Arbitrator tells Clark County to follow the union contract
OPEIU Local 11
wins redress after
a worker loses out
to a less qualified
junior co-worker
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
VANCOUVER — It may not be
obvious, but the point of seniority
rights in union contracts is not to give
workers with seniority an advantage
over their co-workers. Seniority rights
are meant to promote co-worker soli-
darity and create a more dignified
workplace for all. When promotions,
layoffs, and choice of work assignment
are driven by seniority in a workplace,
there’s less potential for management
favoritism, and thus less incentive for
workers to curry favor with bosses or
badmouth coworkers to management.
But a contract is only as good as its
enforcement.
In November 2012, the County
Clerk’s office in Clark County, Wash-
ington passed over a senior employee,
Melissa McLachlan, and gave a
sought-after promotion to a less-quali-
fied worker whom she herself had
trained. McLachlan immediately called
Maureen Colvin, a union business rep-
resentative at Vancouver-headquartered
Office and Professional Employees In-
ternational Union Local 11, to file a
grievance. Colvin investigated, and
working with Katelyn Oldham of
Tedesco Law Group, put together a
case when the grievance went to arbi-
tration.
Local 11’s contract with the County
states that qualified employees may ap-
ply for open positions, and when two
or more internal applicants are substan-
tially equal in qualifications, knowl-
edge, skills and abilities, “seniority
shall prevail.”
McLachlan started at Clark County
in 1988. By 2012, she was the most
senior “judicial proceedings specialist”
in her department, and she was the one
routinely asked to train new hires.
When a job as senior court assistant
opened up, several supervisors encour-
aged her to apply. She submitted an ap-
plication and cover letter, took a skills
test and a practical exam, and received
91 percent, the highest test score
among seven applicants. She was even
asked to fill in several times as a senior
court assistant.
But none of that mattered, County
HR told arbitrator Katrina Boedecker,
because all those things were treated as
“pass/fail.” The only part of the hiring
process where applicants were ranked
against each other was an oral inter-
view, scored by a four-person panel of
coworkers.
McLachlan had been uncomfortable
during that interview, in which pan-
elists took turns asking questions gath-
ered from the Internet about “leader-
ship.” But they weren’t making eye
contact, or asking followup questions.
The panelists had signed a pledge
that they would not be biased for or
against any applicant. But one was the
best friend of another applicant, and
gave that person the top rating. Another
had a relative who’d had a legal dispute
with McLachlan over some construc-
tion work. A third panelist had encour-
aged another applicant to apply, and
gave that person the top rating, and
McLachlan a much lower score.
McLachlan was told by a manager
that she lost the promotion because of
her interview scores, even though she
had the most experience and had
scored the highest on the test. The pro-
motion instead went to a coworker
McLachlan had trained, who’d been at
Northwestern University football players petition to form union
EVANSTON, Ill. (PAI) — With vir-
tually unanimous player support, and
with Steelworker backing, football
players at Northwestern University
filed a formal petition and signed union
recognition election cards with the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board’s
(NLRB) Chicago regional office on
Jan. 28.
If the players win the vote — which
will occur only after NLRB hearings
and rulings and possible appeals to the
courts, they admitted — they would set
a national precedent for recognizing
college athletes, in football and men’s
basketball at Division I schools, as
“employees” under labor law and eli-
gible to be organized.
The new College Athletic Players
Association (CAPA) contends that
scholarships actually pay for the play-
ers’ services, and the players in turn
earn their colleges millions of dollars.
But labor law now doesn’t cover the
players, said Northwestern player Kain
Colter and CAPA leader Ramogi
Huma in a telephone press conference.
The organizing drive grew out of
contacts college players at UCLA had
with the Steelworkers Union more than
a decade ago.
The union is backing a non-profit
group to publicize the players’ plight
and agitate for public pressure on col-
leges to change their ways.
The colleges didn’t listen, so the or-
ganizing drive started. It picked up
steam when leaders of the National
Collegiate Athletic Association — the
organization representing colleges —
said colleges “have no legal responsi-
bility” for taking care of players who
are injured.
That lack of responsibility and ques-
tions about college responsibility for
injured players, especially football
players who suffer permanent brain
damage through on-field concussions,
drove the organizing drive, Huma said.
Steelworkers International Presi-
dent Leo Gerard said that when the
UCLA contact began, “we thought
they had a good deal. But we heard
story after story of them struggling to
pay for basics like food and rent, or
how they got cut off” of scholarships
“by a coach’s whim.”
The Northwestern players were very
enthusiastic, as “they’ve been taught to
think outside the box,” Colter said.
Their head coach told him, “If this is
what the team feels, and there’s a right
way, then let it play out.”
Huma said the players want to
unionize so they “can have a seat at the
table” on issues such as injury cover-
age, adequacy of their scholarships,
post-injury care and establishment of
an educational trust fund for players to
let them finish college and graduate
even after their athletic eligibility, and
their scholarships expire.
the County since 2008, who’d listed
less than half McLachlan’s skills on a
skill list, had never trained a coworker,
and whose sole leadership experience
was organizing volunteers during a col-
lege clothing drive.
Arbitrator Boedecker held a hearing
Sept. 6 in Vancouver, and on Dec. 13
found in favor of the union, ordering
the county to give McLachlan the pro-
motion, pay the union’s legal fees, and
restore any pay and benefits McLach-
lan had lost since the day she was
passed over.
“Seniority is a much cherished right
of union members,” Boedecker wrote.
“A seniority preference clause curbs an
employer’s ability to make hiring deci-
sions in an arbitrary manner … [and]
allows workers to gain job security
rights based on length of service rather
than favoritism.”
“The employer did not rebut the
union's record that McLachlan was su-
perior … in qualifications , knowledge
, skills and abilities,” Boedecker con-
cluded. “It merely stood on its theory
that it could rank the applicants solely
on their interview scores. The plain lan-
guage of [the union contract] does not
support this theory.”
2-1-1 can be a lifesaver
2-1-1 is an easy to remember tele-
phone number that connects callers to
information about critical health and
human services available in their com-
munities. In Oregon, it is run by
211info, in partnership with United
Way. It can be accessed online at
www.211info. org.
If your employer forces
you to work in dangerous
work conditions you can
make a CONFIDENTIAL
report to OSHA by
calling 800-922-2689.
P ROUDLY S ERVING
P ORTLAND W ORKERS
F OR O VER 32 Y EARS
PAGE 2
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
FEBRUARY 7, 2014