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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 19, 2007)
Local Motion December 2006 Union election activity in Oregon and SW Washington, according to the National Labor Relations Board and the Oregon Employment Relations Board Elections held Company Date Union Results: Union No Union Camas Valley 4 0 General Distributors (decertification) 12/15 Teamsters Local 162 Oregon City 43 12 Camas Valley School District 12/13 OSEA Location Elections requested Company Union Location # of employees Wilsonville 2 Weber Distribution Teamsters Local 81 Bay Cities Ambulance (decertification) International Association. of EMTs & Paramedics Paratransit Service Inc. Amalgamated Transit Union Division 757 Coos Bay 35 Bend 34 Labor groups rally around bus drivers trying to join ATU #757 BEND — Four Central Oregon la- bor groups are rallying behind three- dozen bus drivers who will vote Jan. 29 whether to unionize with Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757. The drivers are employed by Para- transit Services, a non-profit company based in Bremerton, Wash. On Jan. 10, the Central Oregon La- bor Council, the Central Oregon Build- ing Trades Council, the Oregon School Employees Association, and Central Oregon Jobs with Justice issued a state- ment of “solidarity” with the transit employees. Labor Council Secretary-Treasurer Jerry Fletcher, who is also president of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 280, attended an organizing meeting of driv- ers. All four organizations stress that a level playing field during the union campaign can best be achieved through card-check recognition or, short of that, employer neutrality. Since 2003, the City of Bend has contracted with Paratransit Services to provide door-to-door transportation for people with disabilities. Last year the city added bus service along six fixed routes to the contract. Seeking better wages and increased job security, several drivers contacted Portland-headquartered Local 757 in November to talk about unionizing. Wages for the Bend drivers currently top out at $12.25, while union bus driv- ers in nearby locales earn several dol- PAGE 10 lars an hour more. Local 757 represents drivers at transit districts up and down Western Oregon, but none thus far in Central Oregon. ATU locals in Seattle and Tacoma represent other units of Paratransit Services. Shortly after the union filed for an election, the company sent employees a four-page letter outlining its opposition and urging drivers to “vote against the union and suggest you encourage oth- ers to do the same.” In mid-January, management held a series of mandatory-attendance anti- union meetings from which pro-union workers were excluded. Workers are reportedly being told that they may lose their jobs if they vote the union in. They might get the low wages of one ATU contract in Alaska, but pay the higher dues of a local in Seattle. ATU International Rep Ron Heintz- man, a former Local 757 president, hopes workers will resist the scare talk. Heintzman recently bargained a con- tract with Paratransit in Port Angeles, Wash., and said the company does bar- gain fairly when employees stand firm. And it’s a good time to unionize, Heintzman said — Bend bus service is likely to double in the next few years, and will undergo lots of changes. Hav- ing a union will make sure workers’ in- terests are represented as it grows. “They (drivers) want the same right to bargain that police, fire and others in the City have,” Heintzman said. SEIU campaign to organize bus drivers stalls A union campaign among school bus drivers at Gresham-Barlow School District failed to win a majority in a Jan. 5 vote. With 103 drivers eligible to unionize, the vote was 44 for and 49 against joining Service Employees In- ternational Union Local 503. The drivers are employed by First Student, a multinational corporation which has the contract to provide bus service to the 12,000-student school district. Starting wages among drivers in Gresham are $11 an hour, and some drivers wanted comparable pay of unionized school bus drivers at nearby school districts. For SEIU, the narrow loss was a setback in its “Driving Up Standards” campaign to unionize First Student, the second-largest private bus com- pany in the United States. In the cam- paign, SEIU is allied with the the Teamsters and Great Britain’s Trans- port and General Workers Union. First Student is owned by UK-based First- Group. Local SEIU organizers believed First Student would stay neutral, as promised after a stockholder protest at the company’s 2006 annual meeting in Aberdeen, Scotland. But in the final days before the local election, First Student management came out strongly against the union, a union spokesperson said. The same thing happened in 2003, when another local union, Amalga- mated Transit Union Local 757, tried to unionize the same group of drivers. Local 757 staff attorney Susan Stoner said First Student managers created an atmosphere of threat and intimidation, conducted surveillance when union or- ganizers came to talk to workers, and stirred up conflict among the workers and then used that to predict endless turmoil if the union were to win. ATU lost 73 to 33. SEIU has union campaigns among First Student workers at the Tigard School District, as well as in Jack- sonville, Fla., and Minneapolis, Minn. Meanwhile, the Teamsters have won union elections among First Stu- dent workers in Anchorage, Alaska., and Baltimore, Md. There are about 22,000 First Student drivers in the United States. 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