Union workers say they're being squeezed out of APS jobs.

Kathy Helms (Dine Bureau/Gallup Independent)

FARMINGTON – A group of Navajo carpenters, laborers and millwrights working at Four Corners Power Plant believe they are being eased out of jobs by contractors hired by Arizona Public Service Co.

Members of the Carpenters Union Local 1319, Labor Local 16, Operating Engineers Local 953, and Millwrights Local 1607 met Monday in Farmington to raise concerns about the purpose of the Navajo Preference in Employment Act and other issues associated with APS bringing in outside contractors.

“We realize that the entire country is in a recession and employment is scarce for all, but is it also necessary to forgo Navajo laws in order to provide for families we don't have any familial obligations to?” asked Leland Gray.

“These corporations are sent here to our land in search of our natural resources in order to provide power and energy to urban areas where we really don't have any cultural ties. Yet, Navajos continue to pay with their land and, now, livelihood to provide for millions who will never know or appreciate the source of their comfort and luxury,” he said.

Damon Gross of APS said there are approximately 150 workers on-site that APS has brought in from contract companies.

Lee Pierce, a carpenter, said he has been at Four Corners off and on for about 30 years. He now works for Day & Zimmermann, the designated contractor, and the nation's leader in power plant maintenance and modifications.

“Navajo Preference has been pretty much deleted, and so far, management service looks the other way. We're slowly being forced out of our position and our work as far as Navajo craftsmen is concerned,” Pierce said.

“Our livelihood depends on this. We've got families here. We buy our goods here, and services, so the money is recirculated in this area while the other contractors, it's pretty much take the money and leave. The businessmen of San Juan County should be concerned also.”

The union members question whether non-union workers are being imported and paid wages below union scale while Navajo union workers are laid off. APS permanent workers are not being laid off, according to Gross, however, that is not to say that APS contractors do not have layoffs from their pool of workers as the rebuild jobs are completed.

Harold Litzin, a carpenter from Tsaile-Wheatfields, has been on the job for more than seven years. Litzin builds scaffolding, he said, but on Monday he watched Safeway Services bring in two rigs of materials and a bunch of workers. “The majority, what I see, is they are Hispanic,” he said.

According to Gross , 30 of the 150 outside contract workers are from Safeway and are non-union.

“Unit 2 at the Four Corners Power Plant is undergoing a planned maintenance outage, so the unit gets shut down while we do the necessary work to keep it operating. As such, that requires bringing in contract work to help complete the job in a safe and expedient manner,” Gross said.

Safeway has been a leader in scaffolding services and access solutions in North America since 1936. In the past, Gross said, the contractor they used installed lumber scaffolding. This year, APS wanted to try something different. Safeway scaffolding “goes together like an erector set. It's safe, it's meant for this usage, and when the work is done it's simply disassembled and then used again,” he said.

Instead of lumber being put together, then taken down, and APS having to find a purpose for that lumber, Gross said they thought the Safeway system “presented an opportunity to make the workplace even safer for those there, but we also believe it will help complete the work faster, and there's no wasted materials.”

Part of APS' commitment to Four Corners is hiring members of the Navajo Nation and giving them preference for jobs at the plant site, according to Gross. “About 73 percent of our full-time employees are from the Navajo Nation,” he said. However, if APS hires a contractor and they bring in their own permanent employees, Navajo Preference is not stipulated.

“That is the case with Safeway. These are their own permanent employees. These aren't supplemental contract workers that they're bringing in. If a company has their own employees already in place, we can't stipulate that they have to replace those employees for this one very small job,” he said.

Gross said all of Safeway's Hispanic workers have Social Security numbers, their Green Cards have been verified, and they are on the job legally.

Stanley Tso, a laborer with Local 16, said D&Z employees are drug-tested at random and questioned whether other outside contractors follow the same standards. Tso said he recently smelled alcohol in the work area. “When we have a case like that, a family member has to be called to drive them home.”

Tso and Felipe Dawes of Operating Engineers Local 953 questioned whether outside workers have the same certifications they as union workers are required to have. “I've got rigging cards. In order to rig, we're supposed to have rigging cards. Even driving a man-lift around, we're supposed to have cards for that,” Tso said.

Dawes, a union member for 37 years, agreed. “I see a lot of equipment being operated by non-union people. I don't know whether they have certifications or not. When I run my crane or forklift or whatever, I'm certified. On Unit 4, I was running an overhead crane. We were certified through APS to run that overhead crane.

“But outside, like the forklift and the hydraulic cranes, it's different. You can hurt someone very seriously without thinking about it, like by lifting materials up into the units and going around the units. It's posted 5 miles per hour. Some of them don't obey. They just take off like a bat out of hell.”

The union workers want to see Navajo tribal officials need to take more of an interest in what's going on at Four Corners. “We need backup,” Pierce said. “We expect them to step up to the plate, but it's not happening.”

Gray said he is concerned for his fellow workers. “APS is their bread and butter. They've been working there for 10 or 15 years, and then all the sudden, these guys come in, and they're just taking food off their table. Navajo people are losing their jobs on their own land. I just don't agree with that.”

Jerry Huskay said, “We love what we do at Arizona Public Service. We just don't understand why we are being replaced by non-Navajos and non-union workers. Maybe the managers at corporate should look and see how these new contractors are working and check to see if they are doing it safely.”

Attempt to increase chapter role in mineral negotiations fails.

Kathy Helms (Dine Bureau/Gallup Independent)

WINDOW ROCK – Navajo Nation Council Delegate Amos Johnson's attempt to pass legislation which would have given local chapters and residents a bigger voice in the Nation's mineral leasing was defeated, 19-45, Thursday during the close of Council's spring session.

Johnson, who represents the communities of Black Mesa, Forest Lake and Rough Rock, proposed amendments to Title 18 which would have strengthened the involvement of impacted chapters in the approval of mineral leases, prospecting permits and similar contractual agreements between the Navajo Nation and other entities.

“The amendments to Title 18 would give the local chapters and people an opportunity to voice their concerns on all mineral leases – gas, oil, coal, and so forth, and be part of the negotiation which is centered up here in Window Rock today,” Johnson said.

“The negotiating team is limited to five people and the legislation is to change who is going to be on that team and how leases and permits are going to be processed. This is an opportunity for the local people to have an input on those kinds of initiatives or proposals that move forward.”

Delegate Lorenzo Bates expressed concern that the legislation would create more bureaucracy in the negotiation process.

“Navajo bureaucracy is slow. If you add this layer and another layer it slows it down even more,” he said. “If this legislation existed at the chapter level the process to negotiate would be hard because it would remain at that level.”

Johnson's legislation would have opened the door to public involvement in issues such as the 10-year lease reopener agreement with Peabody Western Coal Co., which has failed to gain approval from Council despite several attempts, and has been hotly contested by some Black Mesa residents and Peabody workers.

“My feeling is the Nation should not engage in public negotiation of these coal leases because they are very, very complicated,” Attorney General Louis Denetsosie said earlier this month during a work session on the Peabody reopener.

Activists such as Norman Benally, who grew up on Black Mesa and whose parents' home is in the Black Mesa lease area, opposed the lease reopener.

“I believe it is time to purge Peabody from Black Mesa permanently. The Navajo Nation and the people of Black Mesa should take ownership of Peabody's operations,” he said.

“The proposed 12 percent royalty renewal does not appear to show any results of any rational negotiating skills. I can never understand the logic the Navajo Nation uses to make the same mistake over and over, and call it leadership. ... The Navajo Nation is its own worst enemy,” he said.

Benally and other residents say that since the Black Mesa Mine closed following the closure of Mohave Generating Station in December 2005, the air quality has improved somewhat but is still polluted because of the coal fires at the Kayenta open-pit strip mines.

“The mess that Peabody leaves behind will be exponentially more expensive to clean up compared to the current royalty rate the Navajo Nation receives,” Benally said.

Johnson recently told the Resources Committee that Black Mesa and Forest Lake chapters have asked to be part of negotiations of mineral leases.

“The only time the local people met with mining officials was before mining occurred,” he said. “They were promised infrastructure and other benefits, but those officials never came back.”

Though Johnson's legislation was defeated Thursday, he said, “This is a wake-up call for everyone who serves on the Council to see what is going on within their areas and to start working with people.”

RECA bill brings hopes for 'justice'.

Kathy Helms (Dine Bureau/Gallup Independent)

WINDOW ROCK – Ever since he became a member of Congress in 1999, U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., has been fighting to bring justice to the issue of compensation for uranium workers and downwinders.

“My father had a 30 year crusade for justice in the case of the miners and the downwinders, and during the course of that 30 years, he probably involved most of our family. While I was in private practice I worked with him on many of these cases,” Udall said last week regarding his introduction of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments of 2010.

Udall's father, Stewart Udall, who passed away last month at age 90, was a former Secretary of the Interior and a strong advocate of compensation for Navajo uranium miners. He was instrumental in getting the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act of 1990 passed and testified to its inadequacies at a June 5, 1993, congressional hearing in Shiprock.

“There have been a number of problems over the years from affidavits not being accepted to difficulties in terms of culture,” Udall said Tuesday. “Many of the things that were asked of Navajo Indians and other Native Americans, they weren't able to provide, and so their claims couldn't go in.

“Now, we've reached the point where there clearly are some additional problems. Post-1971 miners should be covered,” he said. “Uranium core drillers also should be covered and they weren't in the past.” With bipartisan support, Udall is hopeful they can bring the legislation up to date “and make sure justice is done in the long run.”

Liz Lucero and Linda Evers, president and vice president of the Post '71 Uranium Workers Committee, said Udall and co-sponsors of the legislation made history Monday for uranium workers everywhere.

“It's just amazing to me that it's gone on for so long,” Evers said, adding that she and Lucero have only been working for four years on getting support for Post-'71 uranium workers. “There are folks out there that have been working 10 to 15 years on this. Why does it take the government so long to come around and do the right thing?”

The women said they and all the other people that have helped along the way are very happy to see progress being made for the people that have suffered for so long. “This is the beginning of what should have been done for these workers a long time ago. We’re very hopeful that the legislators will see this amendment through to the end, and do the right thing for this group of people.”

The committee expressed their thanks and prayers that all of the co-sponsors of the bill – Sens. Jeff Bingaman, Mike Crapo, Mark Udall, James Risch, Michael Bennet and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan will have the strength to get the bill passed.

Gilbert Badoni, president of the Navajo Dependents of Uranium Workers Committee, will accompany 80-year-old Bettie Yazzie of Sweetwater to New York May 11 to testify about the impacts of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation and its people during the 18th session of the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development.

“Bettie is an elder from Sweetwater. She had several miscarriages and lost her husband to lung cancer,” he said. “She has had numerous extended family members also diagnosed with cancer.”

Second-generation dependents of uranium workers who possibly have some form of health ailment associated with radiation exposure are now beginning to surface, Badoni says. His second-oldest daughter from his first marriage was diagnosed with cervical cancer.

“As you look at the mortality rate you begin to see the younger folks being diagnosed with cancer. Guess what? They all come from uranium-working families. We just need to somehow show that to the world.”

It's probably going to take a study specifically for the dependents to wake up the lawmakers, he said. “They know what uranium can do to a person, but that's still not enough for them. I think they're in denial. They're hoping it's going to go away. But guess what? It's not going to go away.”

Udall said that over the years he has been involved with RECA, one of the biggest questions has always been from the families in terms of whether they were contaminated:

“Are the diseases we are getting a result of our breadwinner coming into the house with dirty mining clothes which were contaminated by radiation? Did we bring water in and other things that were contaminated by radiation and use them in our homes, and has that had a health impact?”

The legislation would authorize $3 million for five years for epidemiological research on the impacts of uranium development on communities and families of uranium workers. The funds would be allocated to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to award grants to universities and non-profits to carry out the research.

“It may well be that we find out that the level of exposure wasn't too bad. But we should ask the questions and we should delve into this and find out,” Udall said.

Last fall, Badoni and a group of about 20 elders went to Washington to seek funding for health studies for the dependents of former uranium workers. They swamped Udall's office.

“He took the time out from the Senate floor, although he was busy, and went back to his office and met with us for about 30 minutes. That was really something else. That was a treat for us. In my statement I asked for a non-governmental entity, a university or medical research facility that was not affiliated with the government to do the studies.” Hearing that funding for those studies is in the bill “just made my day,” Badoni said.

It was the plight of the uranium miners and their families that brought Chris Shuey of Southwest Research and Information Center to Navajo back in the 1970s. Shuey first visited Red Valley about the same time Udall's father did. At that time, Shuey was a freelance journalist who wrote about the health and safety problems Navajos were facing.

“To get justice for people who worked in the uranium industry continues to take generations. This a great step that Udall and others have taken,” Shuey said. “But there's a lot of work to get this passed. Getting it introduced is one step. Getting the next round of RECA amendments passed is a huge step, but it's absolutely necessary. And it's necessary for the people who worked after 1971 because it looks like they're just as sick, and there's not actually enough study of their health status.”

Marguerito “Mag” Martinez worked in the mines for Kerr-McGee from 1949 to 1985. Though sick and elderly, he has been a staunch supporter for those who worked the mines and mills after 1971.

“We've had Post-71 miners that have died already of radiation. What did the country say, 'We didn't buy any uranium after 1971?' That's just a cheap-ass excuse not to pay. They left all the radiation right here and we're eating it up,” he said.

Preston J. Truman, long-time activist and advocate for downwinders, saw his first atom bomb test in 1955 from his home in southwestern Utah. At the age of 17, he was diagnosed with lymphoma. Truman said Udall's bill, filed on the 20th anniversary of the original final RECA bill, is probably even more significant than the first.

“It greatly helps fix the many loopholes that tragically let deserving Native Americans fall through the cracks in applying with no recourse. It also once and for all forces the government to accept and compensate the tens of thousands of other downwinders across the West who received as much, and often more radiation than those of us in the pitiful few rural counties covered in the original act.

“For years, many of us from those 'politically acceptable counties' have demanded something be done to expand RECA, calling loudly for JUSTICE, not JUST US! Finally that call has been heard.”