ILWU Local 5 was chartered on August 10, 2000, after a two-year organizing and contract campaign by 400 workers at Powell’s Books in Portland. The organizing effort began in 1998 when the company restructured jobs and significantly reduced raises for workers. Powell’s workers filed for a union election on March 12, 1999. On April 22, they made history by voting to join the union and becoming the nation’s largest union bookstore.
Contract negotiations between the workers and company were contentious. Between October 1999 and May 2000, the union filed 10 Unfair Labor Practices against Powell’s for violating labor laws – including retaliation against union supporters. Workers responded by organizing eleven strikes.
After 53 bargaining sessions held over ten months, workers announced they had reached a tentative agreement for a fair contract on August 1, 2001, winning significant improvements including an 18 percent raise over three years.
Local 5 members at Powell’s perform a wide-range of tasks.
“Powell’s is a pretty big company with multiple storefronts and every type of job from booksellers and people who do software programming to driving trucks and buying new and used books,” said Local 5 President Ryan Van Winkle. There’s a department that just builds fixtures and shelving. There’s a whole woodshop at our warehouse, and all of these workers are members of Local 5,” he said.
In recent years, Local 5 has expanded to help workers in other shops.
“In addition to workers at Powell’s books, we represent food service workers at Evergreen State College and staff at the Oregon Historical Society,” Van Winkle said. “We’re also helping veterinary technicians organize to join the union and have several other campaigns in the works.”
Participation is encouraged
Local 5 encourages members to actively participate. They do this with member-to-member, two-way conversations on the job, and providing a warm, welcoming space at a wide-range of social and political events. The Local 5 office becomes a site for social events that bring together members from different shops.
“The Local 5 office is located near the Powell’s Burnside store, making it convenient for that large group of workers to easily meet. The office space is used for game nights, an annual craft bazaar where Local 5 members sell artwork, jewelry, and other craft projects, and a monthly display of artwork by Local 5 members.
“The monthly board-game night enables workers from different shops to meet and interact,” said Van Winkle. “We organize other activities like taking members caving, holding regular beach clean-ups, and other events organized by members.” Trips have included everything from hikes in the woods to visiting a local shooting range.
The Local also has an “open bargaining” policy that encourages members to observe negotiations whenever the union meets with employers. This policy dates from the first Powell’s contract campaign, twenty years ago.
“We see ourselves as the antithesis of a service-model union,” says Van Winkle, referring to unions that are run by professional staff who operate without control and participation of rank-and-file members.
“All the work done around here is member-driven,” Van Winkle says. “Our decisions and how we operate begin and end with the membership.” He says the structure behind their bottom-up ethic begins with a strong Stewards Council that’s always been focused on membership involvement – an approach that has proven successful for the past two decades.
Local 5 Member profiles
Beth Woodson, Veterinary Technician
“I’ve been at Columbia River Veterinary Specialists for six years. This is my 25th year in the veterinary industry and I’ve been a licensed technician for 19 years – ten of them as a veterinary technician specialist. Most of my career has been in emergency and critical care, plus some anesthesia as well. I’m currently the overnight lead for the emergency and critical care departments. Forming a union had been talked about on and off throughout the years. More so after we saw several of our favorite practices sold to large corporations. I didn’t feel there was a place for it when we were privately owned, but when we went through our first acquisition, it was a topic of conversation. We thought we could survive the takeover because it seemed like there was strong internal support from our management and our benefits. While they weren’t comparable to some private practice benefits, they weren’t as bad as they are now. When PetVet acquired us, I watched people cry over their health care choices. They were sitting in front of their computer with their head in their hands crying because they were going to have to choose to go without health care. That motivated me to get in contact with people and get in touch with ILWU Organizer Ryan Takas. I called him on my way home from work and set up a time to meet with him.
“The patients will always be the top priority for workers like us. Corporate medicine has taken away from that focus, and I want to bring it back. My goal is to get back to the medicine, get back to the teaching, and making sure everyone is as well-trained as possible.
“Working conditions in our profession have seen a huge drop in recent years. At the last privately-owned practice where I worked, we had quarterly profit sharing. We had meaningful raises. I was able to buy a house, but now I’m struggling. I’ve had to refinance my house. I’ve had to take on roommates and pick up extra shifts and work a lot of overtime just to make ends meet. I feel like I’m a little too far into my career to be this desperate.
“The support from our team of doctors has been outstanding. They proudly wear our buttons and encourage us. They’ve written letters of support and gone above and beyond. Those things highlight the strength of our hospital and employees.”
Annie Presler, Veterinary Technician
“I started working in the veterinary industry in 2000 as a kennel attendant—sweeping, mopping floors, and cleaning kennels. In 2010 I decided to go back to college and become a Veterinary Technician and got my license in 2012. I started at Columbia River Veterinary Specialists in 2017 and have been there since.
“The way I describe what a veterinary technician does is a registered nurse for animals. We are anesthesiologists, nurses, groomers, doctor’s assistants, pharmacists. We do a lot of different things. There are so many different facets of veterinary medicine that it’s hard to define. In Washington State and Oregon, you have to go to an accredited school—either a brick-and-mortar school or an online school. Then you receive your Associate of Applied Science in Veterinary Technology, but have to pass an exam to get your license. After that, you have to complete continuing education to keep your license.
“I love seeing patients that have been in the hospital for weeks walk out the door on their own. I like being able to answer questions for clients and give them advice, and of course, I like puppies and kittens. The hard part is the daily struggle of seeing pets die every day when I’m at work. I can’t think of a day when I haven’t had a pet euthanized. There’s a very real rough side to veterinary medicine, and it really affects me and the people I work with, sometimes in really stressful ways.”
Mary Gregory, Veterinary Technician
“I started working for Columbia River Veterinary Specialists in 2013 when we were owned by a private group of veterinarians. I’ve seen three different ownerships since I’ve been with the company. My background is in biology. I have my bachelor’s through Portland State and worked with the Forest Service in the wildlife department. I’ve always really enjoyed animals and wildlife. I always had it in the back of my mind that if I had the opportunity to get involved in the veterinary industry, I would give it a chance. I didn’t know how I could fit-in until I found my current job as an instrument technician. I also do imaging with our Computed Tomography (CT). I’m responsible for maintaining the sterility of all of our equipment and instruments, managing the flow of our surgical suites, the cleaning process, the surgery and assisting the imaging of patients and training new hires in instruments and cross-training others who want to help out on that side of the hospital. We service the entire hospital, all specialties, the Emergency Room and Intensive Care Unit.
“Staffing is an issue. We consistently have turnover. We are open 24-7 and it’s a challenge to get enough coverage so all the instruments and equipment are sterilized and ready to go. We’ve had several vacancies where people have come into the position, and go elsewhere after saying there’s too much work for the pay. Just retaining good quality people is difficult because they aren’t being paid what they deserve.”
Lisa Zacks, Veterinary Technician, CRVS
“I’ve been in the industry for about 20 years and was always interested in veterinary medicine but thought the science was overwhelming. When I went to massage school, I realized that I was learning a lot of the sciences, so I went into veterinary medicine and worked at a shelter in San Francisco during my 2-years of school. After graduating I went into orthopedic veterinary medicine because my own dog needed veterinary care. I volunteered to work with the surgeon who did the surgery and he hired me. I have now done several specialties; orthopedics, internal medicine, oncology, ophthalmology, and I’m currently working as an ER technician.
I enjoy the mental and physical stimulation of the job and constant work. We can do so many different things. It’s not like human medicine. We are everywhere. We do radiology. We do anesthesia. We are neonatal and geriatric. We’re not confined to one department. Everything is open for us to do.
“Everything is not always as straightforward as it seems. The pets can’t tell us what’s happening, so sometimes they might present for one thing until we find an underlying problem
“The harder part of the job can be the financial aspect—that clients can’t afford the treatment or the medication. Sometimes there are really sad cases we see over and over again—meaning they aren’t going to get better, and we are just maintaining them until the family can come to terms with what’s going on with their pet. The time constraints we have for each patient, and the number of patients waiting for help can be overwhelming. Our wages have dropped at least five percent since this latest company took us over because our hours have been reduced. I don’t have a savings account anymore. I used to be able to save money.”
Brianna Bonham, Chief Steward,
Powell’s Books, Cedar Hill
“I’d never worked a union job before Powell’s. When I get hired, there was a union orientation during our onboarding week. I thought it was really interesting. I paid attention to what was going on at Local 5 for the first year or so, but didn’t get involved until we started bargaining in 2018. I
started attending all of the negotiations and realized how important it is to show up for our voices to be heard. Not a lot of people from my specific location were going,\ so I wanted to make sure that our location had a voice.
“As a steward, I do a lot of different things. On the shop floor, a lot of it is answering questions. I answer a lot of time-keeping questions and benefits questions. I also represent workers during investigations to make sure their rights are protected. If the process ends with discipline or a termination, it sometimes means working on grievances.
“During our 2018 bargaining, the Powell’s bargaining committee, co-led by Myka Dubay and Ryan Takas, pitched the idea of making the Powell’s contract gender-neutral so that every worker would feel represented. The company took really well to it and went further by implementing it in their own policies and practices. It was an important step for the Local to take because every single worker, regardless of their gender identity, is welcomed at Local 5. Myka and Andy Anderson then led the effort to amend the Local 5 constitution to make it gender-neutral and then at the ILWU Convention in Portland, delegates passed a resolution to amend International’s constitution to be gender-neutral and at meetings, to include the greeting, ’fellow workers,’ and not just ‘brothers and sisters.’
“I recently did an orientation for some new workers who were hired for the holidays. One of the workers uses gender-neutral “they/them” pronouns, and they said they’ve never worked at a job where they feel so immediately welcomed and didn’t have to worry about correcting managers or telling co-workers. Local 5 is great about making sure every worker feels welcomed and has a voice.
Joey Beach,
Steward, Oregon Historical Society Steward
“I’ve been at the Oregon Historical Society (OHS) for about 12 years. I work at Visitor Services; we’re the people who sell you tickets and memberships, answer your questions and give you directions. The OHS is a museum, a research library with librarians and archivists, a museum store, and we publish a scholarly quarterly publication. We also have an education department that does school tours. Some of the staff fabricate exhibits. We have curators and people in the collections department who manage artifacts. We have a large warehouse where most of the people in our bargaining unit work. We have union members in almost every department except finance.
“At the museum, we have a lot of permanent exhibits – including one called Experience Oregon that covers the chronological and thematic history of different regions in the state, which our main exhibit. We also have one called Oregon Voices, which picks up with more contemporary Oregon history, and we have one called History Hub, which is geared towards children and families.
We had our own little union since 1990, called the Oregon Historical Society Employee Association. It was just about 30 of us in the bargaining unit. I was the President at the time, and in 2017 we decided it was time to affiliate with a larger union so we could have some support for better organization and better negotiations. Not that it had been going badly, but it felt like it was time. I reached out to Local 5 and a couple of other unions at the time. Local 5 was the most responsive and the most excited about talking to us. The other unions didn’t seem interested. Maybe they thought we weren’t big enough, and we weren’t going to do anything to benefit them. Local 5 didn’t see it that way.
Jeffrey Hayes,
Oregon Historical Society and Local 5 Trustee
“I’ve worked at the Oregon Historical Society in some capacity for almost seven years, and my job as an archivist started in 2014. Anytime people donate materials to the Research Library – family papers, photographs, and things like that – I’m in charge of logging that donation. I do some work in organizing those materials because sometimes people just fill a box with stuff and bring it in, which isn’t that useful to researchers. I have to put it in an acid-free folder, give the collection and title with a catalog entry so people can find it online.
“The research library has a lot of materials; papers, letters, people’s diaries, and organizational records. We have a lot photographs and films, although not as well represented, but we are trying to work on that. We have oral histories – which are interviews with people. It’s important because history is made from these primary documents – it doesn’t start as a textbook – it starts by looking at what was created at the time by people. We offer access to that. We mostly have materials related to Oregon, of course, but to some extent, the Pacific Northwest in general.
“I was the first person to get a Local 5 Affiliate Card in October or November of 2017. Local 5 assisted us with negotiations in 2018, which was a huge help. In August of 2018, we voted to become full members of Local 5. We managed to get the improvements we did because of Local 5.”
Ryan Van Winkle,
President ILWU Local 5
“I started working for Powell’s Books at the Burnside location in the parking garage in July of 1999. That was about a month after workers voted to form a union. Because Local 5 has open bargaining, with members allowed to observe the bargaining process, I started going to these bargaining sessions. Heads of the company were there – the people who run the company – with their lawyer, so I was able to see how they treated us and our relatively meager requests for more than minimum wage. That experience galvanized me, and I became very involved – what I would now call a participatory member.
“As Local 5’s elected President, I continue to work in the warehouse and process books. We have a very large warehouse that ships out books to all the various locations.
“In high school, I worked at a grocery store that was represented by a large union in this area, and I think it affected the way I see the labor movement and the direction it needs to go. During my time there, I never talked to anyone who represented the union. Every nine-months, I would get a bill from the union saying that I hadn’t paid all my dues, but that was the only interaction I had with them. Or one time I got a notice telling me that we would be on strike, something I didn’t know anything about. It was a feeling disengagement. My voice was unimportant and didn’t matter. I don’t want anyone to feel that way who’s a part of Local 5. I think we go out of our way to try to help people become a part of the process and get engaged.
“We also bargain all of our contracts with members. Every single one of our bargaining teams is made up of members. They’re the ones who sit across the table from the company. They’re the ones who craft the proposals. We don’t do it with lawyers. We don’t have our union rep do it. We have someone there to help, guide and advise, but the contract is negotiated by the members who are going to be working under it.”