300-member AFSCME #3580 reaches tentative deal at Metro
AFSCME Local 3580 and Metro
reached tentative agreement July 17 on
a new three-year contract covering over
300 Metro employees. Union members
will vote Aug. 11-15 on whether to rat-
ify the agreement.
If approved, it will provide immedi-
ate cost-of-living raises of 2.82 percent
as of ratification, plus increases July 1,
2015 and 2016 equal to the increase in
the Consumer Price Index, with a min-
imum of 1.5 percent and a maximum
of 3.25 percent.
Metro also agreed to reset the step
pay scale, at a cost of about $140,000
the first year. The step scale’s logic is
that new hires start at the bottom and
receive annual increases of 5 percent
until they reach the top of the scale in
seven years, but those proportions were
compressed when previous cost-of-liv-
ing increases were incorrectly applied.
The union bargaining team made
one significant concession: increasing
the employee share of the health insur-
ance premium. Currently workers pay
6 percent. Metro proposed they pay 10
percent, but settled for 8 percent. Pre-
miums vary depending on family size
and which plan members choose.
Separately from contract bargain-
ing, Local 3580 and Metro agreed to
terminate PacificSource as a health in-
surance option effective Jan. 1, because
of unsustainable premium increases.
It’s being replaced with a Kaiser Per-
manente’s “Added Choice” plan, which
is like a preferred provider insurance
plan. Members of the bargaining unit
can also enroll in the Kaiser Perma-
nente health maintenance organization.
Other improvements in the tentative
contract include a fairer policy on sick
leave abuse, an increased clothing al-
lowance for some workers, and a bank
of paid time to partially compensate
union member volunteers for their
service on the union bargaining team.
The agreement commits Metro to
notify the union when new employees
are hired, and give the new hires 30
minutes of paid time to attend a union
orientation. It also contains an “ever-
green” clause that would allow one-
year extensions of the contract, with the
same cost-of-living raises, if neither
side wants to open the contract for
renegotiation in 2017.
Local 3580 President Matt Tracy, a
principal planner in Metro’s solid waste
...Union pension funds help create jobs
(From Page 1)
tor for the Pacific Northwest Regional
Council of Carpenters, added that
“Nothing quite demonstrates our com-
mitment to the City of Portland like this
does — when we put our pension funds
out there, those are dollars that hard-
working Carpenter have earned on the
jobsites.
“We’re ecstatic with the team that’s
been assembled for this project.We
know this is a winning group of folks.
We’ve seen it again and again.”
Pearl West is being developed by
BPM Real Estate Group. Howard S.
Wright (HSW) Constructors is the gen-
eral contractor. Design-build partners
with HSW are McKinstry Mechanical,
Dynalectric and Viking Sprinkler.
HSW announced at the ground-
breaking that it will relocate its head-
quarters to the fourth floor of Pearl
West after the project is completed.
HSW has 150 employees.
Pearl West is slated for completion
in early 2016.
(Editor’s Note: LEED — or Lead-
ership in Energy and Environmental
Design — is a green building certifica-
tion program. Phil Beyl of GBD archi-
tects said there is a “strong passion” to
get Pearl West to the LEED Gold level.
He also announced at the ground-
breaking that he is in discussions with
program leaders in New York to have
Pearl West be a pilot project for a new
national certification process called the
Well Building Standard.
The Well Building Standard focuses
on human wellness within a building’s
environment. It identifies specific con-
ditions, that when holistically inte-
grated into building architecture and
design, enhances the health and well-
being of the occupants. “It works in
careful alignment with LEED — it
builds on LEED,” Beyl said.
If talks are successful, Pearl West
would be the first building in Oregon
— and possibly the first office building
in the U.S., to implement the Well
Building Standard.)
division, called it a good agreement in
today’s climate. Tracy said union-man-
agement relations have improved since
last November, when at the union’s ini-
tiation, union Executive Board mem-
bers began meeting with senior man-
agers informally every two to three
months, the first two times with the help
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of a professional facilitator. Tracy said
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Negotiations continue between
Metro and Laborers Local 483 over a
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PAGE 10
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
AUGUST 1, 2014