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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 16, 2013)
...Fired by the Fund (From Page 1) have a hearing before a judge so far, but many other union supporters have been fired since the union campaign began, including the worker who first called the union, all eight of the workers who presented the original union petition to a manager, all four workers who vol- unteered on the union’s initial bargain- ing team, and several who replaced them, for a total of at least 13 support- ers fired — in a call center that employs about 25 workers. In nearly every case, the union filed charges with the NLRB. But the agency has dismissed most of them. CWA has had a tough time proving that defeating the union was a motive in the firings, because the Fund fires workers at a prodigious rate for all kinds of rea- sons. If that surprises you, you wouldn’t be the first. Neel, 36 and a father of three, was an idealist when he began working at the Fund. He believed in his work — dialing from the Portland call Oregon AFL-CIO to convene in Bend Sept. 27-29 BEND — Union leaders and ac- tivists, mark your calendars for Sept. 27-29 and the 53rd biennial Oregon AFL-CIO Convention. The convention will be held at The Riverhouse Hotel and Convention Center: 3075 N Busi- ness 97, Bend. Registration opens Friday, Sept. 27. That evening a welcome party will be held. Convention business gets under way Saturday morning, Sept. 28. The popular Union Label Show is scheduled Saturday evening. For more information, call the Ore- gon AFL-CIO at 503-224-3169, or from Salem call 503-585-6320. center to raise money for groups like Illinois PIRG, PennEnvironment, and the National Environmental Law Cen- ter. And he was good at his job, ex- ceeding fundraising quotas, and rising to the Fund’s top pay rate of $14.50 an hour. So when co-workers talked about unionizing, Neel thought that given the progressive values the Fund espouses, managers wouldn’t object very much if workers voted to unionize. “Everyone deserves a fair shot at a good job and a secure future.” Or so goes the phone rap for Fair Share, one of the Fund-affiliated groups Neel raised money for. But not workers at the Fund. Fund phone callers pay can drop several dol- lars an hour in a single pay period if they fall below fundraising targets. And if they fail to meet a separate bench- mark two weeks in a row, they are fired, no matter how many years they’ve worked there. In 18 months of negotiations over a first-ever union contract for its two dozen Portland call center employees, the Fund held fast to those policies, agreeing only to minor concessions — limiting pay cuts to $2 an hour per pay period, and giving workers a third missed-quota week, once a year, before termination. But the Fund insisted that the call center remain an “at will” workplace . For over a year, the Fund also insisted, as is the law in “right-to- work” states, that its call center be an “open shop,” in which union dues would be strictly voluntary. In June, the Fund appeared to relent, agreeing that workers who don’t want to join the union would still have to pay the union’s costs to represent them. But as spelled out by the Fund, the union would have to collect the fees, and workers would face no workplace con- sequence for failing to pay. Call center workers voted to reject all these terms, and a new round of bar- gaining is scheduled to begin Aug. 28. Special Recognition to Workers Everywhere happy labor day! orEgon statE Building and ConstruCtion tradEs CounCil John Mohlis Executive secretary 503-788-7153 Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/oregonbuildingtrades PAGE 12 NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS AUGUST 16, 2013
