Rapidly expanding disabled worker
programs act as a wedge for privatization
Critics say an Oregon program to
help disabled workers has run
amok, threatening public and
private-sector union jobs while
neglecting the truly disabled
By DON MCINTOSH
Associate Editor
On Oct. 9, the largest solar array in the Pacific
Northwest will have its grand opening — atop a
brand-new 114,000-square-foot industrial building
at Northeast 148th and Marine Drive in Portland.
The giant manufacturing facility, which will be used
in part to make solar energy components, belongs to
a tax-exempt non-profit organization, the Portland
Habilitation Center (PHC).
It could make PHC a formidable competitor in
the fast-growing solar market. Not only does PHC
pay no state or federal corporate income tax, but its
new building was paid for in part by the Energy
Trust of Oregon (which gets its money from a 3 per-
cent charge on PGE and Pacificorp electric bills)
and by private investors who get a tax credit for their
investment. And if school districts or state, county,
or municipal governments in Oregon want to buy
solar equipment, they would have to buy from PHC
instead of from a private company like Machinist
Union-represented Solarworld in Vancouver.
That’s because PHC is considered a “Qualified
Rehabilitation Facility,” under Oregon’s 1977 Prod-
ucts of Disabled Individuals Law. Under the law,
public agencies in the state are required to buy prod-
ucts and services from QRFs before they can seek
competitive bids from private companies. In provid-
ing the products or services, QRFs are supposed to
employ disabled individuals. And a “disabled indi-
vidual,” according to that law, is someone “who, be-
cause of the nature of disabilities, is not able to par-
ticipate fully in competitive employment, and for
whom specialized employment opportunities must
be provided.”
But the experience of PHC at Portland Public
Schools — and revelations from a related class-ac-
tion lawsuit — raise serious doubts about how dis-
abled its employees are. And that prompted one state
representative, Clatskanie Democrat Brad Witt, to
push for closer oversight of the growing QRF pro-
gram.
PHC was already Oregon’s largest QRF in Octo-
ber 2001 when PHC managers wrote to then-Port-
land Public Schools superintendent Jim Scherzinger
suggesting the school district could save millions
and help relieve its budget crunch by replacing dis-
trict custodians with PHC janitors.
But a couple things were curious about the bid
PHC put forward in the spring of 2002. First, PHC’s
proposal said that with an equal number of disabled
workers, it would be able to clean the schools twice
as often as the districts’ non-disabled workers (and
they’d be paid one-third less than the district em-
ployees.) In other words, PHC’s disabled workers
could outcompete the district’s non-disabled work-
ers.
Second, since PHC couldn’t expect overnight to
find hundreds more disabled individuals to employ,
it said it would have to “phase in” disabled workers
Change to Win
holds second
national confab
over time. That meant that it was going to be out of
compliance with state regulations, which require
that at least 75 percent of a QRF’s contracted work
hours be performed by the disabled.
To long-time trial attorney Charlie Williamson of
the Kell, Alterman, & Runstein law firm, those two
facts alone were a tipoff that something wasn’t right.
Williamson, who was elected president of the
Oregon State Bar Association the same year, agreed
in 2002 to represent the district’s fired custodians in
a class action lawsuit against PHC.
“We believe PHC hires people who are not dis-
abled within the meaning of the law, but classifies
them as disabled and thereby gets government con-
tracts that are not open to public bidding,”
Williamson told the Labor Press. “We believe they
are cheating.”
The fired custodians may have had hunches, but
as their attorney, Williamson had the power to de-
pose witnesses and compel testimony. And a lot of
information came out in deposition.
For example, by PHC’s own admission, eight
months into the contract with PPS, only 25 percent
of PHC’s workers there were classified as disabled.
In its report to the State of Oregon for fiscal year
2002-2003, PHC estimated 64.32 percent of its la-
bor hours organization-wide were disabled workers
— well below the 75 percent legal requirement.
PHC met the requirement in subsequent years.
Williamson hired disability expert Scott Stipe to
review the personnel files of 70 workers PHC said
were disabled. Stipe concluded 56 of them were
(Turn to Page 11)
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SEPTEMBER 21, 2007
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
The Change to Win labor federa-
tion will hold its second biennial
convention Sept. 25 in Chicago.
Nearly 1,000 delegates, allies
and guests representing the seven
Change to Win unions will meet to
launch a program the federation has
been working on since its founding
two years ago.
The seven unions, which include
Service Employees International
Union, United Food and Commer-
cial Workers, Teamsters, Laborers,
UNITE-HERE, the United Farm
Workers and the Brotherhood of
Carpenters and Joiners, represent
some six million workers.
Union leaders say they have de-
veloped and funded an industry-
wide strategic organizing program
that focuses on jobs and industries
of the future and that will “lift up
all workers.”
The Change to Win strategic
plan calls for:
• Uniting at the Workplace:
The Change to Win Strategic Orga-
nizing Center is uniting workers to
have a voice on the job in work-
places in a range of industries criti-
cal to the national economy.
• Uniting our Resources: The
CtW Investment group is organiz-
ing workers’ capital into a voice for
corporate accountability and retire-
ment security.
• Uniting in our Communities:
Change to Win is building state and
local organizations to change the
discourse about workers’right to or-
ganize and hold elected leaders ac-
countable to an agenda that will al-
low working people to achieve the
American Dream.
“The American Dream is the
most powerful and universal ex-
pression of the hopes and aspira-
tions of working families in the
United States,” said Anna Burger,
executive secretary-treasurer of
CtW. “The dream is about recogni-
tion for hard work and personal re-
sponsibility. It is the shared value
that defines our country, and en-
compasses faith in ourselves and
our future.”
Major events at the convention
will be a presidential candidates’ fo-
rum. All of the Democratic nomi-
nees are scheduled to appear. It is
not yet clear whether the organiza-
tion will endorse a candidate in the
2008 primary election.
Change to Win also will hold an
Immigrant Worker Rights Town
Hall on Monday, Sept. 24.
Workers who were detained dur-
ing workplace raids will offer testi-
mony of their experiences.
Elected officials, religious lead-
ers and community allies will dis-
cuss how the Change to Win labor
federation can help keep families
and communities safe, protect the
rights of all workers, and respect the
dignity of all people.
PAGE 3