The Rose Festival Starlight Parade brought thousands of people to downtown Portland on the evening of Saturday, June 1, as part of the well-loved annual civic celebration.
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By Don McIntosh
When Robert Camarillo was chosen to head the Oregon Building Trades Council in 2018, taking the construction union agenda to the state capitol was a one-person operation. Last year, reinforcements arrived: IBEW Local 48 president Wayne Chow.
Wayne Chow
Chow, 43, brings a unique perspective to the job, as someone who suffered wage theft in the years before he found his union.
Born and raised in Toronto, Chow worked as a motorcycle mechanic when he moved to Portland in 2000, but entered an electrical apprenticeship on the encouragement of his then father-in-law. Unfortunately for Chow, it was the non-union program. Unlike the free-to-participants IBEW/NECA training program, that meant he had to pay for tuition, books, tools, and lab fees, while earning just over minimum wage. Without a union hiring hall and dispatch, he had to solicit his own work. One nonunion contractor said flat-out that he wouldn’t hire Chow because of his last name.