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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:115%'><b><span style='font-size:16.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#222222'>Workers rally against free trade at Blue Heron<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:6.0pt'><b><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black;text-transform:uppercase'>By Raymond Rendleman<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><div style='mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid black 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:13.5pt;border:none;padding:0in'><i><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>The Oregon City News, </span></i><i><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#666666'>Jul 7, 2010</span></i><i><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'> <o:p></o:p></span></i></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"'><img width=278 height=208 id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.jpg@01CB1DC6.667DC640" alt="Description: (news photo)"></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:4.5pt'><b><i><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:gray;text-transform:uppercase'><o:p> </o:p></span></i></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:4.5pt'><b><i><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:gray'>Arthur Stamoulis, director of the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign, leads labor activists in a campaign for displaced workers outside Oregon City's Blue Heron paper mill. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:4.5pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:#222222'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:120%'><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:120%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:#222222'>The bankruptcy-plagued Blue Heron paper mill in Oregon City again became a flashpoint for frustration as displaced workers and union leaders gathered there last week to release a new study about the effect of free-trade agreements on Oregon's high unemployment rate.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:120%'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:120%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:#222222'>Arguing that trade-related job loss accounted for a significant portion of Oregon’s ongoing unemployment problem, they touted statistics showing that last year was unprecedented in Oregon for trade job losses. U.S. Labor Department figures showed losses more than 300 percent above average.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:120%'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:120%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:#222222'>“Most of these job losses are completely preventable,” said Arthur Stamoulis, director of the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:120%'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:120%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:#222222'>For new labor, environmental and consumer-safety standards, Stamoulis encouraged local Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) to support a bill known as the TRADE Act, which is gaining ground through the support of more than 100 Democratic members of Congress.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:120%'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:120%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:#222222'>Explaining his opposition to the across-the-board reforms proposed, Schrader said that a compromise for free and fair trade should be made with each U.S. trading partner individually.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:120%'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:120%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:#222222'>“The particular trade bill they’re pushing is a little too prescriptive,” he said. “It would require all foreign governments to submit to a bunch of terms prescribed by the U.S., (and) I’m worried that would curtail trade.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:120%'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:120%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:#222222'>Saying reform couldn't come too soon, worker advocates rebutted that trade-related job loss accounted for a significant portion of Oregon’s overall worker displacement over the past year, and they don't see the problem turning around without stricter regulations. Between March 2009 and March 2010, 9,955 Oregonians (or 26.6 percent of the total 37,400 jobs lost over that time period) lost their jobs to trade, according to the data obtained by the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign.</span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:120%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:blue'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:120%'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:120%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:#222222'>Schrader said he appreciated the type of work at companies like Blue Heron, and he wants to expand benefits for displaced workers to learn new trades and find skilled work elsewhere. Laid-off Blue Heron employees are among the nearly 10,000 people in this state who have lost jobs due to competition from imports over the past year; the labor department certified the plant last month to receive federal “Trade Adjustment Assistance.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:120%'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:120%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:#222222'>Union leaders claim workers at the Blue Heron plant resent having their skilled jobs “adjusted” by competition from China, where laws allow much less stringent environmental and labor standards. The local plant is employee-owned and has refocused its efforts to recycled paper milling.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:120%'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:120%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:#222222'>“We don't view government assistance as a good thing,” said Gregory Pallesen, vice president of the Association of Western Pulp & Paper Workers, the union that represents employees at Blue Heron and other paper mills losing employment in the area. “If you want to talk about making good jobs, let's start by preventing the loss of the good, green ones we already have.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:120%'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:120%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:#222222'>Pallesen estimates that, since its bankruptcy announcement last year, 40 to 50 of Blue Heron's approximately 200 workers have been laid off on a permanent basis.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:120%'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:120%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:#222222'>Schrader acknowledges that China has caused a lot of pressure on local paper mills, but maintains that such processing plants will not be the answer to the recession.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:120%'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:120%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:#222222'>“Increased exports will be absolutely essential to get us out of these economic doldrums,” he said. “If we’re going to do free trade, other countries need to rethink their subsidies.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:120%'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:120%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:#222222'>Dave King, who was laid off from a paper mill in Camus, came to Oregon City to express that he had almost given up hope. He's seen a long, steady race to the bottom since the North American Free Trade Agreement was implemented in 1994.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:120%'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:120%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:#222222'>“All the industrial work has gone overseas,” King said. “What happened to Mexico came here in terms of privatization and ordinary, hardworking people being left out.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>http://oregoncitynewsonline.com/news/story_2nd.php?story_id=127844577785782000</span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>