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MEETING
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Page 4
Volume 113
Number 10
May 18, 2012
Portland
One-day strike
by TriMet lift
operators leads
to agreement
A one-day strike by TriMet Lift
drivers May 9 has resulted in tentative
contracts following marathon bargain-
ing sessions May 10-11.
Details of the agreement were not
released by the workers’ union, Amal-
gamated Transit Union (ATU) Local
757. Lift drivers will vote on the con-
tracts sometime this month.
Lift operators are employed by First
Transit, Inc., which subcontracts with
TriMet in Multnomah, Washington,
and Clackamas counties to transport
senior and disabled people who can’t
use regular mass transit in the TriMet
service area. Transit agencies are re-
quired to provide lift service to the eld-
erly and disabled under the Americans
With Disabilities Act.
Lift operators in Multnomah and
Washington counties are represented
by Local 757 under separate collective
bargaining agreements. Lift operators
in Clackamas County and all call-cen-
ter dispatchers are nonunion.
First Transit is a business unit of
FirstGroup, a multi-national, multi-bil-
lion-dollar corporation headquartered
in Aberdeen, Scotland. FirstGroup also
owns First Student, which provides
school bus transportation and charter
services; First Services, which pro-
vides vehicle maintenance and ancil-
lary services; First Canada, which pro-
vides school transportation, transit
management and contracting services
in Canada; and Greyhound.
ATU’s collective bargaining agree-
ment covering 115 lift operators in
Washington County expired Dec. 1,
2011. In March, drivers rejected First
Transit’s contract offer, 83 to 8.
The 130 lift operators that make up
the Multnomah County bargaining unit
voted late last year to reject the com-
pany’s offer and to authorize a strike.
The union has been bargaining both
contracts simultaneously.
Technically, Multnomah County lift
drivers have never had a collective bar-
gaining agreement with First Transit.
The company assumed the contract of
the previous lift service provider —
MV Transportation. TriMet replaced
MV in 2009, but before the ink was
(Turn to Page 6)
City of Portland sitting
on $120 million stash
About 75 members and allies of ATU Local 757 picket in front of TriMet’s
main office in Southeast Portland May 9 during a one-day strike by lift
operators who work for First Transit Inc. The action moved the foreign-based
company to return the bargaining table, where a tentative agreement was
reached May 12.
B Y DON M C INTOSH
A SSOCIATE E DITOR
When union Business Manager
Richard “Buz” Beetle learned late last
year that the City of Portland might lay
off workers in road maintenance, he
wanted to know: Could the cuts be
avoided by tapping reserves? Beetle’s
union, 850-member Laborers Local
483, represents several hundred City of
Portland employees who work on
roads, parks and sewage treatment, and
scores of their jobs were on the line.
Beetle knows labor law, but he’s no
accountant. To look at City finances, he
hired economist Peter Donohue. Dono-
hue’s findings took the union by sur-
prise.
The City of Portland, with an annual
budget of about $500 million, was pub-
licly proposing to curtail street clean-
ing, close park restrooms and commu-
nity centers, and lay off 100 workers,
in response to a $14 million to $28 mil-
Baby steps to restoring shop classes
Two union training
centers partner with
Oregon high schools
to revitalize career and
technical education
B Y DON M C INTOSH
A SSOCIATE E DITOR
Shop class may soon have a mini-
revival in Oregon.
Up to 21 high schools will have
new or expanded “career and technical
education” classes this fall — from
carpentry to digital design, engineering
to sports medicine — thanks to start-
up grant funds the Legislature ap-
proved last year.
Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad
Avakian, who originated the bill, told
the Labor Press he’s been bothered by
the disappearance of shop classes from
Oregon high schools over the last two
decades. The programs, which used to
be known as vocational education, in-
troduce young people to skilled trades
and offer a real-world application of
math and science learning.
Avakian, who graduated from
Aloha High School in 1979, said pub-
lic schools back then had what would
today be considered pre-apprenticeship
training programs.
“At my middle school, Mountain
View Middle School in Beaverton, we
built a house every year and sold it,”
Avakian said. “It was a real house that
a family could live in. And the auto
shop … the doors opened every morn-
ing and people from the community
brought their cars in to be worked on. It
was a real apprenticeship-type training
system, and we let it slip through our
fingers.”
Tom Thompson, an expert on career
and technical education at the Oregon
Department of Education, says pro-
grams like that have dropped by about
a third just in the last decade. Ten years
ago there were about 80 high school
automotive programs in Oregon; now
there are 40. And only 12 Oregon high
schools today offer classes in construc-
tion.
So in 2011, Avakian asked state law-
makers for $4 million in grant funds to
revitalize high school career and tech-
nical education. None opposed the idea,
and roughly half signed on as co-spon-
sors. They approved $2 million.
Word went out that the start-up
money would be available to school
districts that committed to continue the
programs, especially those which part-
nered with business, labor and commu-
nity groups. Avakian and Oregon Su-
perintendent of Education Susan
Castillo appointed a 25-person com-
mittee to evaluate grant applications,
and school districts lined up to apply
for the funds.
In April, the committee judged 43
grant proposals, totaling $11 million in
requests. In the end they divided the
available $2 million among eight pro-
posals. The largest grant — $435,290
— goes to a program in Linn County
that will partner with union training
centers.
Known as the Linn County Re-
gional Trades Academy, that program
will combine an existing welding and
construction program at Lebanon High
School with the machine tool and auto-
motive program at South Albany High
School and the carpentry program at
(Turn to Page 7)
lion budget shortfall — all while sitting
on a $120.6 million unrestricted fund
balance and a $50 million general fund
reserve.
Donohue, who’s analyzed public
employer finances for dozens of
unions, calls City budget documents
fantasy fiction. So instead of studying
budgets, he spends his time looking at
the Comprehensive Annual Financial
Report (CAFR), an independently au-
dited document that bondholders, bond
underwriters, and bond rating agencies
use to assess a public agency’s finan-
cial position. Donohue scoured 10
years of the reports for Portland, and
found steadily growing balances in the
city’s eight “Internal Service Funds.”
Internal service funds are a way to
account for centrally purchased goods
and services, and to spread out admin-
istrative costs among City bureaus. The
way it works, the City charges each bu-
reau for facilities, vehicles, printing,
technology, insurance, and human re-
sources services that the bureau uses.
So in any given year, Donohue ex-
plains, what the bureaus pay and what
the City spends to provide those serv-
ices should be about the same, and the
internal service fund balances, which
are managed by the City’s Office of
Management and Finance (OMF)
should tend to zero out.
But in Portland’s CAFRs, internal
service fund balances have been rising.
In the last six years, the City’s Technol-
ogy Services fund, for example, took in
$36 million more than it spent, leaving
$38.9 million in “unrestricted net as-
sets” as of June 30, 2011. The Facilities
Services Operating fund took in $11.6
million more than it spent over that
same time period, leaving a balance of
$23.3 million. All told, the eight inter-
nal service funds totaled $120.6 million
last June, having grown $54.6 million
in six years.
Armed with that information, mem-
bers of Local 483 began to make the
obvious point, in City budget hearings
and council sessions: During a budget
crisis, isn’t it better to draw down inter-
nal fund balances than to halt street
paving, terminate trash pickup in parks,
and eliminate the Dutch Elm Tree dis-
ease program?
The union wrote a letter to City
(Turn to Page 6)