City of Portland workers vote on tentative contract agreement
Some members object to
changes on contracting
out and comp time
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
After nearly a year of contentious
negotiations, about 1,300 City of Port-
land workers had a chance to vote on a
new union contract this week and last.
They are members of the seven-union
coalition known as the District Coun-
cil of Trade Unions (DCTU). DCTU
represents 1,583 City workers, but a lit-
tle over 300 of those are “fair share”
employees who chose not to join the
union and therefore don’t get to vote on
the contract.
The tentative four-year deal was
reached just as DCTU representatives
and city managers prepared to submit
their final offers to the state Employ-
ment Relations Board.
If ratified, the agreement would
cover the period from July 1, 2013
(when the previous contract expired)
through June 30, 2017. It provides for
wage increases of 0.9 percent retroac-
tive to Aug. 29, followed by annual in-
creases equal to the rise in the Con-
sumer Price Index each July 1 (with a
minimum of 1 percent and a maximum
of 5 percent).
Retirement and health insurance are
unchanged in the tentative agreement.
But the agreement completely rewrites
a contract article that has limited the
City’s ability to contract out members’
work, and it changes rules on “comp
time.” Those two items came under fire
at a rowdy contract forum Jan. 23 in the
Benson High School auditorium. Most
of the roughly 80 members who turned
out were unhappy with what they char-
acterized as concessions in the pro-
posed contract.
The new contracting out clause is
less restrictive to the City. The old lan-
guage said the City may not contract
out work done by bargaining unit mem-
bers unless it shows that doing so will
...TriMet audit not to ATU’s liking
(From Page 1)
safety, service and sustainability.
“There was no followup, and not one
of those issues is addressed in the audit
report.”
Hansen said the audit report conveys
TriMet’s official line on the causes of
its problems, and highlights many
TriMet initiatives, task forces and com-
mittees.
“Highly paid managers are con-
stantly attending meetings,” Hansen
said. “Yet the people on the front line
seldom see any positive outcomes to
justify the time and money being spent
on going to meetings.”
TriMet’s McFarlane responded to
the audit with a pledge to implement all
of its recommendations, prioritizing
those that enhance safety. TriMet pro-
vided details and a timeline for how it
will do that in a 10-page response to the
audit.
Two days later, TriMet signaled its
intent to move to mediation in contract
bargaining with the union, closing
down face-to-face bargaining after the
150-day minimum the law requires.
The previous contract expired Nov. 30,
2012, and bargaining for a new one got
off to a much-delayed start September
7. Calculating from then, 150-day pe-
riod ended Feb. 4.
Under Oregon law public transit
workers cannot strike, so if a settlement
cannot be reached via negotiations, an
arbitrator selects one of the party’s pro-
posals.
save money, and the savings can’t come
from lower wages and benefits. The
new language says the City can contract
out for a variety of specified reasons,
but that no employee will lose employ-
ment because of contracting out.
Comp time, meanwhile, is a feature
of the union contract that is highly
prized by certain categories of City
workers. The current contract gives
workers options when they work over-
time. For each hour of overtime they
work, they can be paid time-and-a-half,
or they can get 1.5 hours of compensa-
tory (comp) time — paid time off that
they can use later, similar to vacation
time. And under the current contract,
there’s no limit to the amount of comp
time workers can use, except that they
can only accrue up to 80 hours of comp
time at any given time. Unused comp
time can be cashed out at the end of the
fiscal year or carried over to the next
year.
By contrast, the contract up for rati-
fication would impose a limit of 120
hours of comp time that could be taken
in a year, starting calendar year 2015.
At the end of the year, employees could
retain any comp time they accrued, but
would still only be able to use 120
hours in a year. Meanwhile, employees
who agree to be on “standby” (off
hours that they’re available to work
within 30 minutes in the event of an
emergency) would have a separate
comp time bank of up to 80 hours at a
time for any hours they are called in to
work. The City estimated that 84 work-
ers would have been affected if the
120-hour rule had been in place in
2012.
The agreement also contains a pro-
vision reacting to a proposed initiative
aimed at the 2014 ballot. The proposed
initiative would allow union-repre-
sented public employees who are not
members of the union to refuse to share
representation costs. Article 2 in the
proposed DCTU agreement restricts
employees from dropping their union
membership except for a five-day pe-
riod in March each year.
Members of the bargaining team
recommended ratification, and said it
was the best deal likely to be achieved
without a strike. AFSCME Local 189
held votes at roughly 50 work sites
around the City, while members of La-
borers Local 483 voted by mail ballot.
Officials from all seven unions in
the DCTU coalition will meet at 5:30
p.m. Feb. 7 to tabulate the results.
SEIU Local 503 votes not to
merge with SEIU Local 49
At a Feb. 1 meeting of the General Council of 47,000-member Service
Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 503, delegates voted 118 to 75
not to pursue a merger with 10,000-member SEIU Local 49.
Local 503 represents state workers, home care workers and nursing home
workers statewide, while Local 49 represents janitors, security guards and
hospital support workers mostly in the Portland area.
Leaders of the two unions had been discussing a merger since 2012, and
members of both unions engaged in a process of internal and joint discus-
sions about the benefits and mechanics of merger, or “unification” as it was
termed.
Local 503’s Executive Board recommended moving forward with the
merger, but did not find majority support for it on the General Council. Local
49 was preparing to take the issue to members, but the General Council vote
ends discussion of a merger for now.
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PAGE 12
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
FEBRUARY 7, 2014