Inside
MEETING
NOTICES
See
Page 4
Volume 115
Number 12
June 20, 2014
Portland
Painting contractor tells
NLRB he would rather
close up than go union
David Zier (right), president of Melvin Mark Companies, questions Painters District Council 5 organizer Scott
Oldham about his chalk work on the sidewalk outside of Melvin Mark’s downtown Portland offices. Oldham showed
up at 111 SW Columbia St. at 7:30 a.m. on June 3 to publicize anti-union actions by R&H Construction — a general
contractor that Melvin Mark uses. Oldham chalked in the Melvin Mark logo and under it he wrote: “Unlawful
interrogation by your contractor: NLRB 19-CA-127019.” Incidentally, no one was hosing the sidewalk when Oldham
started chalking. The man in the background showed up about 10 minutes after Oldman began drawing.
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
It has to have been one of the more
unusual hearings federal judge John J.
McCarrick has presided over. Oregon
City painting contractor Gene Edwards
— accused of threatening, bribing, in-
terrogating, discriminating against and
firing pro-union workers — went with-
out an attorney, and ended up being the
prosecution’s best witness.
His “do-it-yourself” defense ran
into problems well before the hearing
began on May 6. Painters District
Council 5 filed “unfair labor practice”
charges with the National Labor Rela-
tions Board (NLRB) in October accus-
ing Edwards Painting of repeatedly vi-
olating federal labor law during the
course of a union campaign that began
in June 2013. After the charges were
filed, Edwards filed papers to remove
OPEIU Local 11 ‘joint accord’ at Northwest
Natural guarantees no layoffs for 5.5 years
Members of Office and Professional Employees
(OPEIU) Local 11 ratified a new five-and-a-half-year
“joint accord” at Northwest Natural Gas Co. that
guarantees no layoffs for bargaining unit employees
hired on or before Nov. 30, 2013. The contract was
ratified by a margin of 77.5 percent in voting held
May 22. The new collective bargaining agreement
runs until Nov. 30, 2019.
The union represents just over 600 employees in
107 job categories at the gas company — including
office staff and outside gas and construction workers.
The new contract includes wage adjustments the
first year that bring job classifications to “market
value.” The new numbers are based on a wage com-
parison study the sides conducted during negotiations.
“Some of our members were underpaid; others
were considered overpaid,” said Rick Wilson, Local
11 business rep and lead negotiator.
The average wage increase works out to be 7.8
percent, though some work classifications will re-
ceive more than that — as much as 21 percent, while
others receive less, Wilson said. Those who were
deemed overpaid received a 1 percent bonus the first
year.
All workers in the bargaining unit will receive a
wage increase of at least 3 percent in each of the re-
maining four years of the agreement. If the Con-
sumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners (CPI-W)
increases by 4 percent or more, a cost-of-living-ad-
justment formula kicks in that will tack on even more
to the raises.
Wages at the gas company range from $15 an
hour for entry level jobs to $40 an hour for senior em-
ployees.
There were some changes made to the health in-
surance policy. Northwest Natural will pay 85 per-
cent of employee health insurance premiums if the
employee participates in an annual health risk as-
sessment. Wilson said the assessment includes an on-
line survey and standard (finger prick) blood test.
Employees who don’t participate must pay 20 per-
cent of the premium cost, which currently is
$1,334.55 a month.
Northwest Natural agreed to increase its match on
employee contributions to a 401(k) savings plan. The
current formula is a 50 percent match, up to a maxi-
mum of 4 percent of an employee’s gross wage. That
will increase in 2016 to a 50 percent match, up to a
maximum of 6 percent of an employee’s gross wage.
NW Natural also contributes to a company-spon-
sored defined benefit pension plan.
Last December, NW Natural withdrew from a
third pension plan — the Western States OPEIU Pen-
sion. The withdrawal was allowed under terms of the
previous collective bargaining agreement. The com-
pany has paid into the multi-employer defined benefit
pension plan since 2004. However, the plan is in crit-
ical status under the Pension Protection Act. Last year,
plan trustees (of which NW Natural chief administra-
tive officer Lea Anne Doolittle is one) announced its
status as “forestalling insolvency.” According to NW
Natural’s most recent Security and Exchange Com-
mission 10-K filing, it incurred a withdrawal liability
of $8.3 million. The company made arrangements to
pay $600,000 a year to the plan for the next 20 years.
Vested participants will receive all benefits accrued
through the date of the withdrawal — Dec. 31, 2013
— or until the plan becomes insolvent, at which time
the government-run Pension Benefit Guaranty Cor-
poration (PBGC) will step in.
NW Natural was paying 30 cents an hour per bar-
gaining unit member at the time of the withdrawal.
“We’re happy with the results of the new joint ac-
cord,” said Local 11 Executive Secretary-Treasurer
Mike Richards. “We’ve had an excellent labor-man-
agement partnership at the gas company that works
very well. We look forward to continuing that in the
years to come.”
his wife Connie and son Grant as co-
owners of the business. [Edwards later
told the judge that he did it to shield
them from liability in the case, adding
that his wife had been listed as the ma-
jority owner because at one point they
considered getting certified as a
woman-owned business.] When the
NLRB investigated the union allega-
tions, Edwards told the federal agent
that he would sooner close his 45-year-
old business than allow workers to
unionize (which they have a right to do
under federal law). In February, the
NLRB issued a formal complaint and
set May 6 as the date for a hearing to
begin before McCarrick, a federal ad-
ministrative law judge. But the com-
pany failed to file a legal response by
the deadline, failed to answer some of
the charges prior to the hearing, failed
to comply with a subpoena request for
documents, and even destroyed several
of the requested documents. The
NLRB could have treated the failure to
respond as an admission of guilt, but
instead the judge and the agency let
Edwards respond to the charges during
the hearing.
Edwards, with about 20 employees,
does a good deal of work for several
prominent local general contractors,
including R&H Construction, Walsh
Construction, and KeyWay Corp.
Mostly Edwards Painting works on
commercial multi-family residential
construction projects, including some
federally funded projects. Union or-
ganizer Scott Oldham says he targeted
Edwards for a union campaign because
the company pays well below the
union rate (at the time, $19.81 an hour,
plus benefits). That enables the com-
pany to underbid unionized painting
contractors, and win jobs that might
otherwise pay the union rate. So Old-
ham and fellow union member Wyatt
McMinn got jobs at Edwards, and
started talking to their new co-workers
about unionizing. That’s when the
owners began violating federal labor
law.
According to the NLRB, Gene Ed-
wards and his son Grant, a foreman,
(Turn to Page 3)