Sept.21, 2009:NWLP
9/15/09
10:34 AM
Rally for ‘real recovery’
Sept. 30 in Portland
One year after the federal govern-
ment bailed out big business and banks
with hundreds of billions of dollars,
jobs continue to be cut and wages
Page 4
slashed. In response, AFSCME Local
189 and the Portland Chapter of Jobs
with Justice will hold a noontime rally
at City Hall on Wednesday, Sept. 30,
to demand a “real economic recovery”
for working people.
The rally starts at noon on the front
steps of City Hall, 1221 SW 4th Ave.
Portland mayor, Metro head
reversing gears on I-5 bridge
Portland Mayor Sam Adams has
suggested scaling back the size of a pro-
posed new I-5 bridge over the Colum-
bia River from 12 lanes to as few as six,
the Columbian newspaper reported.
Adams made his remarks at a Sept. 4
Columbia River Crossing (CRC) Proj-
ect Sponsors Council meeting.
Last March, the CRC Project Spon-
sors Council unanimously endorsed a
12-lane bridge.
“Given the financial realities we
face, I think we need to change that to
six to 10 (lanes),” Adams said.
Metro Council President David
Bragdon, who sits on the Sponsors
Council with Adams, agreed that the
CRC staff needs to start cutting lanes or
interchanges from the bridge project,
the Portland Mercury reported.
“It’s clear that the version the DOTs
(Washington’s and Oregon’s Depart-
ment of Transportation) are pushing is
not fundable at its current size,” Brag-
don told The Mercury. “It’s also unpop-
ular. They’re in a real jam, because
they’ve cooked up this project which is
unfundable.”
The Mercury continued: “With
tolling a controversial topic, the feds un-
sure if they can put as much money to-
ward the project as the CRC staff
wanted and the ‘near death experience’
in the Oregon Legislature, says Brag-
don, ‘they’ve basically overestimated
and been overly optimistic on all three
revenue streams. How they’ve gotten
this far and spent as much money as
they’ve spent without being realistic
about the revenues is beyond me.’ ”
Comments from the two politicians
came as a huge surprise to union offi-
cials, who have lobbied for a 12-lane
span for years. Unions are unanimous
in their support of a replacement bridge
that would provide six through lanes
(three lanes in each direction) and three
lanes in each direction to connect inter-
changes in the five-mile project area, a
light rail line, and lanes for bicycles and
pedestrians.
“This project has gone through an
extensive vetting process and the par-
ties have all agreed that 12 lanes with
light rail and bike lanes is the preferred
design,” said John Mohlis, executive
secretary-treasurer of the Columbia Pa-
cific Building and Construction Trades
Council. “For these two elected officials
to start back-tracking now is extremely
disappointing.”
Mohlis said the Columbia River
Crossing bridge span and correspon-
ding interchange expansion work is
“exactly the kind of big project we need
right now so that we can start putting
people back to work.”
The Project Sponsors Council is
comprised of Mayor Adams, Metro
Council President Bragdon, Vancouver
Mayor Royce Pollard, TriMet General
Manager Fred Hansen, C-TRAN chair-
man Tim Leavitt (who is challenging
Pollard for mayor), Oregon Department
of Transportation Director Matthew
Garrett, Washington State Department
of Transportation Secretary Paula Ham-
mond, SW Washington Regional Trans-
portation Vice Chair Steve Stuart, Ore-
gon Transportation Commission past
chairman Henry Hewitt, CRC Project
Director Richard Brandman, and Hal
Dengerink, chancellor of Washington
State University, Vancouver branch.
Adams is facing a recall attempt and
Bragdon is in his last term as president
of Metro due to term limits.
Classified workers at Oregon University System
reach tentative agreement on two-year contract
Negotiators for more than 4,000
classified workers on seven campuses
in the Oregon University System who
are represented by Service Employees
Local 503 have reached a tentative
agreement on a new two-year contract.
The settlement, reached Sept. 25,
ended eight months of sometimes acri-
monious bargaining. The pact covers
workers in 272 classifications who pro-
vide a broad range of support for aca-
demic departments, student services
and campus maintenance. The pact
Safety & health
seminar offers
union discount
Union members are eligible to get a
reduced registration fee of $35 to attend
a day-long symposium examining Ore-
gon’s health and safety trends for the
next 10 years.
Co-sponsored by the Oregon Occu-
pational Safety and Health Division and
Oregon Health and Science Univer-
sity’s Center for Research on Occupa-
tional and Environmental Toxicology,
the symposium will be held Thursday,
Sept. 24, from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the
Red Lion Hotel on the River in Jantzen
Beach.
For more information or to register,
go to: ww.ohsu.edu/xd/research/cen-
ters-institutes/croet/outreach/looking-
forward-to-2020.cfm.
PAGE 4
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
calls for eight to 16 unpaid furlough
days over 21 months pegged to salary
levels and a one-year freeze of sched-
uled step increments.
The agreement is similar to ones
covering 21,000 state workers repre-
sented by SEIU and AFSCME. Those
contracts were ratified last week.
Initially, the State Board of Higher
Education had demanded far deeper
cuts from university workers than the
state did from its employees. This in-
cluded unlimited furlough days and a
two-year step freeze.
It reached a boiling point late last
month, and workers began preparing
for a possible strike.
“From the beginning we said we
were willing to pitch in and reach an
agreement that helps balance the budget
and protects the important services our
members provide in support of students,
faculty and the educational mission,”
said Marc Nisenfeld, a development en-
gineer at Portland State University who
chairs the union’s bargaining team. “It
took a while to get there, but this settle-
ment achieves those goals.”
North Clackamas teachers
sacrifice raises for jobs
In response to an anticipated $9 mil-
lion shortfall in the North Clackamas
School District’s 2009-2010 budget, the
North Clackamas Education Associa-
tion (NCEA) recently agreed to signifi-
cantly reduce cost-of-living-increases
for the upcoming school year in order
to save jobs and keep teachers in the
classroom. The action of North Clacka-
mas educators will save the district be-
tween $1.6 million and $2.2 million.
“Our members have made a sacri-
fice to help save jobs and ensure a qual-
ity education to every student in North
Clackamas,” said Greg Parrington,
NCEA president. “At the same time, the
district has agreed to restore teaching
positions to ensure that class sizes re-
main reasonable.
The agreement, which was over-
whelming approved by the membership
of NCEA, prioritized preserving jobs
and avoiding massive layoffs. North
Clackamas’ budget is based on the an-
ticipated $6 billion proposed by the
Oregon Legislature as the statewide
budget for schools. Whether more cuts
are in store for public education will de-
pend on the fate of the tax fairness pack-
age, which voters may be asked to con-
sider in January 2010.
NCEA represents 1,050 teachers,
counselors and specialists in the North
Clackamas School District.
SEPTEMBER 18, 2009