Northwest labor press., September 21, 2012, Page 3, Image 3

Fundraising group fires all but one member of bargaining team
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Job security was the number one rea-
son workers unionized last October at a
Southeast Portland call center affiliated
with state PIRGs like OSPIRG and
groups like Environment Oregon. So it’s
ironic that in 10 months of union con-
tract bargaining, the non-profit Fund for
the Public Interest has fired five of the
workers who’ve volunteered to serve on
the union bargaining team.
Their union, Communications
Workers of America Local 7901,
protested the firings to the National La-
bor Relations Board (NLRB). But the
federal agency has declined to press
charges, because the union has no
“smoking gun” evidence that union sup-
porters were singled out for worse treat-
ment. In other words, Local 7901 pres-
ident Madelyn Elder says, the NLRB
concluded that the Fund for the Public
Interest treats all its employees that way.
The Fund is a high-turnover workplace
where firings are routine.
It has canvass operations in multiple
states and telephone outreach call cen-
ters in Boston, Sacramento and Port-
land. Canvassers recruit members door-
to-door or in public places, and
telephone outreach workers call mem-
bers to renew or make additional dona-
tions.
The Fund’s call center workers have
no control over the call lists they’re
given. Nor do they have any say over a
weekly quota they’re expected to meet.
But if the workers miss the quota for a
week, they’re placed on “ultimatum,”
and if they miss it for a second week,
they’re terminated — even if they’ve
been stellar fundraisers for years.
Workers’ other big complaint is un-
predictable paychecks. Callers start at
$9.50 an hour, and can get $0.50-an-
hour raises every 20 shifts based on how
much money they raise, up to $14.50 an
hour. But they are demoted back to
$9.50 an hour if the amount they raise
drops by a certain amount for two
weeks. And the dollar amounts are
based, not on how much money is
pledged, but on how much is actually
collected within three weeks of the
pledge.
So a below-par two weeks can cut a
...AFSCME #328 ratifies pact at OHSU
(From Page 1)
a payment equal to 5 percent of wages
for vested participants and 6 percent
for those not yet vested. In July 2014
that payment drops to 3 percent for
vested and 4 percent for non-vested.
After all that back and forth, wages
for UPP participants will have in-
creased the full 7.5 percent by the con-
tract’s end, compared to 4.5 percent for
vested PERS participants. Union nego-
tiators proposed that wages simply be
raised 6 percent to compensate for the
PERS deductions, but Lovell said
OHSU insisted on the “differential”
terminology, maybe because it seems
more temporary; she expects OHSU
will propose reducing or eliminating
the subsidy in future negotiations.
Meanwhile, health coverage mostly
stays the same in the new contract.
OHSU pays the whole premium for
employee-only health coverage, and
88 percent of the premium for family
coverage. OHSU dropped a proposal
to reduce its contribution to 83 percent
of family coverage. OHSU also pro-
posed that workers pay any annual in-
crease in health insurance premiums
after the first 5 percent, but in the end
agreed to pay premium increases of up
to 10 percent. The increases in recent
years have hovered around 2 percent,
Lovell said.
OHSU is itself a hospital as well as
an educational and research facility,
and workers can choose to get health
care at work through an OHSU Pre-
ferred Provider Organization that has a
richer benefit structure than the other
options.
The union agreed to reduce differ-
ential pay for working nights and
weekends for about 100 workers in
several classifications.
OHSU backed off of a proposal to
move about 400 hourly employees to
salaried status, including pharmacists
and medical technologists who are
working lots of overtime. The employ-
ees would have been given a 5 percent
raise over their current average earn-
ings, but not be paid extra for working
longer hours.
Lovell said the union also won im-
provements on other priorities mem-
bers identified, including better con-
tract language on training, working out
of classification, grievance procedures,
and attendance policy.
The negotiations, including media-
tion, took five months.
caller’s pay to $9.50 an hour. And a very
bad two weeks can end in termination.
“It’s certainly not a pleasant way to
live,” says telephone outreach worker
David Neel, a 35-year-old single parent
of two boys — and the only remaining
member who’s been on the bargaining
team since talks began Nov. 4, 2011.
CWA represents workers at call cen-
ters around the country, and Elder, the
Local 7901 president, says the Fund’s
policies are “draconian.”
“What other call center, honest to
god, fires you within two weeks for not
making your quota,” Elder said. “Non-
union commercial call centers don’t
even do that. If you were a new hire, I
could see that, but somebody who’s
been there nine years, and they’re short
$47 on the second week, and you’re go-
ing to fire them? That’s ludicrous. This
person has made you all kinds of money
for years.”
Elder is convinced the Fund is using
existing policies to get rid of its Portland
call center workers across the board, be-
cause they voted to unionize.
“They can make you successful or
not successful depending on what list
they are feeding your automatic caller,”
Elder. “They can give you a list of peo-
ple who haven’t donated in five years.”
Until last week, the Fund call center
was in the same building and right next
door to the offices of OSPIRG and En-
vironment Oregon; the call center is be-
ing relocated temporarily during a
building remodel.
OSPIRG executive director David
Rosenfeld would not comment about la-
bor practices of the group that raises his
salary and nearly all of the funds for his
group’s educational and advocacy ef-
forts — and instead referred questions
to Pat Wood, Boston-based director of
the Fund’s national telephone outreach
program. The Labor Press was unable
to reach Wood by the time this issue
went to press.
It’s a funny position for OSPIRG, a
public interest non-profit whose slogan
is “standing up to powerful interests,”
particularly when even Apple Computer
has accepted some responsibility for
conditions at its contractors.
The Fund is an independent non-
profit, but it’s overseen by a board con-
sisting of representatives of a number of
state Public Interest Research Groups
(PIRGs) and the statewide environmen-
tal groups, such as Environment Oregon
and Environment Colorado, that spun
off from the PIRGs several years ago.
Rosenfeld said he’s not a member of
that board.
Unions have collaborated with OS-
PIRG on political campaigns in the Ore-
gon Legislature, but OSPIRG’s stand-
aside stance on Fund labor practices
may be alienating some of its allies in
organized labor. Oregon AFL-CIO
President Tom Chamberlain wrote a let-
ter to Rosenfeld asking him to inter-
(Turn to Page 6)
Local Motion
August 2012
A list of Oregon and Southwest Washington workplaces deciding
whether to be union-represented – as reported by the National
Labor Relations Board and the Oregon Employment Relations Board.
Voting in union elections
Date Workplace (Location) Union
Yes
No
8/24 Ashland Food Cooperative (Ashland) UFCW Local 555
42
75
Unionizing by majority sign-up
Date Workplace (Location) Union
Number of workers in unit
8/1 City of Newberg Public Works employees (Newberg) Oregon AFSCME
8/8 Umpqua Community College faculty (Roseburg) Oregon Education Association
K now Y our r ights
I f you were treated poorly
by an IMe doctor In your
workers ’ coMp claIM , you
25
175
Requesting a union election
Workplace (Location) Union
Number of workers in unit
Providence Health medical advice line RNs (Portland) Oregon Nurses Association
OPEIU Local 11 (Vancouver) Clerical and Field Service Representatives
General Distributors (Oregon City) Teamsters Local 162 DECERT
can lodge a coMplaInt wIth
the w orkers ' c oMpensatIon
d IvIsIon by callIng
31
3
60
503-934-6001.
L EGEND
: workers will be union-represented
DECERT
SEPTEMBER 21, 2012
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
: workers will be on their own
: A decertification election occurs when some union-represented workers declare
that the union no longer has majority support. A ‘yes’ vote is a vote for the union.
PAGE 3