Strike on horizon at City of Portland
Outside the Southeast Portland offices of OSPIRG and Environment Oregon,
“phone canvassers” who raise money for those two groups rally during a two-
hour strike. The strike marked the two-year anniversary of the vote by
telephone fundraisers at the Fund for the Public Interest to join CWA Local
7901.
Strike at PIRG call center
marks two-year union drive
Two years after voting to join Com-
munications Workers of America Lo-
cal 7901, the two dozen workers at a
Portland call center run by the Fund for
the Public Interest still have no union
contract. But they’ve yet to give up, ei-
ther. On Oct. 11, they engaged in a
work stoppage marking the two-year
point.
Fund for the Public Interest, based
in Boston, is the fundraising wing of
the national network that includes state
Public Interest Research Groups
(PIRGs) and state environmental
groups like Environment Oregon. The
Fund fires workers at an extraordinary
rate for all kinds of infractions, espe-
cially missing quotas, which workers
have no control over setting.
The Portland call center workers
unionized chiefly to win at least slight
improvements in job security.
But in two years of once-a-month
bargaining with national Telephone
Outreach Project director Pat Wood,
the Fund hasn’t agreed to even basic
union contract principles like “just
cause” (the requirement that an em-
ployer show a reason before firing
you), and “union security” (an agree-
ment that represented workers will pay
dues.)
“They want to give us ‘open shop,’”
said striking phone fundraiser Anya
Dagnall. “We think if everybody’s go-
ing to have the same rights, that every-
one should pay union dues.”
So at 4 p.m., all 12 callers who were
working the Friday afternoon shift on
Oct. 11 took a paid break, signed back
into their computer stations, then got
up, walked out, and left the building —
two hours before the scheduled closing
time. They marched to a nearby office
that houses OSPIRG, Environment
Oregon, and the Fund for the Public In-
terest door-to-door canvass operation.
There they found lights on inside, but
doors locked. No one at the OSPIRG
office responded to the doorbell or to
phone calls.
“We’re going to keep fighting,”
Dagnall said. “We’re not going to be
silenced.”
Both union and management appear
to be preparing for a strike at the City of
Portland, which could start in Novem-
ber. The seven-union 1,600-worker
coalition known as the District Council
of Trade Unions (DCTU) has tenta-
tively scheduled a “ready to walk” rally
for 4:30 p.m. Nov. 6, at a location to be
determined. And on Sept. 26, City of
Portland chief negotiator Julia Getchell
told DCTU bargaining chair Rob
Wheaton that she instructed City man-
agement to place all vacation requests
on hold for November, December, and
January — based on concern over a po-
tential DCTU strike. That’s according
to an unfair labor practice charge the
DCTU filed Oct. 2 with the Oregon
Employment Relations Board.
DCTU says the vacation hold was
illegal, and argues that it’s part of a
broader pattern by the City of refusal to
abide by Oregon’s Public Employee
Collective Bargaining Act.
In the charge, DCTU says the City
of Portland has refused to bargain in
good faith. When the two sides began
negotiating a new contract Feb. 13, the
City proposed rollbacks in virtually
every area of the contract. Despite five
months of weekly meetings and four
sessions with a state-appointed media-
tor, the two sides have reached agree-
ment on only two of 38 articles: the pre-
amble and the clause covering health
insurance. DCTU says the City failed
to meaningfully negotiate during the
150-day period of contract bargaining
mandated by law, and even refused to
bargain over its own proposals. Further,
DCTU says, the City has said that its fi-
AFSCME Local 189 members Bruce
Bullick and Kevin Getner rally
outside Portland City Hall Oct. 2
prior to a City Council meeting.
nal offer will be significantly worse
than its final mediation proposal.
DCTU negotiators object most
strongly to two items: A proposal to
eliminate protections against contract-
ing out union members’ work, and a
proposed 0.9 percent cost-of-living in-
crease, which the City has insisted
won’t be retroactive to the June 30 ex-
piration of the previous contract, as has
previously been the custom.
DCTU includes AFSCME Local
189, Laborers Local 483, Operating
Engineers Local 701, International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
(IBEW) Local 48, Machinists District
Lodge 24, Painters District Council 5,
and Plumbers Local 290. They main-
tain water and sewer systems and parks
and roads, and perform clerical func-
tions in Police and other bureaus.
Oct. 2, the DCTU took its unhappi-
ness directly to a meeting of City Coun-
cil. Painters Local 10 member Mike
Keebaugh and Laborers Local 483
member Sam Sachs addressed City
Council during time set aside for public
comment, to cheers from scores of city
workers in the gallery. DCTU plans to
return to City Council at 9:30 a.m. Oct.
30, when five more members will
speak.
Meanwhile, for the first time in at
least 20 years, Portland’s 911 dispatch-
ers rejected a tentative agreement with
the City by nearly a two-to-one margin.
The contract vote was held Oct. 5.
AFSCME Local 189-2 represents
employees at the City’s Bureau of
Emergency Communications (BOEC).
The 93 employees in the bargaining
unit answer all 911 and non-emergency
calls for the city police and fire bureaus,
as well as calls for Multnomah County.
Under contract with the city, 911 and
emergency dispatching services are
provided to the police departments of
Gresham, Troutdale, and Fairview, as
well as the Multnomah County Sher-
iff’s office. They also handle calls for
the Gresham, Corbett, and Sauvie Is-
land fire departments, and dispatch
American Medical Response ambu-
lances contracted to Multnomah
County Emergency Medical Services.
The dispatchers are part of the
DCTU, but their contract and bargain-
ing are separate because they cannot
strike. The key issues they are facing
are forced overtime and premium pay
for backup training coaches.
A DCTU mediation session was
scheduled Oct. 15, after this issue went
to press.
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OCTOBER 18, 2013