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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 16, 2016)
PAGE 2 | September 16, 2016 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS (International Standard Serial Number 0894-444X) Established in 1900 in Portland, Oregon as a voice of the la- bor movement. Published on a semi-monthly basis on the first and third Fridays of each month by the Oregon Labor Press Publishing Co. Inc., a non-profit mutual benefit corpo- ration owned by 20 unions and councils including the Ore- gon AFL-CIO. Serving more than 120 union organizations in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Office location: 4275 NE Halsey St., Portland, Oregon Mailing address: P.O. Box 13150, Portland, OR 97213 Phone: (503) 288-3311 Web address: http://nwlaborpress.org Editor & Manager: Michael Gutwig Associate editor: Don McIntosh Office manager: Cheri Rice Printed on recycled paper, using soy-based inks, by members of Teamsters Local 747-M. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Individual subscriptions are $14 a year for union members, $22 a year for all others. Pay by credit card online at nwlaborpress.org/subscribe, or send a check to our mailing address (above) along with your name, address and union affiliation, if any. Group rates of $10.08 a year per person are available for 25 or more subscriptions; call 503-288-3311 for details. CORRECTIONS: See an error? Please let us know at editor@nwlaborpress.org or by phone at 503-288-3311. PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT PORTLAND, OREGON. CHANGE OF ADDRESS: If you move, let us know at nwlaborpress.org/subscriber-services or by mail at our mailing address (above). Be sure to provide your old and new addresses and the name/number of your local union. Please allow three weeks for the change to take effect. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS P.O. BOX 13150 PORTLAND, OR 97213-0150 Will Portland be next? Seattle gets ready to pass fair scheduling law By Don McIntosh Associate editor Seattle City Council is moving forward with a major workers rights reform — requiring big chain retail and food franchises to adopt more humane schedul- ing policies. Sponsored by Mayor Ed Murray and backed by a labor- community coalition, the pro- posed ordinance would apply to retail and food service establish- ments with more than 500 em- ployees worldwide. Those busi- nesses would be required to give workers two weeks notices of schedules. After a schedule is posted, workers could voluntar- ily agree to changes, but any mandatory changes would re- quire payment of “predictability pay” of one hour’s wages. Em- ployers would have to provide a good faith estimate of expected hours when a worker is hired. And they’d be required to give current employees notice of new, additional hours available — before hiring additional staff. The ordinance would also crack down on the practice of “clopening” — workers would have to be given at least 10 hours of rest between late-night closing and early-morning opening shifts. And workers would be entitled to half-time pay for any shift they are re- quired to be on-call but don’t get called into work. The ordinance is a response to increasingly unpredictable schedules at retail and restaurant chains. Firms are using com- puter software to predict cus- tomer volume based on things like weather forecasts, and then making last-minute schedule changes — or requiring workers to be “on-call.” Such practices trim labor costs by dumping business risk onto workers. A study commissioned by Seattle City Council found that scheduling practices like those are creating financial hardships for Seattle workers and interfer- ing with parenting responsibili- ties. Workers at giant national chains often don’t know their schedule from one week to the next, and suffer from unreliable incomes. Backers of the ordinance are aiming for final passage by the end of September. San Fran- cisco passed a similar piece of legislation, known as the Retail Workers Bill of Rights, in 2014. Could Portland be next? Port- land City Commissioner Steve Novick says he wants to pass a fair scheduling ordinance like Seattle’s, but he may have to wait until next July, because last year the Oregon Legislature temporarily barred local juris- dictions from passing schedul- ing ordinances. The moratorium was conceived by State Sen. Michael Dembrow (D-Portland) as part of a compromise to get votes for the Oregon paid sick leave law from Sen. Chris Ed- wards (D-Eugene) and other corporate Democrats in the Sen- ate. The good news, Dembrow says, is that the moratorium gave the Legislature more time to craft a good statewide policy. Dembrow has been co-chairing a legislative work group on scheduling, along with state Rep. Paul Holvey (D-Eugene). Initially, the work group in- cluded representatives of big business groups as well as labor and other stakeholders. But As- sociated Oregon Industries vice president Betsy Earls emailed Dembrow and Holvey on June 1 to announce that she and her counterparts at five other busi- ness groups were withdrawing from the work group and that they’ll pursue an extension of the Legislature’s moratorium on local scheduling ordinances. Undeterred, Dembrow said the work group has continued to meet and will issue recommen- dations later this year — proba- bly something resembling the Seattle ordinance. “I want to see us pass some- thing at the Legislature,” Dem- brow said. “This is clearly a statewide problem, not a Port- land or Eugene problem.” IN MEMORIAM David Surridge Oct. 4, 1961 - Aug. 27, 2016 David Surridge, a union sales ac- count manager for Bright Now Den- tal, and a familiar face at union events, died Aug. 27. He was 54. Surridge grad- uated from Franklin High School in Portland. He attended Mt. Hood Community College and Portland State University. Prior to joining Bright Now Dental in 2014, Surridge worked as a sales rep for Access Dental. “Access was the first com- petitor we encountered in this market, which put me in a posi- tion to not like Dave right out of the gate,” said Rob Etulain, na- tional sales director for Smile Branks Inc, which operates Bright Now Dental. “It didn’t take long for me to see that Dave was the kindest, most humble and ethical individual you would ever want to com- pete with.” Surridge is survived by his fa- ther, two sisters, and a brother. No service will be held. CORRECTION In the Sept. 2 issue, the article “You Saved My Town” incor- rectly reported that Google had a data center in Prineville, Ore- gon. Facebook and Apple have large data centers in Prineville, as was reported. Google’s large data center is in The Dalles, Oregon.
