NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | August 5, 2016 | PAGE 3
...Portland Public Schools’ OTHER lead problem?
From Page 1
has hired a nonunion subcon-
tractor, Chosen Wood Windows,
to remove Franklin’s historic
windows one by one to be refur-
bished offsite and reinstalled
later. When I visited the con-
struction site, the ground below
where windows had been taken
out was covered with construc-
tion debris, including paint chips
and piles of discarded caulking.
In classrooms, paint chips lit-
tered window sills and nearby
floors. I even saw paint chips
and dust that appeared to have
been swept into a pile and left
on the floor. Tests conducted by
a representative of Painters and
Allied Trades District Council 5
confirmed the presence of lead
in the paint chips.
Elsewhere on the construction
site, a union worker told me he
has repeatedly seen window re-
moval workers chipping, scrap-
ing, and sanding paint off the
windows without wearing a res-
pirator or bunny suit to protect
themselves, and without setting
up plastic sheeting to protect
other workers or the environ-
ment. In at least one instance, he
said he saw workers throwing
debris out the window onto the
ground below. All those prac-
tices are visible in smartphone
videos he took and shared with
the Labor Press. [See those
videos, and photos of the re-
model at http://bit.ly/29Sun5O]
I observed a worker on a
bucket lift outside a second-story
window sanding, scraping, and
chipping off paint with a chisel,
with no containment except for
a plastic sheet 15 feet below. At
least that worker was wearing a
respirator, and had a vacuum
cleaner in his lift bucket.
Could lead from the windows
put workers at risk?
Ben Maynard, lead enforce-
ment officer at the Public Health
Division of the Oregon Health
Authority, said Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) rules
for safe handling of lead would-
n’t apply at Franklin; they only
apply to residential structures
and child-occupied facilities like
day care centers and elementary
schools. [Before the renovation,
there was a Head Start program
at Franklin. It’s not clear if there
will be when the remodel is
...Schrader takes aim at OT rule
From Page 1
it because the Department of
Labor says it’s okay to exempt
managers from overtime if
they’re paid on a salaried basis
and the salary is over $23,660 a
year. That dollar amount was
last updated in 2004 after being
unchanged since the 1970s, and
it was too low even in 2004. The
Obama Administration’s new
rule raises it to $47,476—more
along the lines of what it was in
the 1970s, adjusted for infla-
tion—and indexes it to inflation
from now on. The change is ex-
pected to affect over 4 million
American workers.
Business groups howled in
protest, and they found a friend
in Schrader, who represents Ore-
gon’s 5th Congressional District.
Together with three other mem-
bers of his “Blue Dog Democ-
rat” caucus, he introduced a bill
to phase the increase in over
three years and eliminate the au-
tomatic future increases for in-
flation.
“Since the DOL’s immediate
phase-in date was announced,
we’ve heard from business own-
ers and their employees who are
worried about implementing this
increase overnight,” Schrader
explained in a July 17 press re-
lease announcing the bill, H.R.
5813. “Without sufficient time to
plan for the increase, cuts and
demotions will become in-
evitable, and workers will actu-
ally end up making less than
they made before.”
Schrader’s bill was praised by
the U.S. Chamber of Com-
merce, which said it would
“soften the impact of the Depart-
ment of Labor’s (DOL) onerous
overtime regulation.”
But it got immediate push-
back from the Obama Adminis-
tration: “The president and I
think that American workers
have waited long enough for a
fair day’s pay for a long day’s
work,” said Secretary of Labor
Tom Perez.
The Oregon AFL-CIO blasted
the bill in an email to union
members: “That’s not a step for-
ward for working people, it’s a
step backward. And we can’t af-
ford to keep going in the wrong
direction.”
SCHRADER: DON’T SELL US SHORT
Oregon AFL-CIO is calling on support-
ers to sign an online petition to
Schrader at http://bit.ly/2arWlKF
complete.]
But Oregon-OSHA agents
were interested to hear details,
and after my call, began an in-
vestigation on July 25. OSHA
(Occupational Safety and
Health Administration) requires
that if workers are manually
sanding or scraping surfaces
containing lead paint, they must
be provided with respirators,
protective clothing, hand wash-
ing facilities, clean areas for
changing and storing clothing,
training that covers lead health
hazards, and blood tests to sam-
ple for lead. Lead-contaminated
chips and dust must be taken up
with a HEPA-filter-equipped
vacuum.
Chosen Wood Windows was
investigated by Oregon-OSHA
once before. The worker safety
agency received a complaint in
2012 that toxic chemical fumes
were causing employees to be-
come ill while removing lead-
based paints in a poorly venti-
lated room at Chosen’s Canby,
Oregon, facility, and that chem-
icals were being dumped into a
hole in the ground. The OSHA
inspection failed to confirm
those allegations, but the com-
pany was fined $540 and cited
for failing to properly train em-
ployees who work with stripper,
thinner, sealer, and other chem-
icals; for lacking a written haz-
ard communication program or
respiratory protection program
for employees; and for failure to
establish a safety committee.
Chosen Wood Windows touts
itself as a green company on its
web site. It’s also certified as a
lead-based paint renovation
contractor by the state of Ore-
gon. Chosen Wood Windows
owner Vern Forrest did not re-
turn calls from the Labor Press.
A spokesperson for Skanska,
the general contractor, said the
company would not comment
because it’s contractually bound
to field media requests to Port-
land Public Schools, and be-
cause I entered the Franklin
work site without permission.
David Mayne, spokesperson
for Portland Public Schools
bond-financed construction pro-
gram, said contractors at
Franklin are following all guide-
lines and regulations. After I
sent him the photos and videos,
What’s Wrong With this pic-
ture? Paint chips and dust like
these contain lead dust. They’re sup-
posed to be taken up by a HEPA-fil-
ter-equipped vacuum, not swept
into a pile as they were above, inside
Franklin High School’s remodel.
Mayne said he visited the site
and didn’t see any improper
practices.
“We’re really strict about
safety and compliance,” Mayne
said.
OSHA’s investigation re-
mains open. It can take up to
180 days to complete.