It’s Labor Day, and many of us have it off, thanks to labor unions.
It’s an appropriate day to honor local union workers by asking what they’ve done for us lately.
Giving hours of volunteer service to others is a way of life here, and union members are part of that in ways as large as a house and as small as an eight-ounce jar of Jif peanut butter.
Let’s start with a few unruly tons of food.
Every year the Letter Carriers’ Food Drive invites us to set our canned goods out with our mail. Union postal workers pick up that food as an extra job that day, and 35 members of other unions dart around the county, relaying it to the Emergency Food Network mothership in Lakewood.
In May, these union members brought in 265,000 pounds of food. That covered an entire week’s worth of the food EFN distributes county-wide through food banks.
EFN puts a premium on peanut butter, so Patty Rose, secretary-treasurer of Pierce County Central Labor Council, has set the gears to start a tradition of making Jif peanut butter part of every meeting around the May food drive.
“Union members donated 173 jars of Jif, the union-made peanut butter,” she said. “That’s 395 pounds. In 2012 we will be having a challenge with the Snohomish County Labor Council to see who can collect the most peanut butter for our local food bank.”
As for the house, Teamsters, Longshore and Service Employees union members took on three of them this summer with Paint Tacoma-Pierce Beautiful.
Union members are good at meshing into bigger community programs. That lets them concentrate on rounding up the dollars instead of organizing the event, a nice efficiency from energy bills to guide dogs.
“The International Association of Machinists fund-raises through the year to help out the national guide dog program for the visually impaired,” said Nathe Lawver, AFL-CIO community services liaison. “They worked with the state labor council on a golf tournament. They also do Harley runs.”
International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Local 17, was part of a team that raised $7,000 for the Komen Puget Sound Race for the Cure in June.
Just last weekend, union West Pierce County Firefighters ran a Fill the Truck drive to gather food and toiletries for Caring for Kids.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 483, the linemen and women, and Local 76, the indoor and commercial workers, fielded a Relay for Life team to fight cancer this summer. Local 483 members’ Dam Run raised money to help low-income seniors pay their Tacoma Public Utilities.
They’re out in the field. They see the need. They devise a way to help meet it.
Unions have woven themselves into whatever safety net is left to benefit the community as a whole, and they have set up systems to keep their own people from needing it.
Pierce County Labor Community Services Agency, the labor council’s nonprofit arm, is the first stop for union families in need.
When someone calls 211, United Way of Pierce County’s help line, one of the questions is “Are you a union member?”
“If the answer is ‘yes,’ they get put through to me,” Lawver said. “If the answer is ‘no,’ sometimes they get through to me as well.”
Lawver said that in 2010 his agency helped 180 families with $25,167 for utilities and rent.
Its Holiday Giving program provided 19 families, including 51 kids, with $4,450 in gift cards for food and clothing.
“I have had to buy people heart medications so their spouses don’t die,” he said. “In some situations we do spending plans and financial coaching to help them get back on track, so there is an education piece, too.”
Since 2003, the Jerry Beckendorf Community Service Scholarship has awarded a total of $40,000, raised at a bowling tournament, to 70 students.
On Sept. 14, members of the same unions that helped finance Pierce County’s blood bank will hold a drive to give something money can’t buy: their blood.
Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677
kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/street
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