Repost: Meet an 80-year-old female mechanic at Oregon Tradeswomen Archives Project in Northeast Portland

By Larry Bingham, The Oregonian 
on November 08, 2012 at 2:46 PM, updated November 08, 2012 at 4:34 PM

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Joanna Neal (left) and Becca VandeWalle, students at Oregon Tradeswomen Inc., construct benches for a picnic table for Village Gardens in North Portland. Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc.
The Oregon Tradeswomen nonprofit will hold a special event Saturday in Northeast Portland exploring the history of women in trade careers. Among the guests will be an 80-year-old female auto mechanic and a 60-year-old carpenter.

The organization, which helps women access living-wage careers in construction, aims to document tradeswomen history. Saturday's event, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., is sponsored by the Tradeswomen Archives Project in California.

The tradeswomen archiving event will be held at the Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc. office, 3934 N.E. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd, #101. For more info, contact Dawn Jones at 503-335-8200 x 31.

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-- Larry Bingham

Repost: City of Portland commits to build union, and use minority workers and contractors

Sep 18, 2012 

By DON McINTOSH, Associate Editor

The City of Portland is about to try out a new kind of project labor agreement on public construction contracts. The 23-page “Model Community Benefits Agreement” approved Sept. 5 mandates that on future City construction projects, unions will represent workers, and women and minority workers and contractors will have expanded opportunities. The community benefits agreement, approved in a 5-0 vote, was developed in nearly two years of meetings among unions, minority contractors, pre-apprenticeship training programs, and city officials, and will apply to projects of over $15 million.

The agreement sets goals:

• At least 18 percent of the work will be performed by minorities, and 9 percent by women, and the targets apply both to journeymen and apprentices;
• At least 20 percent of the work on contracts of over $200,000 (and subcontracts of over $100,000) will be performed by apprentices;
• At least 20 percent of the hard construction costs will go to women-owned, minority-owned and “disadvantaged” businesses, and joint ventures with minority and women-owned businesses will get a preference of up to 5 percent in bidding on contracts; and
• At least 30 percent of the workforce will be hired from areas identified by the U.S. Small Business Administration as “historically underutilized business” zones, census tracts that include downtown Portland, inner Southeast and Northeast Portland, and the Lents, and Cully neighborhoods in outer Southeast and Northeast, as well as areas of Gresham, Hillsboro and western Clark County.

To read the full article, visit nwlaborpress.org.

2012 TRADESWOMEN LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE (Sept 28 - 29 2012)

Friday, September 28 & Saturday, September 29, 2012

NECA/IBEW Electrical Training Center

16021 NE Airport Way Portland, OR 97230

At the 7th Annual Tradeswomen Leadership Institute, participants will learn how to be more effective leaders in their workplaces, unions, companies and communities while building relationships with and gaining vital support from a community of women who share similar experiences working in the trades.
Visit this website for event details and registration!

Examples of past workshops include:

History of Women in the Trades

How to Organize to Make a Difference

Asserting Yourself and Resolving Conflict

How to Have Your Voice Heard in Your Union

Promoting Your Sisters and Being an Effective Ally

Retrieved from: http://www.tradeswomen.net/tradeswomen-leadership-institute/