Inside
MEETING
NOTICES
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Page 4
Volume 113
Number 18
September 21, 2012
Portland
BREAKTHROUGH: City of Portland commits to build
union, and use minority workers and contractors
New ‘community
benefits agreement’
uses public construction
spending as a public
policy tool
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
The City of Portland is about to try
out a new kind of project labor agree-
ment on public construction contracts.
The 23-page “Model Community Ben-
efits Agreement” approved Sept. 5
mandates that on future City construc-
tion projects, unions will represent
workers, and women and minority
workers and contractors will have ex-
panded opportunities. The community
benefits agreement, approved in a 5-0
vote, was developed in nearly two years
of meetings among unions, minority
contractors, pre-apprenticeship training
programs, and city officials, and will
apply to projects of over $15 million.
The agreement sets goals:
• At least 18 percent of the work will
be performed by minorities, and 9 per-
cent by women, and the targets apply
both to journeymen and apprentices;
• At least 20 percent of the work on
contracts of over $200,000 (and sub-
contracts of over $100,000) will be per-
formed by apprentices;
• At least 20 percent of the hard con-
3-year pact ratified at OHSU
for 5,300 AFSCME members
Oregon Health and Science Univer-
sity (OHSU) support workers ratified
a new contract by an 85 percent margin
in votes counted Sept. 5. The three-
year agreement runs through June 30,
2015, and covers 5,300 workers in
about 350 classifications, from house-
keepers to medical technologists to
pharmacists. They are members of
American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
Local 328, the largest local in Oregon
AFSCME Council 75.
The new contract provides for four
across-the-board pay raises that total
7.5 percent over the three years, plus a
1 percent one-time bonus in July 2014
for workers who remain at OHSU
from the contract ratification until then.
But for workers who participate in
Oregon’s Public Employees Pension
System (PERS), those increases will
be partly erased: Starting January
2014, they’ll pay 6 percent of their
wages toward PERS. OHSU estab-
lished a 401(k)-style defined contribu-
tion pension known as University Pen-
sion Program (UPP) in 1995, when it
separated from the Oregon System of
Higher Education and became an au-
tonomous public corporation. Since
then, OHSU employees choose be-
tween UPP and PERS, which is a tra-
AFSCME member Philip Curtis
reads a flier posted on an AFSCME
bulletin board that OHSU placed
next to a toilet. (Photo courtesy of
Jennifer Barker)
ditional defined benefit pension. To-
day, says staff representative Diane
Lovell, about half of Local 328 mem-
bers are in PERS and half in UPP.
The first six months of the 6 percent
PERS contribution will be subsidized
by what OHSU calls a “differential” —
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struction costs will go to women-
owned, minority-owned and “disad-
vantaged” businesses, and joint ven-
tures with minority and women-owned
businesses will get a preference of up
to 5 percent in bidding on contracts;
and
• At least 30 percent of the work-
force will be hired from areas identified
by the U.S. Small Business Adminis-
tration as “historically underutilized
business” zones, census tracts that in-
clude downtown Portland, inner South-
east and Northeast Portland, and the
Lents, and Cully neighborhoods in
outer Southeast and Northeast, as well
as areas of Gresham, Hillsboro and
western Clark County.
In the new community benefits
agreement, contractors agree to abide
by the terms of union contracts, and to
use union hiring halls. Except in this
case, nonunion contractors that are
state-certified as “disadvantaged busi-
ness enterprises” are allowed to use
some of their existing “core employ-
ees” — those who’ve worked the
equivalent of seven months full-time
work in the previous 18 months — with
no requirement that the workers be-
come union members or that the em-
ployer provide union benefits. How-
ever, the contractors have to document
that their health and fringe benefits are
comparable to the union benefits. And
new hires would have to come through
union hiring halls.
Meanwhile, the community benefits
agreement spells out that unions will
represent all workers on the project —
whether they’re members or not. Ac-
cordingly, even nonunion contractors
will deduct union dues — whether or
not workers are union members — to
cover union costs of collective bargain-
ing, contract administration, and griev-
ance processing.
The agreement also commits unions
and contractors to use a veterans em-
ployment program known as Helmets
to Hardhats. And it mandates that man-
agers, supervisors, and owners be given
“cultural competency” training.
Significantly, it dedicates 1.5 per-
cent of City construction budgets to
help women and minority workers and
contractors get ready for the job:
• 0.25 percent will pay to monitor
and enforce the agreement, overseen by
Portland City Council chambers were packed to the edge of the second-floor
gallery with 175 people who turned out Sept 5 in support of a community
benefits agreement that will utilize more union, minority, and women-owned
contractors on City contracts.
a committee composed of representa-
tives from labor, management, and
community groups;
• 0.75 percent will go to Worksys-
tems Inc. to award grants to pre-ap-
prenticeship training programs that fo-
cus on training women and minorities;
and
• 0.50 percent will pay for “technical
assistance and business support” for
women- and minority-owned contrac-
tors, such as that provided by the His-
panic Chamber of Commerce and the
Metropolitan Contractor Improvement
Partnership. [A disparity study by the
City showed that out of $660 million in
City contracts over the five-year period
ending mid-2009, minority-owned
businesses accounted for 0.6 percent,
and women-owned businesses 1.9 per-
cent. Women- and minority-owned
businesses got 140 of the 547 contracts
over that period, but most were rela-
tively small. The technical assistance
fund would help them scale up to be
better positioned to handle bigger con-
tracts.]
Calling the community benefits
agreement “1.5 percent for equity,” for-
mer Portland city commissioner Jim
Francesconi likened it to Oregon’s “1
percent for art” mandate, in which a
portion of public building costs is ded-
icated to public art.
Francesconi, now an attorney, was
hired by Operating Engineers Local
701 and Pacific Northwest Regional
Council of Carpenters to develop the
community benefits agreement. Groups
including the Columbia Pacific Build-
ing and Construction Trades Council,
pre-apprenticeship training programs
like Oregon Tradeswomen Inc., Con-
structing Hope, Portland Youthbuilders,
and Construction Apprenticeship &
Workforce Solutions (CAWS), also had
a hand in crafting the agreement.
“I got the opportunity to get into the
Operating Engineers through affirma-
tive action,” said Nelda Wilson, busi-
ness manager of Operating Engineers
Local 701 at the City Council hearing.
“There was a mandate where they had
to open up the ranks for women and
minorities, and that was my shot. I was
one of the 40 that got the opportunity
to have a career.”
The City Council resolution which
enacted the model agreement declares
that the City has “a compelling govern-
mental interest in ensuring that it is not
a participant, either passive or active, in
perpetuating the effects of past or pres-
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