Eugene could be next to guarantee paid sick days
EUGENE — Eugene could become
the second city in Oregon to guarantee
all workers the right to sick leave. Port-
land passed a sick leave ordinance in
March 2013, but a bill to take it
statewide died later in the year in a com-
mittee of the Oregon House.
Now a labor-community coalition
has formed in Eugene to push an ordi-
nance, similar to the coalition that
helped pass it in Portland. Known as
Everybody Benefits Eugene, the group
had its first success when Eugene City
Council held a Feb. 24 work session on
the idea. A second council work session
is scheduled for April 14.
“This is about Eugenians doing
what’s right for Eugene,” says Lili
Hoag, a Eugene native who studied
family policy at the London School of
Economics. Hoag, now policy director
at the group Family Forward Oregon,
Major League Soccer referee
lockout ends with 5-year pact
The lockout of referees by Major
League Soccer (MLS) and the Profes-
sional Referee Organization (PRO)
ended March 20 after the first two
weekends of games when PRO and the
Professional Soccer Referees Associa-
tion (PSRA) agreed on a five-year la-
bor contract.
PRO locked out the referees before
the beginning of the new season March
7 and used replacement officials.
The PSRA became the National La-
bor Relations Board-certified represen-
tative of the referees and game officials
last May, and the two sides have bar-
gained since July. The new agreement
was ratified by the union membership
and the PRO executive board.
“First contracts sometimes pose dif-
ficult challenges as the parties seek to
define the parameters of a new formal
relationship,” said Scot L. Becken-
baugh, acting director of the Federal
Mediation and Conciliation Service,
which brokered the talks.
The agreement runs until Jan. 15,
2019. Lucas Middlebrook, a PRSA
lawyer, said the deal includes “substan-
tially better” compensation and “a num-
ber of non-economic work rule protec-
tions such as a just-cause standard for
certain disciplinary matters and stan-
dardization of fitness testing.
“In addition, the officials now have a
contract protecting important quality-
of-life items such as travel standards,
vacation time and advance notice of
match assignments,” he told Associated
Press in an email.
said it appears there is majority support
on Eugene City Council for an ordi-
nance, though no specific proposal has
been introduced yet.
City Council member Claire Syrett
— a former organizer with the Jobs
with Justice chapter known as the Eu-
gene-Springfield Solidarity Network —
is championing an ordinance, along
with fellow council member Alan Ze-
lenka, an energy consultant. At the Feb-
ruary work session, five of the eight
City Council members spoke positively
of a sick leave mandate, and Mayor
Kitty Piercy is said to be in favor.
If an ordinance is unveiled at the
April work session, Hoag said City
Council would likely schedule a public
hearing and take citizen comment be-
fore voting on it.
Kevin Billman, director of legislative
and community affairs for United Food
and Commercial Workers Local 555,
said sick leave is a very important issue
for the roughly 600 Local 555 members
who work in Eugene Fred Meyer, Safe-
way and Albertsons stores. That’s be-
cause their union contract provides a
paid sick leave benefit, but they can’t
use it until the third day of an illness. So
the first two days they or a child are
sick, they either lose wages or they go to
work sick or send a sick child to school.
“It’s a hard choice,” Billman said.
“Do they take care of their health or
their finances?”
UFCW has tried to negotiate first-
day sick leave, but Billman said grocery
employers have dug in their heels on
that issue. A City ordinance would take
it out of their hands — and set a level
playing field on that issue for all Eugene
employers.
The Institute for Women’s Policy
Research estimated that 51 percent of
private-sector employees in Eugene —
over 25,000 workers — have no sick
days.
Since no ordinance has been intro-
duced, there are no specifics to debate
yet. Under Portland’s ordinance, work-
ers can use up to 40 hours a year of paid
sick leave. It would add no more than 2
percent to an employer’s payroll costs
if every worker used every hour of it.
And for workers, it would be a major
human rights advance, and a right en-
joyed by most workers in other indus-
trialized countries. Advocates say paid
sick days also reduce the spread of ill-
ness and increase productivity.
Besides UFCW Local 555, the sick
leave campaign is supported by the
Oregon School Employees Association,
AFSCME, Oregon Nurses Association,
Service Employees, and the Fire Fight-
ers. The Working Families Party of Ore-
gon has conducted door-to-door can-
vass to build support. The campaign is
also backed by the NAACP and by over
45 businesses organized by the small
business group Main Street Alliance.
GOP targets NLRB rule to streamline union elections
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congres-
sional Republicans introduced legisla-
tion last month to block the National
Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from
implementing a proposed new rule that
would give workers a more timely op-
portunity to vote in a union election.
As it is, the NLRB election process
is riddled with delay that provides too
many opportunities for employers to
manipulate and abuse the legal process
in order to stall union elections and
mount aggressive anti-union cam-
paigns.
The NLRB proposed its new rule in
February. NLRB Chairman Mark Gas-
ton Pearce said the proposals “are in-
tended to improve the process for all
parties, in all cases, whether nonunion
employees are seeking a union to rep-
resent them or unionized employees
are seeking to decertify a union.”
The proposal will let the NLRB
“more effectively administer” labor
law,” he said.
But on March 27, Rep. John Kline
(R-Minn.) and Sen. Lamar Alexander
(R-Tenn.) introduced a bill that would
require the NLRB to let 35 days pass
after employees file a petition before
they are allowed to vote on forming a
union. Their bill would also give em-
ployers 14 days to prepare their case
before they go before an NLRB elec-
tion official, and it would require the
NLRB to identify who can vote before
an election, rather than going back and
doing it retrospectively.
The Republican attack on the
NLRB is not new. Lawmakers from
that party have for years pursued bills
to eliminate the agency entirely, or at
the very least to severely cripple its
ability to function by defunding it.
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