Will the minimum wage movement come to Oregon?
Back in May, Oregon business lob-
byists must have felt sheltered from the
storm. Three hours north, a surging
minimum wage movement had Seattle
business groups so far on the defensive
that business leaders themselves were
pushing a $3.18 an hour increase in or-
der to prevent a $5.68 an hour increase.
[They lost.] But in Oregon, the business
lobby had planted a fire break back in
2003 — legislation, passed by the then-
Republican Legislature and signed by
then-Governor John Kitzhaber, that
barred Oregon cities from passing a
higher minimum wage than the state.
So in the May primary, when Con-
cordia College economics instructor
Nicholas Caleb tried to replicate the ex-
ample of Seattle’s Kshama Sawant, it
failed to ignite. Sawant in November
had beaten a long-term Seattle City
Council incumbent by campaigning
strongly for a $15-an-hour city mini-
mum wage. But when Caleb called for
the same in his insurgent campaign for
Portland City Council, incumbent Port-
land Commissioner Dan Saltzman
replied that the City is barred by state
Judge orders Kellogg’s to take
locked-out Bakers back to work
MEMPHIS (PAI) — A federal judge
in Memphis, Tenn., has ordered Kel-
logg’s to take back the 226 union work-
ers it locked out from its cereal plant
there over nine months ago.
The workers, members of Bakery,
Confectionery and Tobacco Workers
and Grain Millers Local 252G, returned
to work Aug. 11.
U.S. District Judge Samuel Mays
ruled on July 31 that the company was
using “creative semantics” to force
changes in the workers’ collective bar-
gaining agreement. He ordered Kel-
logg’s to re-establish its old employ-
ment conditions, and he ordered the
firm to resume bargaining.
He called ending the lockout “just
and proper.”
Kellogg’s lockout of the mostly mi-
nority workforce, which began Oct. 22,
2013, became a cause for the union and
for civil rights groups nationwide.
That’s because profitable Kellogg’s de-
manded the workers take deep pay cuts,
pay more for their health insurance, and
allow the firm to outsource their jobs.
When they refused, it locked them out.
Mays called the lockout “unlawfully
coercive” and said it “discriminates
against the employees for their partici-
pation in protected collective bargain-
ing activity.”
Union President David Durkee said
“the federal judge agreed entirely and
unequivocally with the union and the
National Labor Relations Board. Judge
Mays rejected each and every argu-
ment Kellogg has made since this dis-
pute began.”
law from passing such an ordinance,
though he pledged try to get that law
changed next year.
Three months later, there’s no sign
yet of a plan to end the pre-emption
when the Oregon Legislature meets
next year. But that doesn’t mean that the
minimum wage movement sweeping
the country is going to skip Oregon. In
fact, forces are gathering to push a “re-
set” of Oregon’s minimum wage.
On Aug. 8, representatives of six of
the state’s most politically active unions
and three nonprofit groups met with
state Sen. Diane Rosenbaum and Labor
Commissioner Brad Avakian at the
Oregon AFL-CIO headquarters in Port-
land. The meeting was to talk strategy
about passing an increase to the mini-
mum wage in the Oregon Legislature
in 2015. Rosenbaum was chief peti-
tioner on the 2002 ballot measure that
raised Oregon’s minimum to $6.90 and
indexed it to inflation thereafter. Today
it’s $9.10 an hour. But given the politi-
cal opening provided by a burgeoning
national movement, and the president
calling for $10.10, supporters of an in-
crease think Oregon’s minimum wage
could be much higher.
“We’re convinced now is the time it
needs to happen,” said Oregon AFL-
CIO Legislative Director Elana Guiney.
“Every union I’ve talked to in Oregon
is interested in raising the minimum
wage.” Guiney said some unions are
getting behind an ongoing campaign to
raise the minimum wage in Portland,
while others are interested in legislative
action to raise it statewide.
Guiney said supporters are going to
try to come up with a figure they can re-
alistically find support for: More than
$10.10, though less than the $15 figure
being championed elsewhere.
One possible reference point would
be the federal poverty level for a family
of four, which currently works out to
$11.47 an hour for a full-time year-
round worker. That’s why Oregon La-
bor Commissioner Avakian proposed
adjusting Oregon’s minimum wage to
$11.50 in a July 15 guest column in the
Portland homeless newspaper Street
Roots. Avakian said such a raise would
benefit 450,000 Oregonians, and would
generate more than $188 million per
year in new purchasing power to stimu-
late the economy.
Whatever the target, Guiney said the
minimum wage supporters at the Aug. 8
meeting were steadfastly not interested
in watering down the raise with conces-
sions or irksome complexity, like dif-
ferent timetables for different-sized
businesses, or a lower minimum wage
for tipped workers.
“The minimum wage is never going
to be a living wage,” Guiney said, “but
we do want to make sure it’s enough
that families are able to put food on the
table.”
— D ON M C I NTOSH
2014
Have a
Great
Labor Day!
When Working Families Succeed, Oregon Prospers!
AUGUST 15, 2014
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
PAGE 23