CWA gets bare-bones contract
with Fund for the Public Interest
Workers at a Portland call center run
by the Fund for the Public Interest fi-
nally have a union contract — two years
and four months after joining Commu-
nications Workers of America (CWA)
Local 7901.
Fund for the Public Interest, head-
quartered in Boston, runs street, door-
to-door and telephone fundraising for
state “public interest research groups”
like OSPIRG and a spinoff network of
state environmental groups like Envi-
ronment Oregon. It also has contracts to
do fundraising for groups like Human
Rights Campaign.
In spite of those groups’ progressive
reputation, the Fund is an abusive em-
ployer, churning through and terminat-
ing personnel at a prodigious rate.
That’s what prompted its Portland call
center workers to unionize, but the Fund
didn’t stop being an abusive employer
just because federal law told it to bar-
gain in good faith with employees.
In fact, CWA contended in charges
filed with the National Labor Relations
Board (NLRB), managers used the
Fund’s existing draconian rules to elim-
inate union supporters one after another
— firing them for trivial offenses, or
more commonly for missing fundrais-
ing quotas. The Fund fired the worker
who first called the union, all eight of
the workers who presented the original
union petition to a manager, all four
workers who volunteered on the union’s
initial bargaining team, and several who
replaced them, for a total of at least 13
supporters fired — in a call center that
employs about 25. But as thousands of
American workers have learned, the
NLRB is a toothless bureaucracy when
it comes to stopping employers from
firing union activists.
Proving a worker was fired for sup-
porting a union isn’t easy. CWA filed
multiple charges protesting the firings,
but only one charge went anywhere: Af-
ter an August 2013 hearing, a federal
administrative law judge ordered that
fired union activist David Neel be rein-
stated with back pay. The Fund ap-
pealed the judge’s order, and offered to
reinstate Neel pending resolution of the
appeal. But the Fund also told Neel he’d
be terminated if the Fund won its ap-
peal. That wasn’t the unconditional re-
instatement offer CWA believed the
judge ordered. Neel, who now does
similar fundraising work for the Oregon
Working Families Party, declined to ac-
cept, holding out for an unconditional
offer in the event he wins the appeal,
which is still pending.
The Fund may have thought the
union effort would peter out, but it did-
n’t. When union supporters were fired,
their pro-union coworkers waged short
strikes to protest — and trained and ori-
ented new hires. CWA Local 7901 Pres-
ident Madelyn Elder said a pro-man-
agement employee tried to circulate a
State to include apprenticeships in education goals
SALEM — The Oregon Legislature
has amended the state’s 40-40-20 Edu-
cation Plan to include state-registered
apprenticeships.
The plan sets a goal to ensure all
Oregonians have a high school diploma
or equivalent by 2025, and that the vast
majority have some form of degree or
certificate beyond a high school educa-
tion. The goal is that 40 percent will
have a bachelor’s degree or higher, 40
percent will earn an associate’s degree
or post-secondary credential, and 20
percent will have a high school
diploma or equivalent.
The legislative and rule-making in-
tent was to include non-college educa-
tion programs in the “middle 40” of the
goal, but it wasn’t clear what programs
were included.
At the Oregon AFL-CIO convention
in Bend last September, delegates
passed a resolution directing the state
labor federation to pursue legislation
that would ensure that apprenticeship
training was part of the “middle 40.”
It just so happened that then-state
Rep. Michael Dembrow (D-Portland)
was a delegate at the convention. Dem-
brow is a community college instructor
and member of the American Federa-
tion of Teachers.
Dembrow, now a state senator,
talked up the resolution to his col-
leagues. State Rep. Chris Gorcek (D-
Troutdale), a community college in-
structor representing a district with
many apprenticeship training centers in
it, took interest in the idea and ap-
proached the Oregon AFL-CIO about
drafting a bill.
House Bill 4058 made clear that ap-
prenticeship programs registered with
the State Apprenticeship and Training
Council were to be included as a post-
secondary credential.
The bill passed in the House 59-0,
and passed in the Senate 29-0.
“By explicitly including registered
apprenticeship programs in our educa-
tion goals, we are ensuring that no mat-
ter how students learn, they know there
is a path for them after high school into
a good career — be it through college
or an apprenticeship program,” said
Tom Chamberlain, president of the
Oregon AFL-CIO.
Current and former workers at Fund for the Public Interest Portland call
center staged a short strike and protest Oct. 11, 2013, the two-year
anniversary of their vote to unionize. Protesters marched outside the
headquarters of OSPIRG, one of the nonprofit groups that the call center
workers raise money for.
petition to dump the union, but no
coworkers would sign.
But contract negotiations consisted
of stonewalling. Telephone fundraising
director Pat Wood flew out to Portland
once a month from Boston, and said
“no” to union proposals, even those as
trivial as automatic payroll deduction.
Over the course of two years of negoti-
ations, the Fund refused to agree to the
most basic union contract rights, such
as not disciplining workers without
“just cause,” or the requirement that
represented employees pay union dues.
But in February, the Fund dropped
its hard line on the requirement to pay
union dues, and that was enough. What
made the difference, Elder thinks, was
union pressure on the Human Rights
Campaign, a gay civil rights group, to
switch its fundraising to another con-
tractor. Elder said once that became a
real possibility, the Fund settled.
Call center workers ratified a new
four-year agreement Feb. 25 in a unan-
imous vote. The contract contains no
raises or additional benefits, but it cod-
ifies existing workplace policies, and
addresses worker concerns about pay
instability and job security by limiting
performance-based pay cuts to $2 an
hour per pay period, and giving workers
a third missed-quota week, once a year,
before being terminated. Elder said that
saved one worker’s job right off the bat.
The contract contains a grievance
procedure consisting of appeals up
through four levels of the Fund chain of
command. But unlike most union con-
tracts, there’s no provision for resolving
grievances through binding arbitration.
But Elder said that means workers re-
tain the right to strike if a grievance isn’t
resolved to their satisfaction; most
union contracts bar workers from strik-
ing during the term of the contract.
The CWA-Fund contract runs
through February 2018. It covers the
Fund’s Portland call center workers, but
not its thousands of canvass employees
or its call center workers in Sacramento
and Boston.
Boeing announces plan to build 777X wing in Everett
EVERETT, Wash. — Boeing Co.
announced Feb. 18 that it will construct
a 1-million-square-foot factory in
Everett to build the 777X carbon com-
posite wing. The company confirmed,
too, that the airplane will be assembled
in Everett, though it didn’t say where.
“This isn’t just a five-year decision
or a 20-year decision, this is a 50-year
decision,” said Boeing CEO Ray Con-
ner at a press conference with Gov. Jay
Inslee, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, local
politicians, and International Associa-
tion of Machinists Aerospace Coordi-
nator Mark Johnson.
The Machinists Union represents
approximately 31,000 manufacturing
workers at Boeing plants in Everett,
Portland, and Wichita, Kansas. They
are members of Machinists District
Lodge 751, Machinists District Lodge
W24 (Lodge 63), and District Lodge
70.
PAGE 4
Conner and the other elected offi-
cials praised union members for ap-
proving a controversial concessionary
contract extension through 2024.
Boeing had threatened to leave
Washington if the Machinists didn’t
agree to the contract extension and if
lawmakers didn’t agree to extend tax
breaks for the Fortune 500 company.
Many union members thought the
company was bluffing. After all, plane
production, stock prices and profits
were at all-time highs. And they still
had more than two years remaining on
their existing collective bargaining
agreement.
Lawmakers responded quickly. In a
special session called by Gov. Inslee,
the Washington Legislature passed a
bill giving Boeing $8.7 billion in ex-
tended tax breaks over the next 16
years. It also passed new laws that ex-
pedited the permitting process for
777X-related construction. It was the
largest state subsidy for a corporation
in U.S. history.
The Machinists weren’t so easy.
A week after the Legislature handed
Boeing the huge tax break, workers re-
jected Boeing’s contract proposal by a
nearly 2-to-1 margin. The offer in-
cluded ending the defined benefit pen-
sion plan and paying more out-of-
pocket for health insurance.
Shortly after the vote, Boeing put
out a request for proposal (RFP) and re-
ceived offers from 22 states to build the
new 777X. The RFP whipped federal,
state and local politicians into near-hys-
teria, as they feared the loss of thou-
sands of family-wage jobs in the state.
Politicians pleaded with the union to go
back to the table and make a deal.
They got the attention of Machinists
international union. Union officials re-
turned to the bargaining table, got a
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
slightly better deal (though it still ended
the pension plan and increased health
insurance co-pays), and ordered a vote
— all against the wishes of the leader-
ship of District Lodge 751.
With pressure to ratify the contract
coming from the governor, area may-
ors, elected officials, and the media,
Machinists on Jan. 3 passed the con-
tract extension by fewer than 600 votes.
“The Machinists made a very diffi-
cult decision,” Inslee said. “We owe re-
spect to the Machinists for making a
decision that helps the entire economy
of the state of Washington.”
In a post-ratification-vote interview
with the Puget Sound Business Journal,
Machinists International President Tom
Buffenbarger said he was convinced
that Washington was not on Boeing’s
final list of sites for the 777X, and that
the company might have moved Air
Force tanker production to Long
Beach, Calif., had the contract exten-
sion been nixed.
“I did have a fear of it leaving Seat-
tle because of the domino effect,” Buf-
fenbarger told the Business Journal.
“All of these (disputed contract provi-
sions) mean nothing if Boeing built the
plant somewhere else, because people
wouldn’t have had a job.”
Conner wouldn’t say how many
new jobs will be created, but the Seattle
Times reported that during the 777X
site-selection competition, Boeing pro-
jected the high-tech wing facility alone
would provide 2,760 jobs at peak em-
ployment in 2024.
At the Feb. 18 press conference,
Conner said “We’re going to be here.
We’re going to start tearing down
buildings, and we’re going to start
pumping hundreds of millions of dol-
lars into this area.”
MARCH 7, 2014