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PORTLAND, OREGON 97210
(503) 274-1638 FAX (503) 227-1245
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DCU members ratify Portland
school pact — it expired Dec. 31
In voting held Dec. 15-
20, school employees
narrowly ratify a deal
that took 20 months to
bargain.
Twenty months of contentious bar-
gaining between the Portland Public
School District No. 1 and the District
Council of Unions (DCU) ended last
month when some 300 employees nar-
rowly ratified a contract in voting held
Dec. 15-20.
The school board will vote on
whether or not to accept the contract at
its regularly scheduled meeting Jan. 9.
Then the sides get to start all over
again, because the contract’s expiration
date is Dec. 31, 2005.
That’s right. The “letter of ratifica-
tion” the union coalition sent to the
school district also included an “open
the contract” letter to secure bargaining
dates in 2006.
“It sounds crazy, I know, but that’s
how it worked out,” said Gene Black-
burn, spokesman for the DCU, a group
of 16 union locals that bargain jointly
with the school district. Blackburn is a
business representative of Teamsters
Local 206.
The previous contract expired in
June 30, 2004. The school employees
had been working under that contract
while bargaining dragged on.
Negotiating a DCU contract is com-
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plicated. First comes “main body” bar-
gaining, under which all the unions are
involved. Then locals break away for
job-specific talks that represent em-
ployees — sometimes from different
unions — in eight job classifications.
For instance, the Teamsters represent
warehouse workers and truck drivers
under Appendix A of the contract. This
appendix is bargained with its own set
of wages, raises and language regarding
working conditions. Bus operators bar-
gain their own set of standards under
Appendix F, as do maintenance and
craft workers, classroom assistants, and
so on under separate appendices.
The sides reached a tentative agree-
ment on the main body of the contract
relatively early in bargaining. The main
body included a $764 cap on district-
paid health insurance premiums. Any
costs above that would be borne for the
first time by employees.
Then, one by one, appendices were
tentatively agreed to, until only two re-
mained — those for the bus operators,
represented by Amalgamated Transit
Union Local 757, and maintenance and
craft workers represented by a group of
locals from the Columbia-Pacific
Building Trades Council. At that point,
the sides were far apart on health insur-
ance co-payments and contracting out
language.
Months of wrangling ensued. In Oc-
tober 2005, the school district declared
an impasse in bargaining and filed an
unfair labor practice complaint against
the unions. Under state law, the sides
had a 30-day “cooling off” period, after
which management could implement
its last offer and/or the unions could
give notice to strike.
One round of mediated bargaining
took place during the cooling off period.
There were some slight improvements
made, Blackburn said, but not enough
to seal the deal.
On Dec. 12, 2005, the school district
announced it was implementing its fi-
nal offer of October — unless the rep-
resented employees voted by Dec. 20,
whereby the school district would pres-
ent the slightly improved contract nego-
tiated in November.
Some union officials from the DCU
were at odds as to whether or not to
hold a vote, since a contract had already
been implemented. In the end, they
chose to present “the better offer,” and it
narrowly passed.
Under terms of the ratified contract,
each of the groups represented by the
DCU will receive a one-time stipend
or a wage increase in January, which
will cost the school district about
$375,000.
Health insurance co-payments will
vary widely among employees, de-
pending on what insurance plan they
select, how many family members
they cover, and which trust fund they
are in. Co-payments reportedly can
range from $5 to $193 a month.
Local 757, an outspoken critic of
the co-payment plan, said the school
district contract was the first in the last
14 they’ve negotiated that contains
takeaways. “We are not happy about
this at all,” said Jon Hunt, a business
representative of the union.
Building trades unions also are un-
happy with sub-contracting language
that strips school district requirements
to use contractors that have registered
apprenticeship programs, that provide
health insurance and that pay prevail-
ing wages to their employees.
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BENNETT HARTMAN
MORRIS & KAPLAN, LLP
Attorneys at Law
Bright Now! Dental
Salmon Creek
2101 NE 129th St.
Vancouver, WA 98686
360-574-4574
Clinton Harrell, D.M.D.
Peter Vu, D.M.D.
Chau Ngo, D.D.S., M.S.
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Monica Calderon, D.M.D.
Peter Vu, D.M.D.
Stirewalt, P.C.
111 SW Fifth Avenue, Suite 1650, Portland,
Oregon 97204
503 227-4600
Representing Unions and Workers Since 1960
www.brightnow.com
PAGE 8
We know the value of a beautiful smile!
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
(Our legal staff are proud members of UFCW Local 555)
JANUARY 6, 2006