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
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