...Labor officials fight for family-wage pay scale from PDC
(From Page 1)
Leonard says the solution is to make
PDC more directly accountable to the
City Council. PDC, created by Port-
land voters in 1958, is unusual in that
it’s a semi-autonomous city depart-
ment. It’s governed by its own board,
whose members are appointed by the
mayor and approved by City Council.
City Council also must approve new
bonds and the boundaries of any new
urban renewal districts. Other than that,
PDC — the city’s largest agency — is
insulated from democratic accountabil-
ity. It doesn’t need to go before City
Council to approve its budget or its pri-
orities.
That has attracted criticism, most
commonly that PDC is run by and for
big downtown developers, with citizen
input an afterthought.
But Mayor Tom Potter is seen as
less close to developer interests than
his predecessor Vera Katz. And since
taking office, he made his wishes very
clear: That PDC change its focus to
helping small businesses.
Commissioner Leonard says he has-
n’t seen that change happening.
“Until recently, they argued that
council couldn’t even audit their
books,” Leonard says.
Last year, Leonard proposed refer-
ring to Portland voters a city charter
change that would eliminate the PDC
board and make PDC accountable to
City Council just like other bureaus —
and like development bureaus in most
other cities. His proposal failed 4 to 1.
A year later, some think a proposal
like that could pass.
“It’s like the sun and moon and stars
got lined up and all of sudden City
Council is starting to pay attention to
PDC,” says Bob Shiprack, executive
secretary of the Oregon State Building
and Construction Trades Council.
PDC invited hundreds of residents
to help weigh competing bids for a
Central Eastside development project
on the East end of the Burnside Bridge
— and then rejected the bid that got the
most public support. And last year, a
series of mini-scandals over misuse of
funds led to a shakeup on the PDC
board and the resignation of PDC’s ex-
ecutive director.
So the time may be right for struc-
tural reform of PDC, Shiprack thinks.
In case City Council shrinks from
the task, Shiprack’s group, made up of
construction unions in the AFL-CIO la-
bor federation, is considering a ballot
Pete Savage, regional manager of the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters, testifies before the Portland
City Council June 7 about the benefits of prevailing wage requirements on projects funded by PDC. With Savage are
John Mohlis, executive secretary-treasurer of the Columbia-Pacific Building Trades Council, and Jim Francesconi,
an attorney and former city commissioner.
initiative along the lines Leonard pro-
posed. Shiprack said he expects to hire
a pollster to test Portlanders’ receptivity
to that change — or to a requirement
that PDC abide by the prevailing wage
law.
“We know there’s public support for
family-waged jobs,” Shiprack said. In
fact, a failed 1994 statewide ballot
measure aimed at repealing the prevail-
ing wage law got its strongest margin
of victory in Portland.
To refer a charter change to voters,
the City Council would have to act by
mid August. At the June 6 meeting,
Potter said he wanted to see what
comes of his Charter Review Commit-
tee — a group of citizens picked by the
mayor to look at the charter and pro-
pose changes. Though it hasn’t re-
leased its formal proposals, the com-
mittee has reportedly rejected the idea
of bringing PDC under council author-
ity.
If PDC were brought in, City Coun-
cil could scrap the lawsuit against
BOLI, and pass an ordinance settling
the matter of prevailing wages.
Whether that happens or not, build-
ing trades union leaders are increas-
ingly making their agenda part of city
policy discussions, responding to what
they see as a welcoming mood on the
council — and council interest in poli-
cies aimed at paying working people a
living wage.
On May 18, Mayor Potter met with
building trades union officials at a
breakfast organized by the Northwest
Oregon Labor Council.
Later that day, the Metropolitan Al-
liance for Common Good (MACG), a
coalition of churches, unions and other
community groups, brought City Com-
missioners Leonard and Erik Sten to
the stage at an assembly in the gymna-
sium of Concordia College — to hear
the message that construction contrac-
tors should be required to provide com-
prehensive health care for employees
and their families when public dollars
are involved. Sten and Leonard said
they agreed. [Last year, MACG won a
non-binding commitment by PDC to
increase funding for affordable hous-
ing, though its parallel demand — that
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the building be done by workers earn-
ing prevailing wage — was rejected.]
City Commissioner Sam Adams
might well have been at the MACG as-
sembly, too, except that a city ordi-
nance restricts more than two council
members from meeting without declar-
ing it an official public meeting.
For his part, Adams has assigned his
labor liaison Terry Richardson to work
with labor leaders to craft a proposed
city ordinance codifying how the city
deals with contractors.
One approach being considered is a
“responsible contractor” ordinance,
along the lines of what the national
AFL-CIO Building and Construction
Trades Department calls “best value”
contracting. It’s also known as compet-
itive sealed bidding; basically, it’s a
bidding process like that used by the
Oregon Department of Transportation
and many federal agencies — in which
factors other than cost are considered
in awarding contracts.
The city could require that contrac-
tors — and subcontractors — prequal-
ify as responsible contractors before
bidding on public work. For example,
they could be asked to demonstrate that
they offer training, have a good safety
record, pay decent wages and benefits,
including family health benefits, and
offer opportunities for minority work-
ers.
Richardson said the group is likely
to seek support for a symbolic resolu-
tion by the end of June, and something
more tangible by the end of the sum-
mer.
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