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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (July 15, 2016)
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | July 15, 2016 | PAGE 3 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING UNION ORGANIZING Contract, not strike, for Portland janitors At a Boeing paint contractor, workers vote to join Machinists union A new union contract will raise wages to at least $15 an hour over a four-year period for nearly 2,000 Portland-area jan- itors. Service Employees Inter- national Union Local 49 reached the agreement with its signatory contractors associa- tion June 29, and it was ratified by members July 9. Under the new contract, wages will rise by $1.80 an hour in four incre- ments, reaching $15.25 an hour in downtown Portland July 1, 2019, and $15 elsewhere. The contract also preserves existing health benefits through 2018. And it increases short-term dis- ability benefits and improves vacation and work rules. The settlement came about five days after members voted to authorize the union bargaining committee to call a strike. Portland-area union janitorial contractors Able Building Maintenance ABM Janitorial Services CBM Systems Expresso Building Services GCA Services Group Millennium Building Services N&C Services National Maintenance Contractors Portland Habilitation Center Service Master of Swan Island Skyline Building Maintenance Somers Building Maintenance (SBM Site Services) State Building Maintenance Township United Building Services — ResponsibleContractorGuide.com Portland airport retail workers get raises in first union contract with UNITE HERE UNITE HERE Local 8 reached agreement July 7 on a first-ever union contract for 53 retail workers at the Portland airport. If ratified as expected in the coming weeks, the agreement will provide raises, job protections, improved health insurance, and a pen- sion to employees of World Duty Free. World Duty Free is an Italian multinational that runs retail outlets in over 100 airports worldwide. At Port- land International Airport, it runs Kiehl’s, Rich’s News, The Oregonian, and two “The Market” kiosks. Workers there asked for union recognition in February 2015, but the company refused at first. In October, it termi- nated four union supporters, including three members of the union organizing commit- tee. The company called the terminations layoffs, but con- tinued to hire new employees. The workers were reinstated with back pay in January after the National Labor Relations Board determined that the ter- minations violated federal la- bor law. CONTRACT HIGHLIGHTS ■ Wages: 20 cents above minimum wage for cashiers, $1.20 for leads, $2.20 for warehouse workers ■ Health insurance: Workers pay one quarter of the premium for insurance that covers 90 percent of costs after a $250/$750 deductible ■ Retirement:Workers vest in the HERE pension plan after five years of service ■ Rights: No discipline without just cause, a grievance process to challenge wrongful discipline, and seniority rights ■ Other: Two weeks paid vacation a year after five years service; 6 paid holidays a year; those working on holidays earn 2.5 times normal pay rate At University of Oregon, graduate student workers reach tentative agreement Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation Local 3544, an af- filiate of the American Feder- ation of Teachers, has reached tentative agreement on a new three-year contract for 1,500 graduate-student employees after nine months of negotia- tions with University of Ore- gon admninistrators. If ratified this fall, it will raise minimum salaries by 3.5 percent a year the first two years, and 3.7 per- cent in the third year. Workers at Commercial Aircraft Painting Services (CAPS) voted 80 to 68 on July 8 to join Ma- chinists District Lodge W24. CAPS hired union-avoid- ance consultants American La- bor Group and brought in up to eight union-busters, including speakers of Spanish and Viet- At PeaceHealth in Longview, support workers unionize At PeaceHealth St. John Med- ical Center in Longview, Wash- ington, a group of 136 patient access representatives voted 70 to 43 on July 6 to join Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 49. Local 49 already represents CNAs, housekeepers, food serv- ice workers and other support workers at the hospital. Their contract expires Sept. 30. SEIU Local 49 also repre- sents support workers at Peace- Health Sacred Heart Medical Center in Springfield, and it’s engaged in a union organizing campaign at Peacehealth South- west Washington Medical Cen- ter. In April, the Springfield unit ratified its first union contract, winning health insurance im- provements and raises that the union says average 21 percent over the life of the three-year agreement. namese, for one-on-one anti- union meetings with workers. But their efforts fell flat. About 58 percent of the 165 workers had signed union cards when the union called for an election. So the 54 percent pro-union vote suggests that the high-paid out- of-state union-busters talked as few as five workers out of sup- porting the union. That might be because CAPS — which uses Boeing hangars at the Portland airport — is a sky-high-turnover outfit where workers paint Boe- ing planes in 12-hour graveyard shift for half the pay and bene- fits Boeing workers get. LOCAL MOTION ] MAY-JUNE 2016 The following are Oregon and Southwest Washington workplaces where workers have decided whether to be represented by a union. The thumbs-up symbol means workers will be union- represented. Thumbs-down means they’ll be on their own. Decert means a decertification election, where union-represented workers vote whether to remain union. The information comes from the National Labor Relations Board and the Oregon Employment Relations Board. Union election results Employer (Location) Union Paragon Systems security (Portland) UGSOA Local 371 Applied Integrated Technologies (Portland) UGSOA Local 371 Shred-It (Portland) Teamsters Local 305 Ultimate RB rubber factory (McMinnville) USW Local 8378 PeaceHealth SW Medical Center techs (Vancouver) AFT Local 5017 First Student bus operators (Corvallis) ATU Local 757 DECERT First Transit dispatchers (Beaverton) ATU Local 757 First Transit dispatchers (Portland) ATU Local 757 Cemex (Vancouver) Operating Engineers Local 701 Columbia Ford (Longview) Machinists District Lodge W24 DECERT General Distributors (Oregon City) Teamsters Local 162 DECERT Yes-No = 36-1 37-4 7-16 34-23 288-77 41-21 4-1 3-0 27-14 0-7 32-40 ^ ^ % ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ % % Unionization by majority signup Employer (Location) Union Portland State University (Portland) AFT/AAUP ■ 793 graduate administrative, research and teaching assistants Lighthouse Charter School (North Bend) Oregon Education Association ■ 14 teachers ...At KGW-TV, unions stand against 'Uberization' From Page 1 do something similar. To discuss that idea, IATSE and IBEW are hosting a town-hall-style meet- ing 6:30 p.m. July 27 at First Unitarian Church in downtown Portland. KGW takes aim at IBEW 48 union steward Meanwhile, negotiations be- tween KGW and IBEW Local 48 took a pause June 29 when management announced that two master control operators will be laid off this fall, includ- ing the station’s IBEW union steward, Steve Smith. The sta- tion won’t need those workers because their work will be done from a hub in Jacksonville, Florida, except during live broadcasts of local sports events. Under the union contract, lay- offs are supposed to start with “They’re tearing down the local news and replacing it with amateurs.” — IATSE Local 600 rep Dave Twedell the least senior employees, and Smith has been at KGW 25 years. But the contract also says seniority is a factor only when workers are equal in merit and ability. KGW management points out that Smith lacks a commercial drivers license, something a much less senior worker has, so he has to go. IBEW attorney Diana Winther thinks that’s a paper-thin pretext — the station’s satellite news truck, which requires a CDL to operate, hasn’t been driven in a year, and KGW could have Smith get a CDL if it wanted to; a decade ago he offered to get one and was turned down by the station. Maybe not coinciden- tally, Tegna has proposed a vol- untary early retirement package in bargaining — two weeks pay per year of service, plus health insurance, for members 55 or over who’ve worked there 15 or more years. The two sides next meet on Aug. 2. They’ve been without a new union contract since June 2014. ONLINE EXTRA See the Seattle City Council resolution at http://bit.ly/29t1MoI
