Where’s the love?
Is TriMet planning to bar access to NW Labor Press?
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
TriMet and Amalgamated Transit
Union (ATU) Local 757 made their fi-
nal arguments March 1 in a lawsuit
over whether the public may observe
contract negotiations. Local 757 says
its members have the legal right to re-
quire that the negotiations be open to
all stakeholders, including community
advocates, the public, and the media,
without restrictions. TriMet, in con-
trast, argues that labor negotiations
aren’t subject to Oregon’s Public Meet-
ings Law; it proposes to bar the public,
except for “reporters from news organ-
izations unaffiliated with either party.”
Local 757 leaders interpreted that as
an attempt to bar the Northwest Labor
Press — while giving access to re-
porters from business-owned publica-
tions — and immediately objected.
During a Jan. 22 deposition, TriMet
labor relations director Randy Stedman
was grilled under oath about that pro-
posed ground rule.
“Can you tell me what an ‘unaffili-
ated’ member of the press would be?”
asked union attorney Greg Hartman.
“We haven’t spent a lot of time
thinking about that,” Stedman said,
“but obviously if we’re going to have
members of the press there, the object
is to present an unbiased objective
viewpoint.”
Hartman asked if that would in-
clude the Oregonian.
“I would imagine that they would
be considered an unaffiliated member
of the press,” Stedman said.
MARCH 15, 2013
What about the Portland Tribune?
“Would they be, at least in TriMet’s
view, the kind of unaffiliated organiza-
tion that could send a reporter?” Hart-
man asked.
“On the surface of it, I would think
that they would be an unaffiliated news
organization,” Stedman answered.
“Labor Press?”
“I don't know what the nature of
that relationship is so I don’t have any
comment on that,” Stedman said, not-
ing that ATU records show payments
to the Northwest Labor Press.
“TriMet used the phrase ‘unaffili-
ated,’” Hartman said. “So when you
used that term, was it your intention to
exclude, for instance, the Labor
Press?”
“My intention was to put forth a pa-
rameter without applying it, to suggest
that if the object is to have the newspa-
pers there, that they be in a position to
report in an unbiased and fair manner.
I didn’t reach any conclusions about
any particular organizations other than
that’s the idea behind having the press
there, that they could report fairly and
objectively on the negotiations.”
At the Labor Press, we didn’t think
that cleared things up very much.
TriMet is a public body with a board
appointed by the governor. It gets half
its operating budget from a payroll tax
and the other half from transit fares. Is
this government agency really seeking
to bar the Northwest Labor Press from
observing union contract bargaining,
while granting access to business-
owned publications?
The Labor Press emailed TriMet
spokesperson Mary Fetsch to ask that
question, and to object strongly to the
prospect of being barred as an “affili-
ate” of ATU Local 757.
The email explained that Northwest
Labor Press is a non-profit independ-
ent labor union newspaper, and has
been publishing since 1900. Like over
80 other unions, Local 757 pays to sub-
scribe its members; it also sometimes
purchases ads, and it pays the North-
west Labor Press to produce and edit a
monthly newsletter that is mailed to its
members. The union doesn’t control
Northwest Labor Press content, either
directly or indirectly, or even see it
prior to publication.
“Given your explanation,” Fetsch
wrote back, “we likely would not ob-
ject to one of your regular reporters be-
ing considered as an unaffiliated mem-
ber of the press for purposes of sitting
in on the negotiation sessions.”
Even if TriMet decides in the end
that the Labor Press is unaffiliated, it’s
hard not to conclude that its choice of
language was meant to exclude the pa-
per.
Whether the transit district will be
allowed to exclude anyone at all will
be up to Multnomah County Circuit
Court Judge Leslie Roberts. No facts
are in dispute in the lawsuit. Rather,
both sides seek a legal opinion inter-
preting the law. Bargaining on a new
contract was set to begin Nov. 30, but
was put on hold until the legal question
can be resolved.
From ATU’s perspective, the law
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
couldn’t be clearer: ORS 192.660(3)
provides that, “labor negotiations shall
be conducted in open meetings unless
negotiators for both sides request that
negotiations be conducted in executive
session.”
It wasn’t always that way. Before
1997, if either side wanted bargaining
to be off-limits to the public, it took
place in closed session. But Republi-
can legislators — arguing that public
employers were giving away the store
in negotiations outside the public eye
— changed the law that year.
“I think the public is entitled to
know what’s going on,” said Roseburg
Republican state Rep. Bill Markham
— sponsor of the bill that made the
change — in a March 1997 hearing.
That’s something ATU Local 757
President Bruce Hansen would agree
with. In most cases, both sides agree
that bargaining is more effective out-
side the glare of public scrutiny. But
TriMet and Local 757 have been in the
labor relations equivalent of a knock-
down drag-out fight for at least three
years. Hansen thinks if the public sees
what the TriMet brass is like in bar-
gaining, they’ll side with the district’s
bus drivers and mechanics.
“We’re tired of TriMet trying to
make it seem like the union is to
blame,” Hansen said.
IN MEMORIAM
Longtime union
activist B ILL F RITZ ,
the first coordinator of
the Portland Center of
the Labor Education
and Research Center
at the University of
Oregon, died suddenly
in his home in Portland on March 4.
He was 67.
Fritz was born Oct. 18, 1945, in San
Francisco. He graduated from St. Ig-
natius College Prep in 1964. He stud-
ied internal relations at San Francisco
State University; engineering econom-
ics at Santa Clara University; psychol-
ogy at the University of Wisconsin-
Madison; and speech communications
at Portland State University.
Fritz is a former director of the La-
bor Studies Program at San Francisco
Community College.
He moved to Portland in the late
1970s to work for the Oregon Federa-
tion of Teachers. He later worked for
Oregon AFSCME Council 75 before
taking the job with LERC.
“It was Bill Fritz who first recruited
me to AFSCME in 1978,” noted AF-
SCME Council 75 Executive Director
Ken Allen.
Fritz left LERC in 1994. He was
succeeded at the Portland Center by
Barbara Byrd, the current secretary-
treasurer of the Oregon AFL-CIO.
Fritz then worked for Oregon Sen-
ior and Disabled Services before retir-
ing in 2005.
Fritz was married to Nita Bruegge-
man, a former manager of the NW
Joint Board of the Clothing & Textile
Workers Union (which later merged
with UNITE HERE).
In retirement, Fritz divided his time
between his family, Oregon Demo-
cratic politics, and cultural activities.
He loved the performing arts in Port-
land, and he and Nita volunteered at or-
ganizations such as White Bird, the
Oregon Symphony, the Portland Jazz
Festival, and ART.
Fritz is survived by his wife; step-
son, Russel; step-daughter Gayle; and
four grandchildren.
A memorial was held March 10.
Donations in his memory may be
made to any arts organization.
A moment of silence was held at the
February delegates meeting of the
Northwest Oregon Labor Council for
K EN J ETTE , a retired member of the
American Postal Workers Union, who
died Feb. 21 at age 77.
K ENNETH R EYNOLDS J ETTE , J R .
was born in Portland on May 14, 1935.
He graduated from Columbia Prepara-
tory and earned a
bachelor of arts degree
in history at the Uni-
versity of Portland.
In the early 1960s
he went to work for
the U.S. Postal Serv-
ice, retiring in 2009 af-
ter more than 45 years
as a clerk at the main branch in down-
town Portland.
An advocate for social justice and
workers’ rights, Jette was active in the
union. He served as president of the
Oregon State Council of Postal Work-
ers, and as a delegate to the Northwest
Oregon Labor Council. At election
time, Jette would always remind dele-
gates how to properly address ballot en-
velopes and when to put them in mail-
boxes to ensure that they were delivered
on time and their votes were counted.
In 2003 he was the recipient of the
“Bridge Builder Award” from the Aux-
iliary to the American Postal Workers
Union.
Jette married R. Eileen Willett in
1965. they divorced in 1990. He is sur-
vived by son, Hazen; daughters,
Catherine and Melinda; two grandchil-
dren; brother, Dennis; and several
nieces and nephews.
Memorial donations can be made to
the Oregon Postal Workers Union Col-
lege Scholarship, P.O. Box 5254,
Salem, OR 97304.
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