Northwest labor press., February 20, 2015, Page 2, Image 2

PAGE 2 | February 20, 2015 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
... Unitarian Union
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140
the Catholic Archdiocese of Port-
land and at Oregon Catholic Press
have been unionized for decades.
And Highet says even the fed-
eral rules may be changing. A De-
cember court decision more
tightly defined the religious ex-
emption: Purely religious workers
like ministers wouldn’t have the
right to unionize, but other work-
ers, like groundskeepers or clerical
staff, might.
At First Unitarian Church of
Portland, 17 of 19 employees were
in favor of the union: five admin-
istrative staff and 12 sextons
(church workers who clean and
maintain building and grounds and
operate audiovisual systems). De-
spite the initial rejection, the union
supporters kept on pressing their
right to unionize.
“We’re doing this because we
care that the church walks its talk,”
said Sunday School administrator
Nicole Bowmer, one of the leaders
of the union effort. “If we didn’t
care deeply about our jobs, we
would choose an easier road of
quitting and leaving.”
Bowmer spoke with the Labor
Press in November, but said then
that she and her co-workers
weren’t yet prepared to go public,
because of concern that church
leaders’ refusal to recognize the
union would lead some members
to leave the church. Two weeks
after approaching the church ex-
ecutive team, the workers made
the first of several appeals to the
church board. When that too went
nowhere, in early February they
began to contact members of the
congregation they believed would
be sympathetic, such as David
“After 81 days of being
told no, it was the
congregants that
made this happen.”
— Nicole Bowmer
Delk, a member of the church’s
Economic Justice Action Group,
and a retiree of AFSCME Local
3135.
“It’s outrageous for a church
that values love and human rights
to say ‘no’ to employees’ efforts
to freely associate by forming a
union,” Delk told the Labor Press.
With word getting out, Sinkford
outlined his stance in a Thursday,
Feb. 5, post on his blog: “We do
not believe it is in the best interest
of our church to have employees
cut off from direct communication
with management,” he wrote. “We
believe that such an action would
dramatically change the way we
function at the church, taking us
from a covenantal and relational
basis to a contractual relationship
and making the relationships be-
tween management and staff more
and more adversarial.”
That afternoon the Labor Press
left a message for Sinkford. Two
days later, Sinkford reversed
course, emailing employees on
Saturday to announce that the
church will recognize the union.
“The executive team has
weighed the social justice issues
and our faith’s long-held support of
people’s right to organize, with
how it would affect our ability to
serve our congregation and its mis-
sion,” he wrote in the email, which
the workers shared with the Labor
Press. “While we continue to ques-
tion whether unionization is the
best way to achieve the goals we
share, we also recognize that a
continued conflict will drive us fur-
ther apart and begin to change the
nature of members’ relationship
with their church. Congregants
come to First Unitarian to be nour-
ished spiritually and to live out
their values in the world, not to be
forced to take sides in a conflict.”
Sinkford didn’t talk about labor
in Sunday services the next day,
but Bowmer says workers got
hugs and thumbs-ups from mem-
bers of the congregation who had
heard.
“After 81 days of being told no,
and then four days of emails from
congregants, we know it was the
congregants that made this hap-
pen,” Bowmer said. “They took a
stand on the right side of history on
workers’ rights, and we’re grateful
to them for taking that stand.”
Returning a second call from
the Labor Press, Sinkford ex-
plained the about face. “The issue
was becoming extremely divisive
in our community, with people lin-
ing up pro and con,” Sinkford said.
“It just felt like there was more
damage potentially being done
than we were willing to maintain.”
Sinkford said there’s no dis-
agreement about the need for
raises for the lowest paid employ-
ees. For their part, workers say
they want better wages for the
least-paid, more affordable health
care for all, written job descrip-
tions, and the security of having
conditions spelled out in a binding
agreement instead of subject to
change at any time.
“This is new territory for me
and for the church and I think for
our employees too,” Sinkford said.
“So we’re looking forward to sit-
ting down and getting started.”
ONLINE EXTRA
To see the blog post explaining why
the church wouldn’t unionize, and the
email three days later explaining why
it would, go to: ow.ly/J1r9j