and IBEW Local 48

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1920 Contractors and Local 48 Cement Their Partnership

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1930 The Depression 35 1940 Wartime Shipbuilding 41 1950 Postwar Boom 47 1960 Modern Times 51 1970 From Lumber Mills to Computer Chips

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1980 Crisis in the Economy

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1990 Dawning of the Digital Age

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2000 Education, Diversity and Technology

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NECA/IBEW Embrace Electric Future

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Works Cited 80

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INTRODUCTION This is the story of the past “100 Years of a Powerful Partnership” between the OregonColumbia Chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local No. 48 in Portland, Oregon. Since 1913, more than 50,000 union electricians working for hundreds of contractors electrified the homes and businesses, shipyards and bridges, and lumber mills and computer chip manufacturers in the greater Portland area of Oregon and southwest Washington. Those electricians were members of IBEW Local 48. Their employers were likewise organized for social, political and economic reasons under different names the past 100 years but most recently, since 1943, as the Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA. The working relationship of NECA/IBEW Local 48 through 10 decades and 18 economic recessions the past century was one of relative harmony. They wired the Portland region largely without rancor or strife. They played a crucial role in electrifying Eden. Yet, this relatively strikeless industry has gone largely unrecognized in books, articles and programs about the development of Oregon and southwest Washington. The news media, historians and the public have largely overlooked the labor-management harmony and the achievement of this powerful partnership between NECA and IBEW Local 48. To remedy the oversight and honor the legacy of NECA/IBEW Local 48, the Barnes-Allison Labor Management Cooperation Committee (BALMCC) undertook research necessary to form the basis for an exhibit in the Oregon Historical Society. The result was a six-month exhibition in the North Mezzanine gallery of the Oregon Museum, entitled “100 Years of a Powerful Partnership.” Upon completion of its museum run, the exhibit was permanently relocated and installed in the entry foyer of the NECA/IBEW Electrical Training Center in Portland, Oregon, where future generations of electricians can glean their industry’s history between their classes. The exhibit was based on research conducted between August 2012 and January 2013. The exhibit panels included 10 large-scale Timeline wall panels spanning a century of NECA/ IBEW Local 48’s history, and eight History Boards addressing bridge building, tools of the trade, gender and racial diversity, “The Great Light Way,” World War II shipbuilding, Portland’s light rail and streetcar system, education and community service. The research that formed the basis for the Timeline and History Boards was built on previous research, information and ideas that are documented in this final report, published here as a Final Report.

This final report is divided into three major sections. Section I – a narrative of the NECA/IBEW Local 48 history the past 100 years. Historical references that form the basis for this narrative can be found in Section II and Section III.

Section II – summarizations of NECA/IBEW Local 48 history and historical context, divided into 11 decadal chapters (1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000).

Section III – all Works Cited, as well as works consulted but that may not have been specifically cited

in Section II or in the Oregon Museum exhibit. Section III is divided into chapters (Books, Articles and Reports, Internet Sources, Official Documents, Internal Documents (unpublished), Labor Agreements, Interviews, and NIETC (Apprentice School) records, minutes and letters. This report generally adheres to Modern Language Association (MLA) documentation style to acknowledge sources. Brief parenthetical citations are keyed directly into the text of the 11 Timeline 4


chapters in Section II. The following sentence exemplifies the parenthetical citation of this report: But in April 1903, fair management authorized an open-shop policy, denying any such commitment to using only union labor (Wollner 44). The parenthetical reference “(Wollner 44)” tells the reader that the information in the sentence was derived from page 44 of a work by an author named Wollner. The full reference can then be found in Section III, Works Cited, as follows: Wollner, Craig E. The City Builders – One Hundred Years of Union Carpentry in Portland, Oregon 1883-1983. Portland: The Oregon Historical Society, 1990. If there are two or more sources, they are all included, separated by commas. Interviews with Edward L. Barnes, Rod Belisle, Brian Christopher, Clif Davis, Timothy J. Gauthier, Bob Gotham, Max Landon, Gary Price and Bob R. Shiprack are referenced in Section II with the last name of the interviewee listed within parenthesis. Full contact information of interviewees is listed in Section III, Works Cited. Section III contains the list of all works cited in Section II, including books, articles, Internet websites, and published and unpublished sources. Section III is further divided in chapters for the types of sources used. Entries are arranged by author, alphabetically, and listed in a format using hanging indentation. If the author is unknown, the title of the article, book, or otherwise unpublished document is used, ignoring any initial A, An or The, or the equivalent. In the process of mounting the exhibit, the Pac/West research team considered hundreds of photographs, graphics and other artwork, as well as archival movie footage for a video on the history of NECA/IBEW Local 48. These visual artifacts are available in electronic format but because of publishing constraints and the purpose of this report, are available from Pac/West Communications, but not included in this publication. The absence of a comprehensive work for Oregon, with its rich history of labor-management relations is noticeable. The building trades in general, and the NECA/IBEW Local 48 partnership, specifically, have played a crucial role in the growth, development and electrification of the region, including southwest Washington. The rich history of the building trades tells us where we are headed in the 21st Century. This is invaluable to business, government policymakers and the public, especially young people seeking a career in a growth industry. This Final Report spotlights the 100-year partnership between one of the IBEW’s most influential and powerful local unions and their signatory NECA contractors. Together, they helped electrify Oregon and southwest Washington. While this is the Final Report for the exhibit research undertaken by the BALMCC two years ago, it is by no means the final word. Instead, the summaries and list of sources are intended to be a starting place for further exploration. Labor history is history and should not be overlooked or under-reported just because of the union orientation of the people who contributed so much to the development and electrification of Oregon and southwest Washington. This report is an exhortation to others to add to the story. – Alan Guggenheim 2014

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100 YEARS OF A POWERFUL PARTNERSHIP

1913-2013

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local No. 48 and Oregon-Columbia Chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA)

Electricity was the “Internet” of 1900. Electric lights were the rage in Portland. “Telephones” and “Wireless” signs lured Portlanders into Stubbs Electric and electrical equipment suppliers. In 1905, thousands of electric light bulbs lit Portland’s skyline over the Lewis and Clark Centennial and American Exposition and Oriental Fair. Portland embraced everything electrical that the Twentieth Century had to offer. Soon, more than a quarter-million passengers were commuting to work and play onboard Portland’s 526 streetcars each day, crossing the Willamette River or visiting friends or picnicking atop Council Crest. Homemakers eagerly used labor saving electric irons and washing machines, chafing dishes and curling irons. Portlanders loved city lights. To wire schools, houses, buildings and factories, people contacted electrical contractors who in turn employed electricians to do the work. Public concern for uniform building codes and electrical safety took a backseat to surging demand for the transformation to everything electrical. To meet the surging demand, hundreds of people, both skilled as well as those who were utterly inexperienced, declared themselves “electricians.” They hopped Portland’s streetcars to work, some wearing bowler hats and ties, their pockets stuffed with tools. Both the skilled electricians, but also some less competent in the newly emerging craft, wired homes and offices, factories and bridges spanning the Willamette River. Codes and standards were new and the wiring in homes and businesses was as varied as the personalities of the electricians who did the wiring. Out of this milieu, emerged a cadre of ambitious men attracted to the new field of electrical contracting. Typical of the new breed was John R. Tomlinson, a division storekeeper for the Southern Pacific Railroad in Portland who quit his job to work for a Portland electrical dealer. In 1911, Tomlinson partnered with T.F. Pierce, himself an electrician, to form Pierce-Tomlinson Electric Company. That same year, Tomlinson helped form the predecessor of NECA, the Electrical Contractors Association of Portland. He was elected treasurer and later served as a director of the national association. Also attracted to this new industry, in 1904, were a handful of electricians who organized themselves into a labor union, chartered as Local No. 317 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). The members of Local 317 chose as their business agent an electrician named John D. M. Crockwell. Crockwell was active in the American Federation of Labor. An organizer, Crockwell quickly assumed the unpaid roles in 1908 as financial secretary and business agent of Local 317. His brother Frank was president. There were nearly 100 members, including apprentices and helpers, many of whom would emerge in the coming decades in local, regional and national IBEW positions of leadership or as electrical contractors themselves. One such future leader in 1906, was George Pettingell, initiated that year as an apprentice member of IBEW Local 317. Pettingell advanced to journeyman status but left the rank-and-file in 1929 to become an electrical engineer and a contractor. Ten years later, in 1939, Pettingell would represent the employers of NECA in successful negotiations with Local 48 to recapture market share lost during the Depression. Pettingell’s career path, from union apprentice electrician to union contractor, was typical of the pattern for many Portland area electrical contractors who assumed leadership roles in NECA.

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In 1907, Local 317’s Crockwell increased membership in the union by organizing the picture machine operators. He chaired the Labor Day Committee that organized a parade, picnic and festivities for the 1908 Labor Day celebration in Portland. That same year of 1908, Crockwell (with C.M. Rynerson and W.H. Fitzgerald) circulated a “manifesto” calling for organized labor in Oregon to vote for William Jennings Bryan for president of the United States. The Oregonian editorialized against Crockwell, Rynerson and Fitzgerald for their “impudence,” advocating for a political candidate as somehow a violation of labor unionism. In 1909, the Central Labor Council [Building Trades Council] elected Crockwell to a sixmonth term as one of its reading clerks, representing the Electrical Workers. He was also elected to serve on the organizing committee and as a delegate to the Ministerial Association. Local contractors, like Tomlinson, hired the union electricians for their competence and experience in exchange for a fair wage and safer workplace, back in a time when there were few workplace regulations. Like Tomlinson, others skilled in business, electrical and mechanical engineering, joined the ranks of Portland contractors, including Samuel I. “Bud” Jaggar and Jud F. NePage. Jaggar had apprenticed and quickly attained journeyman status in 1904, helping to wire the Forestry Building at the Lewis and Clark Exposition with 3,000 light bulbs. In 1907, he established his own firm, the Morrison Electric Co., in 1907. NePage, like Jaggar, rose through the ranks with a respect for the IBEW as a source of competent teams of electricians who could fish wire through pipe and install power panels and electric equipment, lights and appliances, efficiency and safely. While not unique, the relationship between Portland union contractors, like Jaggar, NePage and others was uncommonly harmonious compared to the anti-union sentiment of many in the Portland business community, including the press and city government through 1914 and World War I. During the second decade of the 20th Century, there was, perhaps ironically, less strife between Portland area electrical contractors and the electricians of IBEW Local 317, than there was among the rank and file of Local 317. The internal strife in Portland’s IBEW Local 317 mirrored the fight for control at the International level of the IBEW. Between 1908 and 1912, a faction of the members of the International IBEW, led by J.J. Reid and J.W. Murphy, attempted to secede from the union and wrest control from International President Frank J. McNulty and Secretary Peter W. Collins. The American Federation of Labor (AFL), led by President Samuel Gompers, attempted to reconcile the factions. Gompers and the AFL eventually sided with McNulty-Collins as the legitimate Brotherhood. A court decision, in February 1912, declared the Reid-Murphy secession illegal and restored the International’s union funds to the McNulty-Collins faction. Finally, in September 1913, McNulty won the endorsement of members attending the 12th Convention of the Brotherhood in Boston to repress the secession movement. In Portland, IBEW Local 317 splintered into factions along the lines of those at the International level. But rather than reform the Reid-Murphy Local 317, members in Portland who were loyal to the NcNulty-Collins faction formed a new local. In 1912, the International recognized these loyalists to the McNulty-Collins faction of the IBEW, as Local 480. On May 21, 1913, the International formally chartered IBEW Local No. 48. In that summer of 1913, at the request of the International, the Portland Building Trades Council unseated Local 317, further legitimatizing IBEW Local 48. The “Reid” Local 317 tried to compete against Local 48 by offering to work for $.50 an hour less, 7


but without AFL support, failed and gradually disappeared from the workplace. By 1911, local union contractors were meeting to socialize and to work out industry issues under the aegis of the Oregon Association of Electrical Contractors and Dealers, the predecessor of NECA. During these formative years of 1913 and 1914, IBEW Local 48 negotiated contracts with NePage-McKenny Co., the M.J. Walsh Electric Co., and other unioncontractor members of the Oregon Association of Electrical Contractors and Dealers. The organization of the electrical contractors who employed IBEW electricians was not smooth or consistent. The affiliation of Portland area contractors and their national organization may have dated to 1911. But in reality, the affiliation was on-and-off during the next three decades, possibly because of the distance between Portland and the East Coast, or simply the maverick nature of western contractors. East Coast electrical contractors had formed the predecessor of NECA with their New York counterparts in 1901. Some Portland contractors joined individually, but membership in the national office lapsed during World War I, resumed in the 1920s, lapsed but resumed twice during the 1930s. Throughout the Roaring ’20s and the Great Depression, the Oregon Association of Electrical Contractors and Dealers maintained robust ties to IBEW Local 48. They adopted their respective national organizations’ agreement, on January 26, 1920, to establish the Council on Industrial Relations (CIR) in Washington, D.C. The CIR “no-strike” agreement stabilized union shops and gave them an edge over nonunion shops. Instead of strikes costly to both labor and management, the parties agreed to submit the disputes they could not resolve themselves to the national CIR panel comprising twelve members, six representatives from the IBEW and six representatives from the contractors’ organization. The CIR would serve for the next 90 years as the “supreme court” of the electrical construction industry. It would settle more than 8,000 disputes without a labor strike, earning for the NECA/IBEW partnership in North America the title ``strikeless industry.” In Portland as in the rest of the nation, the postwar period in 1920 was hard on the electricians and contractors alike. Shipbuilding dried up. Unemployment rose. Increasing numbers of women entered the workplace. Child labor was commonplace. Political change, for good and ill, imposed itself on the workplace. By 1923, the Portland area’s economy started turning around and with it, demand soared for electric service in homes, buildings and factories. That same year, IBEW Local 48 celebrated its 10th anniversary with a gala dinner on October 3, 1923, in Portland’s new Labor Temple building at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Jefferson. The program included speeches by state and national officers of the AFL and, significantly, IBEW President James P. Noonan and former IBEW President Frank McNulty. In 10 years, the membership of IBEW Local 48 swelled from the original 14 charter signers to some 250 in 1923. In 1925, the economy in Portland roared. Both labor and management profited from major construction projects. Education had always been key to labor-management success, but it was primarily through on-the-job training. In 1929, with the Portland Public Schools as their partner, NECA/ IBEW formalized the programs under the aegis of the “Portland Apprentice School.” That same year, the economy turned down, abruptly, with the crash on Wall Street, yet the labor-management consortium with the school system continued in the teeth of the oncoming Depression. With the downturn in the economy, the union contractors and Local 48 renegotiated their agreement. They rolled back union wage scale 25 percent, from $1.375 per hour to $1.00, in order to help the union contractors “recapture” the residential market. The market recovery program presaged similar strategies decades later, in the mid-1980s and into the 21st Century. 8


Times were tough for both labor and management during the Depression Era of the 1930s. Thousands of electricians hit the road for work out-of-state, as “travelers.” Many contractors consolidated, sold out or simply disappeared before the Roosevelt Administration could launch its series of jobs programs that included construction of Bonneville Dam and Timberline Lodge. Despite the odds, the Apprentice School continued to educate future electricians. The union worked closely with contractors to procure work, including reconstruction of the Oregon State Capitol after it burned in 1935. They also attended each other’s picnics and meetings. At the start of World War II, the union contractors formally affiliated with the national office of NECA, only to drop out for a year in 1942. In 1943, they resumed their affiliation, as the Oregon-Columbia Chapter, which has continued to this day. The first president was R.C. Kenney, owner of what today is McCoy Electric Co., himself an electrician. During the war years of 1942-1945, IBEW Local 48 swelled to more than 21,000 members, making it the largest such union local in the nation, primarily because of the need for electricians in the six largest shipyards in Portland and Vancouver. Demobilization wracked the union organization, which would need help from the International office adjusting to postwar realities. From 1945 to 2013, the NECA contractors and the IBEW members of Local 48 jockeyed through a dozen economic recessions, and negotiated Oregon’s tortuous 30-year transition away from timber towards high technology. The economic downturn in 1982-83 forced the NECA/IBEW to reach out to educators for help. The partnership learned new perspectives on labor-management negotiation, how to work together for mutual gain. During the recession that gripped Oregon and the nation in the mid-1980s, NECA/ IBEW Local 48 and what would become their Barnes Allison Labor Management Cooperation Committee (BALMCC), broadened the diversity and improved the educational programs that underpin their partnership and take it to new heights during the “dot.com” boom of the 1990s. The partnership endured the economic bust of 2001, followed by the Great Recession of 2009, still shoulder-to-shoulder, today, working together on projects such as the Intel construction and facing the technological challenges of the emergent Facebook Era of the 21st Century. The technological challenges included meeting the market’s demand for solar photovoltaic systems, net-zero building strategies, advanced fiber optic communications, hydrogen fuel cell technology, wind power, electric vehicle charging stations, energy audits and retrofits, and LEED certified “green” building compliance, not to mention the singular demands of Intel Corporation and the semiconductor industry. They recognized the reality of the 21st Century was that technological change was here to stay. To meet the demands of a changing world and the concomitant challenges in the workplace, the NECA/IBEW Local 48 team of craftsmen equipped themselves with a “toolbox” to meet the political and economic challenges and lead the public in technological change. Decade after decade, they added to their tool chest: pay hikes for workers, the apprenticeship program in 1929, a welcoming attitude towards women and minorities during the shipbuilding ear of World War II, and strikeless negotiations that resulted in labor contracts good for all parties. Today, the toolbox of NECA/IBEW Local 48 comprises four strategic initiatives: • Incentives • Management for mutual gain • Education 9


•

Drive towards diversity

The Depression Era of the 1930s, the shipbuilding war years of the 1940s, the boom years of the 1950s and 1960s, which included construction of the Lloyd Center and the expansion of the Apprentice School programs, invigorated the labor-management partnership between NECA and IBEW Local 48. NECA contractors paid union electricians premium wages. They provided work days that accommodated family life. They ensured a safe workplace, including conditions conducive to good work. They underpinned the partnership with an array of health and welfare benefits, including three pension plans that together with Social Security provide retirees and their families with the income they enjoyed during their working years. The 1970s presented unparalleled opportunity for both labor and management, even during an era of skyrocketing inflation, high interest rates. Education remained of paramount importance. Through World War II and into the boom years of the 1950s and 1960s, the jointly managed apprenticeship program had grown alongside the need for continuing education of journeymen electricians. In 1963, NECA/IBEW had formed a Training Trust, which hired Dan Faddis the next year as the first Training Director of the Metro Joint Apprenticeship Training Center (JATC). That program outgrew its Benson High School quarters so the Trust, in 1977, acquired a 15,000 square foot former Safeway grocery in northeast Portland. Suddenly, however, the feverish economic growth that fueled the need for more and more apprentice electricians ended, abruptly. In 1982, Oregon’s economy collapsed; unemployment was 12.1%. One third of the members of IBEW Local 48 became “travelers,” forced to seek work out-of-state. The largest NECA contractors pared their own ranks 75 percent. McCoy Electric, for instance, went from 100 employees to 25. Oregon’s timber-based economy had fallen off a cliff. Desperate, Tim Gauthier, the executive manager of the Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA, and Edward L. Barnes, the business manager of IBEW Local 48, sought help from academia. Without a trace of irony, the ivory tower consultants told the labor-management team, “what works in the real world is cooperation.” Gauthier and Barnes were both new to their positions but not without experience or enthusiasm for the challenge ahead. They enlisted the union contractors of NECA and the rank-and-file electricians of Local 48 in a sweeping campaign committed not to labor, not to management, but to the customer. Making the customer happy became the game plan that would enable NECA/IBEW to recover the market share lost in the early 1980s. It would create jobs and guarantee job security in the 21st Century. But it wouldn’t be easy. Nevertheless, union rank-and-file, and their leaders, voted for change in the 1980s. The electrical contractors of NECA renegotiated wages, addressed health and welfare benefits, drugs and alcohol abuse, continuing education, diversity of skills, experience, race, gender and ideas, and secure retirement. To make the customer happy, NECA/IBEW formed a funding and management trust initially referred to as the Labor Management Cooperation Committee. The committee would invest in education, public relations and marketing, to improve the quality of the industry workforce and tell its story. It was renamed the Barnes Allison Labor Management Cooperation Committee, or BALMCC, to honor Barnes who retired in 1995, and Hugh D. “Buzzy” Allison, former owner of Allison Electric and Sunset Electric as well as Oregon Electric Construction, now deceased, but who at the time was one of the more-involved NECA contractors. During his career as IBEW Local 48 president, and before that, dispatcher and business manager, Barnes co-chaired the Metro Join Apprenticeship Training Committee (JATC). On the opposite end of the handshake, “Buzzy” Allison not only served as president, governor and member of the board of directors of the Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA, he was cofounder of the Metro JATC facility in 1977. 10


In 1995, Metro JATC found itself running out of classroom space in 1995, prompting the training program, now directed by Ken Fry, to expand into Whitaker Middle School and Portland Community College’s Cascade Campus. In 1998, independent of the Portland school system, and any other governmental agency, the BALMCC partnership invested $6 million into construction of a new Electrical Training Center, adjacent to Local 48’s offices just east of Portland International Airport. Today, under Training Director Rod Belisle’s leadership, the NECA/IBEW training center is meeting the demand for a diverse, motivated and highly educated workforce. In addition to its role in promoting education, BALMCC also provided for a Code of Excellence that is, today, inculcated at every level of the NECA/IBEW partnership. The bottom line is that since the formation of BALMCC in 1983, and the implementation of the unique market recovery program implemented by NECA/IBEW in 1986, the “uncommonly harmonious relationship” has won more than 18,000 projects that required 15 million hours of work for members of the union. The value of those jobs exceeded $1.5 billion for their employers. The payoff has been employment the past 30 years of the equivalent of 325 journeymen electricians – all because of the uncommonly close cooperation of the members of NECA and IBEW Local 48. With the 100th Anniversary of NECA/IBEW Local 48 in May 2013, the union’s membership verged on 4,000. The NECA chapter membership approached 120 electrical contractors. In 2013, NECA/IBEW Local 48 celebrated 100 years of their powerful partnership by earning their share of the $1 billion electrical construction market in Oregon, from The Dalles to the northwest coast, across the Columbia River to Vancouver, Kelso-Longview and southwest Washington. On behalf of the 7,000 families of their members, the NECA/IBEW Local 48 partnership managed with a watchful eye more than $1.5 billion dollars in assets. Those assets in 2013 included three pension trust funds, a self-insured health, and welfare trust fund, and the priceless asset of education – the NECA\IBEW Electrical Training Center. Concern for safety, fair compensation, education, competitiveness and an abiding sense of always trying to do what’s right made for the uncommonly harmonious partnership between the men and women of the Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 48. That is their story and it lives on.

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PORTLAND LOVES ITS LIGHTS!

Oregon Census 413,536

EARLY 1900S

Electricity was the Next Big Thing at the turn of the Twentieth Century in Portland, Oregon. Most everybody in greater Portland wanted electricity to light their homes and power their shops and factories, to light their schools and churches and attract customers to their stores, hotels, movie houses and amusement parks. George A. Hughes manufactured the first practical electric range. Hurley Machine Co. introduced the amazing Thor Washer, one of the first electric washing machines. Consumers eagerly embraced the new electric appliances (50th Anniversary NECA program). To meet the demand for a people hungry for electricity, the numbers of electricians in Oregon tripled from an estimated 276 in 1900 to 879 in 1910 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin No. 439, Handbook of Labor Statistics 1924-1926, 419-421). Though their numbers were small, electrical workers talked among themselves about their wages, their long hours and their work “The Worker” January, 1893 “The Electrical Electrical Worker” January, 1893 conditions. Two men were electrocuted on the job in 1904 and the State of Oregon recognized the need for regulations, including a safety code. #1

“The knowledge of how to transmit and control this great and mysterious force is also becoming, greater every day and it is only a question of time when electrical power will be so cheap that steam as a motive agency will be crowded out entirely. Legislation on this subject should keep pace with electrical development.” Report to the Oregon Legislature Bureau of Labor State of Oregon (“50 Years of Progress – Bureau of Labor,” 25th Biennial Report State of Oregon’s Bureau of Labor)

1902-1903 Lewis and Clark Exposition management wanted to present a first class spectacle at discounted labor costs. The exposition association solicited trade unions to buy blocks of exposition stock. The Portland Labor Press (March 10, 1905 issue) reported that for their subscriptions, the unions received promises that “all work on the grounds would be done under union conditions with union men.” But in April 1903, fair management authorized an open-shop policy, denying any such commitment to using only union labor (Craig E. Wollner, The City Builders, 44).

1904 A handful of inside electrical workers in Portland formed a union and chartered themselves to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) as Local Union No. 317. Their growth was slow, meeting when and where possible. Though they numbered about 15 members, they included some of the most experienced electricians of the day (IBEW Local 48 website; and “Golden Jubilee” remarks by Historian John Clothier, undated but presented at a gathering of 720 NECA/IBEW Local 12


48 members, families and guests at the Sheraton Hotel, November 2, 1963. IBEW Local 48).

1905 Angry Building Trades Council unions, led by the painters’ and carpenters’ unions, threatened to strike for a minimum wage of $3.50 per day (standard West Coast rate). But many union members hesitated, unwilling to jeopardize the opening of the Lewis and Clark Exposition in June 1905. Exposition management embarked on a PR campaign to quiet the labor unrest (MacColl, 339, quoting Wollner, 44). John D.M. Crockwell, born in Salt Lake City in 1879 (Oregonian, March 7, 1954, p 18), moved to Portland between 1903 and 1905, and immediately found work as a union electrician and member of IBEW Local 317. He was active in the American Federation of Labor, gained a reputation as both a labor organizer and an event organizer (Labor Day festivities), and “was a time business manager of the electricians’ union” (For the 1903 date, see Oregonian, April 27, 1940, p 16; for the 1905 date and business manager reference, see Oregonian, April 4, 1946, p 13).

1906 IBEW Local 317 initiated a young electrician, George Pettingell. He would advance to journeyman status, leave the rank-and-file in 1929 and become an electrical engineer (Bauder, Journal 35, September 1963). Ten years later, in 1939, Pettingell represented NECA in successful negotiations with Local 48 that cemented the cooperative relationship between labor and management (Pettingell letter, dated September 1, 1939, to NECA contractors). The contractors in Portland who employed the union electricians of Local 317 formed looseknit associations, to talk about their work and to socialize. Among those early contractors, NePage-McKenny Co. out of Seattle was largest. Jud F. NePage employed apprentices and journeymen in 1906. NePage’s superintendent was Harry Sroufe. Like many electricians who gained their experience at NePage-McKenny, Sroufe would later form his own company.

1907 Samuel I. Jaggar, a union man himself, opened the doors to his own company, Morrison Electric Co., in 1907 – just two years after he helped wire 3,000 lights in the Forestry Building at the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition and Oriental Fair in Portland in 1905. He too would be engaged in NECA/IBEW events fifty years later, recalling his experiences “The Electrical Worker” 1893 in the electrical industry (Barnes interview 8). underscoring the history of January, cooperation

1908 The nearly 100 members of IBEW Local 317 selected Crockwell as financial secretary and business agent. His brother Frank was elected president. Crockwell was very actively involved in organizing the picture machine operators (“Portland No. 317,” D.B. Brooks, press secretary, The Electrical Worker, March 1908, p 181).

1908 Local 317 Business Agent Crockwell chaired the Labor Day Committee that organized a parade, picnic and festivities for the 1908 Labor Day celebration in Portland (“Labor Day Plans Are Completed,” Portland Labor Press, Tuesday, September 4, 1908, p 1).

1908 Local 317 Business Agent Crockwell (with C.M. Rynerson and W.H. Fitzgerald) circulated a “manifesto” calling for organized labor in Oregon to vote for William Jennings Bryan for president of the United States. The Oregonian editorialized against Crockwell, Rynerson and Fitzgerald for their “impudence,” advocating for a political candidate as somehow a violation of labor unionism (Oregonian, September 13, 1908, p 6).

Conductor and motorman of the Williams Avenue electric streetcar in 1904-1905. #2

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1908 A four-year legal erupted nationally between two rival factions for control of the International organization of the IBEW. The struggle would eventually result, in 1913, in the formation of IBEW Local Union No. 48 in Portland, and the demise of Local 317.

1909 Portland’s Central Labor Council [Building Trades Council] elected J.D.M. Crockwell to a six-month term as one of its reading clerks. He represented the “Electrical Workers.” He was also elected to serve on the organizing committee and as a delegate to the Ministerial Association (Oregonian, July 31, 1909, p 3).

1909 IBEW Local 317 initiated Clarence Shafer in 1909. Fifty years later, he would recall his experiences as an electrician during Local 48’s annual “oldtimers” dinners in the 1960s (Bauder, Journal 35, September 1963).

14


FORMATIVE YEARS OF NECA AND IBEW LOCAL 48 Oregon Census 672,765 1911

1910S

Several electrical contractors in Oregon decided it was time to form an industry organization. Although the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) was operating at that time (it had been formed in 1901 in New York), affiliation with the national association was not important enough to the Portland businessmen. NECA was located on the East Coast. Instead, the contractors formed their own loose knit organization, the Oregon Electrical Contractors Association (OECA). With the help of Fred Weber, inspector for Underwriters Equitable Rating Bureau, the handful of Portland-area contractors met informally at first, to discuss contracts, settle their differences, promote their industry, and to socialize (50th Anniversary NECA program). In 1911, John R. Tomlinson and T.F. Pierce formed Pierce-Tomlinson Electric Company in Portland, immediately ranking them among the leading and “responsible” firms in Oregon. Tomlinson took an active role in OECA, both as an organizer and also as its first treasurer, and later as its director with the national organization of contractors (Google Books: “John R. Tomlinson,” Electrical Review and Western Electrician, June 27, 1914, p 1289).

1912 Portland was booming. More than a quarter-million passengers rode Portland’s 526 streetcars each day, to work or shop, to cross the Willamette River to visit a friend or go on a picnic atop Council Crest (Arietta-Walden 42). A gallon of gas cost 7 cents while electricity was an expensive 15 to 20 cents per kilowatt-hour. Electricians kept Portland lit up and on the move To wire a house or building, people contacted electrical contractors who in turn employed electricians to do the work. Together, they had the skills, the tools and the expertise to wire and install motors, electrical equipment and home appliances – safely! Though like any building trade, they were competitive, the contractors and the electricians they hired discovered early on that cooperation was mutually useful.

1912 The courts resolved the four-year dispute between International IBEW President Frank J. McNulty and Secretary Peter W. Collins and a rival “secessionist” faction led by J.J. Reid, president, and J.W. Murphy, secretary. The court decision, in February 1912, declared the ReidMurphy secession illegal and restored union funds to the McNulty-Collins faction, which was endorsed by the American Federation of Labor led by Samuel Gompers (“Electrical Workers Endorse McNulty,” Portland Labor Press, October 13, 1913, p 1; also IBEW “History and Structure,” Carrying the IBEW Dream into the 21st Century. Web: September 2012.) In response to the 1912 legal decision and in support of the McNulty-Collins leadership of the International IBEW, local union electricians in Portland left “Reid-Murphy” Local 317 and formed IBEW Local 480 (“Golden Jubilee” remarks by Historian John Clothier, undated but presented at a gathering of 720 NECA/IBEW Local 48 members, families and guests at the Sheraton Hotel, November 2, 1963. IBEW Local 48).

December 17, 1912 The Oregon Electrical Contractors Association conducted their first convention in Portland. Members attending the two-day meeting include well-known contractors of that era, Jud F. NePage, Frank Pierce, A.E. McCoy, Harry Clapp, W.O. Fouch, John Tomlinson (first secretary-treasurer of the association), Ed Pierce, O.B. Stuffs, Harry Sroufe, O.A. Penrose, William Lord, and Elmer Maxon 15


(50th Anniversary NECA program. See also wide-angle photo on NECA chapter office wall).

1913 On March 4, 1913, Congress created the U.S. Department of Labor. Incoming President Woodrow Wilson appointed a United Mine Workers official as the first Secretary of Labor (Shmoop Editorial Team).

May 21, 1913 Members of the “Reid-Murphy” Local 317 sought membership in Local 480, formed the year before, and in the spirit of reconciliation, requested an election. After much debate, they compromised and formed a whole new chapter, IBEW Local 48 (“Golden Jubilee” remarks by Historian John Clothier, undated but presented at a gathering of 720 NECA/IBEW Local 48 members, families and guests at the Sheraton Hotel, November 2, 1963. IBEW Local 48). Fourteen members resolved their differences and merged their union interests with their signatures on the charter of IBEW Local Union No. 48. Signers of the new Local 48 charter were, Andy Peacher H.L. Averill H. Dickman Homer Gifford W.H. Emrich J.D. Harkleroad P.A. Spire B.E. Moore George Collins M.A. Rhodes H.Q. Gannon W.J. LeDout J.M. Ahearn John Goodwick In the summer of 1913, at the request of the McNulty-Collins leadership of the International IBEW, the Portland Building Trades Council unseated remaining members of the “ReidMurphy” Local 317 and recognized IBEW Local 48 (nee Local 480) (“L.U. No. 48, Portland, Ore,” by W.H. Emrick, Business Agent, The Electrical Worker, March 1914, p 129; “Our Fight In the City of Portland,” by L.C. Grasser, International Vice President, The Electrical Worker, p 135; and “Our Pacific Coast Trip,” The Electrical Worker, May 1913, p 931). Before the Building Trades Council ousted the Reid-Murphy Local 317, the union had maintained offices in the Labor Temple at 270½ Alder Street. They had met at 8 p.m., Tuesdays, in Hall 401, with Crockwell presiding as its business agent (“Directory of Local Unions,” Portland Labor Press, November 11, 1912, p 7; also, see the “Directory of Local Unions” in just about every issue published in 1912-1913). After the ouster that summer of 1913, the Portland Labor Press dropped all references to Local 317 and Business Agent J.D.M. Crockwell (“Directory of Local Unions,” Portland Labor Press, September 15, 1913, p 7). In September 1913, McNulty won the endorsement of members attending the 12th Convention of the Brotherhood in Boston to repress, once for all, the secession movement (Sources: “Electrical Workers Endorse McNulty,” Portland Labor Press, October 13, 1913, p 1; also IBEW “History and Structure,” Carrying the IBEW Dream into the 21st Century, available as PDF on the IBEW International’s website). 16


October 5, 1913 Typical of some of the increasingly busy contractors, Beaver Electric Co. landed contracts for small motors and lighting that underscored the industrial vitality of Portland. Their electricians did work in the shops of McDougall & Overmire, the Jeffery Aeroplane Co., and the new aeroplane addition of the Nicolai Door Co. They also announced a contract for the installation of motors at the new factory of Western Foundry Co., to operate machinery and a 4-ton electric crane (Electrical Review, October 5, 1913, Vol. 73, No. 14, p. 553).

November 17, 1913 Oregon Governor Oswald West proclaimed the enactment of the state’s Workmen’s Compensation Law after a near-unanimous vote of the Oregon Legislature, and the subsequent majority approval by 39,206 Oregonians who cast votes in favor of the progressive measure in a special election held on November 4, 1913. The law will create a State Industrial Accident Fund, and a Commission to administer it, for the sole purpose of compensating people injured in the course of employment (State Industrial Accident Commission, First Annual Report 1-3).

1914 In its February 16, 1914, issue, the Portland Labor Press commenced listing of Local 48 (nee Local 480) as the inside electricians’ union representative, meeting every Wednesday at 8 p.m., in the Labor Temple Hall 304; Owen Osborne, recording secretary, P.A. Spice, financial secretary, and B.H. Emrich (sic), business agent (Source: “Directory of Local Unions,” Portland Labor Press, February 16, 1914, p 7). Among the original charter members, Peacher, Gifford and Hackleroad would live long enough to celebrate Local 48’s Golden Jubilee 50th anniversary. Peacher and Gifford attended the Golden Jubilee dinner party, November 2, 1963, at Portland’s Sheraton Hotel, and were warmly applauded by more than 700 IBEW members, wives, guests and 50 NECA electrical contractors, all of whom had contracts with Local 48 (Barnes, Electrical Workers’ Journal 51. Also, see remarks by John Clothier during IBEW Local 48’s “Golden Jubilee,” undated: files of IBEW Local 48).

1914 From its beginning, IBEW Local 48 sought to provide the OECA contractors with workers who were better qualified than nonunion electricians. With encouragement from the union contractors, especially Harry Sroufe, superintendent of NePage-McKenny Co., Mud Crockwell negotiated Local 48’s first agreement, to commence in 1915 (Clothier, Golden Jubilee 2 – Clothier’s statement flies in the face of facts regarding the “secessionists” in IBEW’s national Journal, referenced below), with terms that did in fact improve members’ wages, hours and work conditions: • First contracts: Jud F. NePage for the employment of union electricians by the highly esteemed NePage-McKenny Co. out of Seattle, and M.J. Walsh, owner of M.J. Walsh Electric Co. • Journeymen wages: 22¢ per hour. • Workweek: 40 hours. • Overtime: 33¢ per hour. • Helpers’ wages: $1.00 per day. (Sources: IBEW Local 48 History 1; and “Golden Jubilee” remarks by Historian John Clothier, undated but presented at a gathering of 720 NECA/IBEW Local 48 members, families and guests at the Sheraton Hotel, November 2, 1963. IBEW Local 48 – this information is suspect – see IBEW Journal references, Oregonian, and Labor Press from this period.) In the spirit of cooperation, Local 48 officers and its business manager attended meetings and conventions of the OECA. Union members (including, unexplainably, former Local 317 Business 17


Agent J.D.M. Crockwell) even appeared in wide-angle group photographs taken of OECA conventions, in support of their efforts to win jobs in what was even then a highly competitive industry. A Local 48 journeyman’s pay was one-fourth of the $3,000 in salary paid in 1914 to Oregon’s Republican Labor Commissioner, O.P. Hoff, and three-fourths of the $900 paid to his stenographer. Hoff and his stenographer’s salaries are listed in pages 65-66 of the Blue Book and Official Directory 1913-1914. State of Oregon. Compiled by Secretary of State Ben W. Olcott. Salem, Oregon: Willis S. Duniway, State Printer, 1913. Several dozen Portland-area union electrical contractors employed more than 200 union electricians on a wide-ranging series of projects in the booming river city of Portland. Four dollars per day and an eight-hour day were deemed achievable for the membership of IBEW Local 48 as demand for their skilled craftsmanship increases along with their experience and education. Contractors like Sam Jaggar worked with the union electricians during his half-century career in Portland’s electrical contracting industry. He was known to be helpful to apprentices and amenable to journeymen, improving their lot with higher pay and safer work conditions. He employed them on his projects that, at the time, included the new Multnomah Athletic Club and the third home for the venerable Arlington Club, both on southwest Salmon Street (Barnes interview 7-8). Typical of other projects won by contractors are the following: • A.I. Parkhurst, two-story brick building on northwest corner of Couch and Second Street North. • NePage-McKenny & Co., electrical work on building at southeast corner of Fourth and Burnside. • Fred H. Koltz, electrical contract for store and garage on northeast corner of Broadway and Everett Street. • Vanderlip & Lord, electrical contract for Olson & Rowe Transfer Co. on the southeast corner of Hoyt and 15th Street North. Construction in Portland continued unabated, despite the growing clouds of war in Europe. Bids were let, in 1914, for much construction, including the following projects: • New lighting system in Portland City Hall. • Construction of the Portland Ice Hippodrome on the southwest corner of Northrup and 20th Street North. • New movie theatre on the south side of State Street between Park and 7th Street, with a seating capacity of 2,200. • New telephone switchboard system for Northwest Steel Co.’s new plant in south Portland. (Journal of Electricity, Vol. 32, No. 2, January 17, 1914, p 66)

June 1914 Saturday, June 6, with a flick of a switch at Northwestern Electric Co. at precisely 8 p.m., a blaze of light from thousands of electric bulbs lit up 10 fashionable shopping blocks of downtown Portland’s 3rd Street. IBEW Local 48 electricians working for the W.A. KRANER & CO constructed what local “Third Streeters” touted as “The Great Light Way.” Each of the illuminated arches comprised a concrete base on from which exposed steel archways spanned the corners of the street intersections diagonally from Yamhill to Burnside. The union construction crew included Local 48 Business Agent W.H. Emrich and Local 48 President H.L. Averill, both of whom were charter members of Local 48 the year prior (The Electrical Worker, p 278; Engineering News, April 1, 1915, p 638; Local 48’s May 1913 charter from IBEW). The lighted archways distinguished 3rd Street for the next 20 years, including the Depression, until the power was turned off, in 1937 (Abbott, Gateway 174-175; Engineering 18


“The Electrical Worker” January, 1893

News, Vol. 73, No. 13, p 638; Oregon Encyclopedia; Forbes September 1, 1926). [See also “Fig. 2. Two Derrick-Trucks Erecting Second Arch of a Pair” and “Fig. 1. Illumination Arches, Portland, Ore.” In Engineering News, Vol. 73, No. 13, New York: Hill Publishing Co., April 1, 1915, p. 638; also, OHS OrHi 17573 (neg. no. 13630a) Third & Morrison, night; and OHS OrHi 17573 (neg. no. 142) #1573, looking north Lion Cloth Co. Morrison and Third. Also, check Forbes magazine, September 1, 1926.] Monday, June 8, the Oregon Electrical Contractors Association convened their second convention, a two-day affair in which they had a wide-angle group picture taken on the street in front of the new offices of Northwest Electric Co. in the Pittock Block, West Park and Washington streets at 9:30 a.m. Republican nominee for governor Dr. James Withycombe gave opening address with the response by R.G. Littler, president of the association. National Electrical Contractors’ Association President Ernest Freeman presented the paper, “the Electrical Contractors’ Association” (Oregonian, 31 May 1914, p 12; also Program – NECA 50th Anniversary. See wide-angle photo on NECA chapter office wall).

July 28, 1914 World War I started in Europe. The Great War increased defense industry production, especially shipbuilding, in Portland, effectively doubling the numbers of electrical workers employed locally (R.C. McKenny, quoted in Electrical Review, Vol. 73, No. 14, p 542, Oct. 5, 1918).

October 15, 1914 Clayton Act exempted labor unions from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. (However, courts would later void many union protections, making the Clayton Act less effective than intended by President Wilson.) (Shmoop Editorial Team)

1915 Safety paid off for electricians and their employers during the first full year of Oregon’s implementation of the Workmen’s Compensation Law, in 1913. Only one of the 60 workers killed on the job was an electrical worker. Only 39 of the 2,622 workers injured on the job were electrical workers. Forest products emerged as the most dangerous occupation in the state during that period with almost half of those killed or injured employed in Oregon’s largest industry (State Industrial Accident Commission, First Annual Report 31).

1916 Keating-Owen Act established an eight-hour maximum workday for children, 14-16 years of age, prohibited factory work for those under 14. [Two years later, the Supreme Court would deem this impermissible regulation of interstate commerce in Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251 (1918). In 1941, however, the Supreme Court will overrule Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251 (1918) in a decision that year that included unanimously upholding the constitutionality of the Fair Labor and Standards Act of 1938.] (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009)

June 28, 1916 Oregon Association of Electrical Contractors and Dealers, taken in front of Stubbvs Electric Co. SW 8th and Pine Streets, Portland, OR #3

19


June 1916

, 1893

Oregon Electrical Contractors Association convenes third convention (Program – NECA 50th Anniversary). The contractors hired a photographer to take a wide-angle photo that hangs today on the NECA chapter office wall in Portland. The windows of Stubbs Electric in the background of this photo advertise “Mazda Lamps” and “Wireless” supplies for sale. Oregon Electrical Contractors Association reorganized as Electrical Contractor and Dealer Association, more of a “fraternal” organization rather than a union electrical contractor trade association (Program – NECA 50th Anniversary). In 1916, “Reid” Local 317’s Business Agent J.D.M. Crockwell was included in the group photograph of the Oregon Association of Electrical Contractors and Dealers at S.W. Sixth and Pine streets in front of Stubbs Electric, above. I cannot find any explanation why, or in what capacity – A. Guggenheim. On page 15 of the December 23, 1916, edition of the Oregonian, Crockwell was listed along with 13 other “deputy-coworkers” in the Multnomah County Clerk’s office. He and his coworkers presented a silver loving cup in appreciation of the services of County Clerk John B. Coffey who was retiring at the end of the year. The original 14 signers of the IBEW Local 48 charter included Andy Peacher, H. Dickman, Homer Gifford, J.D. Harkleroad, P.A. Spire, B.E. moore, George Collins, (Interestingly, that same year, Crockwell interceded for a friend who was charged M.A. Rhodes, H.Q. Gannon, W.J. LeDout, J.M. Ahearn, with check-forgery and who subsequently betrayed Crockwell. The friend, J.C. John Goodwick, H.L. Averill and W.H. Emrich. Dyer, had been paroled to Crockwell in June 1916, after promising to pay back $200 to a local bank. In September, Dyer allegedly forged Crockwell’s name to $75 in checks and stole a ring and other property from his benefactor, and fled town. On October 15, 1916, the sheriff’s office arrested Dyer in Camas, Washington (Oregonian, October 17, 1916, p 13).) #4

1916 The Conference Club, a small group of electrical contractors in New York led by an engineer named Louis Kossuth Comstock, met to socialize but also to discuss concerns they have for their rapidly expanding industry. During one of these meetings, Comstock proposed working with the IBEW to draft a “National Labor Agreement.” The idea would germinate over the period of several years and, in 1920, result in the creation of the Council on Industrial Relations (CIR), to prevent labor union strife and disruption (“About CIR.” Council on Industrial Relations, Office of the Secretary, 900 Seventh Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20001; CIR is co-sponsored by the IBEW and NECA. http://www.thecir.org/About.htm).

February 14, 1917 The Interstate Bridge was dedicated (Arietta-Walden 43). It is the fourth such “moveable” bridge, requiring intensive electrical contracting services, to be built over the Willamette River since 1910. The other three bridges were the Broadway Bridge (1913), Steel Bridge (1912), and Hawthorne Bridge (1910). All of them were vertical lift drawbridges except for the Broadway, which was a bascule “seesaw” design (Wortman 13).

20


April 1917

United States entered World War I. “Local Union No. 48 grew in the past six months, from an organization of one-dozen to approximately one-hundred and eighty members and we expect to have two hundred and fifty members in the next thirty or sixty days . . . Portland has the shipbuilding fever, and wood and steel shipbuilding plants are springing up over night. So far labor has gained very little . . . The inside wiring business is not very prosperous yet.” Fred L. Bourne, President Frank Manin, Secretary IBEW Local Union 48 The Electrical Workers’ Journal, May 1917

May 18, 1917 United States starts drafting men with the newly implemented Selective Service system in preparation for possible service in World War I. This concerns Portland area electrical contractors who see the ranks of union electricians double from 200 to 400 in three years, but who worry that those same ranks will be thinned by the implementation of the draft (R.C. McKenny, quoted in Electrical Review, Vol. 73, No. 14, p 542, Oct. 5, 1918. Google Books Search. Web. August 2012). The success of Germany’s U-boats prompts the U.S. Emergency Fleet Corporation to order nearly 100 steel-hulled and wooden-hulled ships to be built in Portland’s burgeoning shipyards. More than 28,000 people employed in the shipyards and another 5,000 in related industries will work around the clock to meet wartime demand by the end of 1918. Many of those workers will be electricians (Abbott, Three Centuries 97). “President (Frank J.) McNulty (head of IBEW international from 1903-1919) was in our city at our last meeting . . . McNulty talked on cooperation. We also had with us the president of the Oregon Electrical Contractors Association and several of the contractors of this city, and the occasion was a very popular one because it will do a vast amount of good in the future. After several vaudeville performances the entire membership and friends adjourned to the banquet room where lots of eats were in preparation and all sat to an enjoyable time.” F. L. Bourne, President Press Secretary IBEW Local Union 48 The Electrical Workers’ Journal, June 1917

1918 “Members of Local Union 48 IBEW Now With the Rainbow Division in France” photograph is published by The Electrical Workers’ Journal, January 1918, page unknown. A rough photocopy is n file at IBEW Local 48. Samuel C. Jaggar and Harry Sroufe, together with shop foreman Arthur Tobey, start Jaggar-Sroufe Co. They join the Portland Chapter of the Electrical Contractors Association (Program – NECA 50th Anniversary). World War I shipbuilding requires new transmission line from Portland across the Columbia River to Vancouver to supply power to the Standifer wooden-ship and its steel-ship yards, as well as a government spruce cut-up mill (Electrical Review, October 19, 1918, Vol. 73, No. 16, p. 625). 21


Construction of new homes, offices and factories is curtailed because of the war. Portland suffers a shortage of buildings and residences, thus driving up prices and rents. This wartime shortage is nationwide; it will be 1922 before new construction of homes, businesses, offices and industrial plants can match the demand of the growing population of Portland (U.S. Department of Labor, Building Permits 9-11, 37, 51, 65).

September 20, 1918 Oregon Association of Electrical Contractors and Dealers meet in Portland, Oregon. Presiding officer is P.W. Paul. Secretary, J.W. Oberender reported 33 members are also members of the national association. He said a good many members had resigned within the past year because of war service. He also reviewed liability insurance rates. Jaggar-Sroufe’s Sam Jaggar, chair of the Committee on Industrial Development, discussed relations with jobbers and how recent cooperation improved contractors’ competitiveness. NePage-McKenny Company’s R.C. McKenny, a member of the Labor Committee, said there are between 450 and 500 skilled electrical men in the industries compared to 200 before the war. He said all were fully employed in shipbuilding primarily. He said that if 50 percent are drafted into military service there will be a scarcity of skilled workers. He told contractors to report to the government the essential nature of the work their workers were doing. Contractors are “fully engaged” and a “considerable amount of new wiring must be done” if a proposed 2,000 new houses are built for employees drawn into wartime production. The group talked of maintaining “patriotic ardor” and “fair competition and helpful cooperation between the branches of the industry” (R.C. McKenny, quoted in Electrical Review, Vol. 73, No. 14, p 542, Oct. 5, 1918). November 11, 1918 Armistice Day – World War I ended.

1919 Strikes broke out across the nation, among 40,000 coal workers and 120,000 textile workers. The labor unrest prompts public suspicion of labor radicals and leads to the “Red Scare” (Shmoop Editorial Team), and what University of Oregon Professor Richard Maxwell Brown called “the antiradical vendetta of the era of World War I” in the Pacific Northwest and nationally (McClelland xi). Oregon created State Board of Conciliation and Arbitration as an aid to keeping industrial peace. It is the first of its kind in the nation (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009).

March 1919 IBEW Local 48 initiated H.A. “Pop” Reik. Fifty years later, he would recall his experiences as an electrician during Local 48’s annual “old-timers” dinners in the 1960s (Bauder, Journal 35, September 1963).

November 11, 1919 “Wobblies” of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), slew four members of local American Legion during an Armistice Day parade in Centralia, Washington, prompting mass arrests, reprisals, and the lynching of an itinerant logger thought to be the business secretary of the union (McClelland 59-86).

March 1919 Representatives of the IBEW and the predecessor of NECA, the National Association of Electrical Contractors and Dealers (NAECD) met to work out principles of agreement that would form the basis for improved management-labor relations (“About CIR.” Council on Industrial Relations, Office of the Secretary, 900 Seventh Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20001; CIR is co-sponsored by the IBEW and NECA. http://www.thecir.org/About.htm). 22


July 1919 The NAECD accepted the “Declaration of Principles” agreed upon with the IBEW (“About CIR.” Council on Industrial Relations, Office of the Secretary, 900 Seventh Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20001; CIR is co-sponsored by the IBEW and NECA. http://www.thecir.org/About.htm).

September 1919 The IBEW approved the “Declaration of Principles” (“About CIR.” Council on Industrial Relations, Office of the Secretary, 900 Seventh Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20001; CIR is cosponsored by the IBEW and NECA. http://www.thecir.org/About.htm). In 1919, the Oregon Legislature passed landmark electrical safety legislation that would forever affect electricians. The law directed the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Inspector of Factories and Workshops to start licensing electric equipment installers (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009), a move that would necessitate training and education, and form the basis for safer work conditions. “A licensing law, passed in 1919, required all men engaged in the business of installing electrical equipment to be licensed by the Bureau of Labor. All wiring installed had to meet a safety code requirement. It was not the labor department’s policy to discourage the use of electricity but to call attention to its great dangers when proper precautions were not taken. During subsequent years, the department recommended thousands of changes in the wiring of factories, garages, schools and dwellings. During the last biennium of the 1920s the bureau licensed 819 electrical contractors as being competent to install wires and equipment.” “50 Years of Progress – Bureau of Labor” 25th Biennial Report, published in 1952 W.E. Kimsey Commissioner of Labor Oregon Bureau of Labor

23


CONTRACTORS AND LOCAL 48 CEMENT THEIR PARTNERSHIP Oregon Census 783,389

1920S

1920 Statistically, Oregon had 1,578 electricians (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin No. 439, Handbook of Labor Statistics 1924-1926, 419-421). Roughly, one-third, or about 500, were referenced as being members of IBEW Local 48 by a union contractor familiar with the union membership (R.C. McKenny, NePage-McKenny, quoted in Electrical Review, Vol. 73, No. 14, p 542, Oct. 5, 1918). Because World War I was over, the threat of the draft gone, and practically all of the large buildings and a large proportion of homes in Portland were being equipped with electricity, the calculated numbers of electricians, and IBEW Local 48 members, was probably somewhat higher than 500.

January 26, 1920 A committee comprised of five members of the international office of the IBEW and five from the NAECD adopted a resolution for putting the principles into action by setting up the Council on Industrial Relations (CIR) (“About CIR.” Council on Industrial Relations, Office of the Secretary, 900 Seventh Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20001; CIR is co-sponsored by the IBEW and NECA. http://www.thecir.org/About.htm). Sometime in the 1920s or early 1930s [IBEW Local 48 website says “1920s”, Tim Gauthier says 1929, Ed Barnes says 1933], the Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA and IBEW Local 48 began incorporating the “CIR clause” in their collective bargaining agreements. The agreement to insert the “no-strike” clause was intended to “stabilize union shops” and give them “an edge over nonunion shops” (IBEW Local 48 History 2). They agreed to submit any disputes they cannot resolve to the national CIR panel made up of twelve members, six representatives from the IBEW and six representatives from NECA. The panelists were chosen for their ability to render fair and equable decisions based upon the facts (Gauthier interview). When the members of the Council are in session, they do not represent either NECA or IBEW, but rather the electrical contracting industry. Their decisions are unanimous before they can become official. Today, the CIR meets four times a year to hear grievances, interpret existing agreements, and to arbitrate contract negotiations. In each case, the parties must have tried to settle their differences at home but have come to impasse. The decision issued by CIR is legal and binding upon both parties, thus replacing the need for arbitration that could be astronomically costly, or labor strikes that could be self-destructive to the industry. Over the course of the next 90 years, the CIR will serve as a “supreme court” of the electrical construction industry, settling more than 8,000 disputes without a labor strike, earning for the NECA/IBEW partnership in North America the title ``strikeless industry” (“About CIR.” Council on Industrial Relations, Office of the Secretary, 900 Seventh Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20001; CIR is co-sponsored by the IBEW and NECA. http://www.thecir.org/About.htm).

1920s IBEW Local 48’s membership increased with postwar expansion in the Portland area of radio broadcasting, manufacturing, neon sign, and exterior lighting, and the sale, installation and repair of electrical appliances (IBEW Local 48 History 2). Electrical contractors and the swelling ranks of electricians profited from a building boom in Portland as builders construct 25,000 new houses in vacant lots in east-side neighborhoods of Eastmoreland, Grant Park, Mount Tabor, and towards the north, in Concordia. The city’s population surged five to six miles in every direction on the eastside of the newly bridged Willamette River, easily crossed on foot, by streetcar, or automobile. Contractors found work wiring Cleveland, Roosevelt and Grant high schools, as well as new commercial strips along Eighty-second Avenue, Barbur Boulevard, and especially the broad and garish Sandy Boulevard that architect Al Staehli once described as a “linear Disneyland of buildings which were also symbols of their function (Abbott, Three Centuries 108-109). 24


Oregon-Columbia electrical contractors resumed their affiliation with the NECA. Members included Dimitre Electric, Huenegard Electric, Jaggar-Sroufe Co., E.L. Knight & Co., Morrison Electric Co., NePage-McKenny Co., M.J. Walsh Electric Co., Cooperative Electric Co., W.H. Emerick Inc., Grand Electric, National Electric Co., Peninsula Electric Co., Star Electric & Radio Co., J.R. Tomlinson Electric and Mutual Electric Co. (Program – NECA 50th Anniversary). IBEW headquarters relocated from Springfield, Illinois, to Washington, D.C. (IBEW “Carrying the IBEW Dream into the 21st Century”).

January 1920 The nation slipped into a postwar economic recession that would last through spring of 1921 (National Bureau of Economic Research).

March 23, 1921 Conference Club and IBEW met to discuss financing the National Council on Industrial Relations (CIR). The Contractors and IBEW decided to appeal to individual contractor-members of the NAECD individually to contribute to the support of the CIR rather than ask an “outside organization” take over the “burden” (Electrical World, Vo. 77, No. 16, p. 897, April 16, 1921).

June 13-14, 1921 Oregon Association of Electrical Contractors and Dealers held their 10th annual convention, in Eugene (Electrical World, Vol. 77, No. 24, p. 1391, June 11, 1921).

July 1921 The nation commenced economic recovery (National Bureau of Economic Research) but forest products-dependent Oregon was slow to emerge from the recession. “Local 48 has had their charter closed for the past three months, owing to the number of unemployed . . . the true condition existing here at the present time is deplorable, in so far as work is concerned . . . Local No. 48 has been compelled to accept a reduction in wage from $8.00 per day to $7.20. This we hoped might stimulate the building program in this city.” T.C. Ream, B.A. IBEW Local 48 The Electrical Workers’ Journal, October 1921

July 1924 A boom in construction nationwide improved the outlook for forest products. The nation, and Oregon, would enjoy 27 months of unimpeded growth (National Bureau of Economic Research). Electricians and contractors alike profited from a building boom of homes, businesses, industry, and bridges linking the surging neighborhood centers of population growth on the eastside of the Willamette River with the business district three to six miles to the west (Abbott, Three Centuries 105-111)

Electric demand in thousands of homes in “streetcard suburbs” on the eastside of the Willamette prompted Northwestern Electric’s construction of this Albina warehouse in 1926.#5

In 1924, the Portland area building trades constructed 4,110 homes, apartments, lodging houses, including two hotels at a cost of $18.4 million. In 1925, they built 3,798 such buildings, including eight hotels, at a cost of $21.8 million, or an 18 percent increase over the previous year (U.S. Department of Labor, Building Permits 37). 25


Similarly, in 1924, they constructed 5,207 new Portland area amusement parks, churches, factories, garages, gas and service stations, public institutions, offices, bridges, utility power plants, streetcars, schools, libraries, stables, sheds, stores and warehouses, at a cost of $8 million. In 1925, the number of new nonresidential buildings jumped to 5,504, at a cost of $13.6 million, or a 70 percent increase, largely due to public works construction of a dozen schools, recreational venues and amusement parks (U.S. Department of Labor, Building Permits 51, 65). Taken together, Portland area residential and nonresidential construction in 1924 aggregated almost $30 million. In 1925, it aggregated $35.4 million, a one-year overall increase of 18 percent – a record, and a boom time for the building trades, especially the electrical contractors and electricians now that lighting and power were embraced by just about everyone who could get it (U.S. Department of Labor, Building Permits 51, 65). The Roaring Twenties boom would turn to bust in less than 10 years. In 1933 and the following year – the depths of the Depression for Oregon – the aggregate value of new construction in Portland would plummet to $2 million, an amount that was little more than 6 percent of the 1925 record (Abbott, Three Centuries 110).

December 13, 1924 Influential labor leader Samuel Gompers died at the age of 74 (Shmoop Editorial Team).

1925 Oregon enacted Pay Day law, setting regular wage payments at intervals of no more than 30 days (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009). U.S. Department of Labor reported IBEW agreements nationwide call for closed shop, 44-hour week, and double time for overtime. No pension, health insurance or other benefits were reported except for funeral expenses and strike and lockout benefits. The national Council on Industrial Relations (CIR) was reported by the federal government to be the conciliation medium of electrical workers and their employers. The CIR was composed of five representatives each of the brotherhood and of the National Association of Electrical Employers (NAEE), to be used when local agreements can not be reached or carried out (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin No. 420, Handbook of Labor Statistics 1924-1926, 25). [The NAEE appears to be the same at the NAECD, and the predecessor of NECA.]

1926 IBEW Local 48 elected E. Russel (sic) as their business manager. He would be reelected in 1927 and 1928 (Letter, Jack F. Moore, March 22, 1988).

May 28, 1926 Burnside Bridge, a 252-foot, double-leaf Strauss bascule truss span, opened to much fanfare with lights and other electrical work provided by NePageMcKenny with some subcontract work by Jaggar-Sroufe (Wortman 50, 52).

October 1926

Heavy electric demand in 1928 by new buildings in downtown Portland - many wired by Oregon Electric Contractors Association members and IBEW Local 48 electricians caused smoke to belch from Northwestern Electric’s Lincoln Street steam plant. #6

26

The nation slipped into a brief economic recession but would resume the bustling growth of the Roaring Twenties one year later (National Bureau of Economic Research). Electricians and their contractor employers still had plenty of work with new retailers such as Fred Meyer opening his first stores, and Jantzen Knitting Mills and Pendleton Woolen Mills leading manufacturing growth. But two bank liquidations, Ladd & Tilton in 1925, and Northwestern National Bank, in 1927, and the closure of several lumber mills signaled economic trouble ahead. Building activity dropped, from $38 million in 1925 to less than $15 million in 1929. Even while


civic boosters kept hope alive, the city itself added only a quarter of the office space (500,000 square feet) during the 1920s as it had after the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition (The Oregon Story 57).

1927 Delegates attending the national convention of the IBEW in 1927 created the first pension fund for retired workers in the electrical construction industry – the International Pension Plan. Members who had 20 years of service and had reached the age of 65 were assured a pension of $40 per month. Each IBEW member contributed 37 cents per month to finance the plan. The Great Depression, and then World War II, would force IBEW to reorganize in 1946 (National Electrical Benefit Fund (NEBF). “Fund History.” National Electrical Benefit Fund (NEBF). http://www.nebf.com/nebf/fund_history/).

1928 Twenty-two Local 48 electricians working for Electrical Products Corporation erected what was reputedly the largest neon sign in the world, for the Richfield Oil Company sign. Each of the nine letters in the company name stood 60 feet high. Each letter was supported by two to four wooden telegraph poles. With each letter set 100 feet apart, the sign stretched 725 feet in length, 1,200 feet above Portland, legible for 20 miles and visible from 100 miles. Together with a Standard Oil Co. searchlight panning the sky nearby, the signage served as an aviation beacon reportedly visible to flyers 100 miles away (Graham, Journal November 1928). In its November 1928 issue, The Electrical Workers’ Journal published a large group-shot of “The boys” standing proudly in front of the sign they built.

PortlandGeneral Electric’s store in St. Johns in 1927 featured the latest Thor electrically-driven washing machines and Hotpoint’s “Electric Maid” oven and range for the “Modern Mothers” of the Roaring 20s. #7

“Local No. 48 is a narrow back organization. We have about 250 members, mostly employed in building construction, some fixture men and quite a number of maintenance men. We meet in the labor temple on the first and third Wednesdays . . . Our wage scale is $10 a day, five days a week and double time for all overtime . . . We have all the important contractors signed up and have had no serious trouble with our bosses for a number of years. All of our boys were busy the first part of the winter and we were able to find jobs for quite a number of travelers.” B.H. Graham IBEW Local Union 48 The Electrical Workers’ Journal, February 1928

1929 Bureau of Labor Statistics and Inspector of Factories and Workshops becomes Bureau of Labor. (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009).

March 8, 1929 With the Portland Public Schools and the Oregon Building Congress as their partners, the Oregon Electrical Contractors Association and IBEW Local 48 started the “Portland Apprentice School.” The program is overseen by a joint labor-management “Sub-commission for Electrical Workers,” comprised of E.W. Pierce and J.R. Tomlinson, for the employers, H.W. Boynton, Wm. H. Brust, A.A. Houghton, and C.V. Smith for the employees, chaired by L.E. Brigham, City Director for Vocational Education. (Sub-commission Minutes, March 8, 1929).

April 5, 1929 L.E. Brigham, City Director of Vocational Education, selected George Pettingell as the first instructor for the Portland Apprentice School. The Sub-commission approved his appointment was approved by the Sub-commission. (Sub-commission Minutes, April 5, 1929) Eighteen apprentices signed up for the five-year program. They attended classes at Stephens School located on Southeast 7th Street 27


in Portland, now the site of an electric substation. The Portland Apprentice School predated the Oregon Apprenticeship Law (1931) by two years and the Fitzgerald Act of 1937 by eight years. Other instructors through the 1930s included C.W. Hayes, A.M. McLean, a former city electrical inspector, and Guy Evans. Portland Public Schools paid the instructors and supplies and equipment were paid for through donations from IBEW Local 48 and the Electrical Contractors Association. By 1939, the program will have survived the Depression and grown to 45 apprentices. School absenteeism was as much a problem then as it is today. The committee tried a number of disciplinary techniques including monetary penalties, committee appearances and letters of reprimand. Additionally, there appeared to be some question as to whom really controlled the program – Portland Public Schools and the Oregon Building Congress or the Electrical Industry.

1929 Oregon Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) included A.R. Johnson, M.J. Walsh, Huenergard Electric, Morrison Electric, Jaggar Sroufe, Hawthorne Electric, Harold Electric, Allison Electric, Sutherland Electric, Tice Electric, Greiner Electric, Kinney Electric (McCoy Electric), Hunegard Electric, W.R. Grasle, Grand Electric, Beaver Electric, E.L. Knight Electric, Paramount Wiring Company, Superior Electric, McMillan Electric, Friesen Electric, Montgomery Electric, Nepage McKenny, Electrical Products Corporation, National Electric, and Multnomah County. The secretary for the association at this time was J.R. Tomlinson, himself a contractor. The mission of the association was as follows: • Arrange for and promote meetings of electrical contractors; • Promote the welfare of its members; • Distribute among its members and assist in its use, fullest information attainable in regard to all matters affecting the electrical and electrical merchandising business; • Assist in marketing high grade electrical materials and apparatus; • Elevate the standard of electrical installations; • Aid in bringing about more friendly relations between electrical contractors and electrical retail dealers and others engaged in the electrical industry; • Collect and diffuse information affecting merchants, manufacturers, builders, architects, engineers, and others engaged in erecting buildings; and, • Cooperate with the electrical section of Electragists International (NECA) and conduct all activities in accord with AEI (NECA) principles and ideals. (See principles contained in Bylaws: History of the Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA.)

1929 Fred C. Ream elected as IBEW Local 48 business manager. He would serve one term, to 1930 (Letter, Jack F. Moore, March 22, 1988).

August 1929 The nation began its slide into the Great Depression. The economic downturn would last 43 months from a technical standpoint but full recovery would take a decade and the onset of World War II (National Bureau of Economic Research).

October 28-29, 1929 The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 25% of its value, signaling a loss of faith in economy and a slowdown in private sector construction that would deeply affect electrical contractors and their members of IBEW Local 48.

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December 20, 1929 Apprentice Training Program Sub-commission for Electrical Workers conducted its first oral exams. The 14 first-semester apprentices were Stephen Rosers, Alex Ebel, A.L. Hein, L.C. Potts, W.F. Nebert, C.R. Thomas, G. Tice, L. Sirianni, S. Adams, D. Boone, J.C. Hudson, M. Pettingell, H.L. Boynton, C. Blomgren. (Sub-commission Minutes, December 20, 1929)

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THE DEPRESSION

Oregon Census 953,786

1930S

1930 The Depression hits the building trades in the Portland metropolitan area particularly hard. Union electricians and contractors alike find it difficult to keep up with their payment of membership dues to IBEW Local 48 as well as NECA. “. . . work in this jurisdiction has been very quiet for the past 18 months . . . we have 45 idle members . . . While it is very true there have been a number of large jobs erected in the last couple of years . . . 97 percent of this work is done under the most intolerable conditions and all closed shop – closed to organized labor . . . They have guards stationed at the gates . . . We have enjoyed the five-day week and needless to say we would never relinquish same . . . Our scale is $10 per day, with double time for all over time, all members are hired through the office and we sincerely hope that the demand for mechanics (electricians) will increase, although the outlook for the immediate future is not promising.” Fred C. Ream Business Manager IBEW Local 48 The Electrical Workers’ Journal, May 1930 The November 1930 Electrical Workers’ Journal published an aerial photo of the Fir-Tex Insulating Board plant constructed by NECA member Jaggar-Sroufe Company with electricians from Local 48. During the Depression Era decade of the 1930s, the Oregon-Columbia electrical contractors affiliated twice with NECA but subsequently dropped. Members during that time included Ace Electric Co., Allison Electric Co., Bartlett Electric Co., Bressie Electric Co., Cooperative Electric Co., Dimitre Electric Co., Friberg Electric, Friesen Electric Service, Gildner Electric Co., W.R. Grasle Co., Greiner Electric Co., Huenergard Electric Co., Jaggar-Sroufe Co., E.L. Knight Electric Co., McMillan Electric, Montgomery Electric Co., Morrison Electric Co., NePage-McKenny Co., L.M. Olsaver, Pierce-Mowrey, Inc., George L. Rochat, Sanders Electric, Sellwood-Morland Electric Co., Swigert Electric Co., Tice Electric Co., J. R. Tomlinson Electric Co., and Walsh Electric & Fixture Co. (Program – NECA 50th Anniversary)

1930 Joe H. Lake was elected business manager of IBEW Local 48. He would serve through the end of World War II, until 1947 (Letter, Jack F. Moore, March 22, 1988). Portland boasted two amusement parks in 1930, both installed by NECA/IBEW Local 48 contractors and electricians. Jantzen Beach was the first. Lotus Isle opened in time for the summer season in 1930 (Dalby, Journal, August 1930).

1931 Oregon passed Apprenticeship law creating Apprenticeship Commission. (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009) Oregon consolidated Child Labor and Industrial Welfare Commission with Bureau of Labor. (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009) Oregon enacted Wage Collection law, empowering Bureau of Labor to investigate wage claims and 30


file criminal complaints against certain employers. (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009) Congress enacted Davis-Bacon Act requiring federal contractors engaged in public works projects to pay wages and benefits prevailing in the area where they are working. The law is intended to prevent employers from hiring cheaper workers from outside the area. (Shmoop Editorial Team) “Here are a few facts, harsh and cold as they may be. Local Union No. 48 is at the present time about 60 percent below normal with no immediate relief in sight. There has been a two percent assessment placed on the members who are making more than $50 per month. This should be self-explanatory.” Harry W. Dalby IBEW Local 48 The Electrical Workers’ Journal, June 1931

1932 Congress enacted Norris-La Guardia Act, limiting courts’ ability to issue injunctions against labor strikes and rendering “Yellow-dog Contracts” requiring workers to promise not to join a union unenforceable. (Shmoop Editorial Team)

1933 Congress passed National Recovery Act to encourage economic growth through public works projects. (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009) President Franklin Roosevelt named Frances Perkins to his cabinet as the Secretary of Labor. A staunch pro-labor advocate of a minimum wage, unemployment insurance, pension benefits and child labor abolition, Perkins is the first woman in U.S. history to be named to a cabinet post and will exert a huge influence on Roosevelt’s New Deal labor policy. (Shmoop Editorial Team)

March 1933 The Roosevelt Administration’s job-stimulus plan prompted a long, but listless, economic recovery over the next four years (National Bureau of Economic Research).

July 1933 The Multnomah Kennel Club hired union contractors employing some 25 Local 48 electricians to build a new gray hound racetrack east of Portland. “And now all you sport lovers, and especially dog racing fans, just check Portland on the map as having one of the finest quarter mile race tracks of its kind in the country. From bright illumination (the races are held at night) to mechanical rabbits and electric timing and score boards, you will find the latest type and design.” J.H. Lake IBEW Local 48 The Electrical Workers’ Journal, July 1933

August 2, 1933 W.R. Grasle Co. joins Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA/IBEW Local 48, and remains a member today (Program – NECA 50th Anniversary). New construction in 1933 and 1934 barely topped $2 million – little more than 6 percent of the record-setting year of 1925 (Abbott, Three Centuries 110). 31


IBEW Local 48 membership dropped to about 200 with many members accepting cuts to their own wages to keep the union alive and to help others unable to afford payment of their own dues (IBEW Local 48 History 2).

September 29, 1933 The Roosevelt Administration announced approval of construction of the Bonneville Dam (Tolleffson 111). “While the general plan for the (Bonneville) dam has been approved, the detailed plans are yet to be worked out . . . Our belief is that it will be in the distant future before there will be any electric work to do and even then there will not be enough to employ onehalf of the unemployed members of the two locals (Local 48 and Local 125). “We have every reason to believe that all work will be done by members of organized labor and all locals are in the same position with the members of unemployed. The official count at the unemployment office at the end of September (1933) was 20,050, which is sufficient to build several dams the size of Bonneville.” J.H. Lake Business Manager IBEW Local 48 The Electrical Workers’ Journal, November 1933

August 3, 1934 President Roosevelt sailed into Portland on the cruiser USS Houston to address 150,000 people who turned out for a celebratory parade. He then toured the Bonneville Dam construction site where he was given a whistle-blowing steam-shovel salute by some of the 5,000 men and women who will eventually find work building the dam the next three years (Tolleffson 111). Congress authorized $36 million for construction of Bonneville Dam but the cost will swell to $88 million before completion (Oregon Blue Book). To save gas and time, many IBEW Local 48 electricians camp at the dam site for the duration of construction (IBEW Local 48 History 2). Bonneville Dam powerhouse constructed with 10 generators with a nominal total output capacity of 526.7 megawatts, and a spillway with 18 gates over a length of 1,450 feet (Wikipedia, web: September 2012; also, Arietta-Walden 65)

1935 Oregon required persons installing electrical equipment or wiring, and merchants selling electrical materials, to have a license from the Bureau of Labor (O.L. 1935, Ch. 318). The purpose of this law was to eliminate the widespread sale and installation of substandard electrical goods. The Legislative Assembly continued to add to the safety responsibilities of the Labor Commissioner in 1937, granting authorization to annually inspect Oregon’s powerdriven elevators (O.L. 1937, Ch. 312); (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009). Electricians and engineers install the first generator insid eht powerhouse of Bennville Dam, March 1938. #8

Congress enacted the Wagner Act. It created the National Labor Relations Board to assure fairness in union elections and collective bargaining prompting a wave of unionization (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009).

Union membership in Oregon doubled (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009). 32


A fire engulfed and destroyed Oregon’s historic Capitol Building in Salem (AriettaWalden 62). Reconstruction would provide jobs for many unemployed Oregonians.

1936 IBEW Local 48 member C.E. Smith invented and patented a pair of armor-cutting specialty pliers for BX (armored) electrical cable that he peddled around the county in 1936 before turning over the manufacture and sales to Utica Tools in Utica, NY, and returning to his electrical shop work in Portland. His account of peddling his pliers through Depression-wracked United States was published in the April 1936 issue of the IBEW’s Electrical Workers’ Journal. Utica manufactured the pliers with the cryptic notation “S.P.A.C” stamped on the handle below the pivot. The initials stood for “Smith’s Pocket Armor Cutters.” Depression Era legislation by the Roosevelt Administration included enactment in 1936 of the Walsh-Healy Act regulating employment in government contracting; it prohibited employment of boys under 16 and girls under 18; established overtime pay for work in excess of 40 hours per week; set minimum wage at prevailing wage rate in the area; and, established safety standards (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009). IBEW Local 48 established Local Union Death Benefit Assessment Fund because members were having a difficult time obtaining life insurance because of the hazardous nature of their work (IBEW Local 48 History 2).

1937 Oregon orders Bureau of Labor to inspect freight and passenger elevators once per year and to issue permits for operation (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009). Congress created Bonneville Power Administration (Oregon Blue Book) to market the power generated by Bonneville Dam and the other federal hydroelectric dams built, or planned for, in the Columbia River Basin. During the four years and two months of major construction on Bonneville Dam, an average of 3,000 people, including hundreds of apprentice and journeymen electricians and Portland area contractors, worked around-the-clock to complete the first two generating units. Eight more would be added (Erwin, Journal April 1939). AFL and the CIO split over union organizing tactics. The Congress of Industrial Organizations would merge back together again with the American Federation of Labor in 1955. The economy can’t gain traction. The nation slipped back into a brief recession (National Bureau of Economic Research).

1938 Congress enacted Fair Labor Standards Act, establishing the 40-hour workweek and a national minimum wage, regulating overtime, restricting child labor, and setting 16 years of age (instead of 14) as the basic minimum for work (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009). The nation would be too tired to notice, but in mid-year 1938, the Depression dragged to a close. The economy shifts forward and with time and World War II will accelerate, lasting 80 months (National Bureau of Economic Research). “The state of Oregon is now building a new Capitol building to replace one destroyed by fire . . . Construction also goes forward on a new state library building and plans are being made for later construction of a complete group of buildings to house state offices . . . Construction work 33


is in (the) charge of the State Capitol Reconstruction Commission, of which (IBEW Local 48) Business Manager Joe Lake is a member . . . a favorable position to guard organized labor’s welfare . . . The foreman in charge of wiring is from this local (48), as well as some fixturemen.” J.A. Erwin IBEW Local 48 The Electrical Workers’ Journal, June 1938

1939 Oregon Bureau of Labor initiated enforcement with U.S. Department of Labor of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009). Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) provides jobs on projects including Columbia River Highway, Timberline Lodge at Mount Hood, and Multnomah Falls, bridges and walkways, all of which are wired by Local 48 electrical workers (IBEW Local 48 History).

January 27, 1939 A.R. Johnson Electric joins Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA/IBEW Local 48, and remains a member to the present date (Program – NECA 50th Anniversary).

September 1, 1939 NECA manager George Pettingell and a negotiating committee for IBEW Local 48 agreed to implement a cooperative “recapture measure” to better compete with nonunion electricians and contractors. They reduced the hourly union labor scale to $1.00 from $1.375; and the labor “mark-up” by NECA contractors to 15 percent from 25 percent. Pettingell told his NECA contractors that the new price schedule was “designed to meet competition in the new residential work where the jobs do not exceed a total of 80 outlets” (Letter, dated September 1, 1939, from George Pettingell on behalf of the “Association” Board of Directors, to all NECA contractor subscribers, in NECA Manual of Labor Units, 1939). The NECA/IBEW “recapture measure” anticipated their Funded Market Recovery marketing strategy that labor and management devised and implemented in 1984. Both measures, in 1939 and 1984, are indicative of the longstanding labor-management cooperation between the Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA and IBEW Union Local 48. Pettingell’s career path was typical of many NECA contractors in the 20th Century. Pettingell broke into the industry as an IBEW union apprentice electrician in 1906, progressed to union contractor in 1929, and finally assumed leadership of NECA in 1939. Similarly, Max Landon in 1963, Brian Christopher in 1959, and Bob Gotham in 1968, also started their careers as IBEW Local 48 apprentices and worked their way through the ranks until they, or their families, bought out their employers. Landon bought McCoy Electric, Christopher, Christenson Electric, and Gotham’s family, Rose City Electric.

The launching ceremony on September 27, 1941 of the 441-foot Star of Oregon Libery Ship at Henry Kaiser’s shipyard in St. John’s presaged the United States’ entry into World War II two months later, and the subsequent hiring of 21,000 IBEW Local 48 marine electricians. The war would make it the largest such local in the nation.#9

34


WARTIME SHIPBUILDING

Oregon Census 1,089,684 1941

1940S

U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upholds constitutionality of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 in United States v. Darby Lumber Co., 312 U.S. 100 (1941); and overruled Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251 (1918) (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009).

December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor is attacked. The United States enters World War II. Oregonians enlist to serve in World War II. The NECA/IBEW Local 48 Electrical Apprenticeship Program relocated from the old Stephens School location where it’s been since 1929, to “Beech Street School” location at 220 NE Beech Street. Operating as the Portland Apprentice School, classes are rearranged to match round-the-clock schedules of the shipyards so that students can still attend (Fry 2).

September 1, 1939 Letter, dated September 1, 1939, from George Pettingell on behalf of the “Association” Board of Directors, to all NECA contractor subscribers, implementing a “recapture measure” agreed to by a committee from Local #48 IBEW for “a new price schedule designed to meet competition in the new residential work where the jobs do not exceed a total of 80 outlets.” “Recapture measure” anticipates NECA/IBEW Local 48’s “Funded Market Recovery” (FMR) devised in 1982-84 (NECA Manual of Labor Units, 1939).

1942 Executive Order 9066 authorizes removal of JapaneseAmericans to internment camps (Oregon Blue Book). Literally thousands of men and women of every race and ethnicity Henry J. Kaiser’s three Portland-area shipyards were “assembly line” operations comprising ships in varying stages of completion from pour into Portland and Vancouver in response to wartime hiring keel block to finished hull at the moment of launching. opportunities in the six shipyards that sprang up. One job applicant who landed a spot in the Swan Island shipyard was Herman Teeple who worked part-time while attending electrician’s courses at Benson High School. He would eventually work his way up to journeyman and be elected business manager of Local 48, from 1963 until 1971, and work as an international representative for IBEW until his retirement in 1987 (“50th Anniversary 19431993.” NECA Program. Also, “Herman Teeple retires,” Labor Press 6, December 4, 1987). #10

Membership of IBEW Local 48 swells in number to become the largest electrical union local in the United States with 21,000 members in 1944. A high percentage are women (IBEW Local 48 History 2) and 500-1,000 blacks (Portland City Club 2). Vanport founded to house wartime workers (Oregon Blue Book). Six Portland area shipyards produce a ship per day, for a total of 1,737 vessels, before and during the war. Shipbuilding swells Portland’s population by one-third with the addition of 160,000 migrants. The three largest yards, built by Henry J. Kaiser, east side of Willamette at St. Johns, Swan Island yard, and 35


Kaiser’s yard in Vancouver, employ 100,000 workers. Three other smaller yards along the west side of the Willamette employ 50,000 (Arietta-Walden 73).

1943 State Apprenticeship Commission reorganized as State Apprenticeship Council (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009). Over President Roosevelt’s veto, Congress enacts Smith-Connally Act as a wartime initiative, preventing unions from making political contributions and enabling the federal government to take over critical defense industries hit by labor strikes (Shmoop Editorial Team).

May 13, 1943 In this 1944 photo, an electrical maintenance crew comprised of 29 members of IBEW Local 48, were still smiling even though they had just worked together without a vacation since the summer of 1942. #11

Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA aligns its interests with the national office of NECA, and forms a closer working relationship with IBEW Local 48 (Program NECA 50th Anniversary 1943-1993).

IBEW Local 48 outgrows its offices in the Labor Temple. With 21,000 members, mainly working in the shipyards and defense industry, Local 48 opens a second office in Vancouver and uses its Hiring Hall for interviews (IBEW Local 48 History 3).

May 1944 In the Labor Temple, Office Manager Josephine Schneberk oversaw three “dues windows” that had to operate around the clock to match the 24-hour work schedules of the six large shipyards in Vancouver, on Swan Island and St. Johns. Eight business representatives worked fulltime to manage the shipyard division alone (IBEW Local 48 History 3). IBEW’s business manager, Joe Lake, had six assistants to keep up with the workload. Two women, Lucy Helser and Ruby McKnight Ellers, worked full time as dispatchers. Local 48 ran two hiring halls, one on 4th Street in Portland, the second in the Labor Temple in Vancouver (Schneberk 1). “When I first started working for Local 48 in May, 1944, it was located on the 5th floor of the Labor Temple on S.W. 4th & Jefferson St. There were approximately 21,000 members at this time. The main office would remain open late on Monday and Friday nites with a Guard (armed) stationed in the ante room on these nites. Two girls would work on Saturday mornings, behind closed doors as the office was not open on Saturdays, just to refile the ledger cards from Friday’s business.” Josephine Schneberk Office Manager Portland Labor Temple IBEW Local 48 (Source: Affidavit, dated October 25, 1983, from Jo Schneberk to “Ed” (Edward Barnes), Business Manager, IBEW Local 48.)

August 1944 IBEW Local 48 members and their families gathered for their annual picnic at Oaks Park in Portland – a tradition that continues to this day.

36


October 1944 Harmonious, constructive and downright enjoyable labor negotiations?! The managers of Portland’s KGW and KEX met during the summer of 1944 with Local 48 radio station employees to work out the details of their labor union contract. One of the participants was IBEW Local 48 press secretary J.A. Erwin. He published this jocund report on the negotiations on page 378 of the October 1944 issue of the IBEW International’s official publication, The Journal of Electrical Workers and Operators: “During the meetings innumerable aspects of operations, big and little, were bounced around, until all concerned had a clearer view of the other fellow’s side. With an announced theme of mutual interest, it was easy to keep on the beam, everything was ‘laid on the table, in the open,’ and the meetings were the most harmonious, constructive and downright enjoyable that this guy ever attended. Actual results are yet to be consummated; however, one outcome was a monthly meeting of management, announcers and techs at which time operational procedure and problems are worked over. The group hopes to eventually establish a labor-management committee, which will meet as required with the business manager and management. Try it, youse guys; it may work for you if your bosses are also human.” J.A. Erwin, P.S. IBEW Local 48

1945 World War II ends. In February, the nation fell into a brief recession followed by three straight years of economic recovery (National Bureau of Economic Research), until the outbreak of the Korean War. Wartime demobilization abruptly reduced the membership in IBEW Local 48 as the shipyards closed, sending tens of thousands of workers back home. Construction in Portland resumed prewar levels and journeyman rates actually increased to $2.00 per hour (IBEW Local 48 History 3). McCoy Electric joins Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA/IBEW Local 48, and remains a member today (Program – NECA 50th Anniversary). With the end of the war, the number of indentured apprentices enrolled in the Portland Apprentice School dropped to 25. Labor and management start the process of rebuilding the program. By December, the number of apprentices in the Portland Apprentice School increased to 52, including 34 military service veterans. The number would nearly double to 102 within a year, including 86 who were veterans. Trade extension class enrollment also increases (NIETC). Apprentice School instructors from IBEW Local 48 would attend electronics courses at Marquette University and return in 1946 to teach 102 apprentices, 23 journeymen, together with 760 other students taking continuing education and other courses (Sturtevant 428-429). The Department of Race Relations of the Portland Council of Churches surveyed 14 Portlandarea labor unions and reported the results to the Portland City Club. Six of the unions banned African Americans while the other eight admitted them to full membership. The survey found that the “Electrical Workers’ Union” was, by far, the most racially integrated. “It is estimated that there are between 500 and 1,000 Negroes out of the present [IBEW Local 48] membership of 8,000. (Because of the recent rapid shifting of workers, accurate statistics are impossible.) There are no racial discriminatory regulations but situations are met where the employer will not accept Negroes. Within the union, everyone has equal rights. Several years ago, there were one or two instances in which White union members refused to work with Negroes who were fellow union members. In these cases, the Negroes were kept on the job and the White workers went to another 37


job or quit the union. Since these early cases, there have been no further instances of refusal to work with them. During the past few years, personnel shortages have prevented educational programs, but a willingness was expressed to work out any reasonable program presented and to distribute good literature.” Digest of City Club Report “The Negro in Portland July, 1945” “Survey of Portland Labor Unions To Ascertain Policies Toward Negro Members,” page 2 Portland City Club (Archives Division, Oregon Secretary of State. “Digest of City Club Report. The Negro in Portland July, 1945.” http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/pages/exhibits/ww2/life/pdf/race3.pdf) Consulting actuaries at the International IBEW determined that the union’s pension program was in trouble. As more members retired, the fund would be strained unless “considerably more money” was contributed. The international office of the IBEW turned to NECA to find an arrangement that would result in a viable retirement plan (National Electrical Benefit Fund (NEBF). “Fund History.” National Electrical Benefit Fund (NEBF). Web: September 2012. http://www.nebf.com/nebf/fund_history/).

1946 IBEW Local 48 members and union leaders disagreed how to run the union. They accepted temporary intervention by the international office of IBEW until they could reorganize (IBEW Local 48 History 3). NECA and the IBEW created the National Electrical Contractors Association Pension Benefit Trust Fund. Electrical contractors would place one percent of gross wages for eligible employees into the new fund whose name was later changed to the National Electrical Benefit Fund (NEBF). Today, NEBF is the third largest Taft-Hartley Pension Plan in the United States. It serves over 502,000 participating individuals, with 119,120 of those individuals receiving either a retirement or surviving spouse benefit. The Plan has over 8,000 contributing employers, resulting in over 370,000,000 hours worked in covered employment (National Electrical Benefit Fund (NEBF). “Fund History.” National Electrical Benefit Fund (NEBF). http://www.nebf.com/nebf/fund_history/).

June 10, 1946 Electrical Construction Co. (E C Company) joined Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA/ IBEW Local 48, and remains a member today (Program – NECA 50th Anniversary). Post-war inflation prompts a wave of strikes nationally, in Hartford, Houston, Oakland, and other cities (Shmoop Editorial Team). IBEW Local 48 aggressively promoted apprenticeship and continuing education through the Portland Apprentice School with program support by the Portland Public School’s Vocational Education Department. The apprenticeship program is reduced from five years to four; apprentices are indentured to IBEW Local 48 instead of their NECA employers. Classes range from electrical codes, motors, motor controllers, electronics, mathematics and electrical theory. The numbers increase but unemployment dampens interest (IBEW Local 48 History 3).

1947 National Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee (NJATC) formed. National Employees Benefit Fund (NEBF) starts (IBEW “Carrying the IBEW Dream into the 21st Century”). Oregon enacts Labor Disputes Election law requiring Bureau of Labor to conduct elections pertaining to collective bargaining units by secret ballot (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009). 38


Taft-Hartley Act enacted by Congress over President Truman’s veto. It effectively rolled back advantages organized labor had gained since the 1935 passage of the Wagner Act. “Before Taft-Hartley, electrical contractors and IBEW, and the other crafts unions, had been primarily concerned with wages, hours and working conditions. Taft-Hartley Act changed everything.” (Source: Bob Shiprack, retired executive secretary of the Oregon Building Trades Council, representing 36 union locals and councils across the Pacific Northwest.).

April 15, 1947 Friberg Electric Co., in business since 1928, joins Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA/ IBEW Local 48, and remains a member today (Program – NECA 50th Anniversary).

1948 Flood destroys Vanport within hours (Oregon Blue Book).

March 1948 IBEW Local 48 splits with Radio, TV and Manufacturing members transferring to a new IBEW union local, No. 49 with Chuck D. Hoffman appointed business manager and financial secretary. IBEW International Representatives Charlie Rohrer, Gene Heiss and Ken Favell appointed H.H. “Hub” Harrison business manager and financial secretary of Local 48, effectively returning control of the union to the membership (Schneberk 1). Harrison would win election and election from 1948 through 1962, his retirement (IBEW Local 48). Howard Vollum and Jack Murdock start Tektronix (Oregon Blue Book). IBEW Local 48 splits off radio, television, maintenance and manufacturing units into a new chapter, IBEW Local 49. Local 48 retains jurisdiction over marine, sign and construction divisions (IBEW Local 48 History 3).

November 1948 Recession. Duration: 11 months (National Bureau of Economic Research).

1949 Oregon passes Fair Employment Practices Act forbidding worker A heavy-lift crane was required for each letter in this 50-foot electric sign discrimination due to color, race, religion, or national origin. Bureau of installed at the remodeled entrance of the J.C. Penney store at 511 SW Washington St. during the retail construction boom in 1958 that employed just Labor granted investigatory and enforcement powers (BOLI Administrative about every NECA/IBEW contractor and electrician who wanted to work. Overview, March 2009). Oregon and five other states pioneer the practice of assuring all citizens the right to jobs regardless of color or creed (“50 Years of Progress – Bureau of Labor,” 25th Biennial Report. State of Oregon Bureau of Labor, 2). #12

CIO expels 11 labor unions with almost 1 million members because of their association with communism (Shmoop Editorial Team).

October 1949 Recovery. Duration: 45 months (National Bureau of Economic Research). Portland Apprentice School has 104 apprentices in the program (Fry 2). 39


POSTWAR BOOM

Oregon Census 1,521,341

1950S

February 27, 1950 Portland temporarily abandons its electric streetcar system that for more than a half century had provided electrical workers with work. OHS #74094 “Wiring diagram for Council Crest street car”; OHS #77137 “Council Crest streetcar line May 1946”; OHS (unreadable) #1906 Council Crest Line June 1948”; OHS #51285 “Last run of the last old time electric streetcar in Portland, the Willamette Heights’ “owl car,” which started shortly after 5:30 a.m., Sunday, February 27, 1950. That morning there were three sections of cars to accommodate the crowd that wanted the thrill of the last ride. Some of these people had been riding all night on Council Crest and 23rd lines, witnesses to the end of an era, at least until 1986, when Portland’s MAX Light Rail makes its inaugural run.

June 29, 1950 Christenson Electric Co. joins Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA/IBEW Local 48, and remains a member today (Program – NECA 50th Anniversary).

August 25, 1950 Cascade Electric (Scharf) joins Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA/IBEW Local 48, and remains a member today (Program – NECA 50th Anniversary).

December 8, 1950 Sirianni Electric joins Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA/IBEW Local 48, and remains a member today (Program – NECA 50th Anniversary).

1951 Oregon repeals 1903 laws requiring Labor Commissioner to gather social and economic statistics on “Orientals.” (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009).

February 28, 1951 Adams Electric joins Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA/IBEW Local 48, and remains a member today (Program – NECA 50th Anniversary).

April 1, 1952 Graham Electric Co. joins Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA/IBEW Local 48, and remains a member today (Program – NECA 50th Anniversary).

Bridge tender in the old swing-span Morrison Bridge (1905) pictured here in the mid-1950s. His job would be made obsolete by construction of a new Morrison Bridge in 1958 that would be remotely controlled offsite by Multnomah County Bridge Office. #13

September 1952

IBEW Local 48 union electrician Mark A. Smith, 49, was appointed to the highest state job ever given to an African-American in Oregon, that of Deputy State Labor Commissioner. State Labor Commissioner W.E. Kimsey appointed Smith, president of the Vancouver chapter of NAACP, and vice president at the time of the interracial Portland Urban League, “because he was the most outstanding candidate available for the job. At the time of his appointment, Smith was also a member in good standing of IBEW Local 48 (Card No. 906028). He worked with radar as an employee of Vancouver and Portland’s shipyards during World War II (“Vancouver Negro,” The Oregonian, September 10, 1952; also IBEW Local 48 History 4; and Letter, dated September 10, 1952, from H.H. Harrison to, Local 48 business manager, to J. Scott Milne, International Secretary, IBEW).

40


July 1953 The nation’s economy stalled in a brief recession but would resume its peacetime growth spurt in the spring of 1954 (National Bureau of Economic Research). Construction of the Columbia River dam at The Dalles provides a new source of work for IBEW Local 48 members, including apprentices. The Apprenticeship Program adds classes in The Dalles and in Vancouver at Clark College to meet student demand (Fry 3).

April 26, 1954 A handful of electrical worker members formed a board of directors, collected $500 in a cigar box and with the approval of IBEW Local 48 submitted an application to the federal National Credit Union Administration to form Electrical Workers Local 48 Federal Credit Union. Growth was slow, but steady. The volunteer board determined dividends on deposits and interest rates on loans. It took a couple of years to “sock away” enough deposits in order to make its first loan. The sole employee, Lois Burnside, kept a baseball bat in the small credit union office in the old Labor Temple in downtown Portland to ward off intruders. Small, but effective, the member-owned, federally-insured credit union changed its name to the IBEW and United Workers Federal Credit Union. Today, it has 1,500 members with $70 million in assets, including $36 million in investments and $30 million in real estate and consumer loans outstanding (IBEW and United Workers Federal Credit Union. “How We Got Here” and “IBEW and United Workers FCU Balance Sheet-Condensed, and Income Statement-Condensed.” IBEW and United Workers Federal Credit Union. http://www.ibewuwfcu.com/asp/history.asp).

May 1954 The nation began a prolonged growth spurt well into the summer of 1957 (National Bureau of Economic Research).

1955 Fair Employment Practices Advisory Committee changes name to Advisory Committee on Civil Rights (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009). The Apprenticeship Committee moves the Apprentice School from Beech Street School to Benson High School. After two years of planning, a pre-apprenticeship program will be started in 1957 (Fry 3). AFL merges with CIO with George Meany as its leader for the next two decades (Shmoop Editorial Team). NECA/IBEW Local 48 establishes the Harrison Electrical Workers Trust Fund, funded by contractors’ contributions of $0.10 per hour, to provide health and welfare benefits to union members (IBEW Local 48 History 4). The Health and Welfare Plan would evolve over the years with the addition of new members from other union locals, changes in contributions, improvements to benefits, and expansion to a larger geographical area of coverage (Bauder, The Electrical Workers’ Journal, August 1963, page 57). The plan would adopt a Drug Free Work Place policy in 1990, and novel “Flex Plan” for supplemental benefits in 1999 (Miller, A&I, Historical Document 9-2012, September 26, 2012). IBEW Local 48 hailed the award to Willamette Iron and Steel Co. of a $26 million contract to convert two cargo ships into luxury passenger lines for the Matson Line’s use for service to Australia. Writing in The Electrical Workers’ Journal in December 1955, Eldon Kellas, P.S., noted, “This year has been a good year for almost everyone in Local 41


48 as work has been plentiful and the outlook for 1956 is very good” (Kellas, 46).

1956 Despite miserably cold weather, including five months of snow, work was plentiful (Kellas, The Electrical Workers’ Journal, May 1956). IBEW Local 48 membership reached 1,800 union electricians, compared to 1,500 in 1954, 21,000 in 1944 (IBEW Local 48 History 1-4), about 500 in 1918, and 200 in 1914 (R.C. Kenny, quoted in Electrical Review, Vol. 73, No. 14, p 542, Oct. 5, 1918). NECA and IBEW Local 48 negotiated what the majority of members believed was a fair contract. The two-year agreement increased wages to $3.10 per hour in the first year and $3.20 in the second. Members benefited from some major changes in shift work, lunch hours and subsistence pay. They liked the new vacation plan with a payroll deduction sent directly to Local 48’s Federal Credit Union (Kellas, The Electrical Workers’ Journal, May 1956). Typical of members seeking to advance themselves, Jack McLeod left his post as Local 48 business representative to set up his own law practice after four years of night school (Kellas, The Electrical Workers’ Journal, May 1956). His replacement, Herman Teeple organized and unionized seven shops in The Dalles and Hood River. His work was without precedent (IBEW Local 48 History 4).

August 1957 The nation entered a brief recession that would last only eight months (National Bureau of Economic Research).

April 1958 The nation recovered steadily for the next two years (National Bureau of Economic Research). IBEW Local 48 journeymen earn $3.50 an hour, compared to $2.00 an hour in 1946, $1.25 an hour in 1930, and $0.22 an hour in 1914.

1959 Forty electrical contractors and hundreds of electricians earned a lot of overtime pay completing the last-minute construction and installation of the Oregon Centennial Exposition and World Trade Fair on 40 acres of ground in North Portland, working right up to the day before it opened on June 10, 1959. “I heard one second-year At its opening, the 9,000 seat Memorial Coliseum was touted as the largest multipurpose facility of its kind in the Pacific Northwest. Construction and electrical installation of the gleaming Memorial Coliseum was apprentice who had 200 bucks made Friday night with completed in time for the November 3, 1960 opening featuring a performance called “Holiday on Ice.” still Saturday and Sunday to go,” wrote Local 48’s Cliff Tingley, P.S., in the August 1959 issue of The Electrical Workers’ Journal published by the IBEW. The Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the 12,000-seat, brilliantly lit “Glass Palace,” constructed on three acres of land between the Willamette River and Lloyd Center (which opened just months earlier) was the largest multipurpose facility in the Pacific Northwest at the time it opened in time for the holidays in 1960.

#14

Oregon prohibits unreasonable acts of age discrimination in employment; requires payment of prevailing wage on public works projects; and, enacts the Migrant Farm Labor Contractor Act. All of these statutory mandates are to be enforced by the Oregon Bureau of Labor (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009). Congress enacts Landrum-Griffith Act, holding labor leaders accountable for their handling of union funds and requiring annual reports.

42


MODERN TIMES

Oregon Census 1,768,687 1960

Two dozen schools opened. Portland air traffic approaches 900,000. City planners envisioned a system of freeways, including the Banfield, Baldock, and Mount Hood. Developers bulldozed the historic Portland Hotel and put up a parking lot as part of a city-led wave of blight-fighting urban renewal (Arietta-Walden 93). Portland’s skyline was never the same after four miles of wiring, a half-mile of neon tubing, and thirty-two gallons of paint were used in the Carling Brewing’s three-story “Black Label” beer sign. The neon sign covered the entire width of the eight-story Sperry Flour Building on Southeast First at Washington Street in Portland, constructed by Ramsay Signs, Inc., with union electricians from IBEW Local 48 (Harrison, The Electrical Workers’ Journal, August 1960).

1960S

Lloyd Center opened with ceremonial tour of Meier & Frank store by Japanese Crown Prince Akihito and princess Michiko with Gov. Mark Hatfield and his aide and store scion, Gerry Frank. It’s Oregon’s biggest construction project (Arietta-Walden 105).

November 3, 1960 Memorial Coliseum opens. First performance: “Holiday on Ice” (Arietta-Walden 103).

1961 Oregon prohibits racial, religious or ethnic discrimination in public accommodations (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009). President John Kennedy issues order allowing federal employees to unionize and bargain collectively, but does not give them the right to strike (Shmoop Editorial Team).

February 1961 Recovery. Duration: 106 months (National Bureau of Economic Research).

1962

On November 2, 1963, IBEW Local 48 President John Clothier welcomed 720 members, spouses and guests to the 50th anniversary of the union at a gala dinner and dance in the Sheraton’s Grand Ballroom. #15

IBEW Local 48 union member Marie Gleason made history in August 1962 by becoming the first woman in a male-dominated industry to qualify for an IBEW pension. “I’m quite thrilled. I had no idea I was a celebrity,” said the 68-year-old who 20 years earlier worked in Portland’s Swan Island shipyards. “I wired all the ship lights from stem to stern,” she said of her wartime service. A member of a 10-woman crew of electricians trained by Jesse True, an IBEW journeyman electrician, Gleason later put in charge of an assembly crew of female electricians. In retirement, she would regard her $50 monthly pension as “the most marvelous thing that has ever happened because Social Security is not enough for me to retire on” (“Portland woman,” Oregon Labor Press, August 10, 1962). A 20-year member of IBEW Local 48, she was the first female from among 17,000 men to retire with full benefits under the IBEW pension plan (IBEW Local 48 History 5). More than 200,000 people attend the AFL-CIO Union Labor and Service Trade Department’s “Industries Show” in Portland’s “new” Memorial Coliseum. IBEW Local 48, along with IBEW Locals 125 and 49, played host to the event, which was conducted for the first time in Portland (Bauder, Journal 59).

1963 43


Herman Teeple elected business manager of IBEW Local 48. He succeeded longtime business manager H.H. “Hub” Harrison. Teeple would serve through 1970.

November 2, 1963 More than 700 IBEW Local 48 members, wives, guests and 50 NECA electrical contractors celebrated the Golden Jubilee anniversary of the union’s charter, on May 21, 1913. The 50 NECA contractors, all of whom have contracts with Local 48, joined the union members in toasts to two of the original 14 charter members who signed the document in 1913 – Ambrose “Andy” Peacher of Portland and Homer Gifford of The Dalles – who attended the party in Portland’s Sheraton Hotel. W.R. McCabe, president of the Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA lifted a glass in tribute to H.H. “Hub” Harrison who retired several months earlier after serving as IBEW Local 48’s business manager since 1948. McCabe presented Harrison with a handsome leather-bound volume containing letters expressing admiration and good wishes from virtually all of the NECA contractors with whom Local 48 had contracts. They also congratulated retiree Ray S. “Fergie” Ferguson after 17 years as job dispatcher for Local 48, since 1946 (Barnes, Electrical Workers’ Journal 51). “The gains in wages, welfare and working conditions have been reached under agreement with the National Electrical Contractors Association, Columbia Chapter, with whom we have worked in harmony as attested by the absence of a strike in the past 43 years” (“Golden Jubilee” remarks by Historian John Clothier, undated but presented at a gathering of 720 NECA/IBEW Local 48 members, families and guests at the Sheraton Hotel, November 2, 1963. IBEW Local 48). The IBEW’s Electrical Workers’ Journal, on April 1964, published on page 51 a comprehensive story with photos of the 720 attendees of the 50th Anniversary Gala in the downtown Portland Sheraton Hotel. IBEW Local charter signers Andy Peacher and Homer Gifford; and Hub Harrison and Ray Ferguson received gifts and congratulations from NECA contractors Samuel I. Jaggar and Stan Adams, and Bob Burns, NECA chapter manager (Local 48 files include the Menu and Program with a copy of the IBEW charter 1913-1963). U.S. Supreme Court validates authority of IBEW international’s Constitution (IBEW “Carrying the IBEW Dream into the 21st Century”). Congress enacts Equal Pay Act prohibiting wage discrimination based on gender. [In 1970, women’s earnings were 62% of men’s; by 2004, they were 80% of men’s.] (Shmoop Editorial Team). IBEW Local 48 and Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA employers form Metro Training Trust to assume the state’s control over the Apprenticeship Training Program. Funded by an employer-paid contribution of $0.02 per hour, the Trust would train apprentices, provide continuing education for journeymen, update members on new and emerging technology, and help union members meet license requirements (IBEW Local 48 History 5).

1964 Congress enacts landmark Civil Rights Act, prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations, employment and government services; creates Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to administer the laws (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009).

Fall 1964 Dan Faddis hired as Training Director of the Apprentice School program, now operating as the Metro JATC (Fry 5).

44


November 1965 Oregon State Apprenticeship Council adopts Equal Employment Opportunity Commission standards (Fry 5). Unemployment is essentially 0% among IBEW Local 48 electricians with members helping build the John Day Dam, pulp and paper millwork, and residential and commercial remodeling (IBEW Local 48 History 5).

1967 Oregon passes Minimum Wage Law, to be enforced by Bureau of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. A new Safety Division is created within the Bureau of Labor to administer electrical safety and elevator safety laws, among others (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009). March 1, 1968 NECA and IBEW Local 48 jointly establish the IBEW District No. 9 Pension Plan. Under the jointly administered plan, the NECA contractors will contribute to each participant’s account to provide for their individual retirement (IBEW District No. 9 Summary Plan Description, April 1, 2011, page iii and 1).

1969 Oregon amends Fair Employment Practices Act to include prohibition against discrimination based upon sex (gender) (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009).

December 1969 Recession. Duration: 11 months (National Bureau of Economic Research).

45


FROM LUMBER MILLS TO COMPUTER CHIPS Oregon Census 2,091,385

1970S

January 22, 1970 Three NECA employers and three IBEW Local 48 electricians draft the plan for creation of the Edison Pension Trust. The employer-paid fringe benefit would supplement NEBF and the International Union pension plans, and Social Security income, so that retirees and their families could enjoy the same standard of living they had during their working years (Edison 20). It would take another year, until February 1971, before the six NECA/IBEW committee members completed the actual Pension Plan Document finally approved, with some objections, by the members of Local Union 48. Some members opposed the new “Edison Plan” because they felt they could better invest their own money for retirement. Others argued “most workers die within two or three years of retirement” and would never get their fair value out of it (Edison 4-5).

1971 Arthur J. Bauder succeeds Herman Teeple as IBEW Local 48 business manager and will serve through 1979 (IBEW Local Union 48) Oregon creates within the Bureau of Labor the Human Rights Advisory Council and Sex Discrimination Advisory Council, to conduct regular public meetings on workplace discrimination (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009).

1972 IBEW Local 517 with members in the coastal areas of Lincoln City to Astoria, merged with Local 48 (IBEW Local 48 History 6). Thirteen member of Local 48 become the first to retire under the Edison Pension Trust plan. They will receive monthly pensions of about $80 per month, based on the contributions to the plan by their employers during the first year of the plan’s existence, and $6.00 per year for up to a maximum of 12 years of work (Edison 5).

March 1973 Fremont Bridge erected, connecting what had been the deep Interstate 405 gash through downtown Portland to Interstate 5 (Arietta-Walden 111)

1974 The stock market took a dive. Consumers and businesses alike roiled from hyperinflation of 12%. The nation slipped into recession that would last 16 months (National Bureau of Economic Research). Congress enacts Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). ERISA sets minimum standards for private-sector pension and health insurance plans (U.S. Department of Labor: http://www. dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq_compliance_pension.html ) and will Bonneville Dam’s second powerhouse, constructed between 1974 and 1981. The combined electrical output of the two power form the basis for improvements to the three pension plans houses at Bonneville would now exceed 1 million kilowatts. that are in effect today for NECA/IBEW Local 48. Those three pension trusts are the Edison Pension Trust, IBEW District No. 9 Pension Plan, and the Cornell-Hart Pension Plan (Edison 5 and ERISA Act). #16

46


Intel Corporation opened the first of six semiconductor research and fabrication campuses west of Portland in Washington County. By 2012, Intel will have invested $20 billion in new semiconductor research and manufacturing plants, creating a boon for NECA/IBEW Local 48 contractors, and “travelers” from IBEW locals nationwide. More than 2,000 NECA/ IBEW electricians will work in Intel’s development fabrication facility, D1X, at the Ronler Acres Campus completed in 2013 (Intel Corporation website. Web: September 2012). Boeing opens Gresham plant.

1975 IBEW Local 48’s membership levels off at 2,000 with a slow-down in industrial work, and a reduction in marine projects. Restrictive sign codes reduced work in that field, resulting in only 50 electricians in that specialty (IBEW Local 48 History 6).

March 1975 Recovery. Duration: 58 months (National Bureau of Economic Research).

1977 NECA/IBEW international improve NEBF benefits; increase employer contribution from 1% to 3% (IBEW “Carrying the IBEW Dream into the 21st Century”). Hugh D. “Buzzy” Allison helps convince the NECA/IBEW apprentice committee to purchase their own training facility, known then as the Metro Training Center, in 1978 (NECA/IBEW “Open Line” 2). The Metro Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee (JATC) and its Trust committee members relocate the apprentice school from Benson High School to a 15,000 square foot Safeway store building at NE 42nd and Killingsworth. Apprentices in the program numbered 184 in 1968, 209 in 1969, 234 in 1971, 275 by 1973, 289 in 1975, 237 in 1977, 195 in 1979, and by July 1979, 296 indentured apprentices (Fry 5-6).

1979 Bureau of Labor name changes to Bureau of Labor and Industries, or BOLI (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009).

June 1, 1979 Cornell-Hart Pension Plan established to help fund retirement benefits for members of IBEW Local 970 in the Longview-Kelso area. With the merger of Local 970 into IBEW Local 48 on April 1, 2012, the plan would become available to members Local 48 (Cornell-Hart Pension Plan Summary Plan i, 1).

October 6, 1979 Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Paul Volcker administers interest rate hike tonic to cure rampant inflation of the 1970s. Fed action effectively froze home-building, shattered Oregon’s economy, slashed timber employment by 50%, or 80,000 jobs, and ushered in what many called a “double-dip” recession in 1980 and again in 1981 (Arietta-Walden 117).

47


CRISIS IN THE ECONOMY

Oregon Census 2,633,105

1980S

1980 IBEW Local 48 elected Robert E. Hall as business manager. He will serve to 1983. Membership peaked at 2,400 with journeyman rates at $17.25 per hour for construction, $13.50 for sign electricians, and $11.57 for marine journeymen (IBEW Local 48 History 6).

January 1980 Recession. Duration: 6 months (National Bureau of Economic Research). This was the first dip of a double-dip recession. Unemployment in Oregon jumped from 6.9% in 1979 to 9.2% in 1980. It fell briefly during a brief 11-month flat period of recovery. But then it would rise again in 1982, to 12.1% -- higher than the 11.6% unemployment rate at the peak of the so-called Great Recession of 2008 (Oregon Employment Department and National Bureau of Economic Research).

July 1980 Recovery. Duration: 12 months (National Bureau of Economic Research). The Portland area economy faltered. NECA/IBEW Local 48, including 150 union contractors, seven union shops in the sign division, five marine contractors, suffered loss of large-scale commercial and industrial project work, public and private. They also lose smaller residential projects to non-union electricians and contractors. More than 500 IBEW electrical workers lost their jobs for an average of nine months to a year. Those who have work endured “short weeks,” sharing what little work there was while others waited their turn on the union’s referral list. No new apprentices were selected for the educational program. Labor and management searched for new and progressive programs (IBEW Local 48 History 7).

July 1981 Recession. Duration: 16 months (National Bureau of Economic Research). This was referred to at the time as the second dip in a double-dip recession. Many in Oregon regarded the downturn as one long recession that started at the beginning of the decade of the 1980s. Bankruptcy threatened many electrical contractors of Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA. Some went out of business. The list of unemployed members of IBEW Local 48 lengthened. “Travelers” left to find work out of state. The electrical industry, like all the building trades, descended into the largest construction depression to hit the Pacific Northwest (Program – NECA 50th Anniversary). The International IBEW established the Electrical Industry Health and Welfare Reciprocal Agreement. By 1985, 100% of the union members would participate (IBEW “Carrying the IBEW Dream into the 21st Century”).

Built in the midst of the recession, One Main Place, a 20 story concrete and glass tower, completed construction in 1982. #17

1982 Amid mixed reviews, the architecturally significant postmodernist Portland Building opened. With its completion, large-scale commercial projects in downtown Portland dried up. 48


Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA hired Timothy Gauthier as its executive manager, to negotiate and achieve labor relations support for six separate labor agreements with IBEW Local 48, and to administer NECA. The economy nationally was in a tailspin and the outlook for building trades in the Pacific Northwest was bleak. “NECA had just finished negotiations with the IBEW, thinking that the industry was going to continue to grow. But who knew? They had settled a three-year contract. It was one of the largest dollar-value contracts at the time, for like $6.00 – that was the negotiated (hourly) increase over three years (January 1, 1982 through December 31, 1984). It was very controversial because not everybody saw the work continuing. By 1982, midway through, the economic recession hit. Within six months, there were over 800 electricians unemployed. At that time, we maybe only had 1,800 total, working. That’s a huge unemployment hit. We couldn’t survive throwing $6.00 on top of an industry that was floundering at the time.” Timothy J. Gauthier Executive Manager Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA Oregon Employment Department and National Bureau of Economic Research published a graph of “Oregon Unemployment Rate Typically Higher than U.S.,” showing 12.1% unemployment in December 1982 and January 1983, compared to 11.6% in May and June of 2009.

1983 The members of IBEW Local 48 elected Edward L. Barnes to succeed Robert E. Hall as business manager (IBEW Local Union 48). The 1983 Oregon Legislature passed legislation promoted by NECA/IBEW Local 48 requiring eight hours per year of continuing education in order to renew a journeyman electrician’s license in order to meet the increasingly technical demands of the high technology future. (“Facing The Future – Must Companies Change To Survive? Must Industries Change To Survive?” published in the Open Line – The Official Labor/Management Publication of the Metro Electrical Training Trust, Vol. 2. Portland: NECA/IBEW. Fall 1984, page 2).

August 1983 NECA electrical contractors slashed employment 50 to 75 percent. Some threatened to go nonunion, or “double-breasted.” One-third of the members of IBEW Local 48 travelled outof-state for work, if they could find it. IBEW Local 48 Business Manager Ed Barnes and NECA Chapter Manager Tim Gauthier sought outside advice to resolve the crisis. Each paid $500 out of their own pockets to hire Orville Iverson, a labor-management professor at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, for his advice (Barnes 4). Iverson moderated a series of labor-management cooperation meetings with hundreds of union electricians and electrical contractors.

Fall 1983 Working cooperatively with NECA Executive Manager Tim Gauthier, Local 48 Business Manager Ed Barnes initiated a series of sweeping changes in labor-management relations, including implementation of a wage rollback of the “Big Six” dollar increase called for in the NECA/ IBEW Local 48 labor agreement for the years 1982-1984. Barnes implemented adjustments in the labor agreement as of January 1, 1984, that resulted in labor cost reductions that resulted in the creation of additional work opportunities for the union. While the changes, among others, were approved by the membership of Local 48, they were implemented without the prior-approval of the International IBEW in Washington, D.C. – a violation of the International’s constitution. As a 49


result, Barnes risked removal from his office as business manager (Gauthier 3; also Barnes 2-4). “I was willing to take that chance. We could not afford to continue to lose everything here. I was having members come in and say, ‘Ed, I’m losing my house.’ ‘I’ve had to give up my boat.’ ‘My wife is divorcing me.’ Ministers would call me and saying, ‘You’ve got to let these people go out and work Open Shop (nonunion). They’ve got to make a living for their family. If you don’t they’re going to lose everything they’ve got.’ At that time, contractors were going to go double-breasted – they’d be both union and nonunion. It was kind of crazy.” Edward L. Barnes Business Manager, Financial Secretary IBEW Local Union No. 48 “I’ve got to give credit to Ed. He brought a whole new attitude about cooperating, working together. We had a full year of what we called ‘industry meetings,’ trying to sit down and talk about what’s going on between electricians and contractors. That was in 1983. That was the basis of what we still call today our Labor-Management Cooperation Committee. From that, we renegotiated that contract. The money – the Big Six – went away. We dealt with the economics on a year-by-year basis, instead of trying to project into the future. We renegotiated the contract. We started our material handler agreement, our residential agreement. We broke the industry down and had agreements to fit those markets instead of a one-size-fits-all. Timothy J. Gauthier Executive Manager Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA Together, small and large employers of NECA and members at every level of IBEW Local 48, continued to meet in “no-holds-barred” meetings. Iverson observed and commented on the often tense, often loud, sessions. Finally, the Labor-Management Cooperation Committee agreed to changes to make the union electrical contractor, and members of Local 48 more competitive and to ensure customer satisfaction: • Overtime changed from double-time to time-and-a-half. • Most paid travel zones eliminated. • Subsistence pay either eliminated or reduced. • New apprentices indentured at lower cost to reduce contractor’s overall crew structure. • More flexible work week and shift work conditions agreed to. • Journeyman wage and fringe benefits reduced to compete with unorganized electrical contractors and the inhouse maintenance electricians. • Residential journeymen and apprentices took even further reductions to compete in that market. • New residential training was initiated to pursue and compete in the residential market. • Labor and management agreed that being competitive was a “prime objective” realizable only by their continued cooperation (“Facing The Future.” Open Line – The Official Labor/Management Publication of the Metro Electrical Training Trust. Vol. 2. Portland: NECA/IBEW. Fall 1984, p 2).

1984 NECA contractors cut their overhead costs and reduced their management and corporate officer wages and fringe benefits in order to compete more effectively (“NECA/IBEW Partners In Progress At Camas: A Continuing Commitment.” Open Line – The Official Labor/Management Publication of the Metro Electrical Training Trust. Vol. 2. Portland: NECA/IBEW. Fall 1984, p 1). NECA/IBEW Local 48 began collecting $0.15 per man-hour worked in order to fund their training and promotion initiative. That amount collected would be increased in 1996 to 50


$0.20 per man-hour. The Labor Management Cooperation Committee managed the joint trust fund. It would be renamed the Barnes Labor Management Cooperation Committee after his retirement in 1995 as an expression of thanks for his efforts in promoting labor management cooperation (Gauthier interview 9-10; also Gauthier email, October 8, 2012). Electrical Industry Pension Reciprocal Agreement established; 100% participation in 1989 (IBEW “Carrying the IBEW Dream into the 21st Century”). Bill Schonely, voice of the Portland Trailblazers, narrated a 12-minute film produced by John Clarke, Broadcast Copyrights, Inc., Portland, that promoted the “uncommonly harmonious relationship” between NECA and IBEW, with special emphasis on the skills and technological expertise of the journeyman electricians of Local 48 and the thoroughness of the training that apprentices receive. The film was distributed to public agencies, chambers, clubs, and among state officials, engineers, architects and other labor-management groups (“NECA/ IBEW Meets The Silver Screen.” Open Line – The Official Labor/Management Publication of the Metro Electrical Training Trust. Vol. 2. Portland: NECA/IBEW. Fall 1984, p 4).

July 1984 NECA/IBEW Local 48 completed electrical contract work involved in the $425 million “Roaring 20” modernization of Crown Zellerbach’s century-old Camas, Washington, paper mill. William T. Creson, chairman of the board of Crown Zellerbach, singled out Local 48 for its on-time, underbudget, productivity and quality workmanship involved in starting up the fully-computerized “Roaring 20” paper machine, capable of producing 160,000 tons per year, or 457 tons per day (Creson letter to Barnes, July 27, 1984). Some work on the project had been cancelled but was restarted with more jobs added after Local 48 made adjustments in the labor agreement as of January 1, 1984, that resulted in $800,000 in labor cost reductions (“NECA/IBEW Partners In Progress At Camas: A Continuing Commitment.” Open Line – The Official Labor/Management Publication of the Metro Electrical Training Trust. Vol. 2. Portland: NECA/IBEW. Fall 1984, p 1). Women electricians gained traction in building trades. Female electricians comprised 20 percent of the union electricians employed by McCoy Electric in its yearlong renovation and restoration of the historic, 55-year-old Paramount Theater at 1037 SW Broadway. Foreman Ken Burnett said, “It’s been an especially dirty job, but very rewarding to see history repaired and restored.” As for the increasing prevalence of female electricians, “They do their job just like the others” (“A Paramount project,” Oregon Labor Press, August 3, 1984). Included in the story is a photo of McCoy’s workforce in front of the Paramount Theater, published by the Oregon Labor Press.

1985 Oregon creates Wage Security Fund to compensate employees of failed businesses (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009).

1986 NECA/IBEW Local 48 executed a Market Recovery Program (MRP) amendment to their collective bargaining agreement on April 6, 1986 (U.S. District Court’s Decision in Phoenix Electric Company et al. v. National Electrical Contractors Association et al., 861 F.Supp. 1498 (D. Ore. 1994). The MRP was unique, controversial, and the first of its type of job targeting programs in the United States. It was a direct result of labor-management meetings initiated by Local 48 Business Manager Ed Barnes with NECA Executive Manager Tim Gauthier. Under MRP, union members paid 3½ percent of their hourly wages into a subsidy fund to target the recovery of jobs and preserve market share in Local 48’s jurisdiction (Thieblot 53). Money from the job-targeting fund was provided to NECA employers to subsidize their bidding on certain projects of strategic interest to Local 48. While Barnes would retire in 1995, variations of the MRP job-targeting program implemented during his tenure in office remain in effect today, in 2013.

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HOW JOB TARGETING WORKS When a NECA union contractor wants to make a lower bid on a particular job, the contractor fills out a form to “target� that job. On the form, the contractor estimates the number of labor hours the job will take, and lists the known nonunion competition. The contractor gives the form to NECA, which passes it on to IBEW Local 48. If the union decides to target the job, the union authorizes the contractor to base its bid on wages below the rates called for in their collective bargaining agreement. The union also authorizes any other interested NECA subcontractor to prepare a bid basing its calculations on the specially authorized lower wage. If the first wage adjustment on a targeted job seems insufficient to win the work, the union may authorize a still lower wage. If the NECA contractor wins the bid, it pays its union workers at the regular rate established in the collective bargaining agreement, but the union subsidizes those wages in an amount representing the difference between the regular wage and the specially authorized lower wage used to bid for the job (U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit Decision in Phoenix Electric Company et al. v. National Electrical Contractors Association et al., 81 F.3d 858. No. 94-35522).

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Three Challenges to the Market Recovery Program The Market Recovery Program was controversial. It was hotly debated and challenged from its inception in 1983, through the first 10 years of its implementation after NECA and Local 48 formally executed it as an amendment to their collective bargaining agreement on April 6, 1986.

Challenge #1

Challenge #2 In 1984, the IBEW International in Washington, D.C, threatened to remove Ed Barnes from his office as business manager, ostensibly because he had re-negotiated the 1982-1984 Agreement with NECA without their approval – a violation of the union’s constitution. After months of investigation, the IBEW approved a one-year trial run of the program, with conditions (Ed Barnes’ interview August 10, 2012; also, NECA/IBEW Local 48 Overview 1-3). A year later, in fall of 1985, the members of Local 48 voted their approval once again, and the program was funded and implemented in 1986, this time with the international IBEW’s approval (Barnes phonecon, September 28, 2012).

Challenge #3 In 1986, NECA/IBEW Local 48 used funds collected for market recovery and started targeting specific projects. A national group of non-union builders and contractors challenged the legality of their job-targeting in a federal antitrust lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court. In 1994, the judge in the federal case ruled in favor of NECA/IBEW Local 48. In a subsequent appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Ninth Circuit, in 1996, affirmed the lower court’s decision (U.S. District Court’s Decision in Phoenix Electric Company et al. v. National Electrical Contractors Association et al., 81 F.Supp. 1498 (D. Ore. 1994); and U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit Decision in Phoenix Electric Company et al. v. National Electrical Contractors Association et al., 81 F.3d 858. No. 94-35522).

1983-1996

In 1983, contractors of NECA and the membership of IBEW Local 48 challenged the concept of cooperation as concessionary (Bronfenbrenner 307). Some thought MRP brought labor and management a little too close for comfort. After much debate, NECA’s members approved with a few holdouts (Gauthier1-4). IBEW Local 48 members likewise debated the tactics that affected wages, hours and work conditions and made them a “contractors’ union” (Gauthier 3) focused on customer satisfaction as a top priority. Ballots were mailed to the 1,452 members of Local 48: 796 voted Yes, 289 No. Local 48’s business manager, Ed Barnes, initiated the program, including the wage rollback, but without the prior approval by the International Headquarters of the IBEW, thus prompting the second challenge, to Barnes himself (Barnes 4).

“Local Union #48 is extremely proud of the relationship between our Contractors Association (NECA) and would hope that other Unions and Contractor Associations can work together for the betterment of the electrical industry. Together we stand, divided we fall.” From a prepared statement in 1983 by Edward L. Barnes Business Manager – Financial Secretary IBEW Local Union No. 48

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Electric rail transportation returned to Portland. The Metropolitan Area Express, or MAX Light Rail, ran its first trains between downtown and Gresham, using money initially earmarked for new freeways. MAX was one of the first modern light rail systems in the country. The MAX light rail effectively resumed Portland’s love affair with electric trains after Portland’s last streetcar, the old Willamette Heights line, made its last run 36 years earlier, in 1950 (TriMet, web September 2012: http://trimet.org; also, http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/streetcars.html).

1987 Portland Center for the Performing Arts opened.

October 19, 1987 The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 508 points, or 22.6 percent in value, still its largest ever single-day percentage drop. During the two weeks leading up to the crash, the Dow dropped 15 percent. Despite the turmoil in the stock market that wiped out huge amounts of the market value of many companies, NECA/IBEW’s Harrison Health and Welfare Trust and the Edison Pension Trust were invested in government and corporate bonds, and U.S. Treasury bills, and were thus unaffected by what became known as “Black Monday,” the stock market crashed.

October 29, 1987 Sandra Carr, one of two women electricians from among 160 electricians employed by Electrical Construction Company was named outstanding electrician employee of the quarter. Carr worked as a bookkeeper and at a daycare center before entering a three-year training program at the Metro Training Center in 1979 (“Carr recognized,” Northwest Labor Press 7).

December 11, 1987 “Bridge Lights – Holiday Nights” was the kickoff theme at Tom McCall Waterfront Park Friday evening, December 11, as volunteers from NECA/IBEW Local 48 and the Metro Training Center lit up Morrison Bridge with thirty-five 1,000-watt lights. The $78,000 cost of installation and labor was donated by NECA/IBEW Local 48 with Sutherland Electrical Contractors serving as general contractor and company president Robert Agee serving as project supervisor. The bridge illumination was the first in an effort by the City of Portland, Multnomah County, the Greater Portland Convention and Visitors Association and a citizens group, the Willamette Light Brigade, to light all of Portland’s bridges (“Morrison Bridge,” Labor Press. December 4, 1987, page 7). [Crew foreman Duane Johnson (in basket) and Ole Haglund of Sutherland electrical Contractors install wiring as part of the Morrison Bridge illumination project – photo that could be used with lit-bridge photo – Labor Press 7, December 4, 1987] The illumination design by Craig Marquardt of PAE Consulting Engineers would go on to win a west coast design award (Morrison Bridge, Labor Press 9, April 15, 1988).

1988 NECA/IBEW Local 48 used job-targeting funds from its Market Recovery Program, launched amidst controversy two years earlier, to win 544 projects valued at $27 million, creating 450,000 hours of work for journeymen electricians between March 1, 1986, and December 31, 1987 (“Market Recovery,” Oregon Labor Press 8). By 2013, the Market Recovery Program funds will have won NECA/IBEW Local 48 more than 18,000 projects valued at more than $1.5 billion, resulting in the creation of 15 million man-hours of work, the equivalent of 325 jobs for journeymen electricians (“The Oracle,” August 2012, p 9). IBEW Local 48 journeyman electrician Paul B. Behrman was awarded the IBEW Lifesaving Award for saving the life of a fellow electrician while they were working together on a job in Gresham for Atlas Electric. Behrman wrapped his shirt around his partner’s ankle and pulled him free from contact with an electrical line carrying 277 volts. He administered CPR on Local 48 journeyman electrician Mark Engdall until the Gresham Fire Department arrived (“Heroics,” Open Line 8). 54


April 28, 1988 IBEW Local 48 celebrated the 75th anniversary of its charter with IBEW International and the end of what was a devastating economic downturn through the first half of the 1980s. “At the time of its inception, Local 48 . . . began a unique relationship and general understanding with employers that has lasted these 75 years. This agreement has allowed labor and management to work together and work out their differences without resorting to strike action “Local 48 maintains and nurtures this unique relationship with the National Electrical Contractors Association. The two support each other, work out any economic problems and foster good relations with each other. In no other industry does there exist such a close understanding between labor and management. The result is mutually beneficial.” “Local Union 48 has become the leader in the labor movement in the States of Oregon and Washington with programs like Metro Electrical Training Trust, Harrison Health and Welfare Trust, Edison Pension Trust, the Joint Labor Management Program, Advertising on Radio and in Printed Media and The Substance Abuse Film . . . It makes me very happy to say on this 75th Anniversary that Local Union 48 has full employment. “Reminiscing” History of Local Union 48, IBEW Edward L. Barnes Business Manager – Financial Secretary IBEW Local Union No. 48 (Unpublished remarks IBEW Local 48 files)

1989 Oregon enacts Whistleblower Law (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009). Local 48 implemented “Vision for the Future” programs (IBEW Local 48 files). A NECA/IBEW Local 48 team of electricians employed by McCoy Electric Co. completed construction and installation for Boeing in Portland that involved connecting a revolutionary new milling machine – first of its kind in the nation. The project itself took a year to complete. Six electricians worked full time for four months to connect the Boeing Super Profiler to make landing gear components in half the time (“The Real McCoy Wings It With Boeing,” Northwest Labor Press, June 16, 1989, p 6).

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DAWNING OF THE DIGITAL AGE

Oregon Census 2,842,321

1990S

1990 Technology surpassed timber as Oregon’s top industrial employer during the last decade of the 20th Century (Arietta-Walden 130). As lumber mills and pulp and paper plants shut down, electrical workers found themselves working increasingly on the construction and installation of complex lighting and wiring for telecommunications systems, computers, servers, routers, and cabling and panel installations, with backup power supplies, computer chip fabrication systems, as well as electrical support systems for science, medical and apparel industries that would expand rapidly through the year 2000. Metro Joint Apprenticeship Training Center (JATC) began the 1990s with 191 inside apprentices and 38 residential apprentices. Thirty-three people were on waiting lists for the programs. The NECA/IBEW Management-Labor Trust committee that oversaw the Metro JATC sent the instructors to the National JATC Training Institute in Knoxville, initiated one of the first Industry Drug Testing Programs, and improved the odds of apprenticeship graduation by adding a tutoring program (Ken Fry; also, NIETC website: http://www.nietc.org/oregon-history-1990s.html).

September 1990 NECA/IBEW Local 48 implemented a new policy for a Drug Free Work Place. Other union locals, including 46, 73, 112, 280, 659 and 932, participated. The Harrison Electrical Workers Trust Fund administered the comprehensive testing program. Substance abuse testing was done under three circumstances: • Pre-employment • Systematic random computer selected testing • Testing for cause (including post accident) The program was designed so that those who tested positive for substance abuse got the treatment they needed, and employers and co-workers would be protected from the effects of workplace substance abuse (Miller, A&I, Historical Document 9-2012, September 26, 2012).

July 1990 Recession. Duration: 8 months (National Bureau of Economic Research).

1991 The IBEW International conducted its Centennial Exposition and 100th Anniversary Convention in St. Louis, the city of its founding (IBEW “Carrying the IBEW Dream into the 21st Century”). Oregon passed the Family Medical Leave Act (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009).

March 1991 The nation began the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history – 10 years without a recession (National Bureau of Economic Research). Inflation was dampened. Memories of recessions would fade. Unemployment would sink to record lows. The Internet would be the Next Big Thing, followed in the latter half of the 1990s by the dot.com revolution and the New Millennium. Cell phones would become ubiquitous. A prolonged burst of growth would increase levels of personal wealth. Capital spending would surge. NECA/IBEW Local 48 and all of the building trades, union and nonunion, would experience a prolonged period of profitable new construction and renovation. 56


July 1991 The Metro Joint Apprenticeship Training Center developed a blueprint for the future, hired additional teaching staff, and with the merger of IBEW Local 49 into Local 48, added a Limited Energy Apprenticeship Program to the Training Center‘s curriculum. They increased hands-on training programs for apprentice classes, including work with the Gresham School District wiring houses built each year by Gresham High students (Ken Fry; also, NIETC website: http://www.nietc.org/oregon-history-1990s.html).

1992 Rod Belisle, assistant training director of the Metro Joint Apprenticeship Training Center, won First Place in the Northwest States Electrical Contest (Ken Fry; also, NIETC website: http://www.nietc.org/oregon-history-1990s.html).

January 1, 1993 Ken Fry succeeded retiring Dan Faddis, longtime Training Director of the Metro Joint Apprenticeship Training Center (JATC). He would work closely with Rod Belisle, the assistant director of JATC in attracting and retaining women and minorities among the large numbers of people applying to the apprenticeship program. By 1994, they had a pool of 714 applicants, of which 9.8% were female and 17.2%, minorities. Space was a problem. The joint NECA/IBEW committee that oversaw JATC quit using a standard aptitude test that year and approved a new sexual harassment policy (Ken Fry; also, NIETC website: http://www.nietc. org/oregon-history-1990s.html; and “Ron Umail,” Belisle, The Switch, Fall 2008, 5).

1993 Congress passed the Family Medical Leave Act (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009).

October 1993 The IBEW Journal published a photo and article entitled, “NECA/IBEW And Square D Restore Power After Explosion,” in the November 1993 issue, page 38. The story details how four large, 3000-amp main service electrical switch boards were lifted by helicopter to the top of the 10-story Parkside Center in Portland, and dropped neatly through a hole six feet wide by six feet across. Union electricians from IBEW Local 48, hired by McCoy Electric Co., installed the 1,600 to 1,800 pound units into the top level (HVAC area) above the 10-story building to replace a blown up system.

Foreman Chuck Schuurmans of Oregon Electric Construction at the OHSU Biomedical Center #18

1994 The IBEW International established a new database for the analysis and approval of labor agreements at union locals nationwide. One year later, the International would conduct its first nationwide opinion poll of the rank-and-file (IBEW “Carrying the IBEW Dream into the 21st Century”).

1994 Dr. Bernard Flaherty, professor emeritus of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, conducted his first Partnering Seminar for NECA/IBEW Local 48 in Portland. His system of mutually beneficial conflict resolution inculcated among both labor and management the concepts of mutual gains negotiating with practical, hands-on exercises to avoid conflict and increase market share. Prof. Flaherty’s Partnering Seminar proved so popular that NECA/IBEW Local 48 would continue the program for many years; and National NECA and International IBEW would both adopt it for locals and chapters nationwide (NECA/IBEW “Open Line” December/January 1998/1999, p. 1, 3). Portland’s School District embarked on a seven-year, $20 million program to retrofit 126 buildings with advanced lighting and energy efficiency improvements (Finnemore 1). Intel expanded its operations in Washington County with construction of a $705

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million Aloha project, the first phase that could lead to future expansion of its microprocessor design and production facilities in Hillsboro (Goldfield 1). NECA/IBEW Local 48 replaced the old, troublesome electrical system at the laboratories of the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children with three separate new systems that ensure against loss of critical data because of “dirty power” – spikes, surges and improper flow of electricity. NECA contractor McCoy Electric managed the power quality upgrade (“NECA/IBEW Electrical Contractor Helps International Research Team.” Portland: The Portland Observer. April 13, 1994).

1996 For the first time, the IBEW International conducted voting at its convention electronically (IBEW “Carrying the IBEW Dream into the 21st Century”). Gerald Bruce was elected business manager of IBEW Local 48, succeeding Edward L. Barnes. Bruce would serve to 2000. “Jerry Bruce always said, “You know it’s easy to say ‘No’ because you don’t have to do anything. But when you say ‘Yes’ you’re committed to getting something done. That’s hard work. ‘No’ is you walk away and forget it. You don’t have to do anything. There’s no commitment to it. But when you say ‘Yes,’ then you have to sit down and do the hard work.” Timothy J. Gauthier Executive Manager Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA McCoy Electric Company installs 1,600 pound units on the top level of the Parkside Center in Portland #19

Intel Corporation contractors including a small army of electricians completed their work and the company opened its Fab 20 computer chip manufacturing plans at the campus near Hillsboro Stadium. The chip factory is the first of four that Intel will build, making it the largest employer of NECA/IBEW Local 48 electricians in the region.

September 1998 Portland completed the five-year, $963 million Metropolitan Area Express (MAX) light-rail masstransportation project with the line extension westward to Hillsboro. The MAX system’s west side tunnel is the deepest transit station in North America (Tri-County Metropolitan – TriMet – Transportation District of Oregon. Web September 2012: http://trimet.org/pdfs/history/railfactsheet-westside.pdf).

1998 NECA/IBEW Local 48 invests $6 million in a new Electrical Training Center to house the apprenticeship and journeymen continuing education programs, and conduct research and development in the emergent fields of alternative power generation and distribution, high technology installations, netzero building construction and LEED certified green building, electric vehicle recharging, and advanced computer and telecommunications installation. The new facility, the most advanced facility of its type in the nation, was constructed at 16021 NE Airport Way, adjacent to IBEW Local 48’s offices and union hall.

1999

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NECA/IBEW Local 48 expanded the labor-management “Partnering Seminar,” conducted since 1994 by Dr. Bernard Flaherty, to include 300 electrical apprentices at the newly-opened NECA/IBEW Electrical Training Center (NIETC). Dr. Flaherty said that the market recovery implemented by the NECA/IBEW Local 48 partnership 10 years earlier were working. The NECA/IBEW approach appealed to customers because of labor and management’s “cooperative, problem-solving approach, and the most progressive kind of attitude” (NECA/IBEW “Open Line” December/January 1998/1999, p. 1, 3).


“You are the future of this industry. What you do and what you achieve will become the legacy you pass on when you’re gone.” “Partnering Seminar” introductory remarks Jerry Bruce Business Manager IBEW Local 48 (NECA/IBEW “Open Line” December/January 1998/1999, p. 1)

November 1999 The U.S. Internal Revenue Service approved NECA/IBEW Local 48’s Supplemental Flexible Benefits Program. The “Flex Plan” would be administered by the Harrison Electrical Workers Trust Fund, which itself was established by the labor-management partnership back in 1955. Perhaps unique in the United States, the Flex Plan would provide NECA/IBEW participants and their dependents with a variety of benefits that take advantage of favorable tax rules, enabling them to avoid paying federal and state income tax. Under the program, employers would be allowed to contribute an amount for each hour worked by an employee to the Flex Plan. The employee could use the contribution for wage replacement, health benefits, groupterm life insurance benefits and dependent care reimbursement benefits. The IRS ruling enabled employees to roll over unexpended contributions to the next year (Miller email October 1, 2012; also Miller, A&I, Historical Document 9-2012, September 26, 2012).

Flex Plan Participation 2008 2009 2010 2011 Jan-Jul 2012 Contributions $5.3 million $4.5 million $3.9 million $4.7 million $4.1 million Distributions $4.3 million $4.8 million $4.6 million $3.9 million $1.9 million Participants 4,563 4,452 4,226 4,432 4,890 “We actually went to the IRS and negotiated directly – probably in the mid 1990s. We had written a program, sent it in for their approval, got denied on several different points. So myself and Jerry Bruce as the (Local 48) business manager . . . we went and met with the IRS, with seven different IRS agents, negotiated changes to make them happy, and walked out of there at the end of the day with a program that they would accept. “They (IRS) gave us a written authorization we could move forward. But a year later, they said they’d never approve another one of these again, because it went too far. At the time, even Congress had not passed these types of (cafeteria) plans. Usually it’s a spend-it-or-lose-it. Ours, you can carry over. You can use it for wage replacement, unemployment, worker’s comp; or dependent care; or medical reimbursement if you have to pay 20% of your cost, or things that aren’t covered by the health plan but approved by IRS. “So, it’s a well-funded program now. We negotiated it. A&I administers it. It’s in our health care book. Credit, I’m going to say, Jerry Bruce. Yeah, how interesting.” Timothy J. Gauthier Executive Manager Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA NECA/IBEW Local 48 funded new light fixtures illuminating the ornamental tile work of the Hollywood Theatre through a grant from the Barnes Labor Management Cooperation Committee. McCoy Electric, which specializes in historic preservation work, provided the manpower for the nighttime facelift of the landmark theatre (“Hollywood Façade Shines Once More.” Portland: Hollywood Theatre News, published by the Oregon Film & Video Foundation, Vol. 3, Issue 1. March 1999, p 1).

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EDUCATION, DIVERSITY, TECHNOLOGY

Oregon Census 3,421,399

2000S

2000 Keith Edwards was elected Business Manager of IBEW Local 48 (IBEW Local 48 website). An IBEW member since age 20, he was the first African American to lead an IBEW inside union local in the nation. Three years later, he would win an appointment to the position of Ninth District IBEW International Representative. “Local 48 has been able to achieve great things for its members and the community because of labor’s willingness to be a good partner with management contractors. It comes from getting along and understanding we are all in the boat together. I can’t sink the boat – management can’t sink the boat. If I sink it, we are all going to sink together. So, that’s part of the legacy and history of this local union. We’ve really done some great things together, and really, we’ve been a model . . . for labor-management cooperation throughout business.” Keith Edwards Ninth District International Representative International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (Vimeo: “What Is Unionism?” IBEW Local Union 48. http://vimeo.com/28409107)

March 2001 Recession. Duration: 8 months (National Bureau of Economic Research).

November 2001 Recovery. Duration: 73 months (National Bureau of Economic Research).

2002 Dan Gardner, a third-generation journeyman electrician and longtime member of IBEW Local 48, was elected to the officially nonpartisan position of Oregon Commissioner of Labor and Industries, succeeding Jack Roberts. Before joining state government, Gardner worked as an electrician for 28 years and served as vice-president of Local 48. Gardner served in the Oregon House of Representatives from 1996 to 2002. He served as Assistant Democratic Leader during the 1999 session, and was unanimously chosen as House Democratic Leader in 2000. Gardner’s election was preceded by years of staff reductions necessitated by state budget cuts and attempts to transfer or consolidate many of the agency’s functions. Gardner targeted certain areas for particularly vigorous oversight and enforcement and simultaneously attempted to maintain adequate funding to enable BOLI to continue providing basic services to all Oregonians. In 2006, colleagues across the nation elected Gardner secretary/treasurer of the National Association of Government Labor Officials (NAGLO), a professional association comprised of the chief labor officials of each state (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009).

2003 Grant Zadow was appointed business manager of IBEW Local 48, succeeding Keith Edwards who accepted a position as International Representative of the Ninth District of IBEW. IBEW international’s organizing efforts are restructured and combined as Membership Development Department (Web September 2012: IBEW “Carrying the IBEW Dream into the 21st Century”). Heil Electric was hired under a $1.2 million contract to renovate electrical infrastructure and 60


replace outdated wiring that had been causing problems with the operations of both the Burnside and Morrison bridges. Traffic gates were replaced, and old submarine cable removed from service. As part of the rehabilitation, Heil also removed seven tons of old equipment on Burnside Bridge alone. They installed computerized touchscreens and a radio communications system for remote control of the bridge machinery. Some 15,000 feet of fiber optic cable was laid under the Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade, enabling both bridges to be controlled from the same remote site of the Multnomah County Bridge Office (Stan Heil phonecon, October 2, 2012; also, Wortman 49-50, 56).

2004 Barry Mitchell was elected business manager of IBEW Local 48. He would serve until 2007.

2005 IBEW International moved its Headquarters to 900 Seventh St., N.W., Washington, D.C. (Web September 2012: IBEW “Carrying the IBEW Dream into the 21st Century”).

2006 IBEW Local 48 journeyman electrician Dan Gardner was re-elected to his second four-year term as Oregon Labor Commissioner (BOLI Administrative Overview, March 2009). He would resign 15 months later, in April 2008, in order to take a legislative and policy job as one of two lobbyists in the Political/Legislative Affairs Department representing the interests of the 700,000 American workers in IBEW International in Washington, D.C. The IBEW International had previously hired other Local 48 union leaders to work in the national office, including three former business managers, Herman Teeple in 1971, his son Greg in 1996, and Keith Edwards in 2003.

December 2007 IBEW Local 48 elected Clif Davis business manager, a position he served in to 2013. The Great Recession began, slowly at first, during the final quarter of 2007. It would gain momentum in fall of 2008. People’s confidence would erode progressively through 2008 – an election year full of political and economic tumult. Barack Obama would win the election. Five months after his inauguration, Oregon’s economy like that of the nation would hit bottom, in June 2009 (National Bureau of Economic Research).

August 2008 Green Building This looks to me like Green Building, but I don’t know what or when. #20

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) declared the “net-zero” revolution. DOE’s objective, by 2025, was to make commonplace in America the construction of homes, offices and industrial plants that produce all the energy that their occupants use during the year, if not more. The battle strategy for NetZero Energy Building was outlined in the federal Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The captains and the foot soldiers leading the charge would be the LEED certified architects and the “green” building trades. In the vanguard would be a small army of highly skilled and educated electricians in emerging fields of energy-saving building design, installation of revolutionary heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment, energy-efficient lighting and appliances. Both NECA and IBEW – and their jointly operated Electrical Training Center – foresaw a great opportunity for their industry.

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“This creates opportunities for electricians. Integrated systems are much more complex with a greater reliance upon technology and communication devices that monitor not only power generation, but the appropriate time allocation for uses of this generation. This has the potential of a complete reworking of the structural wiring in a building or a simple installation of a home energy management system. A forward-looking electrician would do well to keep a close eye on this and begin training in these fields now. Such investment should pay dividends for years to come.” Clif Davis Business Manager IBEW Local 48 (“Net Return” by Clif Davis. The Switch, Spring 2011, 3)

“Zero-energy design departs significantly from conventional construction practice. Successful zeroenergy building designers typically combine time-tested, passive solar or natural conditioning principles . . . Sunlight and solar heat, prevailing breezes and the cool earth below a building can provide day lighting and stable indoor temperatures with minimal mechanical means . . . The heating and cooling loads are lowered by using high efficiency equipment, added insulation, high efficiency windows, natural ventilation and other techniques . . . Night time illumination is typically done with fluorescent and LED lighting that use one-third or less power than incandescent lights without adding unwanted heat . . . Miscellaneous electric loads can be lessened by choosing efficient appliances and minimizing phantom loads or standby power . . . Today’s advanced computer models can show the efficacy of engineering design decisions.” Timothy J. Gauthier Executive Manager Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA (“Zero Energy Building” by Tim Gauthier. The Switch, Spring 2011, 4)

2009 Rod Belisle succeeded Ken Fry who retired as training director of the jointly managed NECA/IBEW Electrical Training Center (Ken Fry, NIETC website. Web September 2012: http://www.nietc.org/oregon-history-1990s.html; also, “Ron Umail named Assistant Training Director – Rod’s Corner.” The Switch, Fall 2008. Web September 2012: http:// www.necaibew48.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/switch-fall-2008.pdf).

June 2009 The Great Recession ended. Oregon unemployment, typically higher than the U.S., peaked in May and June at 11.6%. Slowly, the state and the nation started to emerge from the Great Recession (National Bureau of Economic Research). Recovery would be stymied by weak job growth, and tepid construction and manufacturing through 2013. The exception will be Intel Corporation’s expansion of its operations on six campuses in Washington County capped by the completion, in 2013, of construction of the fabrication facility, D1X, at the Ronler Acres Campus in Hillsboro. More than 2,000 Local 48 electricians will work on that project, one of the largest in the United States.

October 27 The Daily Journal of Commerce gave NECA contractor O’Neill Electric its first ever Minority Contractor Award. The newspaper also recognized O’Neill Electric for “Most Contracts Award,” in the $500,000–$2 million range, and its “People’s Choice” award. Maurice Rahming, a journeyman electrician, and his wife Ali O’Neill started O’Neill Electric in 1998, and today, employ 54 people from their Southwest Portland office. O’Neill specialized in Green Building construction projects, including installations of photovoltaic systems at City of Portland fire stations and for the USDA 62


Forest Service, as well as electrical contracting for Mercy Corp’s world headquarters, Bonneville Dam spillway and distribution improvements and several projects at the Portland VA Medical Center (“O’Neill Electric – Contractor & Journeyman Spotlights.” The Switch, Winter/2009-2010, page 4. Web September 2012: http://www.necaibew48.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/theswitch_winter_2009_2010.pdf).

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NECA/IBEW EMBRACE ELECTRIC FUTURE Oregon Census 3,831,074

2010 & TODAY

August 5, 2010 Hughes Electrical Contractors installed the first public, “quick-charge” station for electric vehicles in North America, in the parking garage of Portland General Electric’s World Trade Center at 121 SW Salmon St. in Portland (“Hughes Electrical,” The Switch, Winter 2010, pages 8-9). Recharging the lithium-ion batteries of an all-electric Nissan Leaf to 80% of full strength will only take 20 to 30 minutes. The event signaled a “coming-of-age” for electric vehicles in Oregon. In addition to Hughes, other members of NECA, including Tice Electric, E C Company, Oregon Electric Group and Cherry City Electric had installed commercial charging stations. West Side Electric and Heil Electric had been certified for new home-charging stations through the Nissan Leaf Program (Gauthier, “Oregon Electricians,” The Switch, Winter 2010, page 3). 3D Electrical, ABC Electric, Cherry City Electric, McCoy Electric, Oregon Electric Group, Pacific Electrical Contractors, Stoner Electric and West Side Electric today, in 2013, are active participants in the Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA’s electric vehicle training program (“Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA EVITP, Participating Contractors.” http://www.orecolneca.org/EVITP.html). “Quick-charging stations are an exciting advancement in our effort to bring electric vehicles to Oregon. By making charging convenient and available for public use, we are telling car manufacturers that Oregon is ready for the next generation of electric vehicles – and we want our state to be a leader in introducing these cars to the rest of the country.” Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski Speaking at the opening of PGE’s quick-charge station August 5, 2010 Portland General Electric (Portland General Electric press release, August 5, 2010: http:// investors.portlandgeneral.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=49694)

October 1, 2010 Retirement of a Labor Icon Longtime Northwest labor leader, elected official and IBEW Local 48 union electrician, Bob Shiprack, retired as president of the Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council. He summarized his outlook for the industry in which he started as an apprentice electrician in 1974. “We’ve improved our numbers in the Union Building trades because we have gotten smarter. We are much more progressive in our relationships with contractors, business leaders and politicians. More than anything else this shows in the quality of today’s training by Union trades apprenticeships. Also, a key factor to our success is the productivity of the local workforce. I consistently receive letters from the large entities that have been building here the last few years commending our work ethics and saying they did not know their project was capable of being done in such short time. Having a good work ethic where we honestly give eight for eight, combined with our higher skills will ensure that we will do just fine. We just need to keep focused on these principles.” Retirement Statement Bob Shiprack President (ret.) 64


Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council (“Retirement of an Icon” by Clif Davis. IBEW Local 48 web: October 1, 2010: http://www.ibew48.com/?zone=/ unionactive/private_view_article.cfm&HomeID=176996)

June 11, 2011 Some 300 electricians and their families cheered the Portland Timbers against Colorado Rapids in a soccer game played in the newly renovated Jeld-Wen Field, a project completed just in time for the home season by NECA contractors EC Company and Cherry City Electric (“Family Fun Night, The Switch, Summer 2011, 11).

2012 Faced with cutbacks and closures of some wood products manufacturing facilities in the Kelso-Longview area, IBEW Local 970 merged with Local 48. Since 1924, Local 970 provided a skilled workforce that maintained, supported and upgraded the region’s Columbia River ports and its pulp and paper mills, and saw mills. While international trade remains vital to the region, forest industries suffered, some closed and won’t likely re-open, thus the merger (“Consolidating for the Next Century, The Switch, Winter 2011/12, 1-2). “Mergers are difficult. There can be a feeling of loss for some as they change places of employment or have to deal with new employees or a new employer. I am sure this is true for Local 970 members who are now Local 48 members. Along with the changes, these mergers create opportunities. Both the Oregon Columbia Chapter of NECA and IBEW Local 48 are nationally recognized for innovative thinking, and are prime examples of the success true labormanagement partnering can bring. I am excited about what this opportunity means.” Clif Davis Business Manager IBEW Local 48 (Davis, “IBEW Local 48 Welcomes.” The Switch, Winter 2011/12, 4)

April 10, 2012 Construction is completed and the new LEED Gold certified East Multnomah County Courthouse in the Rockwood neighborhood of Gresham was dedicated (“East County Courthouse.” The Switch, Spring 2012, 1).

September 15, 2012 Retired IBEW Local 48 Business Manager Ed Barnes danced a foxtrot with Kaylyn Haynes to raise $25,000 and win the award as top individual fundraiser for the Fort Vancouver National Trust. Overall, $115,000 was raised in the seventh annual “Dancing with the Local Stars” benefit. This year was the first time that someone from organized labor was invited to participate in the mostly business affair. Barnes credited donors from among the 18,000 people who attended the annual Labor Day picnic at Oaks Park two weeks earlier. He also won the award for “Best Entrance” after current Local 48 Business Manager Clif Davis and his wife Theresa chauffeured Barnes to the Air Museum in Local 48’s Chevy Volt electric car. “I did it to let the business world know that union members are out there supporting their communities too.” Ed Barnes Business Manager (retired) IBEW Local 48 (Files: IBEW Local 48) 65


December 2012 In a tradition dating back to 1988, NECA/IBEW Local 48 once again lit up The Grotto’s Festival of Lights with their installation of more than 100,000 lights, animated lighting and narrated fiberoptic displays. More than 55,000 people visited The Grotto during the Christmas holidays (“NECA and IBEW,” The Open Line, December/January 1998/1999, p 3). To keep costs down, the NECA/ IBEW crew installed energy-efficient LED bulbs to illuminate the world renown, 62-acre Catholic shrine and botanical garden that features a life-size marble replica of Michelangelo’s Pietà in a rock cave carved into the base of a 110-foot cliff. Typical of the volunteers the past few years were Rose City Electric employee, Dave Manning, and Heil Electric retiree, Steve Martell. “It’s important that the wiring is done right. It is such a big event that is held outside in the rain. I take responsibility for making sure the Grotto is both a beautiful and safe experience for the visitors. Steve Martell Local 48 Electrician (ret.) Heil Electric “There’s a sense of camaraderie. Because people move from company to company and through the union, there are a lot of people that I only see at the Grotto and it’s nice to reconnect.” Dave Manning Local 48 Electrician Rose City Electric (“Contractor and Journeyman Spotlights.” The Switch, Spring 2008, p 3)

2013 NECA contractors and 2,000 members of IBEW Local 48 completed electrical systems construction of Intel Corporation’s newest plant, the development fabrication facility, D1X, at the Ronler Acres Campus in Hillsboro. The project, which also attracted hundreds of IBEW “travelers” from around the nation, was one of the largest construction projects in the United States. Prior to D1X, Intel had since 1974 invested more than $20 billion in six different campuses west of Portland in Washington County. Intel’s concentration of high technology semiconductor research and manufacturing is the largest and most comprehensive such site in the world. With 16,000 employees, it is the largest private employer in the state and anchors Oregon’s economy (Intel Corporation website. Web: September 2012).

Construction of Intel’s DX1 fabrication facility in Hillsboro, OR. #21

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SECTION III

Works Cited The following list of works cited is divided into chapters: Books, Articles and Reports, Internet Sources, Official Documents, Internal Documents (unpublished). The list includes works consulted but not used in the exhibit, “100 years of a Power Partnership erected in May 2013 in the Oregon Museum. Names of authors or titles where the author it missing are listed alphabetically.

Books: Abbott, Carl. Greater Portland – Urban Life and Landscape in the Pacific Northwest. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. - - -. Portland Gateway To The Northwest. Northridge, California: Windsor Publications, Inc., 1985. - - -. Portland In Three Centuries – The Place and the People. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2011. - - -. The Great Extravaganza – Portland and the Lewis and Clark Exposition. Portland: Oregon Historical Society, 1981. Arietta-Walden, Michael, ed. Staff of The Oregonian. The Oregon Story 1850-2000. (Text and book compilation by The Oregonian.) Portland, Oregon: Graphic Arts Center Publishing, imprint of Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company, 2000. Bronfenbrenner, Kate, Rudolph A. Oswald, Sheldon Friedman, Richard W. Hurd and Ronald L. Seeber, editors. Organizing to Win – New Research on Union Strategies. (Chapter 18 “Creating an Organizing Culture in Today’s Building and Construction Trades: A Case Study of IBEW Local 46,” by Janet Lewis and Bill Mirand.) Ithaca and London: ILR Press, an imprint of Cornell University Press, 1998. Buchanan, Roger B. Dock Strike: History of the 1934 Waterfront Strike in Portland, Oregon. Everett, Wash.: Working Press, 1975. Challenger, Melanie. On Extinction – How We Became Estranged from Nature. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2012. del Mar, David Peterson. Oregon’s Promise – An Interpretive History. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 2003. Dodds, Gordon B., Craig E. Wollner, with Marshall M. Lee. The Silicon Forest. Portland: Oregon Historical Society Press, 1990. Engeman, Richard H. The Oregon Companion. Portland: Timber Press, 2009. Fuller, Tom, and Art Arye. Oregon At Work 1859-2009. (Foreword by Governor Ted Kulongoski.) Portland, Oregon: Ooligan Press, imprint of Portland State University, 2009. Gragg, Randy, ed. Where the Revolution Began – Lawrence and Anna Halprin and the Reinvention of Public Space. (With essays by Randy Gragg, Janice Ross and John Beardsley, and photographs by Susan Seubert.) Washington, D.C.: Spacemaker Press, 2009. Hirt, Paul W. The Wired Northwest – The History of Electric Power 1870s-1970s. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2012. Kaiser Industries Corporation. The Kaiser Story. Oakland, California: Kaiser Industries Corporation, 1968. Lansing, Jewel and Fred Leeson. Multnomah – The Tumultuous Story of Oregon’s Most Populous County. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2012. MacColl, E. Kimbark. The Growth of the City: Power and Politics in Portland, Oregon 1915 to 1950. Portland: Georgian Press, 1979. 67


MacColl, E. Kimbark. Merchants, Money and Power – The Portland Establishment 1843-1913. Portland: Georgian Press, 1988. McClelland, John Jr. Wobbly War – The Centralia Story. (Foreward by Richard Maxwell Brown, Beekman Professor of Northwest and Pacific History, University of Oregon.) Tacoma, Washington: Washington State Historical Society, 1987. McLagan, Elizabeth. A Peculiar Paradise – A History of Blacks in Oregon, 1788-1940. Portland, Oregon: Georgian Press Company, 1980. Mitchell, Sidney Alexander. S.Z. Mitchell and the Electrical Industry. New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1960. National Fire Protective Association. National Electrical Code 1959 Tables and Diagrams. Boston: National Electrical Contractors Association, 1959. Nye, David E. Electrifying America – Social Meanings of a New Technology. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1992. Palladino, Grace. Dreams of Dignity, Workers of Vision – A History of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 1991. Sanger, S.L. with Craig Wollner, ed. Working on the Bomb – An Oral History of WWII Hanford. Portland: Continuing Education Press, Portland State University, 1995. State Industrial Accident Commission (SIAC). First Annual Report of the State Industrial Accident Commission for the Year Ending June 30, 1915, Including also the Period of Organization from November 5, 1913, to June 30, 1914. Workmen’s Compensation Law. Salem, Oregon: State Printing Department, 1915. State Industrial Accident Commission (SIAC). Part I Basic Safety Code for the State of Oregon. Salem, Oregon: State Printing Department, 1949. (Bob Gotham Collection) Thieblot, Armand J. Job Targeting and Market Recovery Practices of Construction Unions: Their Apparent and Hidden Costs. (Labor Relations and Public Policy Series No. 38 with Introduction by James T. Bennett, Director, The John M. Olin Institute. Chapter II describes “Mechanics of Job Targeting” using as a case study IBEW Local 48 in the Portland, Oregon, area.) Fairfax, Virginia: George Mason University, Department of Economics MSN 3G4, 2008. Tollefson, Gene. BPA & The Struggle for Power at Cost. (50th Anniversary Edition, Bonneville Power Administration, 1937-1987) Portland: Bonneville Power Administration, 1987. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bulletin of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics No. 439, Handbook of Labor Statistics. (For references to numbers of electricians per million of population in 1900 (667), 1910 (1,307) and 1920 (2,014), see pages 419 and 421.) Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1926. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bulletin of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics No. 424, Building Permits in the Principal Cities of the United starts in 1925. (For statistical analysis, 9-11, Portland residential and commercial construction, 37, 51, 65) Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1926. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bulletin of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics No. 420, Handbook of American Trade-Unions. (Contains on pages 23-25 a lengthy description of IBEW, jurisdiction of inside electrical workers, local organizations in Oregon (5), the National Council on Industrial Relations, and a reference to NECA as the National Association of Electrical Employers.) Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1926. Villard, Henry. Memoirs of Henry Villard – Journalist and Financier 1835-1900. (Volume I, 1835-1862; Volume II, 68


1863-1900.) Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1904.

Wack, Kevin. Forging Endurance: The Klein Tools Story. Old Saybrook, Connecticut: Greenwich Publishing Group, 2008. Wollner, Craig E. The City Builders – One Hundred Years of Union Carpentry in Portland, Oregon 1883-1983. Portland: The Oregon Historical Society, 1990. - - -. Electrifying Eden – Portland General Electric 1889-1965. Portland: Oregon Historical Society Press, 1990. - - -, W. Tracy Dillon, eds. A Richer Harvest – An Anthology of Work in the PacificNorthwest. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1999. Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Works Projects Administration in the State of Oregon, compilation. Oregon End of the Trail. (Sponsored by the Oregon State Board of Control as part of the American Guide Series. Introduction by Oregon Governor Charles A. Sprague.) Portland, Oregon: Binfords & Mort, 1940. Wortman, Sharon Wood with Ed Wortman. The Portland Bridge Book. Portland, Oregon: Urban Adventure Press, 2006.

Published Articles and Reports: Articles and the periodicals in which they were published are listed alphabetically by author, or by title if no author is listed. Articles and reports reprinted online by Google Books Search are included in the list below. Allison, L.R.W. “Street Illuminating Arches, Portland, Ore.” Engineering News, Vol. 73. No. 13. New York: Hill Publishing Co., April 1, 1915. Google Book Search. Web. September 2012. “Among the Contractors.” (Reference to Jagger-Sroufe’s ship contract with Pacific Marine Iron Works, Portland, Oregon.) Electrical Review, Vol. 73, No. 11. Chicago: International Trade Press, Inc., September 14, 1918. Google Book Search. Web. September 2012. “Among the Contractors.” (Reference to Beaver Electric Co.’s contracts for small motors and lighting in the shops of McDougall & Overmire, the Jeffery Aeroplane Co., and the new aeroplane addition of the Nicolai Door Co.; and motors at the new works of Western Foundry Co., to operate machines and a 4-ton electric crane.) Electrical Review, Vol. 73, No. 14. Chicago: International Trade Press, Inc., October 5, 1913. Google Book Search. Web. September 2012. Barnes, Edward L., Acting P.S. “Portland Local Has Bang-up Golden Jubilee.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal, Vol. 63, No. 4. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, April 1964. Bauder, Harold, P.S. “Portland Local Had A Busy Spring.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal, Vol. 61. No. 7. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, July-August 1962. Bauder, Harold, P.S. “Labor Leader “Hub” Harrison Retires.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal, Vol. 62. No. 8. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, September 1963. Bauder, Harold, P.S. “Summary of Excellent Health and Welfare Plan.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal, Vol. 62, No. 7. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, August 1963. Brooks, D.B., press secretary. “Portland No. 317.” The Electrical Worker. Springfield, Ill.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, March 1908, p 181. Belt, Wm. S. “L.U. No. 48, Portland, Oreg.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, February 1935. Bigelow, William, and Norman Diamond. “Agitate, Educate, Organize: 69


Portland, 1934.” Portland: Oregon Historical Quarterly 89:1, Spring 1988.

Bourne, Fred L., President, Frank Manin, Secretary. “L.U. No. 48, Portland, Ore.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, May 1917. Bourne, F.L., Press Secretary. “L.U. No. 48, Portland, Ore.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, June 1917. “Business in the Pacific Northwest.” Journal of Electricity, Power and Gas, Vol. 33, No. 8. San Francisco: Technical Publishing Co., August 22, 1914. Google Book Search. Web. September 2012. Butte, C.F. “Electrical Contractors’ Department – Elements of Successful Contracting.” Journal of Electricity, Power and Gas, Vol. 33, No. 10. San Francisco: Technical Publishing Co., September 5, 1914. Google Book Search. Web. September 2012. “Carr recognized as outstanding electrician.” Portland: Northwest Labor Press. December 4, 1987. “Cash Sales of Electric Appliances Have Increased in Portland.” Electrical Review, Vol. 73, No. 11. Chicago: International Trade Press, Inc., September 14, 1918. Google Book Search. Web. August 2012. “Conference Club Discusses Financing of Labor Board.” (“Labor Board” is the precursor to the Council on Industrial Relations. This article mentions L.K. Comstock, the management side of CIR.) Electrical World, Vol. 77, No. 16. New York: McGraw-Hill Co., April 16, 1921. Google Book Search. Web. September 2012. “Convenient Outlet Campaign Inaugurated in Many Cities – All Branches of Electrical Industry Participating in Educational Movement to Popularize Appliances.” Electrical Review, Vol. 73, No. 10. Chicago: International Trade Press, Inc., September 7, 1918. Google Book Search. Web. September 2012. “Current News and Notes, Associations and Societies.” Electrical World, Vol. 77, No. 24. New York: McGraw-Hill Co., June 11, 1921. Google Book Search. Web. September 2012. Croft, Terrell. “Croft’s Comments on Fishing – Electrical Work on Ships – Rebabbitting Bearings – Pull Boxes – Among Contractors.” (References Jagger-Sroufe Company’s contracts for auxiliary electric plant work on many wooden ships; and for lights and lift motors on a Harrisburg, Oregon, bridge.) Electrical Review, Vol. 73, No. 10. Chicago: International Trade Press, Inc., September 7, 1918. Google Book Search. Web. September 2012. Dalby, Harry W. “L.U. No. 48, Portland, Oreg.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, August 1930. Dalby, Harry W. “L.U. No. 48, Portland, Oreg.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, November 1930. Dalby, Harry W. “L.U. No. 48, Portland, Oreg.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, June 1931. “Directory of Electrical Associations.” Electrical World, Vol. 77, No. 6. New York: McGraw Hill Co., February 5, 1921. Google Book Search. Web. September 2012. Emrick, W.H., business agent. “L.U. No. 48, Portland, Ore.” Chicago: The Electrical Worker. Electrical Review Publishing Co. March 1914. “Electric Floats at Portland.” Journal of Electricity, Power and Gas, Vol. 33, No. 3. San Francisco: Technical Publishing Co., July 18, 1914. Google Book Search. Web. September 2012. 70


“Electrical Contractor-Dealers of Oregon Meet and Discuss Their Problems.” (References to Jagger-Sroufe, NePage McKenny, and others.) Electrical Review, Vol. 73, No. 14. Chicago: International Trade Press, Inc., October 5, 1918. Google Book Search. Web. September 2012. “Electrical Workers Endorse McNulty.” Portland: Portland Labor Press. October 13, 1913. Erwin, J.A. “L.U. No. B-48, Portland, Oreg.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, June 1938. Erwin, -- “L.U. No. B-48, Portland, Oreg.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, January 1939. Erwin, -- “L.U. No. B-48, Portland, Oreg.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, April 1939. “Facing The Future – Must Companies Change To Survive? Must Industries Change To Survive?” Open Line – The Official Labor/Management Publication of the Metro Electrical Training Trust. Vol. 2. Portland: NECA/IBEW. See the Fall 1984 issue, page 2, for a lengthy discussion of labor-management relations. Finnemore, Barry. “Schools in midst of major energy retrofit project.” Portland: Daily Journal of Commerce, August 17, 1994. “Four Apartment Houses Require 127 Electric Ranges.” Electrical Review, Vol. 73, No. 10. Chicago: International Trade Press, Inc., September 7, 1918. Google Book Search. Web. September 2012. Goldfield, Robert. “County gives Intel break; hopes for plant.” Portland: Daily Journal of Commerce, August 17, 1994. Graham, B.H. “L.U. No. 48, Portland, Oreg.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, February 1928. Graham, B.H. “L.U. No. 48, Portland, Ore.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, April 1928. Graham, B.H. “L.U. No. 48, Portland, Oreg.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, July 1928. Graham, B.H. “L.U. No. 48, Portland, Oreg.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, November 1928. Grasser, L.C., International IBEW Vice President. “Our Fight In the City of Portland.” The Electrical Worker, May 1913, p 135; and “Our Pacific Coast Trip,” The Electrical Worker, May 1913, p 931). Chicago: Electrical Review Publishing Co., May 1913. Harrison, H.H., B.M. “Local 48 Wires Skyline Spectacular.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, August 1960. “Herman Teeple retires Oct. 31.” Portland: Northwest Labor Press. December 4, 1987. “Heroics save workmate’s life.” Portland: Northwest Labor Press. April 15, 1988. 71


“Hollywood Façade Shines Once More.” Portland: Hollywood Theatre News, published by the Oregon Film & Video Foundation, Vol. 3, Issue 1. March 1999. “NECA/IBEW Partners In Progress At Camas: A Continuing Commitment.” Open Line – The Official Labor/Management Publication of the Metro Electrical Training Trust. Vol. 2. Portland: NECA/IBEW, fall 1984. On page 1 in this issue is a republication of a letter from William Creson, Chairman of the Board at Crown Z, commending NECA/IBEW and a photo of Camas Crown Z’s “Roaring 20.” Kellas, Eldon, P.S. “Represent Local in Portland Rose Festival.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, December 1955. “Labor Day Plans Are Completed.” Portland, Oregon: Portland Labor Press, Tuesday, September 4, 1908. Lake, J.H. “L.U. No. 48, Portland, Oreg.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, July 1933. Lake, J.H., Business Manager “L.U. Nos. 48 and 125, Portland, Oreg.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, November 1933. “Louis Kossuth Comstock – Originator of the Conference Club idea and leader in the movement to make electrical contracting a bigger, better and more profitable profession.” Electrical World, Vol. 77, No. 9. New York: McGraw-Hill Co., February 26, 1921. Google Book Search. Web. September 2012. “Market Recovery pays dividends for members.” Portland: Northwest Labor Press. February 19, 1988. Marshall, A. Jackson. “Electric Vehicles – Speeds and Damaged Roads – Electric Crane Tractor Performance – Electric Taxicabs – Truck Success in New York – Long Distance Traveling Via Electric Vehicles.” Electrical Review, Vol. 73, No. 11. Chicago: International Trade Press, Inc., September 14, 1918. Google Book Search. Web. August 2012. “Members of Local Union 48, I.B.E.W., Portland, Oregon, Now With the Rainbow Division in France.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, January 1918. “Morrison Bridge lights up.” Portland: Northwest Labor Press. December 4, 1987. “Morrison Bridge lighting project wins sectional award.” Portland: Northwest Labor Press. April 15, 1988. Munk, Michael. “Portland’s ‘Silk Stocking Mob’: The Citizens Emergency League in the 1934 Maritime Strike.” Seattle: Pacific Northwest Quarterly 91:3 (Summer 2000), 150-161. “NECA/IBEW And Square D Restore Power After Explosion.” Washington, D.C.: IBEW Journal. October 1993. “NECA and IBEW Local 48 Bring Good Cheer By Supporting Portland Holiday Events.” Portland: The Open Line, newsletter of NECA/IBEW Local 48. December/January 1998/1999. “NECA/IBEW Electrical Contractor Helps International Research Team.” Portland: The Portland Observer. April 13, 1994. “NECA/IBEW Partners In Progress At Camas: A Continuing Commitment.” Open Line – The Official Labor/Management Publication of the Metro Electrical Training Trust. Vol. 2. Portland: NECA/IBEW. Fall 1984, p 1. 72


“NECA/IBEW Meets The Silver Screen.” Open Line – The Official Labor/Management Publication of the Metro Electrical Training Trust. Vol. 2. Portland: NECA/IBEW. Fall 1984, p 4. “New Transmission Line at Portland, Ore.” (Reference to the line from Portland to Vancouver holding possibilities for after-war development.) Electrical Review, Vol. 73, No. 16. Chicago: International Trade Press, Inc., October 19, 1918. Google Book Search. Web. August 2012. Oregonian, The. John D.M. (“Mud”) Crockwell is referenced in sundry staff-written articles. The Oregonian editorialized against Crockwell and other labor leaders for their “impudence,” advocating for a political candidate as somehow a violation of labor unionism (Oregonian, September 13, 1908, p 6). His election by Portland’s Central Labor Council [Building Trades Council] to a six-month term as one of its reading clerks and as a delegate to the Ministerial Association is referenced in the Oregonian, July 31, 1909, p 3. Crockwell is referenced as being born in Salt Lake City in 1879 (Oregonian, March 7, 1954, p 18), moving to Portland between 1903 and 1905 (Oregonian, April 27, 1940, p 16), and immediately finding work as a union electrician and member of IBEW Local 317. His involvement in the American Federation of Labor as both a union organizer and event coordinator (Labor Day festivities), and as business manager of the electricians’ union is referenced in the Oregonian, April 27, 1940, p 16. For the 1905 date and the business manager reference, see Oregonian, April 4, 1946, p 13. “A Paramount Project.” Portland: Oregon Labor Press. August 3, 1984. “Portland woman makes IBEW pension history.” Portland: Northwest Labor Press. August 10, 1962. “The real McCoy wings it with Boeing.” Portland: Northwest Labor Press. June 16, 1989. Ream, F.C., B.A. “L.U. No. 48, Portland, Oregon.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, October 1921. Ream, F.C., B.A. “L.U. No. 48, Portland, Oreg.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, May 1930. Society for Electrical Development. Advertisement. “Do It Electrically – And You Use the Minimum Amount of Coal,” a streetcar card prepared for use in the Society’s advertising campaign. Electrical Review, Vol. 73, No. 10. Chicago: International Trade Press, Inc., September 7, 1918. Google Book Search. Web. September 2012. Sturtevant, Henry, Electrical Engineer, L.U. No. 48. “Mary Had a Little Lamb, in Portland, Too.” The Electrical Workers’ Journal. Washington, D.C.: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. November 1946. Tahan, Mary R. “Edison Pension Trust, 21st Anniversary 1970-1991,” Portland: William C. Earhart Co., 1991. “Trade Notes.” Journal of Electricity, Power and Gas, Vol. 33, No. 3. San Francisco: Technical Publishing Co., January 17, 1914. Google Book Search. Web. September 2012. “John R. Tomlinson.” Electrical Review and Western Electrician, Vol. LXIV, No. 26. Chicago: Electrical Review Publishing Co., June 27, 1914. See page 1289 for excellent feature on John R. Tomlinson, first elected leader of NECA predecessor organization. Google Book Search. Web. September 2012. “Vancouver Negro Hired In Oregon to Be Deputy Commissioner of Labor.” Portland: The Oregonian. September 10, 1952. Weber, F.D. “Modern Fixture Factory at Portland.” Journal of Electricity, Power and Gas, Vol. 33, No. 8. 73


San Francisco: Technical Publishing Co., August 22, 1914. Google Book Search. Web. August 2012.

Official Documents: U.S. District Court’s Decision in Phoenix Electric Company et al. v. National Electrical Contractors Association et al., 861 F.Supp. 1498 (D. Ore. 1994). U.S. Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit Decision in Phoenix Electric Company et al. v. National Electrical Contractors Association et al., 81 F.3d 858, Argued and submitted Sept. 12, 1995. Decided April 15, 1996. No. 94-35522. U.S. Bureau of Census. Resident Population by State: 1900 to 2010. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Bureau of Census, Department of Commerce.

Internet Sources: Internet sources are organized by alphabetical listing of the author. Absent the name of the author, the entry is identified by the title, followed by the page, web-search date and the URL with additional information as might be helpful. (Entries re-published online by Google Books Search are not included below. Rather, they are listed above, as they were originally published, as Articles and Reports.) “50 Years of Progress – Bureau of Labor.” 25th Biennial Report. Salem: State of Oregon Bureau of Labor. Web. September-October 2012. http://www.oregon.gov/boli/docs/BOLI%20History%2050%20Years%20of%20Progress.pdf Alloy Artifacts -- Exploring Ingenuity in Iron. “Utica Drop Forge & Tool Company” Alloy Artifacts – Exploring Ingenuity in Iron (This is a self-proclaimed hobby website with no address or identification.). Web. January 2013. http://home.comcast.net/~alloy-artifacts/. “Barnes Allison Labor Management Cooperation Committee (BALMCC).” Pac/West Communications. Web. February 2013. http://www.pacwestcom.com/work/public-relations/balmcc/. (See also “Email from Tim Gauthier, October 8, 2012, in Internal Documents, below.) Belisle, Rod. “Ron Umail named Assistant Training Director – Rod’s Corner.” The Switch, Fall 2008. Web. February 2013. http://www.necaibew48.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/switch-fall-2008.pdf “Consolidating for the Next Century.” The Switch, Winter 2011-2012, pages 1-2. Web. February 2013. http://www.necaibew48.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/switch-winter-2011-2012.pdf. “Dave Manning and Steve Martell – Contractor and Journeyman Spotlight.” The Switch, Spring 2008, page 3. Web. February 2013. http://www.necaibew48.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/spring-switch-2008.pdf Council on Industrial Relations. “About CIR.” Council on Industrial Relations, Office of the Secretary, 900 Seventh Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20001. (CIR is co-sponsored by the IBEW and NECA.) Web. September 2012. http://www.thecir.org/About.htm “David Trapp – Contractor and Journeyman Spotlight.” The Switch, Winter 2010, page 8. Web. January 2013. http://www.necaibew48.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/040_10_6912_WinterSwitch-FINAL-2.pdf. Davis, Clif. “IBEW Local 48 Welcomes Longview Members.” The Switch, Winter 2011-2012, page 4. Web. December 2012. http://www.necaibew48.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/switch winter-2011-2012.pdf. See also “Consolidating for the Next Century,” same issue, pages 1-2. Davis, Clif. “The Net Return of Net Zero Building.” The Switch, page 3. Web. 74


November 2012. http://www.necaibew48.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/040_11_7023_SpringSwitch-FINAL.pdf

Davis, Clif. “Retirement of an Icon.” IBEW Local 48 website, posted October 1, 2010. Web. December 2012. http://www.ibew48.com/?zone=/unionactive/private_view_article.cfm&HomeID=176996 “East County Courthouse.” The Switch, Spring 2012, page 1. Web. November 2012. http://www.necaibew48.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/6_12_SpringSwitch_FINAL.pdf “Family Fun Night.” The Switch, page 11. Web. January 2013. http://www.necaibew48.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/the-switch-2011-summer.pdf Fry, Ken. “Oregon Apprenticeship 1990s – Growth, A New Training Center, and Day School, 1990-2004.” NECA/IBEW Electrical Training Center. October 11, 2012. Web. November 2012. http://www.nietc.org/oregon-history-1990s.html Gauthier, Tim. “Solar Power and More.” The Switch, Spring 2012, page 3. Web. January 2013. http://www.necaibew48.com/in-the-news/the-switch/ Gauthier, Tim. “Zero Energy Building A Marketing Concept for Electrical Contractors.” The Switch, Spring 2011, page 4. Web. February 2013. http://www.necaibew48.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/040_11_7023_SpringSwitch-FINAL.pdf Gauthier, Tim. “Oregon Electricians Pursue New Market.” The Switch, Winter 2010, page 3. Web. February 2013. http://www.necaibew48.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/040_10_6912_WinterSwitch-FINAL-2.pdf Haneckow, Dan. “Great Light Way (3rd St., Portland).” The Oregon Encyclopedia. Web. September 2012. http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/ “Hughes Electrical Contractors – Contractor Spotlight.” The Switch, Winter 2010, page 9. http://www.necaibew48.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/040_10_6912_WinterSwitch-FINAL-2. pdf. See also “David Trapp – Journeyman Spotlight,” same issue, page 8. Web. February 2013. Intel Corporation. “Intel in Oregon.” Intel Corporation. Web. September 2012 and February 2014. http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/corporate-responsibility/intel-in-oregon.html International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. “Carrying the IBEW Dream into the 21st Century.” (PDF, including Part 1 History of the IBEW and Part 2 Structure of the IBEW, available for downloading on IBEW’s international office’s website.) Web. September 2012. http://www.ibew. org/; see http://www.ibew.org/IBEW/history/Form%20169%20-%20History%20and%20Structure.pdf IBEW and United Workers Federal Credit Union. “How We Got Here” and “IBEW and United Workers FCU Balance Sheet-Condensed, and Income Statement-Condensed.” IBEW and United Workers Federal Credit Union. Web. September 2012. http://www.ibewuwfcu.com/asp/history.asp Jensen, Kimberly. “Women Suffrage in Oregon.” The Oregon Encyclopedia. http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/woman_suffrage_in_oregon/ The Learning Network – Teaching and Learning with The New York Times. “Stock Market Crashes on ‘Black Monday’.” The New York Times. Web. September 2012. http://learning.blogs.nytimes. com/2011/10/19/oct-19-1987-stock-market-crashes-on-black-monday/

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National Electrical Benefit Fund (NEBF). “Fund History.” National Electrical Benefit Fund (NEBF). http://www.nebf.com/nebf/fund_history/ The National Bureau of Economic Research. “U.S. Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions.” Cambridge: The National Bureau of Economic Research. http://www.nber.org/cycles.html NIETC. “Oregon Apprenticeship 1930s – The Beginning 1929-1939.” NECA/IBEW Electrical Training Center. http://www.nietc.org/oregon-history-1930s.html “O’Neill Electric – Contractor & Journeyman Spotlights.” The Switch, Winter/2009-2010, page 4. Web. September 2012. http://www.necaibew48.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/theswitch_winter_2009_2010.pdf “Portland General Electric Opens North America’s First Public-Use Quick-Charge Station for Electric Vehicles in Collaboration with NEC.” Portland General Electric press release; listing contacts Elaina Medina (503-464-8790) Elaina.Medina@pgn.com, and NEC Corporation of America, Helen D’Antoni (631-755-0727), Helen.Dantoni@necam.com. Features Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, comments and photo of him recharging Nissan Leaf. Web. August 5, 2010. http://investors.portlandgeneral.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=496964 “Retirement of an Icon.” IBEW website blog by Clif Davis congratulating Bob Shiprack on his retirement as president of the Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council. Web. October 1, 2010: http://www.ibew48.com/?zone=/unionactive/private_view_article.cfm&HomeID=176996) Shmoop Editorial Team. “History of Labor Unions Timeline of Important Dates.” Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley collaboration: Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. http://www.shmoop.com/history-labor-unions/timeline.html “The Switch.” Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA/IBEW Local 48. Web. Spring 2012. http://www.necaibew48.com/in-the-news/the-switch/ “What Is Unionism?” Keith Edwards, Ninth District International Representative International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, speaking in a Vimeo video. Web. September 2012. http://vimeo.com/28409107.

Internal Documents (unpublished): “50th Anniversary 1943-1993” – NECA Program. Files: NECA, 1993. “75th Diamond Anniversary Memorandum from Edward L. Barnes to the Officers and Members of Local Union 48 and their families active and retired,” dated April 28, 1988. Files: IBEW Local 48. “A New Home for Local 48.” Files: IBEW Local 48. Clothier, John. “Golden Jubilee” remarks by Historian John Clothier, undated but presented at the Sheraton Hotel to 720 NECA/IBEW Local 48 attendees on November 2, 1963. Files: IBEW Local 48. “Cornell-Hart Pension Plan Summary Plan Description.” Portland: A&I Benefit Plan Administrators, Inc., April 1, 2012.

Edison Pension Trust – 21st Anniversary 1970-1991, produced by Mary R. Tahan Advertising Agency, Photographer Jerry LaRocca, Ar

Director Linda Carroll. Portland: Administrative Agent (publishers?), William C. Earhart Co., 1991. From the collection of Max Landon.

Electrical Contractors (directory). Portland: NECA/IBEW Local #48, 1971. Collection: Robert Gotham. 76


Email from Tim Gauthier to Alan Guggenheim. Re: BALMCC. October 8, 2012. EXCEL – Excellence in Construction Through Cooperation, letter dated June 29, 1984, from James D. Fox, director, to Excel Committee Members. EXCEL – Excellence in Construction Through Cooperation, letter dated June 5, 1984, from James D. Fox, director, to Excel Committee Members. “Harrison Electrical Workers Trust Fund.” Files: IBEW Local 48. Harrison, H.H. “Hub”. Letter, dated September 10, 1952, from H.H. Harrison, Local 48 business manager, to J. Scott Milne, International Secretary, IBEW, notifying him of Mark Smith’s appointment to the highest state job ever given to an African-American. Files: IBEW Local 48. “History of Local Union 48, IBEW.” Files: IBEW Local 48. “History of the Oregon-Columbia Chapter, NECA.” Files: NECA, undated. “International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers District No. 9 Pension Plan, Summary Plan Description.” Portland: Joseph H. Herrie & Associates, Inc., April 1, 2011. “Joint Volunteer Projects.” Files: IBEW Local 48. “Joint Labor Management meetings between Oregon Columbia Chapter N.E.C.A. and I.B.E.W Local Union #48.” Prepared statement by Edward L. Barnes, Business Manager-Financial Secretary, undated, unaddressed, with handwritten notes and attached memo, dated 10/12/83, to Claudia Brown from Tim (Gauthier?). Files: IBEW Local 48. “Local Union 48 Past Business Managers; Past Presidents.” Files: IBEW Local 48. “Membership Directory – Oregon-Columbia Chapter National Electrical Contractors Association.” Files: NECA, July 25, 2012. “Metro Training Trust.” Files: IBEW Local 48. Miller, Karen. “Harrison Exhibit info.” A&I Benefit Plan Administrators, Inc. Email, dated September 26, 2012, with attachments: 100th Anniversary Testing Summary; Flex historical data 1999-2012; Historical Data 9-2012; Local 48 Manpower 2011; IRS Private Ruling Revision; IRS Private Ruling. Minutes – NECA Board of Directors meeting, October 10, 1983. Minutes – NECA Board of Directors meeting, December 12, 1983. Minutes – NECA Board of Directors meeting, May 7, 1983. Minutes – NECA Board of Directors meeting, January 9, 1984. Minutes – NECA Board of Directors meeting, June 5, 1984. Minutes – NECA Board of Directors meeting, July 16, 1984. Minutes – NECA Board of Directors meeting, November 11, 1984. 77


Minutes – NECA Board of Directors meeting, May 13, 1985 (contains Addendum to UCA Master Agreement. Minutes – NECA Board of Directors meeting, June 12, 1985. Minutes – NECA Board of Directors meeting, July 8, 1985. Minutes – NECA Board of Directors meeting, July 10, 1985. Minutes – Other NECA board meeting minutes. Files: NECA – unsorted or searched yet -- AG 9/7/2012. Moore, Jack F. Letter, dated March 22, 1988, from Jack F. Moore, International Secretary, to Edward L. Barnes: list of officers of Local 48, since 1926. Files: IBEW Local 48. “Morrison Bridge Lighting Project – Lighting Our Way.” Files: IBEW Local 48.

Open Line. The Official Labor/Management Publication of the Metro Electrical Training Trust, Vol. 2, Fall 1984. “Open Line.” Newsletter of the Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA/IBEW Local 48, Vol. 2, Issue 5, December/January 1998/1999. “Overview of Labor/Management’s Efforts Between Local Union 48, IBEW, and Oregon-Columbia Chapter, NECA.” Portland: NECA/IBEW Local 48, undated. “Past Presidents & Governors.” Files: NECA, 2010. Pettingell, George. Letter, dated September 1, 1939, from George Pettingell on behalf of the “Association” Board of Directors, to all NECA contractor subscribers, implementing a “recapture measure” agreed to by a committee from Local #48 IBEW for “a new price schedule designed to meet competition in the new residential work where the jobs do not exceed a total of 80 outlets.” The “recapture measure” outlined by Pettingell is significant in that it set a precedent for strikeless negotiations between labor and management and anticipated NECA/IBEW Local 48’s “Funded Market Recovery” (FMR) devised in 1982-84. (NECA Manual of Labor Units, 1939). Schnerberk, Josephine “Jo”. Affidavit, dated October 25, 1983, from Jo Schneberk to “Ed” (Edward Barnes), Business Manager, IBEW Local 48), about her experience working for the union as a secretary and then later as Office Manager. Files: IBEW Local 48. “Your Credit Union.” Files: IBEW Local 48.

Labor Agreements: City of Portland and District Council of Trade Unions (including IBEW Local 48, Local 49, and Local 125) for 1978-1980. (Bob Gotham Collection)

Labor Agreement Handbook, compiled by Oregon Columbia Chapter NECA, with Agreements between NECA and IBEW Local 48

for 1986-1988; Local 280 for 1984; Local 659 for 1984-1985; Local 932 for 1984; and, Local 970 for 1987. (Bob Gotham Collection)

Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 48 Agreements for 1966-1968. (Bob Gotham Collection) Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 48 Agreement for 1969-1971. (Bob Gotham Collection) Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 48 Agreement for 1973. (Bob Gotham Collection) 78


Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 48 Agreement for 1974. (Bob Gotham Collection) Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 48 Agreement for 1975. (Bob Gotham Collection) Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 48 Agreement for 1976-1978. (Bob Gotham Collection) Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 48 Agreement for 1976-1978, as amended in 1977. (Bob Gotham Collection) Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 48 Agreement for 1979. (Bob Gotham Collection) Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 48 Agreement for 1982-1984. (Max Landon Collection) Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 48 Agreement for 1988-1990. (Bob Gotham Collection) Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 48 Agreement for 1990-1994. (Bob Gotham Collection) Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 48 Agreement for 1990-1996. (Bob Gotham Collection) Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 48 Agreement for 1995-1998. (Bob Gotham Collection) Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 48 Agreement for 1999-2003. (Bob Gotham Collection) Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 48 Agreement for 2007. (Bob Gotham Collection) Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 280 Agreement for 1966-1968. (Bob Gotham Collection) Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 970 Agreement for 1988-1990. (Bob Gotham Collection) Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA and IBEW Local 970 Agreement for 2001-2003. (Bob Gotham Collection)

Interviews: Edward L. Barnes Business Manager, Financial Secretary (ret.) IBEW Local Union No. 48 15937 NE Airport Way Portland, OR 97230 Rod Belisle Training Director NECA/IBEW Local 48 Electrical Training Center 16021 NE Airport Way Portland, OR 97230 503.501.5050 Brian Christopher 14944 S Hoffman Rd. Oregon City, OR 97045 503.723.0189 79


Clif Davis Business Manager, Financial Secretary IBEW Local Union No. 48 15937 NE Airport Way Portland, OR 97230 Timothy J. Gauthier Executive Manager Oregon-Columbia Chapter NECA 601 NE Everett Portland, OR 97232 503.233.5787 Bob Gotham 9639 SE Westview Court Portland, OR 97266 503. 788.5654 Max Landon 19864 SW Augustine Ct. Beaverton, OR 97007 503.649.6930 Gary Price 13500 SW Bishop Rd. Hillsboro, OR 97124 503.621-6313 Bob R. Shiprack Executive Secretary Oregon Building Trades Council (ret.) (OBTC represents 36 union locals and councils across the Northwest) Interview conducted at Pac/West Communications, Wilsonville, OR

NIETC (NECA/IBEW Electrical Training Center and its predecessors): Employment and Class Standards 1929-1930 (See attachment to Brigham-Hayes letter dated August 29, 1929) Letter, dated August 29, 1929, from Portland Public Schools City Director of the Department of Vocational Education L.E. Brigham to C.W. Hayes, hiring him as instructor “to fill in the gap when necessary for Mr. Pettingell” at pay rate of $1.75 to $2.25 per hour Letter, dated September 25, 1929, from IBEW Local 48 to Portland Public Schools, committing support to apprenticeship program Uniform Training Schedule, dated December 12, 1929, and Report of Apprentices’ Attendance, dated February 4, 1930, attached to Minutes for February 7, 1930 Summary of Official Trade Placement, dated June 1, 1930 (with names of 20 apprentices and their employers, including M.J. Walsh, Elec. Product Corp, Huenergard Elec. Jaggar Sroufe, Multnomah County, Hawthorne Elec., NePage McKenny, National Elec., Morrison Electric) Letter, dated August 8, 1930, from L.E. Brigham to C.W. Hays, appointing him apprentice instructor for Electrical Workers trade for vocational school year 1930-31, at pay rate of $3.00 to $4.00 per hour, depending teaching load, for 80


maximum of 6 hours per week for not more than 44 weeks; reports that notwithstanding the “falling off in industrial conditions during the last four years” that the Apprentice School “more than held its own” with a “considerable amount of progress” and that “the Apprentice School is in the best shape that it has ever been.” Personal Loan repayment guarantee, dated September 3, 1930, by C.W. Hays, Electrical Instructor, Department of Vocational Education, to Portland School District #1, for up to $100.00, no later than July 1, 1931. Expense Authorization ($38.95), dated September 4, 1930, by L.E. Brigham, Portland Public Schools, to E.T. Stretcher, School Clerk. Requisition ($134.00), dated September 4, 1930, by L.E. Brigham, Portland Public Schools, for purchase of 8 sets of Electrical Wiring Trade, $16.75 each, totaling $134.00, payable out of Voc. Ed. Fund Apprenticeship Sub-commission for Electrical Workers ($38.95) and by Instructor Hays ($95.05). Letter, dated September 10, 1930, from L.E. Brigham to C. W. Hays, supplementing the August 8, 1930, appointment letter to Hays, raising his pay rate to between $3.50 and $4.50 per hour; attachments include Employment and Class Standards for Vocational School Year 1930-1931. Letter, dated October 20, 1930, from Apprenticeship Commission to Sub-commission for Apprenticeship in the Electrical Workers trade, regarding class attendance. Letter, dated November 28, 1930, from Brigham to Apprenticeship Commission and Sub-commissions, re: meetings schedule. Letter, dated March 13, 1931, from C.W. Hays to Electrical Workers’ Sub-commission, included in Minutes of Sub commission’s meeting on the same date, listing 4 models of Weston meters; shunts, ratio current transformer, potential transformer, motor generator, rotary converter, ¼ horsepower single-phase motor, Telechron clock motor, a small D.C. motor, multi-voltage small transformer, neon transformer, neon tube, variable inductance, variable condenser, any kind of remote control equipment, compensator, and miscellaneous motors that apprentices could “cut apart.” Letter, dated April 29, 1931, from L.E. Brigham, executive secretary of the Apprentice Commission and Sub-commissions of the Oregon Building Congress, to Apprenticeship Sub-commission Members, scheduling meeting, announcing Apprenticeship Graduation ceremony, Thursday, June 4, 1931, with Apprenticeship School to continue until June 13, 1931, the regular closing date for Portland area schools; and, announcing his intention to start on August 1 “in order to comply with certain Federal requirements, and also to have as small a break in the training schedule as possible.” Letter, dated May 14, 1931, from F.H. Murphy, president, Oregon Business Congress, to L.E. Brigham, re: scheduling. A full list of officers and directors of OBC, including employers and trade union representatives, is found on the letterhead. Attendance Report – Apprenticeship School, dated May 15, 1931, attached to Sub-commission Minutes for that date. Record of Attendance of Members of the Electrical Workers’ Sub-commission, Aug. 28, 1930 – May 15, 1931, attached to Sub-commission Minutes for May 15, 1931. Letter, dated June 27, 1931, from L.E. Brigham to C.W. Hays, appointing him apprentice and short unit instructor for the Electrical Workers trade for 1931-1932, at pay rate of $3.50 to $4.50 per hour, depending on teaching load, two 3-hour classes per week, 44-46 weeks, beginning August 1, 1931, per attached copy of Departmental Standards, 1931-1932, for Portland Public Schools Department of Vocational Education. Suggested Changes in the Electrical Workers Classes – effective 1931-1932 school year, increasing hands-on instruction for the 25 registrations, smaller classes, progress charts; attached to Sub-commission Minutes for October 16, 1931. Record of Attendance of Members of the Electrial Workers’ Sub-commisison, Aug. 28, 1930 – May 13, 1931, attached tyo Sub-commission Minutes for November 13, 1931. Letter, dated November 17, 1931, from L.E. Brigham to A.R. Johnson, one of the five employers’ representatives (who himself missed 11 meetings), urging him for the “good of the trade” to improve his attendance: “. . . it is a case of ‘fish or cut bait’.” Unsigned Agreement, dated February 12, 1932, presented by C.W. Hays to the Sub-commission, which if executed would have had Portland Public Schools acknowledging and agreeing that ownership of all instruction materials, analyses, job sheets, etc. prepared by Local Union #48 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers remain the property of L.U. #48. The Minutes of February 12, 1932, reflect rejection of Hays’ proposed Agreement by both the Sub-commission and L.E. Brigham. Letter, dated February 16, 1932, signed by apprentices H.A. Peterson, C.W. Potter, H.L. Boynton, J.C. Hudson, A. Hein, Geo. Tice, Lloyd Franklin, Elvyn Rice, F.J. Akers, C.J. Holmberg, D.L. Boone and S.S. Adams, to Superintendent Rice, protesting L.E. Brigham’s request for C.W. Hays’ resignation. No indication in Sub-commission Minutes of a reaction to the letter. Status Report – Student Fees, dated November 18, 1932, for 16 boys, included Sub-commission Minutes for the same date. 81


Letter, unsigned, dated December 1, 1932, from Local Union No. 48 business manager to Harold A. Peterson, warning him to register and attend school or be deprived from working under jurisdiction of Local 48. Letter, unsigned, dated December 2, 1932, from Local Union No. 48 business manager to John Johnson, warning him to register and attend school or be deprived from working under jurisdiction of Local 48. Letter, dated December 2, 1932, from Local Union No. 48 Business Manager J.H. Lake to L.E. Brigham, enclosing copies of warning letters sent to helpers who have not registered for school and those whose attendance is irregular, “to make our Vocational School a success.” Letter, dated December 8, 1932, from L.E. Brigham to Electrical Workers Sub-commission, re: meeting rescheduling. Letter, dated December 10, 1932, from L.E. Brigham, City Director of Vocational Education, to A.M. McLean, appointing him to instruct both Apprentice and Journeyman classes in the Electrical trade as set forth in the attached Departmental Standards for Portland Public Schools Department of Vocational Education. Letter, dated December 23, 1932, from L.E. Brigham, Executive Secretary for Electrical Workers Sub-commission, to H. Ploense, president of Elec. Con. Assoc., requesting $1.50 for two tickets to the annual meeting of the Oregon Building Congress, explaining that the amount was smaller than the $4.00 requested the previous year for four tickets because of economic conditions: “On account of the depression, it was felt that the smaller amount would be more in keeping this year.” Letter, dated April 17, 1933, from Executive Secretary, Electrical Workers Sub-commission, to Inside Electrical Workers Union #48, approving Apprentice Regulations, attached. Letter, dated May 16, 1933, from J.R. Tomlinson, Secretary-Treasurer, Portland Association of Electragists, to Local Union #48, I.B.E.W., giving employment preference to apprentices enrolled in the vocational school: “We feel that if the future electricians know that their work opportunities will be enhanced by giving conscientious study at the school they will feel encouraged to greater effort, and they will be better prepared to render expert service and elevate the standard of workmanship in their chosen craft.” Letter, dated August 21, 1933, from L.E. Brigham to A.M. McLean, appointing him as instructor in the Electrical Workers trade for 1933-1934, as set forth in the Departmental Standards, attached, with pay rate subject to “subject to such cuts as deemed necessary by the Board of Education.” Letter, dated September 20, 1933, from Sub-commission Chairman F.H. Murphy, Portland General Electric Company (PEPCO), to L.E. Brigham, Director of Vocational Education, Portland Public Schools, offering his resignation: “The classes have now been established, a very complete and satisfactory work analysis has been prepared and put into effect, a competent instructor is in charge of the work and general policies have been fairly well established.” Letter, dated September 29, 1933, from R.L. Tomlinson, Secretary Treasurer, Portland Association of Electragists, to L.E. Brigham, Director, Vocational Education, Portland Public Schools, ratifying Apprentice Regulations for Inside Electrical Workers, effective August 1, 1933. Letter was attached to Sub-commission Minutes of October 20, 1933. Letter, dated September 29, 1933, from J.H. Lake, business manager, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union Number 48 to L.E. Brigham, forwarding a copy of a letter, dated May 10, 1933, attached, from H.H. Broach, president of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Washington, D.C., ratifying Apprentice Regulations for Inside Electrical Workers, with an effective date of August 1, 1933. Both letters were attached to Sub-commission Minutes of October 20, 1933. Letter, dated November 14, 1933, from L.E. Brigham, to J.R. Tomlinson, requesting electrical contractors give occasional jobs to apprentices with the understanding that a “reasonable proportion of the wages earned” were to be applied to payment of their vocational school fees. Letter, dated January 5, 1939, from J.P. Griffin to “Mr. McClean” (Instructor A.M. McLean): “This, I know, is a helluva time to be reporting regarding school but my excuse is the best. Got run over by a loaded dump truck on a job up here and pretty badly busted up. Don’t expect to get off my back for two months yet but am wondering if I can sit in on your class when I do. Please excuse the printing. My long hand in this position is illegible. Sincerely, J.P. Griffin, Hood River Hospital.” Letter, dated January 12, 1939, from A.M. McLean, to J.P. Griffin: “You are welcome to sit in on the class at any time, and I assure you that Mr. Evans (vocational school instructor) will be glad to have you.” Letter, dated November 14, 1939, from “Clint” at Milwaukie Electric Company, to A.M. McLean, re: his son’s poor attendance, 82


“no one is hotter under the collar than I was.” In response, he said, “I cut his wages down from a journeyman to a helper’s wages, and I told him he could take it or leave it . . . You know these kids, when they get of age, they sometimes think they know more than their dads, so the way I do is this: I can’t always make him do what I want him to, but I can make it so darn tough for him that he has to fish or cut bait, and now to make a long story short, he has promised me that he will get in and study and get his card. So if he does not get in and dig, let me know, and maybe I’ll give him another cut. Thanks. Clint.” Letter, dated November 28, 1939, from Frank Neville, to A.M. McLean, Inside Electrical Workers Apprenticeship Subcommission: “Owing to working conditions up at Bonneville, which was no fault of mine, I was unable to attend class, as I was working night shifts on my job up there. Hoping you find my excuse O.K., and I will attend class more regularly from now on.” Letter, dated January 18, 1938, from Richard M. Boynton, to A.M. McLean and School Committee, Local 48, I.B.E.W., requesting he be excused from class at 9 p.m. because “I am engaged in a hazardous occupation (neon sign maintenance) and need a certain amount of rest to enable me to keep ‘on my toes’.” Letter, dated January 27, 1937, from R.O. Bloomfield to “Sub. Comm.” requesting he be excused “as I have been working at Bonneville for the past two and one-half weeks.” Letter, dated January 28, 1938, from A.M. McLean, acting secretary of Portland Inside Electrical Workers’ Subcommission, warning three apprentices about their attendance. Letter, no date, from John Lambert to “Mac,” presumably A.M. McLean: “Please excuse me from School – the 18th of Jan. I had to stay home and take care of the baby . . . .” Letter, dated February 8, 1938, from Clarence Gartman to Inside Elecrtrical Workers Sub Commission: “On the advice of my docter (sic) I had to miss school thurs Feb 3 to rest my eys a few days.” Letter, dated March 1, 1938, from Dan Lowe to Inside Electrical Workers Sub Commission, requesting excused absences for three classes because of work. Letter, dated July 3, 1940, from E.R. Dunn, Bull Dog Electric Products, to A.M. McLean, providing information about their products. Letters, dated December 19, 1940, from Harry T. Bussmann, enclosing complimentary copy of the 1940 Code Rules setting forth “the most complete and simplest story on volt loss ever written.” Press Release: PM-3845, Office of War Information, War Manpower Commission, dated August 7, 1942, regarding “current apprenticeship problems.” Letter, dated February 28, 1942, from Maj. Sol Richanbach, Selective Service, Oregon State Headquarters, Salem, responding to A.M. McLean, secretary, Portland Apprenticeship Commission, with information about military draft regulations. Copy enclosed of Occupational Deferments, Selective Service, Oregon State Headquarters, dated January 1, 1942, three weeks after Pearl Harbor: “Necessary man” defined. Letter, dated April 10, 1942, from IBEW Local 48 Business Manager J.H. Lake to A.M. McLean, Secretary of Inside Electrical Workers Apprenticeship Subcommission, advising approval of apprenticeship plan “with the understanding that the wage provisions thereof are to be made inoperative during the war emergency and for a period of six months thereafter.”

Portland Public Schools Sub-commission meetings – Minutes (NIETC predecessor): March 8, 1929 (establishing apprenticeship program overseen by joint labor-management) March 15, 1929 (selection of instructor from among six applicants; consideration of 19-24 apprenticeship applicants. April 5, 1929 (George Pettingell hired by L.E. Brigham, City Director of Vocational Education and chairman of Commission/Subcouncil; also, funding, instruction, general organizational planning). April 10, 1929 (organizational business). May 3, 1929 (three checks from Electrical Workers Union, totaling $25, received; employers said they would remit their share “at an early date.”). October 4, 1929 (Apprenticeship Commission, chaired by F.H. Murphy; equipment lists, materials; bylaws, resolutions, finance; report by C.W. Hays, instructor). November 1, 1929 (Hays reports “attendance was not quite up to standard”; also good response from equipment/materials donations from manufacturers). December 20, 1929 (with oral exam results for 14 first semester apprentices: Stephen Rosers, Alex Ebel, A.L. Hein, L.C. Potts, W.F. Nebert, C.R. Thomas, G. Tice, L. Serrianni, S. Adams, D. Boone, J.C. Hudson, M. Pettingell, H.L. Boynton, C. Blomgren). January 9, 1930 (Hays reports attendance improving, interest increasing, more equipment needed).

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February 7, 1930 (approved suspension from work for one day for each unexcused class absence; also approved “black board” for Electrical Workers; attachments: Uniform Training Schedule, dated December 12, 1929, and Report of Apprentices’ Attendance, dated February 4, 1930). February 13, 1931 (oral examinations of three apprentices: C.W. Potter doing remodeling work for Morrison Electric Co., Portland Electric Co., and Huenergard Electric Co.; C.J. Hudson, 2 ½ years in the trade, doing traffic signal and general wiring work for Jaggar-Sroufe Comany, Floyd Bartlett, and Morrison Electric Co.; C. Phillips working 4 ½ years for Jaggar-Sroufe, now at St. Helens Pulp and Paper Co.). March 7, 1930 (participation in Industrial Exposition; Hays reports attendance improving). April 4, 1930 (attendance discussed with union input). May 16, 1930 (examination of apprentices, with 16 names). August 28, 1930 (purchase of 8 sets of I.C.S. Text Books and equipment cost of which split equally between labor and management, with Statement of Account attached, showing receipts, Elec. Workers Union (June 4, 1929, of $25.00) and Portland Association of Electragists (Oct. 8, 1929, of $25.00); reference to “loan” by C.W. Hays, personally). October 10, 1930 (Union to fine apprentices $5.00 for non-excused absence; request to be submitted to Employers (Tomlinson) and Union (Ream) that clause be inserted in three-year agreement now being completed, granting control of apprenticeship program to Sub-commission, and conforming wage scale with training schedule of the Uniform Indenture). November 14, 1930 (“Gentleman’s Agreement” for employers and union to accept terms of Uniform Training Schedule without incorporating them into the one-year Agreement currently being negotiated between Electragists and the International. Hays discussed attendance (good), texts (very satisfactory), and meters (needed). March 13, 1931 (Hays presents lists of meters and other apparatus needed for program). April 17, 1931 (oral examination of five students: C.R. Thomas, H.A. Peterson, Al. Hein, C.J. Holmberg, John Frainey; Hays also submitted attendance report for 33 apprentices). May 15, 1931 (members discussed attendance, apprentice indenture, and conducted oral examinations of Geo. Tice and Herbert Boynton, both found to be “weak in their knowledge of the practical application of the work taught”; the instruction process should be “more closely tied up to problems of a practical nature.” Attachments include Attendance Report – Apprenticeship School and also Record of Attendance of Members of the Electrical Workers’ Sub-commission). September 11, 1931 (report of apprentice dissatisfaction with training). October 16, 1931 (apprentices reported satisfied with changes to include more “hand-minded” work. Attachment: Suggested Changes in the Electrical Workers Classes Effective 1931-1932 School Year). November 13, 1931 (Instructor Hays reports attendance “laxity.” Sub-commission members’ attendance report attached). December 11, 1931 (oral examination of Douglas Boone, Stanley Adams, Carl Holmberg, Geo. Tice and Lloyd Franklin as to their knowledge of wiring diagrams for Bell Signal Systems; delegation of six apprentices and two members of the Sub-commission to represent Electrical Workers at the Oregon Building Congress in January 1932, with the cost of the eight tickets ($1.00 each) borne equally by the Portland Association of Electragists and the Electrical Workers Union #48. Members also toured school “set-up” and inspected the Electric Welding class underway in the Stephen School building at the time). January 15, 1932 (Instructor C.W. Hays’ resignation, effective March 1, 1932, accepted; A. McLean nominated for “thorough try-out”). February 12, 1932 (discussion of program layout by C.D. James, the new instructor, and C.D. James, chairman of the main Apprenticeship Commission. Sub-commission rejects C.W. Hays’ proposed Agreement, which if executed would have had Portland Public Schools acknowledging and agreeing that ownership of all instruction materials, analyses, job sheets, etc. prepared by Local Union #48 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers remain the property of L.U. #48. March 11, 1932 (inspection, consideration of analysis of Electrical Workers’ trade by C.E. James and A.M. McLean, discussion of pending federal legislation, i.e., Vocational measure #H.R. 4757). April 15, 1932 (unanimous approval of blue print analysis of Electrical Workers’ trade after A.M. McLean reviewed, in detail, segregation of various groups and jobs in each group, and applicable job sheets). May 20, 1932 (examinations conducted for seven apprentices, 50 questions prepared by Instructor McLean; one apprentice, W.F. Nebert, was granted journeyman status but two others, Stanley Adams and Chas. Potter, were only granted Certificates of Merit because they were qualified from a practical sense, “but as there are no openings in the trade for journeymen expected in the near future, it would be best for them to continue as apprentices until more thoroughly qualified.” Attendance also discussed). 84


September 22, 1932 (discussion of lack of attendance; $6.00 entrance fee to the program: Journeyman H.W. Boynton offered to personally guarantee the notes to the students and the opportunity to earn the money to pay up the note before the time of expiration. The offer was heartily approved by the boys; discussion of formation of Student Club). October 14, 1932 (14 students enrolled; McLean authorized to start second class. A scholarship program established to which Employers, supply houses and others might contribute the $6.00 per year fee for needy students to enroll in the program). November 18, 1932 (Status of Student Fees, class scheduling; H. Brust reported Local 48 authorized him to sign any of the apprentices’ notes for the $6.00 enrollment fee in the program). December 14, 1932 (poor attendance; Journeyman’s Class study limited to generators, motors and controls; approval to send four apprentices to Oregon Building Congress annual meeting in January with Inside Electrical Workers Local #48 and the Portland Chapter of the Electrical Contractors Association each providing two tickets at a cost per ticket not to exceed $1.00, each). January 13, 1933 (oral examinations given to three apprentices, George D. Tice, Lloyd Franklin and Wm. L. Neilan with the Sub-commission “very much pleased with their progress.” The “Subcommission” then adjourned to the classroom for A.M. McLean to explain the “Analyses, Progress Charts, and Job Sheets”). February 10, 1933 (progress examination of apprentices J. Hudson, S. Adams and C. Potter; discussion about getting better representation from the Electragists). March 10, 1933 (attendance of Sub-commission discussed with E.L. Bartlett and E.L. Knight taking the places of Graesle, Johnson and Ploense; and that A.A. Tobey and Roy C. Kenney would alternate). April 14, 1933 (Journeyman placement approved for Stanley Adams and Chas. W. Potter; Apprentice Regulations of Local Union #48 reviewed and approved – See Letter, dated April 17, 1933). September 20, 1933 (general scheduling, enrollment and Apprenticeship Regulations approved). October 20, 1933 (Sub-commission Chairman F.H. Murphy’s resignation accepted, committee appointed to interview replacement nominees, including F.D. Weber, Oregon Insurance Rating Bureau, L.W. Going, chairman, Electrical Inspection Division, City Hall, R.L. Elder, General Electric Company, E.M. Fouch, Fouch Electrical Mfg. Co, Geo. A. Boring, General Electric Supply Corporation, Sidney Ward, Graybar Company. Ratification by Portland Association of Electragists and “Journeyman’s Local” of Apprentice Regulations adopted by the Sub-commission, retroactively effective, August 1, 1933, letters attached. November 10, 1933 (F.D. Weber unanimously elected chairman of the Sub-commission, replacing F.H. Murphy; Instructor McLean reported on attendance and school progress. December 8, 1933 (consideration of new applications to the program). January 12, 1938 (Inside Electrical Workers’ Subcommission of the Apprentice School, chaired by Acting Secretary A.M. McLean, discussed the prospects for transferring Apprentice School classes to Benson Polytechnic School). March 19, 1947 (references to Portland Apprentice School and Benson Code School, the Veterans’ Administration; long list of apprentice applications and their employers included. Executive Secretary: Grant R. Kelley). April 16, 1947 (Instructors’ reports provided with references to “Contractors’ Association” and Local Union #48; 500 copies of Plan of Apprenticeship; comprehensive tool list. Executive Secretary: Grant R. Kelley).

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PHOTO CREDITS #2 Conductor and motorman pose beside the Williams Avenue electric streetcar in 1904-05. OHS #5677. #3 June 28, 1916 Oregon Association of Electrical Contractors and Dealers (predecessor of NECA), taken in front of Stubbs Electric Co., corner of SW 8th and Pine streets, Portland, Oregon. Photo provided by Oregon-Columbia Chapter of NECA. #4 The original 14 signers of the IBEW Local 48 charter granted by the International were Andy Peacher, H. Dickman, Homer Gifford, J.D. Harkleroad, P.A. Spire, B.E. Moore, George Collins, M.A. Rhodes, H.Q. Gannon, W.J. LeDout, J.M. Ahearn, John Goodwick, H.L. Averill and W.H. Emrich. Photo by Alan Guggenheim. Charter provided by IBEW Local 48. #5 Electric demand in thousands of “streetcar suburbs” on the east side of the Willamette River prompted Northwestern Electric’s construction of this Albina warehouse in 1926. Northwestern Electric, OHS TK (1735). #6 Heavy electric demand in 1928 by new buildings in downtown Portland – many wired by Oregon Electric Contractors Association members and IBEW Local 48 electricians – caused smoke to belch from the boilers of Northwestern Electric’s Lincoln Street steam plant. Lincoln Steam Plant, OHS TK (1735). #7 Portland General Electric (PGE) store showroom. PGE’s store in St. Johns in 1927 featured the latest Thor electrically-driven washing machines and Hotpoint “Electric Maid” oven and range for the “Modern Mothers” of the Roaring 20’s. OHS neg. no. PGE 142-7. #8 Electricians and engineers install the first generator inside the powerhouse of Bonneville Dam, March 1938. Photo provided by Bonneville Power Administration BPA #H156-3; #9 Star of Oregon. The launching ceremony on September 27, 1941, of the 441-foot Star of Oregon Liberty Ship at Henry Kaiser’s shipyard in St. Johns presaged the United States’ entry into World War II two months later, and the subsequent hiring of 21,000 IBEW Local 48 marine electricians. The war would make it the largest such local in the nation. OHS #24147. #10 Oregon Shipbuilding yard. Henry J. Kaiser’s three Portland-area shipyards were “assembly line” operations comprising ships in varying stages of completion from keel block to finished hull. Note the ship (center) at its christening and launch. OHS #44543; #11 Shipyard electricians. In this 1944 photo, an electrical maintenance crew comprised of 29 members of IBEW Local 48, one-third of them women and minorities, were still smiling even though they had just worked together on the outfitting dock of Oregon Shipbuilding Corp. without a vacation break since the summer of 1942. OHS #85465. #12 A heavy-lift crane was required for each letter in this 50-foot electric sign installed at the remodeled entrance of the J.C. Penney store at 511 SW Washington St. during the retail construction boom in 1958 that put employed just about every NECA/IBEW contractor and electrician who wanted to work. J.C. Penney, OHS TK (1737). #13 Bridge tender in the old swing-span Morrison Bridge (1905) pictured here in the mid-1950s. His job would be made obsolete by construction of a new Morrison Bridge in 1958 that would be remotely controlled offsite by Multnomah County Bridge Office. Morrison bridge tender, OHS #88789. #14 When it opened, Portland’s 9,000-seat Memorial Coliseum was touted as the largest multipurpose facility of its kind in the Pacific Northwest. Construction and electrical installation of the gleaming Memorial Coliseum was completed in time for the November 3, 1960 opening featuring a performance called “Holiday on Ice.” OHS #102577. #15 On November 2, 1963, IBEW Local 48 President John Clothier welcomed 720 members, spouses and guests to the 50th anniversary of the union at a gala dinner and dance in the Sheraton’s Grand Ballroom in downtown Port86


land, Oregon. Photo provided by IBEW Local 48. “The gains in wages, welfare and working conditions have been reached under agreement with the National Electrical Contractors Association, Columbia Chapter, with whom we have worked in harmony as attested by the absence of a strike in the past 43 years.” – John Clothier, President, IBEW Local 48. Photo and quotation (published in the Electrical Worker) provided by IBEW Local 48. #16 Bonneville Dam’s second powerhouse was constructed between 1974 and 1981. The combined electrical output of the two powerhouses at Bonneville would now exceed 1-million kilowatts. Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) #H550-3. #17 Built in the midst of the recession, One Main Place, a 20-story concrete and glass tower, completed construction in 1982. Photo provided by Edison Pension Trust. #18 Chuck Schuurmans, Oregon Electric, taken by Jerry LaRocca for Edison Pension Trust. #19 McCoy Electric Company installs 1,600-pound units on top level of the Parkside Center in Portland using a heavy-lift helicopter. Reprinted with permission from IBEW Journal, November 1993, p. 38. #20 – Source unknown #21 - Construction of Intel’s D1X computer chip fabrication facility in Hillsboro, Oregon. Photo by Randy L. Rasmussen/The Oregonian.

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