Sick leave ordinance gets first hearing at Portland City Council
In four hours of
public comment,
sentiment runs 3 to
1 in favor of a sick
leave ordinance
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Portland City Council is on the
verge of passing an ordinance giving
workers the right to sick leave — a far-
reaching advance that would improve
working conditions for more than a
quarter million workers.
The proposed ordinance had its first
official hearing Jan. 31. Facing packed
chambers, City Council heard close to
four hours of public comment that ran
more than three to one in favor of the
ordinance. Those in favor included
Multnomah County Commissioner
Deborah Kafoury and state representa-
tives Michael Dembrow, Alisa Keny-
Guyer, and Jessica Vega Pederson, as
well as leaders of at least half a dozen
labor organizations, and officials re-
sponsible for public health in the Port-
land area. Speaking against it were a
U.S. Bank joins
as title sponsor
of BULL Session
U.S. Bank has joined the National
Electrical Contractors Association/In-
ternational Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers (NECA/IBEW) as co-title
sponsor of the Business, Union, Labor,
Leaders (BULL) Session.
The organization’s fundraising
event in Oregon takes place in Sep-
tember and includes a dinner/auction
and one-day golf tournament.
Since its inception in 1991, the
BULL Session has donated more than
$4.6 million to children’s charities, in-
cluding Children’s Developmental
Health Institute (formerly The Artz
Center for Developmental Health and
Audiology), Doernbecher Children’s
Hospital, Gales Creek Camp, March of
Dimes, Providence Child Center, Ran-
dall Children’s Hospital at Legacy
Emanuel, Shriners Hospitals for Chil-
dren Portland, Special Olympics Ore-
gon, and Wheel to Walk Foundation.
U.S. Bank serves more than 300 la-
bor-management groups with com-
bined assets of $37.3 billion.
“The Oregon-Columbia Chapter of
NECA is proud to partner with U.S.
Bank,” said Tim Gauthier, executive
manager of NECA and president of the
BULL Session.
“U.S. Bank is proud to support such
a worthy cause,” said Jeff Kerr, presi-
dent of U.S. Bank Institutional Trust
and Custody. “This is a natural part-
nership for our organization and rein-
forces our dedication to labor manage-
ment plans.”
PAGE 4
handful of business owners and indus-
try lobbyists, though some other busi-
ness owners spoke in favor.
The proposed ordinance would re-
quire employers to provide one hour of
sick leave for every 30 hours of work
— up to 40 hours a year. It would be
paid sick leave for employers with
more than five employees, and unpaid
for employers with five or fewer em-
ployees. Employees could use the sick
leave when they or a close family
member or domestic partner are sick,
injured, or in need of preventive med-
ical care.
The ordinance — introduced by
Commissioner Amanda Fritz, is the
first significant issue tackled by the
newly installed Council in which
Mayor Charlie Hales and Commis-
sioner Steve Novick are new members.
Several city commissioners said
they would support changes to make
the ordinance clearer or more work-
able, but none appeared to be swayed
by arguments that they should wait for
the state Legislature to take action.
Dembrow — a state representative
from Northeast Portland and a long-
time leader of American Federation of
Teachers — read a letter signed by
Oregon Senate Majority Leader Diane
Rosenbaum declaring that City Coun-
cil passage of a sick leave ordinance
would only strengthen efforts to pass
statewide legislation.
The Legislature would have plenty
of time to act; Portland’s ordinance, as
proposed, would take effect Jan. 1,
2014. That’s incidentally also when the
most significant parts of the federal
At a Jan. 31 hearing at Portland City Council, Fred Meyer employee and
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555 member Kimberly
Johnson speaks in favor of a sick leave ordinance, alongside Local 555
Secretary-Treasurer Jeff Anderson.
legislation known as Obamacare takes
effect, so Portland workers would not
only get the right to take time off when
they were sick, but also would have ac-
cess to affordable medical care.
Several business people — includ-
ing the owners of Huber’s and the
Daily Cafe — said providing paid sick
leave would be burdensome. But at the
end of the hearing, Fritz said she was
more concerned about the hardship
workers face when they work sick or
lose wages. As for the cost to employ-
ers, if every worker used the maximum
five sick days a year and had to be re-
placed during their absence, it would
add 1.9 percent to payroll costs. In San
Francisco, which has such an ordi-
nance, workers use about three days a
year on average. Meanwhile, at restau-
rants, sick employees would likely
seek to swap shifts, which the pro-
posed Portland ordinance allows,
rather than lose tips.
For union grocery workers, a sig-
nificant feature of the ordinance is that
it allows workers to use sick leave on
the first day of an illness. Current gro-
cery contracts with United Food and
Commercial Workers Local 555 pro-
vide paid sick leave, but the leave starts
on the third day. Teresa McGrath —
one of a contingent of Local 555 mem-
bers at the hearing — told City Council
how she lost her grocery checker job
in November 2012 because she made a
cash handling error while working
dizzy and nauseated on the second day
of a bout with the flu.
A 14-member task force chaired by
Fritz and fellow Commissioner Dan
Saltzman is meeting three times to dis-
cuss modifications to the proposal.
One issue they’ll consider is whether
the ordinance should cover employees
who are based elsewhere but work part
of the time in Portland, including
trucks that pass through.
The task force is about evenly split
between advocates and critics of the
ordinance, but Fritz said its task is to
propose modifications to make the or-
dinance more workable, not to deter-
mine whether to proceed with the or-
dinance. The one labor representative
on the task force is Local 555 Secre-
tary-Treasurer Jeff Anderson.
City Council will hold a second
hearing Feb. 27 on the ordinance, and a
vote on it is tentatively scheduled for
March 6.
Columbia Pacific BCTC
heading to the ‘Couve
Delegates to the Columbia Pacific
Building and Construction Trades
Council will hold their fourth meeting
each month in Vancouver, Wash.
Delegates currently meet every
Tuesday at Kirkland Union Manor in
Southeast Portland.
Beginning Tuesday, Feb. 26, dele-
gates will meet at 1:30 p.m. at Labor-
ers Local 335 hall, 2212 NE Andresen
Road, Vancouver.
“The new location and time will al-
low a greater participation to a few im-
portant local governmental meetings,”
said Executive Secretary Jodi Guetzloe
Parker.
The Port of Vancouver begins its bi
weekly meetings on the second and
fourth Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Port
offices located at 3103 NW Lower
River Road. And Clark County Com-
missioners meet on most Tuesdays at
10 a.m. at the Public Service Center,
1300 Franklin St.
“Both meetings are equally impor-
tant, and deserve our attention. With
the move, we can have a viable pres-
ence in these rooms, create relation-
ships, and report potential jobs that can
impact our affiliates, just to name a few
of the opportunities,” Guetzloe Parker
said.
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
FEBRUARY 15, 2013