NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | February 20, 2015 | PAGE 5
... Airport worker earns minimum wage, for eight years
From Page 1
The Port may indeed be an
excellent working environment,
for managers. Executive Direc-
tor Bill Wyatt’s $394,440 public
employee salary puts him in the
top 1 percent of income earners.
But the point of all the union
heat at Port board meetings was
to bring PDX closer to other
West Coast airports that have
raised standards for those on the
bottom. UNITE HERE sur-
veyed over 100 concessions
workers last fall and found one
in four on food stamps, one in
six on Medicaid, and a median
wage of $9.30 an hour.
In October, Wyatt told board
members he’d bring them a “so-
cial equity” proposal to vote on.
But in the draft proposal his staff
HOW THE PORT OF PORTLAND
WELCOMES PUBLIC INPUT: “Sorry
there weren’t enough seats for every-
body, but we didn’t expect such a big
crowd,” said Port of Portland Commis-
sion Chair Jim Carter Feb. 11 as mem-
bers of the public packed the board
room. [The front two rows had been
reserved in advance for Port man-
agers.] “Unfortunately, I guess you
have to stand,” Carter continued. “We
are going to take up the ‘workplace
initiative’ last on the agenda.” Every
month for nearly a year, unionists
have waited hours to speak for three
minutes to ask the Port for better
working conditions for airport
service workers.
presented Feb. 11, known as the
“PDX Workplace Initiative,” the
word “equity” was nowhere to
be found.
Port of Portland public affairs
director Kristen Leonard, re-
turning a phone call from the
Labor Press, explained that the
“equity” component will come
later in a multi-year process. As
NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT
To craft a policy to help the
poorest, the Port hires a
consultant at $197 an hour
The Port of Portland hasn’t
done much to help impover-
ished airport workers, but its
new “social equity” initiative
is already benefiting some
high-paid consultants. Last
August, the Port agreed to pay
$34,869 to a Eugene sustain-
ability consultancy to conduct
a “social equity audit.” Good
Company, the consultancy,
will “define and recommend
opportunities to further inte-
grate social equity considera-
tion into Port program, prac-
tices, partnerships, and plan-
ning.” The contract for that
work specifies a project man-
ager at $197 an hour, a lead re-
search associate at $117 an
hour, and an administrative
support person at $70 an hour,
plus reimbursement for airfare,
lodging, and meals as needed.
The company will also con-
duct “external interviews,
community outreach, and a
presentation to Port” and is
supposed to complete the
work by April 15.
Leonard outlined in her Power-
Point presentation to the board,
the “Port Strategic Plan Social
Equity Initiative Timeline” will
start with a “Social Equity As-
sessment” this year, followed by
“Implement Workplace Initia-
tive Strategy” and “Refine So-
cial Equity Priorities” in 2016.
Finally, in 2017, the Port would
“Develop Social Equity Plan”
and “Begin Implementation.”
At the monthly board meet-
ings, Port executives won’t stop
talking about how Travel +
Leisure magazine rated PDX as
America’s #1 airport (in 2013).
But back on the ground, PDX is
an airport full of workers who
can’t afford air travel, or even
necessities like health insurance
or electricity. During public
comment at the end of the Feb.
11 meeting, Kasil Kapriel, an
immigrant worker from Mi-
cronesia, told board members
that she had to turn to the Immi-
grant & Refugee Community
Organization for help with her
electric bill. That’s because after
eight years at her job helping
wheelchair-bound airline pas-
sengers, she still makes mini-
mum wage.
“We shouldn’t have to depend
on public assistance if we work
at the nation’s best airport,” Ka-
priel told board members.
“Eight years and still at mini-
mum wage? That’s disgusting,”
reacted International Longshore
and Warehouse Union Local 8
President Bruce Holte, one of
two union members on the nine-
member board.
Board Chair Jim Carter — a
former top lawyer at Nike —
added his own comment later
on: “It’s easy to react, ‘oh my
God, eight years at minimum
wage.’ Carter said at the meet-
ing. “It’s more significant to fig-
ure out why that’s happening,
and in that individual situation,
what it is about the workplace,
themselves, the culture, the chal-
lenges that they have, to address
these things. It is not a simple
solution.”
During Leonard’s Power-
Point presentation, Oregon
AFL-CIO President Tom Cham-
berlain, the other labor voice on
the board, sat with his arms
folded.
“As written, it doesn’t lift
workers,” Chamberlain told the
Labor Press by phone after the
meeting. “And it doesn’t recog-
nize that many of the policies at
the Port … come at a cost to the
workers.”
The board will next meet
March 11, and a vote on the pro-
posal is scheduled for April 8.