Nov. 16, 2012_NWLP 10/10/17 10:52 AM Page 3
Portland City Council aims for sick leave vote by year’s end
If passed, Portland would
join Seattle San Francisco
in human rights advance
A campaign to require paid sick
leave for all Portland workers is picking
up speed as the current City Council
heads into its last few months.
City Commissioner Amanda Fritz
announced at an Oct. 27 mayoral can-
didates forum that she’s working with
other City Council members to pass a
paid sick days ordinance by the end of
the year. The candidates forum was
hosted by the Latino civil rights organ-
ization Causa, which is part of Every-
body Benefits — a coalition of unions
and community groups that’s pressing
for a paid sick leave ordinance.
San Francisco, Seattle, and Con-
necticut have passed laws requiring
employers to provide paid sick leave,
and activists say San Francisco’s ordi-
nance is the model to strive for: Work-
ers there accrue an hour of sick leave
for every 30 hours of work, which they
Backed by members of his group, Francisco López of the Latino human
rights group Causa tells Portland City Council Oct. 31 that 40,000
minority workers in Portland don't have a single paid sick day a year.
use when they or a family member are
sick — up to five days a year at work-
places with fewer than 10 employees,
and nine days a year at larger work-
places.
Exact terms of the Portland ordi-
nance are still being worked out. Fritz
and her staff — along with staff from
the offices of city commissioners Nick
Fish and Dan Saltzman — met three
times in early October to discuss details
with a stakeholder group convened by
Andrea Paluso, coordinator of the
Everybody Benefits coalition. Stake-
holders included business owners as
well as staff from five labor organiza-
tions: Oregon AFL-CIO, United Food
and Commercial Workers Local 555,
Service Employees Local 503, Ameri-
can Federation of State County and
Municipal Employees, and Oregon
Nurses Association. Now Fritz’ office
is working with the city attorney to
draft an ordinance.
Paluso said the coalition is pushing
for every worker to be covered regard-
less of the size of the employer.
“This is a labor standard,” Paluso
said. “Just like we don’t have a differ-
ent minimum wage for small employ-
ers, we shouldn’t say small employers
don’t have to give their employees ac-
cess to sick days.”
“Everybody needs coverage. This is
a public health issue, and an economic
security issue.”
On Oct. 31, Causa members visited
City Hall. During the public comment
session of the City Council meeting,
Causa executive director Francisco
López thanked Fritz and urged mem-
bers of City Council to pass an ordi-
nance. He said Latino workers in
restaurants and elsewhere dispropor-
tionately lack paid sick days. An esti-
mated 40 percent of Portland workers
— and 57 percent of Latinos — don’t
have paid sick days, according to re-
search by Institute for Women’s Policy
Research.
“Portland has great restaurants,”
Lopez said. “When friends come to
Portland, they always compliment the
great quality of food. But there is some-
thing my friends don’t know about
Portland, that many waiters, waitresses,
cooks, busboys … come to work sick
because they do not get paid for sick
days, because they are afraid of losing
their job, and because losing a day of
work means they will not have enough
money to pay for rent.”
“I think [Amanda Fritz] is motivated
to try to get this done by the end of the
year,” Paluso told the Labor Press. “We
shouldn’t make the working people of
… Landslide vote at TriMet Lift
(From Page 1)
This time, workers made it all
the way to a supermajority union
vote, and while they were at it, val-
idated an experiment in unity by the
Oregon AFL-CIO — experienced
staff organizers from AFL-CIO-af-
filiated unions were paired up with
paratransit drivers for a “blitz” of
home visits to their coworkers.
Union-busting consultants some-
times try to frighten workers about
the prospect of union people show-
ing up on doorsteps, but that’s how
unions must be built — face-to-face
contact — when employers moni-
tor workers on the job and refuse to
let union organizers on the property.
After the union vote, TriMet Lift
workers from several locations cel-
ebrated at the Oregon AFL-CIO
hall (alongside cab drivers who
won the right to form a union-affil-
iated cab company the same day).
Local 757 President Bruce Hansen
said First Transit has used the
nonunion unit against the unionized
units; wages for experienced driv-
ers are more than $2 lower at Re-
gion 3 than at the previously union-
ized units. Now that Region 3 is
part of the union family, Hansen
said, they’ll be better able to raise
conditions for all the units.
Once the National Labor Rela-
tions Board certifies the results, the
two sides would begin bargaining
for a first union contract covering
THE AYES
HAVE IT: The
hand of union
election observer
Roni White
shows the tally
from her fellow
drivers at TriMet
Lift Region 3 —
111 for the
union, 31 against.
K NOW Y OUR R IGHTS
IF YOU ARE INJURED AT WORK BUT NOT
SURE YOU NEED MEDICAL TREATMENT
OR FILE A CLAIM , AT LEAST GIVE THE
EMPLOYER NOTICE THAT YOU MAY
HAVE HURT YOURSELF AT WORK TO
PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS LATER ,
SHOULD YOU NEED TO FILE A CLAIM .
NOVEMBER 16, 2012
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
PAGE 3