Unions split over who to back for Multnomah County chair
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Local unions are split over who to
back for Multnomah County chair this
year. Deb Kafoury and Jim
Francesconi each have union endorse-
ments, and each has a public record
with pluses and minuses from a labor
perspective.
Francesconi served two terms on
Portland City Council from 1996 to
2004, then returned to lawyering after
losing a 2004 campaign for Portland
mayor. Courting union support, he cites
two principal achievements: A “living
wage” ordinance at the City of Port-
land, and a “community benefits agree-
ment” that City Council adopted in
2013 as a template for large City con-
struction projects.
• The living wage ordinance, which
Portland City Council passed unani-
mously in 1998, set a minimum wage
of $9.50 an hour for janitors, security
guards and parking lot attendants em-
ployed by City contractors. Frances-
coni was its sponsor, but leaders of
Portland Jobs with Justice, the group
that led the living wage campaign, say
working with him was a frustrating ex-
perience. Jobs with Justice wanted the
ordinance to also include “neutrality”
language to bar city contractors from
opposing employee efforts to unionize,
but Francesconi balked at that provi-
sion, and it was left out of the ordi-
nance. Francesconi says he doesn’t re-
member that detail.
• The community benefits agree-
ment, meanwhile, is a pledge by the
City of Portland to use union construc-
tion workers — and women and mi-
nority workers and contractors — on
City construction projects over $15
million. Francesconi crafted the agree-
ment as an attorney with the firm
Haglund Kelley working for two
unions: the Pacific Northwest Regional
Council of Carpenters and Operating
Engineers Local 701. Francesconi says
he’d like Multnomah County — and
developers of a proposed convention
center hotel — to adopt a similar agree-
ment. But the agreement has been crit-
icized by other construction unions,
says Columbia Pacific Building and
Construction Trades Council Executive
Secretary Willy Myers. Minority- and
women-owned businesses, which are
supposed to get at least 20 percent of
the work, may bring their nonunion
“core” employees to projects. Also, the
agreement says 18 percent of the work
will be performed by minority workers,
and 9 percent by women workers, but
union hiring hall procedures, which are
spelled out in collective bargaining
agreements with employer groups,
don’t usually permit members to be
dispatched on the basis of race. Myers
said the Building Trades Council is
working with stakeholders on possible
changes to the agreement to address
such concerns.
Kafoury, meanwhile, was a two-
term state representative from North-
east Portland, and then County com-
missioner for Southeast Portland, until
she resigned in 2013 to run for County
PAGE 4
Jim Francesconi speaks at a candidates forum sponsored by AFSCME Local
88. Members, impressed by his focus on opportunities for minorities and low-
income residents, voted to endorse him.
Chair. To labor audiences, she touts her
record in the Oregon House and her ef-
forts at the County Commission to get
funding for construction projects.
• Kafoury had a pro-union voting
record in the Oregon House, as rated by
the Oregon AFL-CIO. She says the leg-
islative achievement she’s most proud
was a fund to provide services for sur-
vivors of domestic violence. But as
leader of the minority House Democ-
rats in 2003, she backed a plan by then-
governor John Kitzhaber to cut costs in
the Public Employment Retirement
System (PERS), at a time of significant
state budget cuts. Some of the changes
to PERS were later overturned by the
Oregon Supreme Court. Kafoury says
public sector unions may have been un-
happy with her at the time, but the then-
majority House Republicans wanted
even bigger cuts to PERS.
• At the County, Kafoury used her
legislative connections to help win state
funding for the Sellwood Bridge re-
placement project, and later a project
for a new County Courthouse. Frances-
coni has criticized both projects. He
faults Kafoury for the Sellwood Bridge
project being awarded to a nonunion
out-of-state general contractor. But
Oregon Building Trades Executive
Secretary John Mohlis says that’s un-
fair: Kafoury wasn’t personally re-
sponsible for making the contract
award, and she worked with fellow
commissioner Judy Shiprack and then-
chair Jeff Cogen to persuade the com-
pany to employ local union workers.
As for the Courthouse project, Kafoury
secured $15 million in state funds, but
Francesconi said the County doesn’t
have the money for such a project, and
he would prefer the County prioritize
roads in eastern Multnomah County.
Kafoury was eager to propose a sick
leave ordinance at Multnomah County
when advocates approached her in
2012. But a legal opinion came back
that such a regulation was outside the
County’s charter, so instead, she testi-
fied in support of an ordinance at the
City of Portland.
If elected, Kafoury pledges to im-
prove the County’s record on its current
responsibilities. Francesconi says he
wants to refocus County attention on
jobs.
Francesconi’s campaign slogan is
“It’s all about jobs.” His six-page Jobs
Plan consists of “partnering” with other
public and private sector entities. He
wants to partner with job-training insti-
tutions to develop joint training pro-
grams. He’ll ask the state to increase
the minimum wage. And he will ask
the county’s 50 largest employers to
Deborah Kafoury attends groundbreaking for the union-funded Lloyd
District Commons residential complex. She is pictured talking with building
trades officials Willy Myers and John Mohlis.
add 10 new entry-level jobs each.
Francesconi pledges to “re-deploy”
three existing employees in the chair’s
office to create a County Chair’s Office
of Economic Development and Equal-
ity, a primary focus of which will be
“how to assist the cities of Gresham,
Troutdale, Fairview and Wood Village
in their economic development efforts.”
The Jobs Plan also calls for the
County (and the City of Portland and
Portland Public Schools) to require that
on public works projects, 20 percent of
all project hours within each construc-
tion trade be performed by “local” res-
idents, and 10 percent by “disadvan-
taged” workers. That would increase
over seven years to 50 percent and 25
percent respectively.
Francesconi also said — in a candi-
date questionnaire for the Service Em-
ployees International Union — that the
County should require that all buildings
it rents or owns are served by union-
represented janitors and security
guards, and he pledged to work with
SEIU and AFSCME to assist in union-
izing non-profit county contractors that
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NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
MAY 2, 2014