Powells

The phone rang and it was a call from a supporter. Jamie wasn't going to be able to vote because there was no babysitter. The story was heard as one side of a phone conversation to the office. For me and my boss Peter it was a painful conversation for what we heard, what we didn't hear from the person who answered the telephone. He was a solid supporter but he had not pushed for an arrangement, we can be the babysitter and the transportation to the voting place. He didn't say it. We wanted a commitment from the person who called to get to the polling place. Would the election be lost because too many conversations like this one had occurred today? Both Peter and I had run a lot of elections and the telephone conversation banged around in our heads like the metal ball bouncing in a pin ball machine. Without a lot to do for the day until the last polling place closed we had time to play the bounces.

Early that morning one of my assistants had driven to Salem to pick up a supporter who was staying with her grandmother and who after voting at the airport store, the earliest voting site, after which she would be dropped at the clinic in Portland for day surgery on her wrist. She had gone the fartherest to vote that day as far as we knew.

Later, in the days following the election I heard of people who had postponed their vacation or driven from the beach that day in order to vote. These were no votes. I remembered a person who had voted in a different union election on the way to the beach on Valentine's day after her wedding ceremony. She wore her red wedding dress to the voting place. Even the old Labor Board official had said that the woman in the wedding dress was a first.

On election day at Powells it was a long afternoon for me. What would my boss think, the people back in San Francisco at the headquarters of the Longshoremen's union? The dream was a recurring one, first of winning and then losing, celebration and deflation, the summation of a year and a half of work all on a warm mid-April afternoon. We had started on my birthday in early October a year and a half earlier. Today I felt the helplessness of nothing else to do all the while wondering if there was something else I should have done. Other times I felt a pride in how far we had come. Why was it so close?

One of the attractive and unique aspects of my job was this termination point, inevitable, the climax of my work. Few jobs have such a place. Or a work plan that has such a definite threshold, continue or terminate? This was certainly one of my longest campaigns and it had tested my skills/techniques in many ways.


	An early photo of the Organizing Committee

The polls at the main Burnside store were in the afternoon and would concluded at five pm. Several people who would be voting at Burnside would be challenged ballots, arguably managers, who we knew would vote no. My best election observers both respected and smart were at Burnside for this reason. ( Observers had to "challenge" the voter when they entered the polling place). The debrief and message from one of my observers was short, "everyone was voting". The tension only increased. The sure success of the campaign was predicated on a good voter turn out not an enormous turnout. On our voter id and charts leading to the election we counted one hundred and thirty two yes votes. The more people who voted the slimmer the margin of victory.

At five pm I entered the voting area. It was finished. All of the Portland labor board representatives were involved on one level or another with this election due to the various voting places and logistics or having more than one voting place open at a time. I had worked with each of the officials at one time or another on different union campaigns.

The ballots were in sealed boxes from each polling place. There were about thirty "challenged" ballots. An employee who worked at one store could vote at any location, however if they voted at a voting place that was not at their usual work place their ballot was challenged. This was to prevent a persons from voting at more than one polling place, their usual workplace and another location. The process of reconciling these "challenged" ballots with the voting lists began shortly after we all gathered in a conference room next to Michael Powell's office in the administrative building. The room was warm and full of people although many people had to wait outside the building. The number of people we were allowed as observers was limited. What this meant was the most partisan people on each side were in the room with the exception of the labor board officials. In addition Michael Powell was not present.

As with the rest of the day I was mostly an observer, letting employees perform the tasks required by the labor board process, checking voter lists, one from management and one from the union, against the challenged ballots. I knew the process would yield a result but it seemed to be moving very slowly in the warm room. Tensions seemed to rise as we each looked around at the partisan observers in the room each of us knowing that half of the people in the room were going to be very disappointed with the results.

There were five "challenged" ballots that could not be resolved, meaning that they would remain "challenged". These people were on the voter list however the union felt they should not be eligible because they were managers. In addition, we were sure these were no votes. If these ballots could affect the outcome of the election after all of the others were counted there would be a separate hearing where each side to present evidence and argue the case whether the person in question was eligible and therefore their ballot should be included.

Ballot counting for me as a partisan observer in each I have observed is a dramatic process. All of the paper ballots are taken from the boxes and laid flat on the table. Each side has an official counter with a tally sheet with a labor board official handing the ballots, turning them face up one at a time and saying "yes" or "no". The ballots after being counted are placed in a pile, segregated, yes or no. When the tally reaches fifty for either yes or no the observers speak up. Assuming each side agrees the stack of fifty are bound together by a rubber band.

Listening to the words of the labor board official "yes" or "no" each "no" hurt, a physical or mental blow. The ballot count was close however the margin of yes to no varied. Yes keeping small lead. In one of the stores the yes sentiment was particularly strong and in another the no sentiment was strong. The pattern of yes and no ballots ebbed and flowed one imagined based upon where each polling place happen to fall in the stack of ballots when they were first placed on the table face down. A string of no votes near the end of the counting placed the outcome in doubt in everyone's mind except perhaps the official counters at the table near the front of the room. I knew, as the blood rushed to my head, the last few ballots would determine the outcome of the election but it wasn't until the final tally was announced that it was known to me or the others in the room. Yes votes 131 No votes 125. The five "challenged" ballots would not be determinative therefore it was a win!! On our side there were hugs, handshakes and noise. We shouted from the windows of the conference room to the people waiting outside in the street that we had won.