American Notes Oregon

Among requirements for the rank of eagle scout are community service, leadership and organizational ability. So when Scout Kenneth Pulley industriously organized volunteers a year ago to clean and paint eight of the 800 bus shelters in his hometown of Portland, he was rewarded four months later with a promotion to eagle. More recently, Pulley, 16, earned a less meritorious recognition: his project was cited in a labor grievance for violating the local transit union's contract with the agency that runs the city's buses.

Complaining that Pulley's cleanup ignored provisions against subcontracting union work, labor leaders rasped that the project, which saved the agency about $480, should have been cleared with them. Transit officials defended the agency's right to work with volunteers. When the eagle scout was summoned as a witness in an arbitration hearing last week, at least one union leader was faintly defensive. Richard Ries, business manager for Division 757 of the Amalgamated Transit Union and a former eagle scout, allowed that "it sounds like we're taking a broadsword to the scouts." But sometimes, he insisted, good deeds can lead to bad consequences.