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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 7, 2014)
OSEA in major fight to save school bus jobs at Parkrose and refuses to hear comment from any but Parkrose residents. Last fall, Parkrose school bus driver Pat Koenig — a former Parkrose resi- dent whose kids attended schools in the district — sat through hours of a Board meeting only to be told he could not speak because he’s not a current resi- dent. The same treatment was given to By DON McINTOSH 15-year Parkrose bus driver and educa- Associate Editor Parkrose School District, in outer tional assistant Colleen Van Houten, Northeast Portland, is preparing to out- and to Oregon AFL-CIO Executive source its school bus service. Oregon Board member Tim Stoelb, who is state School Employees Association (OSEA) president of the 18,600-member OSEA. is fighting to oppose it, and save the The Board tells its OSEA-represented jobs of 18 school bus drivers, a me- employees that only chapter president chanic, and a dispatcher — its mem- Rick Doyle can speak for them. And when Doyle speaks, he gets a bers. In lawns all over the district, union- chilly reception. At the Jan. 27 board made signs shout “Keep it Local.” meeting, superintendent Dr. Karen Fis- School bus drivers are canvassing cher Gray praised board members and neighborhoods and lobbying parent- every other speaker, but looked down at teacher organizations and neighborhood her papers when Doyle took the podium associations. Union ads are running on- for his allotted spot. When Doyle called line at Oregonlive.com and midcoun- for the district to engage in open dia- tymemo.com. School board members logue with the union, she shot back in a are getting phone calls from residents combative tone. “I’m here, Rick,” Gray said. “My about the plan, and board meetings are door is always open.” preceded by noisy union rallies. Board Chair Grassel moved as if to The board is expected to vote at its Feb. 24 meeting whether to contract calm Gray, but she waved him off. “I out, and in the weeks leading up to that, get to say what I think,” she said. Gray told the Labor Press the move the union will be running television ads targeted to Comcast cable subscribers to outsource busing is dictated by the district’s need to look for economic ef- in outer Northeast Portland. Parkrose is one of Oregon’s poorest ficiencies. Budget cuts have resulted in school districts, with about 75 percent a 182-day school year, down from 191 of its 3,500 students eligible for free or days before the recession. The district reduced priced meals. It’s the farthest has no reserves, and ended the most re- cent school year north of four small in- with $209,000 in dependent school dis- its bank account. tricts on the outer east For a district with a side of Portland, and is $30 million annual situated roughly be- budget, that’s a tween I-205 and NE cushion of less 142nd Ave, and from than 1 percent. the airport to NE Any contractor Halsey. Many Parkrose would have to offer residents see their com- current drivers a munity as a small-town job, Gray said, and oasis on the edge of a would have to pay big city. But efforts to the same wages; dump the district’s P ARKROSE S CHOOL S UPT . under the OSEA school bus drivers and K AREN F ISCHER G RAY contract, drivers contract with an outside start at $14.57 an firm like giant multina- hour, and rise to tional school bus con- $17.32 after six tractor First Student are putting that years. neighborliness to the test. Gray also defended the board’s pub- At the Jan. 27 school board meeting, board chair Ed Grassel cut off an ele- lic comment policies. “You do not, by any law, have to give mentary school mom who spoke up for the union, then countered her comments any union president time at your board with the district’s perspective. And it meeting,” Gray said. “People showed up to that meeting had taken her a real commitment to get to that point. Parkrose School Board that have never showed up to a meeting meetings are four-hour affairs, with a in my district ever,” Gray said. “I’ve talkative superintendent, hours of staff never seen those people. They haven’t reports, and decision-making on sub- been in all the meetings we’ve talked jects as minute as whether to waive about busing. Why are they showing up $174 in space rental fees when the now?” The union may challenge the out- Holly Hills Homeowners Association sourcing effort in court. In the 2009 ses- meets at Parkrose High School. OSEA has tried to mobilize commu- sion of the Oregon Legislature, OSEA nity members to speak out at board was able to win passage of HB 2867, a meetings, but the board makes visitors law that requires local public employ- sit through hours of proceedings before ers — when they’re considering con- providing an opportunity to comment, tracting out services normally provided School Board will vote Feb. 24 on whether to privatize ‘You do not, by any law, have to give any union president time at your board meeting.’ FEBRUARY 7, 2014 OSEA members and supporters rally Jan. 27 before a Parkrose School District board meeting. The board is considering contracting out school bus service. by their employees — to conduct a cost comparison estimating the cost of do- ing the work in-house and by a contrac- tor. If the estimate shows savings come solely from lower wages and benefits, the law says they may not contract out the work. But OSEA legislative director Tricia Smith says some employers are gaming the law, claiming non-personnel savings without substantiation, in order to move forward with outsourcing. “Districts are thumbing their noses at the intent of the law, creating bogus cost analyses with made-up numbers,” Smith told the Labor Press. Smith said the Parkrose School Dis- trict is a good example. To comply with the law, Parkrose paid transportation consultant John Fairchild $3,500 to pro- duce a two-page spreadsheet. The cost comparison, which includes no written explanatory notes, claims the district would save $26,677 a year in material costs — and $247,368.67 a year in salary and benefit costs. Because the district is required to ne- gotiate with the union over the impact of laying off its drivers, OSEA staff rep- resentative Hal Meyerdierk had an op- portunity to question Fairchild about the spreadsheet. In the meeting, Mey- erdierk says, Fairchild confirmed that the personnel cost savings would come from slashing worker retirement and health benefits. Meyerdierk says he asked Fairchild what his estimates of non-personnel cost savings were based on. He says the consultant replied that an assumption of 30 percent lower materials costs was based on his “gut feeling” and 30 years experience in the transportation indus- try. Meyerdierk pointed out that profit had been left out of the cost compari- son, and Fairchild added an estimate of $30,000 profit. NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS A similar analysis by Fairchild for the Central Point School District, near Medford, was the basis of a legal chal- lenge by OSEA. The school district won in a lower court, but OSEA has an appeal pending before the Oregon Court of Appeals. Parkrose school bus driver Steve Wilson lives less than a block from the bus yard. But he says he’ll move if First Student gets the school bus contract. Wilson previously worked for First Stu- dent — after his career driving a semi truck was cut short by medical limita- tions. He says he would not go back, because First Student annually termi- nates its drivers at the end of the school year with no promise of rehire, leaving them to collect unemployment insur- ance and lose their health insurance un- less they can afford COBRA payments. OSEA’s Meyerdierk says First Stu- dent has 30 percent annual employee turnover. For the union, the most important part of the Jan. 27 board meeting was a vote to accept Fairchild’s analysis. OSEA urged board members to reject the Fairchild cost comparison, but in the end the board voted 4-1 to accept it. Board member Erick Flores, a Portland school teacher, was the sole member to vote no. “Nobody is in favor of giving up our school buses,” Flores said at the meet- ing. “I haven’t received a call from any- body saying this is a good idea.” Parkrose board member James Tru- jillo, a senior HR manager at the Port of Portland, explained his yes vote. “In a resource-constrained environ- ment, it is our duty to augment the re- sources that make the biggest impact on student learning,” Trujillo said. The board will hold a work session Feb. 10 at which it will give 30 minutes to OSEA Budget and Research Special- ist Sara Connors to present a counter to Fairchild’s cost comparison. It’s ex- pected to vote at its Feb. 24 meeting. If it contracts out, the employees would be laid off at the end of the school year. They’d be eligible to stay on with the new contractor, but most likely would not have benefits. OSEA is calling on supporters, par- ticularly Parkrose residents, to call school board members. It hopes to send a message that the employees aren’t “just” bus drivers; they look out for the kids, model behavioral expectations, and teach them right from wrong. School bus drivers are the first district employees the children of Parkrose see in the morning, and the last they see at the end of the day. Current drivers have many years of positive relationships with students, something a high- turnover contractor could never match. And it’s anti-worker to outsource school bus transportation, OSEA argues, since over 90 percent of the estimated cost savings would come from slashing health and retirement benefits. Chair Ed Grassel 503-253-0988 Vice Chair Thuy Tran 503-267-3262 James Trujillo 971-285-2195 Erick Flores 503-686-1655 Mary Lu Baetkey 503-253-4423 Superintendent Dr. Karen Fischer Gray 503-408-2135 PAGE 5
