Frey reflected accomplishments over his 32 years in Alaska with a mixture of pride and humility, and made observations on economic challenges facing the nation and Alaska.

Frey, president of the Alaska Federation of Labor for 18 years and business agent for Laborer's Local 341 for 20 years, has been promoted to become the Northwest regional vice president for the laborer's union, and will be based in Seattle.

Frey has been a fixture in the state's business and resource development community for years.

He is best known for being president of Arctic Power, a group working to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. He has also been on the board of the Resource Development Council for 25 years.

Frey told RDC members Jan. 16 he felt his greatest accomplishment was "putting a face to the labor movement," in Alaska, a person with visibility, active in community affairs, that the public and the business community can relate to.

Frey's second greatest accomplishment, he felt, was forging a new relationship between labor and the state's oil and gas industry.

Relations between labor and industry were in tatters in the mid-1980s, Frey recalled. "The price of oil had gone to $9 per barrel, the economy was in dire straits," he said.

"The oil companies came to the union and asked them to 'adjust' wages and benefits," in Project Labor Agreements covering North Slope work. The unions organized a big statewide meeting," and essentially rejected the proposal.

"We thought the industry couldn't really build anything in this state without us. We found out we were wrong," Frey said, after the industry brought in non-union contractors to do work.

Labor has since regained a fair amount of the North Slope work, and Frey credited John Roots of ARCO Alaska Inc. and Jim Palmer of BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. for helping he and other labor leaders patch up relations with the industry.

The realignment of interests between labor and the industry was development of significance because it led, among other things, to strong support for the opening of ANWR by national labor unions, led by the Teamsters.

Before industry and the unions had patched things up in Alaska, labor was cool or even hostile to ANWR's opening.

Since then, labor's support has been crucial in getting support in Congress. More than anything, it was labor that got approval for ANWR exploration in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to Roger Herrera, a lobbyist for Arctic Power.

Frey said he has been concerned recently with the "retrenchment" of the state's two major operating companies, a reference to BP and ConocoPhillips Alaska (which purchased ARCO's assets in the state.)

"One of my biggest disappointments is that the major companies are not as fully engaged or involved in the affairs of the community as they have been in recent years," he said.

Frey said later he was making an indirect reference to BP's decision not to renew its support for Arctic Power, the group pushing to open ANWR.

Looking at the national economy, Frey said rising health care costs is a huge threat. "Employers who used to provide health care benefits have now put more of the burden on their employees. This will have a direct effect on consumer spending," and will threaten an economic recovery, Frey told the RDC.

"Congress has to step in and do something," he said.

He expressed particular concern for rising costs of drugs and singled out the pharmaceutical industry for criticism. "In virtually no other developed country are pharmaceutical companies allowed to advertise their products," he said.

The industry creates consumer demand for brand name products which leads to patients asking for the products, which discourages physicians and pharmacists from recommending generic medicines as less expensive alternatives, Frey said.

Frey knows something of the pharmaceutical industry because his union represents pharmacists in Carrs-Safeway stores in Alaska.

The consumer bears the cost of this advertising and marketing of brand products. Congress should prohibit or limit pharmaceutical advertising as it does advertising for tobacco and alcohol, Frey said.

Unlike some in labor, Frey was not critical of the application of new technologies to improve productivity in the workplace.

There are fewer people involved in the building industry these days, he acknowledged, because of automation and technology. But the workplace is safer, workers are better trained, and people are trained to do multiple tasks, for example to operate several types of equipment.

"As a result of these things, America has the most productive workforce in the world," Frey said. "But we can't compete against 17-cents-an-hour workers in South Asia in industries like textiles and shoe manufacture.

"We've lost those industries and we will never regain them. It's a consequence of opening our borders to trade," Frey said.

"But our economy has gained overall because the workers in those industries have been retrained," to work in new jobs, with more productivity, he said.

Frey's new job covers a vast area of nine western U.S. states including Alaska, four Canadian provinces as well as Yukon Territory and Northwest Territories.

Former state labor commissioner and Fairbanks borough mayor Jim Sampson is replacing Frey as AFL president. Micheal Gallagher will replace Frey as Business Agent of Laborers' Local 342.