 
|
|
|
|
News
Briefs: Farmworkers | Bye
Bye Bass | GMO-Free Joe | Undercovered
| Healthcare Update | Light a Candle
News:
Losing Streak -- Is the R-G getting its money's worth from Mike Zinser?
News:
Rapture in the Rain -- Slipping and sliding to the Promised Land.
Happening
People: Katy Bloch.
FARMWORKERS
SUPPORTED
Several hundred farmworkers were laid off two weeks ago
at Pictsweet Mushroom Farms in Salem after trying to organize a bargaining team.
Workers have complained about unsafe working conditions at the Salem plant that have
contributed to 641 injuries during the past six years.
|
Slant
-- Our cover story this week on plans for downtown is an effort
to shed some light on the planning process, which has gotten little attention in
the mainstream media. If we are not vigilant, we could end up with ugly commercial
development and excessive concrete and traffic along the river behind the new federal
building. Here's an opportunity to create an urban neighborhood and riverfront that
really works -- and draws more people downtown.
-- Keep your eye on the gross gold letters "Jeffrey L. Grayson
and Susan W. Grayson" on what is now called Grayson Hall on the UO campus. It's
the old law school building, now occupied by students and faculty in arts and sciences.
Two faculty members have told us that UO administrators finally are seriously discussing
a change of name to something innocent like McKenzie Hall. Some of the historians
in the building prefer Rogue Hall (all the letters are already there!) as an apt
description of Grayson, the Portland investment adviser and UO benefactor charged
with losing hundreds of millions of his clients' dollars and lying about it. Ironic
that the UO asked for special permission from the state Board of Higher Ed to name
a university building after a living person, and now that special name is about to
disappear.
-- City ward redistricting affects EWEB Commission seats as well
at council seats.
Commissioners Dorothy Anderson and Sandra Bishop still live in their newly drawn
wards and Susie Smith serves "at large." But what will happen to Peter
Bartel, who now lives in Ward 3, but represents Wards 4 and 5? Bartel's term ends
next year, but he can't run for re-election in his new ward since Anderson has it
locked up until 2004. So will Bartel run for the at-large position against Smith
next year when she's up for reelection? Meanwhile, Patrick Lanning got bumped out
of his Wards 1 and 8 constituency and into Anderson's Wards 2 and 3. But Lanning's
term continues until 2004. Future elections will straighten out the discrepancies
-- until 2011 when we do it all over again.
-- Will the Gang of 9's new pet project, citywide elections, end
up on the ballot in May or November? Probably in May, considering that signature
gatherers are paid, and some people will sign anything. Backers of the initiative
apparently think citywide elections will help get rid of "those damned bleeding
hearts" on the council, but judging by the squeaky close vote on the West Eugene
Parkway (despite heavy spending by pro-development interests and backing by the R-G),
the plan could backfire -- traditionally solid conservative wards could end up with
more moderate or even progressive councilors. But the biggest problems with citywide
elections are the expense and difficulty in campaigning citywide. It would be a step
away from getting money out of politics.
SLANT includes short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing notes compiled
by the EW staff. Heard any good rumors lately? Contact Ted Taylor at 484-0519,
editor@eugeneweekly.com
|
Pictsweet workers were attempting to get PCUN, Oregon's farmworker
union, to represent them in negotiations with their employer, United Foods. The workers
had complaints about a lack of safety guards on machinery, no warning signs on asbestos-containing
materials, lack of emergency exits, hazardous chemicals not properly labeled, exposed
hot water pipes, leaky headlamp batteries and other concerns.
Jacob Meyer of the UO campus group MEChA (Movimiete Estudientil
Chicano de Atzlan) says one worker, Enrique Diaz, lost his arm while working at the
plant. "This affirmed the workers' convictions to their right to a union,"
says Meyer. But he adds, "Farmworkers have no legal right to collectively bargain;
therefore, their employer can get away with this union-busting tactic."
To support the laid off workers, UO students raised $2,755 in a
fund-raising dinner Nov. 30 and are seeking help to meet a $5,000 goal. MEChA students
are available to make presentations to groups. Call
346-3508. -- TJT
BYE BYE
BASS
If you were planning to live off the land, fishing pole
in hand, you might want to think again. Oregon's Department of Human Services has
issued a consolidated advisory against eating too much resident fish out of the Willamette
River.
The department warns that non-migrating fish in the river -- bass,
trout and squawfish, for instance -- are contaminated along its length with toxic
mercury and carcinogenic PCBs. The latter come from all sorts of human activities,
once having been used in everything from fluorescent light bulbs to petroleum products.
Most of the mercury comes from the area's volcanic soils, and led
to earlier fish-consumption advisories in Dorena and Cottage Grove reservoirs, as
well as several other reservoirs in Deschutes and Douglas counties. Mercury harms
the growing brains and nerves of fetuses and small children, and in adults injures
the kidney, liver and nervous systems. Even fish sampled high up in watersheds, far
from any industry, have been found to contain enough mercury to warrant advisories.
Ocean-going fish such as salmon, steelhead, shad and lamprey are
not affected.
Ken Kauffman, an environmental toxicologist with DHS, says the
advisory is based on studies from the entire main stem of the Willamette. So far,
he says, there's no evidence that fish up in Eugene are less contaminated than fish
further down the river.
Specifically, DHS recommends that children 6 years old or younger
not eat more than 4 ounces of resident fish every seven weeks. Women who are pregnant
or plan to become pregnant or breastfeed shouldn't eat more than 8 ounces of resident
fish per month. Others may safely eat up to 8 ounces of resident fish per week.
The department also advises that anyone eating Willamette River
resident fish should carefully clean, skin and fillet the fish, trimming and discarding
back and belly fat, skin and internal organs. All people should avoid eating organs
or eggs of those fish.
For more details see DHS' fish advisory website (www.ohd.hr.state.or.us/esc/fishadv.htm) or call Kauffman at (503) 731-4015. -- OI
GMO-FREE JOE
Just in time for the holidays, the Trader Joe's chain announced
that it intends to phase out all genetically modified organisms (GMOs) from its store-labeled
brands within the next year. That means bovine-growth-hormone-free cheese, non-GMO
soybean oil, corn chips grown the old fashioned way.
Pat St. John, a Trader Joe's spokeswoman, said the company had
been listening to its customers and determined that most "would prefer"
GMO-free foods if given the choice. "We think that the state of the industry
is such that we can attempt to make that effort now because the science is catching
up with it, and the suppliers are catching up with it, so supplies are available,"
she said.
But she added that the move, announced quietly on Nov. 13, was
a goal rather than a guarantee. It's not possible to definitively state that any
product is 100 percent free of GMO materials because of pollen drift and other issues,
she said.
Roughly 75 percent of the foods at Trader Joe's are store-label
brands.
A coalition of anti-GMO activists has turned up the heat on the
company in the past year, after one of its primary competitors -- the Whole Foods
chain -- went GMO-free in its store brand.
Eugene activist Debra Higbee, who led a protest at the Eugene Trader
Joe's last spring, called the move "a wonderful step" for the company.
"We're just hoping that other people in the industry listen
and make a similar movement," she said. "People are concerned about the
food that they eat and whether it's contaminated by genetically engineered organisms."
-- OI
UNDERCOVERED
-- Nov. 24: Relatives of Americans killed Sept. 11 began
a walk from Washington, D.C., to New York carrying a banner, "Our grief is not
a cry for war" (Guardian). Amber Amundson, who lost her husband, wrote
to President Bush, "... I do not want anyone to use my husband's death to perpetuate
violence ... I am begging you, for the sake of humanity and my children, please stop
killing" (Nonviolence Web).
-- Nov. 26: American planes bombed the roads out of Kandahar, along
which Taliban and many civilians were fleeing (Independent). Kunduz surrendered;
Northern Alliance soldiers shot Taliban prisoners and left them to die in the marketplace
(Guardian). In eastern Afghanistan, children were collecting war scrap when
an unexploded U.S. bomb blew up, killing three children and wounding seven (Pakistan
Daily Jang). Amnesty International called for an inquiry into the deaths of hundreds
of Taliban prisoners, including Pakistanis, Arabs, Chechens, and Uzbeks, brought
from Kunduz to Qala-i-Jhangi fortress. The prisoners had rebelled and then been killed
by Northern Alliance troops and, mostly, by American bombs dropped into the fortress
(Reuters).
-- Nov. 27: A 1,200- to 1,800-pound air-dropped container filled
with wheat, blankets, and cold-weather equipment fell through the roof of a house
near Mazar-i-Sharif and killed a woman and a child (Times of India).
-- Nov. 28: In Takteh Pol, near Kandahar, a Pashtun commander said
his men had captured 160 Taliban and machine-gunned them. U.S. military personnel
who were present tried unsuccessfully to prevent the executions (Reuters).
-- Nov. 29: U.S officials insisted that the deaths in the Qala-i-Jhangi
fortress were not a massacre, but a "pitched battle." Human rights groups
protested that many Taliban prisoners were tied up; the U.S. bombing may have been
a disproportionate military response to the prison rebellion, breaking international
law (Guardian).
-- Nov. 30: Unconfirmed reports claimed that 67 Pakistani Taliban,
who had surrendered to the Northern Alliance in Kunduz, were imprisoned in a school
and then bombed by U.S. planes. No one survived (Jang). Witnesses and survivors
said that U.S. planes dropped about 25 bombs on Kama Ado, obliterating the village
and killing 100 to 200 civilians. Survivors lay in the Jalalabad hospital, one of
them a 10-year-old boy with severe head injuries and a missing arm (Times of India).
According to a U.S. Marine Corps spokesman, no civilian targets were hit. "It
just did not happen." In Baluth and Akal Khal, villages in Mairajuddin district,
50 to 100 people died in night bombing raids, according to local officials. Four
other smaller villages were also reportedly bombed (Independent).
-- Dec. 1: Day and night bombing raids pounded Kandahar. Thousands
of refugees tried to reach Pakistan, but most were not allowed across the border.
CNN reported bombing attacks on two villages near Kandahar, with 50 civilian deaths,
but U.S. military officials denied this (Times of India). Human Rights Watch
appealed to the U.S. and U.K. governments to help ensure humane treatment of all
prisoners (Human Rights Watch). Thirty civilians died in U.S. bombing on the road
from Kandahar to Spin Boldak, and 15 villagers, including nine children, died in
Chaman when a U.S. plane bombed a Jeep (Jang). Reuters, BBC, and several U.S.
broadcast news organizations left northern Afghanistan after yet another Western
journalist was killed, the eighth in recent weeks (Boston Globe). Taliban
offered a $50,000 a head bounty for killing Western journalists (Guardian).
U.N. offices in Jalalabad have been looted; a World Food Program convoy carrying
210 tons of food was reportedly looted on the Quetta-Kandahar road. Infighting and
bandits are slowing and preventing food deliveries in many regions (Oxfam: Jang).
-- Kate Rogers Gessert
HEALTHCARE
UPDATE
Healthcare for All Oregon (formerly Single Payer Action
Reform Committee, or SPARC), a political action committee, is gearing up in its gathering
of signatures to place a measure on the ballot that will allow Oregon residents to
vote on universal healthcare. A step up from the Oregon Health Plan, universal coverage
would ease expenses for both individuals and businesses facing serious fiscal constraints
due to rising healthcare costs.
HOA has collected 52 percent of the necessary signatures, and needs
67,000 by next July. While Lane County is doing well, the Portland area and outlying
areas have fallen behind in signature gathering, according to HOA member Mary Ann
Holser.
For more information on the measure, contact Holser at 343-5132.
For information on helping with signature gathering, contact Ruth Duemler at 484-6145.
-- AS
LIGHT A
CANDLE
Want to save energy? The challenge to Northwest residents
this week is to have dinner by candlelight once a week. This is the 10th of a series
of 14 weekly energy saving tips from the Community Conservation Challenge, an initiative
of the Bonneville
Power Administration and its Northwest utility customers.
According to the Washington State University Energy Program, turning
off just three 60-watt bulbs for an hour a day can save up to 65 kilowatt hours of
electricity a year. That savings would be increased to 300 million kilowatt hours
if every household in the Northwest participated. The annual savings would amount
to about $19 million.
In another energy-saving example, Pat Wagner of Vancouver, Wash.,
cut her electricity use by more than half. She uses her microwave for most cooking,
line dries her laundry and installed a timer on the water heater. Her family installed
more than 20 compact fluorescent bulbs in their home.
For more information, visit www.bpa.gov/ccc or call
(800) 962-9731.
Back to Top
Losing
Streak
Is the R-G getting its
money's worth from Mike Zinser?
By Orna
Izakson
Union-busting Tennessee attorney L. Michael Zinser must have seemed
like a dream come true to the Baker family three years ago, when The Register-Guard's
owners decided it was time to swat back the pesky Eugene Newspaper Guild. But Zinser's
recent court record has made the hundreds-per-hour lawyer seem like a lousy deal.
Zinser was in federal court here in mid -November, appearing both
as an attorney and a witness. The R-G didn't like four decisions by the National
Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that it had violated the rights of the Guild, and wanted
a judge to decide what to do. Zinser's own witnesses may have given more fodder to
the Guild (see "Unwritten Rules," 11/21).
Guild President Suzi Prozanski, a feature writer for the newspaper,
says she wasn't impressed with what she saw.
"He seemed really unprepared," she says. "He took
minutes between questions, even when he was doing direct questioning of his own witnesses
-- In bargaining (sessions between the paper and the union) he's much more intimidating
than he was in court."
Despite a long list of anti-union wins (Zinser's website www.zinserlaw.com
boasts that he's kept one Hawaii newspaper union-free), the attorney has lost a spate
of anti-union cases in the past year.
Missouri's St. Joseph News-Press had argued that newspaper
carriers and haulers were independent contractors, and as such could not form a union
to bargain with the paper. They'd had good luck with Zinser until September, when
the NLRB judge ruled that "the carriers and haulers don't operate independent
businesses and they devote virtually all of their time, labor and equipment to providing
the essential functions of the (newspaper's) business," according to union sources.
Teamsters officials called the decision "monumental"
if it survives the likely appeal. The decision means thousands of carriers around
the country could be eligible to unionize.
In Gary, Ind., Post Tribune Publisher Boni Fine had changed
the amount employees had to pay toward their health insurance without negotiating
with the union. After the union complained, Fine's corporate attorneys said the action
violated labor laws. She hired Zinser, who argued that other such unilateral and
un-negotiated changes had slipped past before and therefore the union had abdicated
its right to complain. Zinser got cut down by the NLRB judge on Oct. 5. The judge,
ruling from the bench, said Zinser's arguments didn't wash and told Fine that her
corporate counsel had gotten it right.
He's also lost cases in Hilo, Hawaii, Albany, N.Y. and Eugene.
The bitterest blow against his local clients came last spring
when a judge forced the R-G to bargain with employees at the paper's distribution
center. The NLRB found the paper's management guilty of five unfair labor practices
as the Teamsters worked to start a union among distribution-center employees. The
injunction, which union officials say is very rare, occurred because the judge found
the R-G's behavior was so egregious that it wasn't possible to hold a fair
election to see if employees wanted the union or not. The company began negotiating
a contract with the Teamsters on Nov. 2.
Is the R-G getting its money's worth? It's hard to say without
knowing his fees, and union representatives don't know precisely what Zinser is making
-- or even if he's working hourly or on contract.
But history may be some guide: Lance Robertson, who represented
the Guild at the bargaining table until July when he quit his reporting job at the
R-G, says Zinser was charging upwards of $400 per hour 10 years ago when he
worked to bust the union in Bakersfield, Calif.
"He's like a -- one-man wrecking crew -- every place he goes,
he creates these very divisive negotiations," says Robertson. "It's got
to be costing the company a lot of money -- especially with fighting the federal
government in court."
All the expense and bad feeling could have been avoided, Roberston
continues, if the R-G had opted for a more "normal" type of contract
negotiating -- "basically economic issues put on the table and just a couple
changes in language in the contract."
Instead, Zinser came in with what Robertson says is "essentially"
a rewritten contract for the Guild to consider.
"When you add management rights, no strike, elimination of
a lot of jurisdiction-type issues like who we represent, taking down bulletin boards,
changing the grievance procedure -- just all kinds of major language changes. It's
no wonder that the membership got upset about it," he says. The R-G management
is "proposing huge change in a contract that by and large has existed the way
it is for decades."
Back to Top
Rapture
in the Rain
Slipping and sliding
to the Promised Land.
By Nate
Puckett
If you're like many EW readers, you don't give a rat's (or
duck's) ass about college football, not even UO football, which makes you a touch
eccentric 'round these parts, considering how many residents of our fair city follow
the team like the Israelites did Moses, or at least like hippies kept tabs on the
Dead -- so in case you missed it, or did your best to ignore it, our boys led the
UO faithful to the Promised Land last Saturday, Dec. 1, knocking off hated Oregon
State in a bitterly contested and ridiculously soggy spectacle that culminated in
a 17-14 triumph and sole possession of the Pac-10 Conference title, and we were there,
you see, shivering our alternative-press extremeties off in order to bring you the
scoop, the lowdown, the Big Picture -- but because you probably don't care at all,
we've decided to limit our coverage to one sentence (you're welcome!), leaving you
free to peruse the rest of this publication unmolested by such a mainstream, stoner-abrasive,
not-hip-at-all topic, sheltered from sights like the drunks in the student section,
most of whom stood in line for six to 10 hours a couple of weeks ago to get tickets,
many of whom camped out overnight, in the rain, in order to stand in line, in the
rain, for the chance to stand on bleachers, in a truly torrential and very nasty
rain, and redline their vodka/whiskey/rum/beer-numbed vocal cords, chanting such
profundities as "Fuck the Beav-ers (clap clap clap-clap-clap)"
and doggedly taunting anyone wearing orange, including and sometimes especially the
elderly; the OSU cheering section, segregated in the stands behind the west end zone,
a belligerent block of orange in a ring of green and yellow, cheering wildly whenever
the home team fucked up, which happened all the time, because the field was soaked
and the ball was slick and no one could really look like a big-time Division-I ultra-stud
athlete, resulting in a very ugly game indeed; the Autzen Stadium security
staff, who wore blue, water-resistant (but not -proof) jackets and argued over whose
turn it was to stand on the sidelines and watch the game (a hell of a perk if you're
a football fan, which all of these men appeared to be, especially the one who yelled
"motherfucker!" every time OSU got a first down and kept asking
EW's intrepid reporter what he was doing on the sidelines without a sideline
pass, a question to which there really is no good answer, but one that becomes less
pressing whenever the crowd roars, because one must turn one's attention back to
the field in order to catch the action, allowing passless journalists to wander off
and repeat the whole dance a few minutes later); the previously mentioned roar of
45,000-plus rabid fans, which is even more testicle-tingling if you're at field level,
due to stadium acoustics, and even more impressive when this soaked mass of
humanity decides to boo the referees, although the heartiest boos were reserved for
University of Washington Coach Rick Neuheisel, whose head and shoulders appeared,
much larger than life, on the giant TV screen looming over the OSU cheering section
during some sort of bizarre first-quarter production, the entire point of which seemed
to boo Neuheisel; Keenan Howry's fourth-quarter punt return touchdown, the first
touchdown of the game, the one that put the Ducks up for good, 10-6, and whipped
the crowd into such a frenzy that the pass-seeking security guard decided to just
drop it and high-five the shifty, skulking EW reporter, probably due to the
fact that the reporter kept yelling, "Holy shit! Holy shit!" during Howry's
punt return, because no matter how cynical one is about college football or anything
else, that sort of action is exciting, watching someone thread their way through
so much chaotic violence, hearing the crowd start to shout when the frantic ball
carrier gets past the first couple of Beavers and then just explode, as a
single organism, when it becomes clear that he's going to make it, he's going
all the way, and -- holy shit! -- we can see the whites of his eyes as he gets closer
and closer to the end zone we're shivering behind, we can see him glance up at the
giant TV screen that's showing him scamper toward glory, and we can tell that he
realizes what's about to happen, so when he crosses the line, scoring six, Howry
does not look surprised so much as relieved, although his teammates appear ecstatic
when they mob him a few seconds later; and, of course, the heart-in-the-throat spectacle
that is UO quarterback Joey Harrington, local hero and national Heisman Trophy candidate,
fumbling with less than two minutes to go, his team clinging to a three-point
lead, an entire season in jeopardy, because the Ducks must beat the Beavers
or the vast majority of the people in Autzen Stadium will die, along with
any sort of shot at the national title, and the Oregon faithful already cannot
fucking believe that Joey Heisman has coughed up the ball, not here, not now,
and we are standing amongst the UO players at this point, planning to catch the wave
of high spirits that moments ago seemed imminent but has now evaporated -- indeed,
many of the scrubs are holding their heads in their hands, shocked -- because all
OSU has to do is gain 15 or 20 yards and they can send the game into overtime with
a field goal, so let's just say it's a mite tense on the sideline, but then on third
down Oregon's Rashad Bauman, who talks more trash than anyone on the team but just
has one tackle today, intercepts a pass, Glory and Everlasting Hallelujah,
and as he races down the opposite sideline the team erupts, hugging each other like
plane crash survivors, whooping and jabbering, throwing their heads back to scream
into the rain, and, as the clock ticks down to 0:00, these unbelievably happy kids
turn around to bask in the lovefest that is thousands of people yelling huzzahs down
at you, for the team, for Eugene, because, you see, this sort
of thing is important.
Back to Top
 
Katy Bloch
In the summer of 1977, Boston native Katy Bloch and her
future husband took the train across Canada to Jasper, then bicycled south to Oregon.
"We came to visit friends in Eugene," she says. "We've never left!"
After Bloch and friends launched Folkways Imports, she traveled the world for four
years before "dropping out" to raise a family. "During the babyland
years I volunteered with Birth to Three.," she says. "That's how I got
interested in working with children and families." Bloch returned to school
at the UO for a degree in planning, public policy and management. She has since worked
in systems integration, coordinating programs and services for the city of Eugene,
Albany public schools, and Lane County. Since 1998, Bloch has coordinated Safe and
Sound, a non-profit public/private partnership that provides services to homeless,
runaway, and at-risk youth. "We opened a medical clinic in November of '98 at
the New Roads Center," she says. "It's been really successful. Kids come
in for medical services, then access other services to help them become more stable."
-- Photo by Paul Neevel
Happenin' People Archives
Nominate A Happenin' Person
Table
of Contents
| News | Views | Arts & Entertainment
Classifieds | Personals
| EW
Archive
|