In the Community
- Calendar of Events
- Student Explore Careers
- Oregon Working Families Party
- Metropolitan Alliance for Common Good
- OSHA - Occupational Safety & Health Administration
- CAWS
Calendar of Events
MACG Leadership Training for Public Life
May 2009 Leadership Institute for Public Life (LIPL)
Wednesdays, May 6, 13, 20 and 27
6:00 - 9:00 pm
Parkrose UMC
11111 NE Knott, Portland, OR
Students Explore Careers with Labor Commissioner
On October 24, Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian was at the Operating Engineers Training Center with Thurston High School (Springfield) students who operated an assortment of heavy equipment. The students are part of a Trade Skills Fundamentals program that provides them an opportunity to learn the requirements necessary to be a successful applicant to an apprenticeship program.
Click here to read the article from the Register Guard.
Click below to watch the video.
Oregon Working Families Party
Are you fed up with politicians and political parties that fight over divisive issues at election time and ignore what working families care about most? Do you want a political party that fights—first and foremost—for affordable healthcare, good jobs and good schools? Well, there’s good news—here’s your opportunity to help build a new political party that will fight for Oregon’s working families.
Oregonians from all walks of life and all areas of the state—working people, parents of school age children, small business owners, family farmers, representatives of community groups, and labor unions like ours—collecting signatures during the spring and summer of 2006 for a petition to establish a Working Families Party in Oregon. In July of 2006, the party was officially certified by the Secretary of State as a minor political party in Oregon.
We are determined to get our government focused again on the things that can make our jobs better, our families more secure and our communities more prosperous. That means:
- Making health care affordable and available to all Oregonians;
- Improving our public schools, from pre-school through high school;
- Opening doors to higher education and job training for more working Oregonians;
- Defending our jobs against outsourcing, pay cuts and Enron-style corporate raiders;
- Protecting the promise of a decent retirement after a lifetime of work;
- Promoting smart strategies to support good jobs, such as developing Oregon’s untapped wealth of new energy sources that are clean, secure and sustainable and will be attractive to new industries in the 21st century.
It’s important to note, we’re not trying to create a minor party that will run “spoiler” candidates with no chance of winning. We want to win for working families, and we have a plan to do that…by staying focused on the issues that matter most to working families, by organizing in our communities and by restoring fusion voting at the Oregon State Legislature. HB 3040 is working its way through the 2007 Legislature, so stay tuned for updates on its progress.
What is Fusion Voting?
Fusion voting worked well in Oregon—so well that it became a threat to big-money special interests, who forced its repeal in the early 1900s. Once legal and common in all states, fusion voting is now legal only in New York, Connecticut, Delaware, South Carolina, Mississippi, South Dakota and Vermont. John F. Kennedy carried the state of New York in his 1960 Presidential campaign, thanks to fusion voting. More recently, both Republican and Democratic leaders of the New York legislature supported an increase in the state’s minimum wage because of the power and appeal of the Working Families Party and fusion voting.
Legalization of fusion voting in Oregon would free candidates from the straightjacket of the two-party system. It gives voters more meaningful choices on the ballot and it gives political parties, like the Working Families Party, more ways to compete for votes based on their commitment to clear and well-defined issues.
Fusion Voting works like this… candidates can be endorsed by more than one party, but be listed separately on the ballot of each party’s ballot line, and then votes are combined or “fused” in the final tally. See the following sample ballot:
In this example, Mary Smith’s votes are added together from the two ballot lines. Mary Smith wins with 51% of the vote, but she also knows that without the support of the Working Families Party, she would have lost.
The Working Families Party can use fusion voting to encourage more candidates to seek our support, reward candidates who commit to the issues that matter most to working families, and hold those candidates accountable when they win elections with our votes. Now that’s an edge!Visit the site.
Metropolitan Alliance for Common Good
MACG - Clackamas County Caucus is currently working on the Domestic Violence Survivor Housing Project.
We have discovered that in Clackamas County there is a common concern for the housing of survivors of domestic violence or the lack thereof. Clackamas Women's Services alone recives over 2,000 calls a year requesting shelter for over 3,000 women and children and are only able to provide shelter services for about 250 women and children. We have found that if there were suitable housing for several of these survivors that CWS could feasibly help in more of the emergency shlter needs.
At this time, we have a proposal in circulation, have several grants being applied for and are at the first stage of looking into suitable locations for a pilot home in Clackamas County.
OSHA - Occupational Safety & Health Administration
OSHA's mission is to assure the safety and health of America's workers by setting and enforcing standards; providing training, outreach, and education; establishing partnerships; and encouraging continual improvement in workplace safety and health.
Visit the website.
CAWS
A membership organization created by the construction industry and its peers, CAWS represents a unique blend of businesses, trade unions, workforce organizations, educators and community organizations. All of which are coming together to address a common purpose create a skilled and diverse labor force in the local construction trades.