Inside
MEETING NO TICES
See
Page 4
V olume 107
Number 3
F ebruary 3, 2006
P ortland
Oregon initiative targeted for November ballot
AFL-CIO, allies launch Fair Share Health Care initiative
SALEM — The Oregon AFL-CIO filed a ballot initiative
Jan. 27 that would require Oregon employers with more than
4,500 workers to spend at least 9 percent of their payroll on em-
ployee health insurance.
The Fair Share Health Care initiative is modeled after a bill
that passed the Maryland Legislature last month. Maryland is the
first state to require large corporations to provide health care for
their employees. A similar bill has been introduced in the Wash-
ington Legislature. Oregon and Washington are among nearly 40
states using the labor-backed Maryland legislation as a model to
enact legislation or pass voter initiatives.
“It’s irresponsible and costly when nonunion businesses boost
their profits by denying health care to their employees and then
let taxpayers pick up the slack,” said Oregon AFL-CIO President
Tom Chamberlain. “The Oregon AFL-CIO filed this initiative to
force large profitable employers to pay their share toward a
healthy workforce and healthy Oregon economy.”
Once given clearance for a ballot title, the state labor federa-
tion will begin collecting the more than 100,000 signatures
needed to qualify for the November ballot.
“The Oregon AFL-CIO has a history of successfully putting
initiatives on the ballot,” said Jennifer Sargent, public relations/
research director for the state labor federation. “We have the in-
ternal program in place to do that, and we’re seeing a big re-
sponse from the community for support.”
The initiative already has the backing of three of the state’s
largest labor organizations: the 30,000-member Service Employ-
ees International Union Local 503, the 25,000-member Oregon
Council 75 of the American Federation of State, County and Mu-
nicipal Employees, and the 18,000-member United Food and
Commercial Workers Local 555. Locals 555 and 503 are affili-
ated with the new Change to Win labor federation.
If passed, the Fair Share Health Care initiative would apply to
12 Oregon employers, including Wal-Mart, Oregon Health &
Science University, Providence Health System, Legacy Health
System, Kaiser Permanente, Intel, Nike, Safeway Inc., Albert-
sons Inc. and Kroger Co.’s Fred Meyer Stores.
Most of those employers already provide health insurance for
their employees, with one glaring exception: Wal-Mart, which
employs more than 11,000 workers.
The State of Oregon doesn’t keep tabs on how many employ-
ees of private companies receive taxpayer-financed medical in-
surance, but other states do. And Wal-Mart is the leader in virtu-
ally every state.
In Washington, for example, more than 3,100 Wal-Mart em-
ployees were benefiting from state-subsidized health coverage in
2004. The cost to taxpayers: $9.25 million. (See related article on
Page 3.)
“It’s not fair that responsible employers play by the rules
while some companies shift their health care costs to other em-
ployers or the taxpayer,” said Gene Pronovost, president of Local
555 and a co-sponsor of the Fair Share initiative. “UFCW sup-
ports initiatives that correct these abuses.”
Washington State’s Fair Share Health Care bill would require
companies of 5,000 employees or more to spend 9 percent of
payroll on employee health care. The bill passed out of the
House Commerce and Labor Committee last month. The new
Maryland law (the Legislature overrode a veto by Republican
Gov. Robert Ehrlich) requires any private employer with more
than 10,000 employees in the state to spend at least 8 percent of
its payroll for workers’ health care.
Chamberlain said that by requiring large corporations to re-
port what they are spending on health care for their employees
and requiring them to pay their fair share, a Fair Share Health
Care Act in Oregon would:
• Reduce the bill Oregon taxpayers pay to cover profitable
employers’ labor costs;
• Help alleviate the financial pressures facing Oregon as it
struggles to meet a growing need for Medicaid; and
• Level the playing field between companies providing good
jobs and benefits to their workers and those that don’t.
Independent union trying to raid ATU #757 ambulance unit
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
In the next month, 532 American
Medical Response (AMR) ambulance
workers in the Portland metro area will
have a choice to make: Stay with the lo-
cal union that has represented them for
nearly two decades, or leave to join a
startup union headquartered in Sacra-
mento, California.
Ambulance work is changing. Thirty
years ago, “ambulance drivers” picked
up bodies and took them to the hospital
— or the morgue. But life-saving med-
ical technologies have evolved, and to-
day, training requirements for “emer-
gency medical services (EMS) pro-
fessionals” include having an associates
degree and 65 units of continuing edu-
cation per year.
Paramedics and emergency medical
technicians (EMTs) are professional
lifesavers who take many of the same
risks as police officers and firefighters.
But they feel underpaid and under-re-
spected compared to their public sector
counterparts, and compared to the hos-
Pro-ATU emergency medical services workers Doug Weinrick and Dale
Montgomery wait in their ambulance for the next call. An independent group
is trying to raid their union at American Medical Response in Portland.
pital workers who take up where they
leave off.
To close this gap, some have formed
unions. Portland-area EMS workers
joined Amalgamated Transit Union
(ATU) Local 757 in 1988. Since that
time, in every union contract they have
won improved pay, benefits and work-
ing conditions.
Nationally, ambulance service is
mostly nonunion. A few local govern-
ments provide ambulance service di-
rectly, but most grant exclusive contracts
to private companies.
At ambulance companies like AMR,
unionized units are few and far between,
and are divided among at least a half-
dozen national unions. The largest of
those is the International Association of
EMTs and Paramedics (IAEP), which is
a subdivision of the 1.8-million-member
Service Employees International Union.
Just under two years ago, a pair of
SEIU staffers serving an IAEP unit in
Northern California came up with a plan
to leave SEIU — and take their unit with
them as a new stand-alone union for
workers. While still employed by SEIU,
they called the unit’s stewards and
elected officers to a meeting in Liver-
more, Calif., where they pitched their
proposal in a 30-page PowerPoint pres-
entation. The group quickly gathered
member signatures and filed for an elec-
tion to determine which union had the
most support in the unit.
SEIU, stung by the betrayal, fought
tooth and nail, but lost the election. It
also sued the two staffers — Torren Col-
cord and Tim Bonifay — for fraudulent
concealment, misappropriation of trade
secrets and breach of fiduciary duty. The
case goes to trial Feb. 24 in Alameda
County Superior Court.
Colcord and Bonifay christened their
union the National Emergency Medical
Services Association (NEMSA).
Since then, they’ve made a bid to go
national, chiefly by “raiding” already-
unionized units affiliated with other
unions. Colcord, NEMSA’s president,
told the NW Labor Press the union now
has 3,200 members in 13 units, five of
which were taken from other unions.
All but about 800 of those were in the
original Northern California SEIU unit.
In December, a Fort Wayne, Ind.,
unit of about 100 AMR employees be-
came the latest to join NEMSA, after
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