Bill Messenger, former President of the Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers Local 211 in Grays Harbor County, recently joined the Washington State Labor Council as Labor Liaison for the Workforce Investment Act.  

In his new position, Messenger works to find alternatives to plant closure and job dislocation, and when such closures and layoffs can't be avoided, he helps the affected workers have access to job retraining and reemployment program opportunities available through the WIA. Filling the position vacated with the retirement of Jim Tusler, he is working closely with fellow WIA Liaison Lori Province.

"We are very pleased to welcome someone with Bill's expertise, compassion and enthusiasm to the Council," said WSLC President Rick Bender. "He has some big shoes to fill, but he has already hit the ground running. Bill is going to be a very important asset for Washington working families who face the trauma of job layoff and dislocation."

Unfortunately, Messenger has first-hand experience in this area. Over the course of the past year, his local union fought to avoid closure of Weyerhaeuser's Cosmopolis pulp mill. His union's sustained and creative efforts earned recognition in the form of the Mother Jones Award at the WSLC Convention in August, but in September the plant closed and 200 hourly employees and a few dozen salaried employees lost their jobs. "We gave it a good fight," Messenger told The (Aberdeen) Daily World following the experience.

“In today's labor climate, my new role at the State Labor Council is a challenging and critical necessity," Messenger said.  "A person’s job is one of the most important things in their life and I consider it a privilege to work with a team here at the Council that helps preserve workers’ rights.”

A Grays Harbor County resident for 32 years, Messenger currently resides in Ocean Shores with his wife, Sue, an active 15-year member of AFSCME Local 970 who works for DSHS Home and Community Services in Aberdeen. They have four grown children. 

Messenger first became a union member with the Retail Clerks union while attending school and ultimately earned a Forestry degree from Grays Harbor College in 1975. Since then he's been a member of the IWA, LPIW and AWPPW unions during his career in the timber industry. The last 15 years he was active in Local 211's leadership in various roles including Safety Steward, Vice-President, Standing Committee, and President for the past five years.

The following press release was distributed Friday by the Sound Alliance, a broad-based nonpartisan  organization of religious, education, labor and other nonprofit institutions across the Puget Sound . For more information, contact Joe Chrastil, Lead Organizer for Sound Alliance, at 253-686-2857.

Public Assembly Negotiated with Seattle , Tacoma , Clover Park , Bethel School Districts
Sound Alliance presses for measures designed to improve career and educational opportunities for the nearly 70% of high school students who are not college bound

KENT, Wash. -- In response to concerns from more than 200 parents, school employees, church leaders, and other community members around the region, the Sound Alliance held its first public negotiations Wednesday night at an assembly at the IBEW Local 46 Hall in Kent.  

Several hundred people from more than 50 churches, synagogues, unions, education associations, and other non-profits have asked high-level representatives from Seattle , Tacoma , Clover Park , and Bethel School Districts for public commitments to implement measures designed to improve career and educational opportunities for high school students who are not college bound. Private sector contractors, unions, and school district leaders have publicly committed to support these measures. Sound Alliance leaders met with David Allen, Vice President of the McKinstry Co., chair of Enterprise Seattle and a leader with the Boys & Girls Club, and shared by letter with the assembly that he planned to support this important program.  

The Alliance sought and received support for the creation of OpportunityWorks NW, a project to engage young people in overcoming barriers that keep them from obtaining meaningful jobs that provide living wages and long-term career options.  The project’s initial focus will be to inspire non-college bound students to stay in school and earn their high school diploma.

More than 70 percent of high school graduates statewide do not go to college, and 25 percent drop out or graduate late.  Fully 40 percent of Hispanic, Native American, and African American students drop out.  Many of these students realize early on that they are not going to college and, seeing no reasons or inspirations for staying in school, drop out.  

At the same time, many unions who supply skilled trades cannot fill their apprenticeship programs, especially when they seek minority and female candidates.  Limited resources leave teachers and counselors with little knowledge to promote the trades to non-college bound students.  The gap in opportunities and hope leaves many vulnerable. 

Reggie Elliott of Local 32 of the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters shared his story at the Wednesday's assembly : “As a child, I struggled in school and I know all too well about the pressures of growing up and having limited resources and little direction. Though my life was full of chaos and confusion I was able to rise above it, when I was introduced to a program similar to OpportunityWorks NW.  It was then that I realized that if I took advantage of this special opportunity to educate myself and learn a trade that I would be able to hold my head up high and pursue my goals in life!  Since then I have met my goals and I am still setting more every day.”

Wendi Pfannenstiel, a member of St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Tacoma , added: “As a teacher, I often see the non-college bound students give up on school because they see little use for the information.  By offering this important program in the trades, the Sound Alliance is creating hope and a future for the young of our community and giving these students reason to stay in school.”

Students need hope and meaningful incentives to stay in school.  The opportunity to secure challenging and well-paid jobs in the building and construction trades after graduation can provide the inspiration for many students to finish school.  OpportunityWorks NW gives this hope.  

Greg Vicars, Sound Alliance leader from St. Vincent DePaul in Federal Way, said: “I plan to keep working with the Sound Alliance and my church to not only make Opportunity WorksNW a reality in the school districts we spoke to, but in others in the Puget Sound as well.”   

Added Kirt Gardiner of IBEW Local 46: “The Sound Alliance has shown me how much my story is like that of people I would have never met before -- those in unions, synagogues, teachers, churches and other community groups.  When you share your stories and realize how much we have in common, you begin to see the collective power that we each have to do common good.  Like drops of rain -- together we can change the very landscape of the world in which we live.”