SEIU #503 prepares to strike at 7 Oregon universities
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Service Employees International
Union (SEIU) Local 503 is laying the
groundwork for a strike at the Oregon
University System (OUS). Local 503
represents 4,200 support workers at the
system’s seven state universities, in-
cluding facilities, IT, and clerical work-
ers. After six months of bargaining
failed to produce a new contract, Local
503 declared impasse Aug. 19. Now the
union is collecting member signatures
on a strike pledge petition, scheduling
strike authorization votes around the
state, and calling on faculty and stu-
dents to sign a pledge not to cross strike
picket lines.
Wages are a key sticking point. OUS
is proposing across-the-board increases
of 1.5 percent on Dec. 1, 2013, and 2
percent a year later. The union is seek-
ing 2.5 percent retroactive to the July 1,
2013, expiration of the previous two-
year contract, and another 2.5 percent
July 1, 2014. Local 503 is also propos-
ing that the across-the-board raises be a
minimum of $75 per month, thus bring-
ing the lowest-paid workers up more.
The two sides also disagree on
“step” increases that reward workers for
sticking around. Under the previous
contract, workers get a raise of about
4.75 percent a year until they reach the
SEPTEMBER 6, 2013
(ABOVE LEFT) Ethan Picman, a Portland State University worker and
SEIU Local 503 chief steward (on bullhorn), leads a chant among supporters
at an Aug. 28 rally. Local 503 represents support workers at seven state
universities, and they’re voting on whether to authorize a strike. (ABOVE
RIGHT) United Steelworkers union activists from locals in Pennsylvania and
Illinois made a Portland stop Aug. 28 on a 13-city coast-to-coast “Summer of
top of the pay scale after nine years.
OUS is proposing to divide those step
increases further, giving only half a step
increase each year.
OUS dropped several demands that
earlier had provoked union members,
including a proposal to eliminate the
right of more senior workers to “bump”
less senior workers in the event of lay-
off. OUS also backed off a proposal to
stop paying at the overtime rate for
work beyond eight hours in a day.
But OUS also backtracked from its
earlier willingness to meet the union
half-way on a “wage floor” proposal.
Local 503 is proposing that no worker
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
Solidarity” tour aimed at connecting local struggles with a broader fight
against corporate power. In Portland, they rallied with SEIU Local 503
members trying to get a contract at the Oregon University System, and visited
the picket line of members of International Longshore and Warehouse Union
who are locked out from several local grain export terminals.
be paid less than $2,498 a month — the
dollar threshold at which a family of
four becomes eligible for food stamps.
The two sides agree on health bene-
fits, for the most part, including that em-
ployees would pay 5 percent of the pre-
mium. But OUS has balked at SEIU’s
proposal that employees with domestic
partners be reimbursed for the federal
health benefit tax they must pay. The
IRS treats employer-provided spousal
health coverage as a tax-free benefit, but
makes employees pay a tax on the same
benefit when it covers a same-sex or op-
posite-sex domestic partner. SEIU views
its proposal as a civil rights issue.
Despite the declaration of impasse,
the two sides met Aug. 26 with the help
of a mediator, and are set to meet again
Sept. 13 and 14 in Corvallis. Bargaining
sessions rotate around the state’s seven
campuses, and SEIU has organized ral-
lies outside each bargaining session.
On Aug. 28 it held another rally —
after receiving an offer of solidarity
from a group of Steelworkers traveling
the United States in a “summer solidar-
ity tour.” About 100 union members and
supporters, plus the Steelworkers, as-
sembled in Portland State University
(PSU)’s Urban Plaza. Several unfurled
a 20-foot “Fair Contract Now” banner
from the top of an adjacent building.
But when union members brought their
noisy protest to the nearby state chan-
cellor’s office, they found a locked door.
OUS lead negotiator Brian Caulfield
greeted them outside the office, and ac-
cepted their letter to the chancellor.
Demonstrators next visited the office of
PSU president Wim Wiewel, but were
told he was out to lunch.
Wiewel — who lives rent-free in a
university mansion and receives
$512,786 a year in compensation —
wrote to university employees in Au-
gust, announcing a badge that entitles
them to attend 20 PSU sporting events
for free.
“I’d much rather have a living
wage,” Local 503 member Lora Wor-
den told the Labor Press. Worden said
she earns $11.82 an hour doing data
support at PSU’s Graduate School of
Education … and has $90,000 in stu-
dent debt to repay for her bachelor’s and
master’s degrees. She’s one of an esti-
mated 1,200 workers who would see
wages rise substantially if the Oregon
University System agrees to the pro-
posed wage floor.
Strike authorization ballots will be
counted Sept. 11. If members authorize
it, they could strike as early as Sept. 23,
after a mandated 10-day notice. Fall
term classes begin Sept. 30. Local 503 is
asking students and faculty to commit
via a web site, inittogether4ous.org, that
if there’s a strike, they will honor strike
picket lines by joining picket lines and
campus rallies, refusing to patronize
campus services, and canceling or skip-
ping classes or holding classes on the
picket lines.
TriMet driver aids
injured bicyclist
Nancy Cain, a member of Amalga-
mated Transit Union Local 757, may
have saved a life Aug. 16 in the course
of her job as a TriMet bus driver.
Late that night, Cain was driving the
last Number 56 bus of the evening
westbound on Southwest Barbur
Boulevard when she noticed a crum-
pled bike on the side of the road — and
a man lying in the bike lane. Cain se-
cured the bus, hopped out to check on
the man, and then called a TriMet dis-
patcher, who sent an ambulance. Four
passengers got out and helped collect
his belongings.
The bicyclist was Henry Schmidt, a
student at Lewis & Clark College who
had been on his way home from work
at Pok Pok restaurant when he was hit
by a driver who left the scene. Schmidt
told TV reporters he’s grateful that Cain
came to his aid, and credited her with
saving his life as he lay in the road.
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