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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (April 1, 2016)
SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900 NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS VOLUME 117, NUMBER 7 IN THIS ISSUE THE MAN WHO FOUGHT FOR $15 Seattle union leader David Rolf tells how $15 caught on. | Page 4 WAGE THEFT CRACKDOWN - ANOTHER DAY Theft of wages is a problem – for next year’s lawmakers. | Page 11 Meetings p.6 Labor History p.9 Classifieds p.10 PORTLAND, OREGON APRIL 1, 2016 Latest TriMet provocation: ‘Paid union orientations are illegal’ BERNIE SANDERS: Over 10,000 people turned up to Portland’s Moda Center on two days notice March 25 to hear Democratic presidential candi- date Bernie Sanders. Much of what he outlined in the mid-Friday rally synched up with proposals that organized la- bor has made, like paid family and medical leave, universal single payer health care (aka Medicare for all), the creation of millions of decent-paying jobs in energy efficiency and sustain- able energy, and comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship. Sanders also called for the largest banks to be “Nobody who works 40 hours a week should be living in poverty.” broken up, and for free tuition at public colleges, paid for by a tax on Wall Street speculation. Sanders said he’s not propos- ing to do all that alone, but with a political revolution in which ordinary people get involved. Real change comes from below, Sanders said, like the workers who came together a century ago to form unions and bargain collectively — or today’s fast food workers who went on strike calling for $15 an hour, which Sanders is proposing should be today’s federal mini- mum wage. Before Sanders took the stage, Oregon Working Families Party field organizer Cole Richardson reminded rallygoers that Oregon voters must register as Democ- rats by April 26 to vote in the Democratic primary on May 17. The union-backed party has en- dorsed Sanders nationally. Last month Sanders won Democratic caucuses and pri- maries in Washington, Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii, Utah, Col- orado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Michigan, Maine, and Vermont. He cap- tured 73 percent of the vote in caucuses held in the state of Washington on March 26. Supreme Court tie means reprieve for unions Union win in Friedrichs case de- pended on Justice Scalia’s death Friedrichs v. California Teach- ers Association is dead. The U.S. Supreme Court, split 4-4 on the case, announced in a sin- gle-sentence order March 29 that a lower court ruling against plaintiff Friedrichs will stand. A 5-4 decision overturning the lower court was expected until conservative justice Antonin Scalia died Feb. 13. The case was about Rebecca Friedrichs, a teacher who said it violated her free speech rights for her to have to pay “fair share” fees covering the cost of bargaining and enforcing her union contract. A well-funded anti-union legal foundation picked her as the vehicle for a lawsuit specifically designed to give the Supreme Court the chance to reverse a 1977 Supreme Court decision, Abood vs. Detroit Board of Education. The Abood decision said that union-represented public em- ployees couldn’t be required to become union members, but could be required to share in the expense of representation. But in the court’s 2014 Harris vs. Quinn decision, a 5-4 majority called Abood into question: The court said home care workers couldn’t be required to pay dues or the equivalent, but for techni- cal reasons they stopped short of overturning Abood. If Abood had been over- turned, it would have created a “right-to-work” situation for all public employee unions in America: No union-represented public employee would have been required to pay the costs of union representation. That likely would have been a crippling blow to unions. The split court means that it will continue to be up to states whether to require public-sector union fees. If the 2014 vote approving a new union contract at TriMet was supposed to signal a new era of labor peace, it was short-lived. Leaders of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 757 say Oregon’s largest public transit agency has returned to its previ- ous pattern of anti-union provo- cations. The latest: TriMet man- agement is ending its decades- old practice of letting new hires go to the union hall on paid time to attend union orientation, cit- ing legal advice that doing so vi- olates a new Oregon law and the Oregon Constitution. That’s news to Jeff Klatke, president of 25,000-member Oregon AFSCME. Klatke says AFSCME has plenty of public- sector contracts that allow new- member union orientation to take place on paid work time — including the contract that cov- ers lawyers at the state attorney general’s office. “You should be concerned about the quality of legal coun- sel you have received,” Klatke told the TriMet board of direc- tors at its March 23 meeting. Klatke was part of a delegation of ATU officers and allies that called on board members to in- tervene before the acrimony worsens. The current contract covering 3,200 current and for- mer TriMet employees expires Nov. 30, 2016, and the two sides expect to begin negotiations this summer. TriMet senior labor relations manager Christine Stevens ex- plained the rationale for ending paid union orientation in a Feb. 5 memo to Local 757 President Shirley Block. Any TriMet em- ployee may go to ATU’s offices on their own time outside of their normal working hours, the memo says. But for TriMet to Turn to Page 4 Are Oregon Democrats backtracking already on the minimum wage? Less than two weeks after Ore- training wage],” Kotek said, gon’s minimum wage increase “but the business community was signed into law, Democratic kept bringing it up, and so we House Speaker Tina Kotek and said ‘Okay, we’ll talk about it, Senate Majority Leader Ginny but we don’t know where we Burdick told the Portland Busi- would go with that.’” ness Alliance they’ll State Sen. Michael propose changes to it Dembrow and State next year, including Rep. Paul Holvey — lower wages for both chairs of labor younger workers and committees — say they trainees — according to plan to discuss a train- a report in the Oregon- ing and/or youth wage, ian. Only, Kotek tells but they also say other the Northwest Labor solutions to youth un- Press, that’s not accu- employment might be Tina Kotek rate. as good or better — like Kotek says there are targeted tax credits or no plans to adjust the wage scale additional state support for that was put in place over the youth work programs. next six years. But she said leg- “Our job as the Legislature is islators are willing to have con- to continue to talk about all is- versations about a lower wage sues that people bring up,” for trainees and young workers Kotek said. “Whether or not we — as a solution to the problem move forward on anything that of youth unemployment. adjusts wages for youth or train- “I can’t even gauge what in- ing is really hard to tell at this terest there would be in doing [a point.”
