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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (March 17, 2017)
SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900 NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS VOLUME 118, NUMBER 6 IN THIS ISSUE U.S. HOUSE VOTES TO SABOTAGE RETIREMENT SAVINGS But it won’t stop Oregon plan’s launch | Page 2 IN MEMORIAM Retired labor leader, political activist Lon Imel dies. | Page 6 Meeting Notices p. 4 Who’s On Our Side? p. 6 PORTLAND, OREGON $790 million Portland Public Schools bond could spell years of work for the trades Portland Public Schools Board voted unanimously Feb. 28 to move forward with the largest construction bond request in Oregon history. If approved by voters May 16, the $790 million measure would fund system- wide upgrades for Oregon’s biggest school district — and years of work for hundreds of lo- cal building trades workers. Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council is an early en- dorser of the bond measure, and other labor organizations are likely to follow. Because the work would pay prevailing wages and benefits, union-signa- tory contractors would be likely to outcompete nonunion con- tractors and secure much of the work. And the projects are broad in scope, says Building Trades Executive Secretary-Treasurer Willy Myers —touching nearly every craft. The bond proposal includes the demolition and new con- struction of Lincoln High School and Kellogg Middle School, and Portland’s Franklin High School, pictured above as it looked in July 2016, is on track to reopen this September after a two-year, $113 million remodel — funded by the first of three planned school modernization bonds. comprehensive retrofits of Ben- son and Madison high schools. It also includes health and safety improvements at every school in the district, including repairing or replacing leaking or deterio- rating school roofs; replacing old pipes and fixtures to reduce lead and improve water quality; re- moving or encapsulating ex- posed lead paint and asbestos; improving building foundations and ventilation to decrease radon exposure; upgrading fire alarm and sprinkler systems; and im- proving accessibility for people with disabilities. Finally, the bond would pay to begin plan- Turn to Page 5 PERS under threat … again By Don McIntosh For the fifth time in 14 years, Oregon’s Public Employee Re- tirement System (PERS) is un- der attack in the Legislature. Business groups, arguing that PERS is too costly, are clamor- ing for lawmakers to slash ben- efits and make current employ- ees pay to help make up for the system’s investment losses. Certainly the losses were massive. PERS was established in 1945 as a traditional “defined benefit” pension: Employers promise workers a cost-of-liv- ing-adjusted monthly check once they retire, and to meet that obligation, employers and em- ployees contribute over the years. Those contributions are pooled and invested, and the re- turns help the system pay the promised benefits. But like so many other pension funds, A DEAL IS A DEAL Everice Moro worked 30 years as an educational assistant at Estacada School District expecting to get a monthly pension with a cost- of-living increase (COLA). Then the Oregon Legislature reduced her COLA to save money. Moro became the lead plaintiff in a suit that went to the Oregon Supreme Court and overturned the cuts. Above, she holds up the framed letter she got announcing that PERS would be restoring the COLA. PERS lost a big fraction of its in- vestments’ value in the 2008 fi- nancial crash — 29 percent. That Turn to Page 3 MARCH 17, 2017 Abhe & Svoboda fires union ‘salt’ amid safety complaints Nonunion paint contractor Abhe & Svoboda is under in- creasing scrutiny for its man- agement of a $22 million Ore- gon Department of Transporta- tion (ODOT) painting project underneath the Ross Island Bridge, which spans the Wil- lamette River between south- west and southeast Portland. Oregon-OSHA (Occupa- tional Safety and Health Ad- ministration) is still investigat- ing a Feb. 8 accident in which a worker fell 40 feet and landed on another worker, sending both to the hospital after a Port- land Fire Bureau ladder rescue. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries is investigating a pair of civil rights complaints filed Feb. 28 by an African- American Navy veteran who was fired Feb. 4. Among other things, the worker says Abhe & Svoboda badly mishandled a complaint about sexual harass- ment, tolerated an atmosphere of racial hostility, and fired her in retaliation for making a safety complaint — after she was injured on the job. Finally, the National Labor Relations Board is investigat- ing charges that the company fired worker Omar Rubi Feb. 16 in retaliation for legally pro- tected activity — including telling co-workers they have the right to voice safety con- cerns. Rubi, a union ‘salt,’ spoke with the Labor Press, and before the ink was dry on our Feb. 17 story, was fired in person by company president James Svoboda — right after a site visit from agents of ODOT and OSHA. Malarkey Roofing withdraws from pension in new contract Members of United Steel- workers (USW) Local 330 voted 54-41 March 9 to accept a “last best and final” offer from Malarkey Roofing Prod- ucts. Voting to reject the con- tract offer would have meant authorizing a strike by the 115 workers at the company’s North Columbia Boulevard roof tile factory in Portland. The vote came after the company backed off several “union-busting” proposals. Malarkey, represented by em- ployer consultant Jim Frazer, had proposed to halt employer collection of union dues, end the requirement that repre- sented employees become union members, and eliminate “just cause” discipline. Under the new agreement, Malarkey will stop making pension contributions and pay $6.5 million to withdraw from the union-sponsored multi-em- ployer pension plan. The $1.7 billion pension plan, known as PIUMPF (PACE Industry Union-Management Pension Fund), has more than twice as many retirees as active mem- bers, and it’s projected to be- come insolvent in less than 20 years. USW inherited the pen- sion when it absorbed the Pa- per, Allied-Industrial, Chemi- cal and Energy Workers (PACE) union in a 2005 merger. Malarkey has been con- tributing $1.38 an hour to the pension plus a rehabilitation surcharge. In place of the defined ben- efit pension, Malarkey will en- roll union members in the company-sponsored 401(k), matching employee contribu- tions dollar for dollar for the first 2 percent of salary, and 50 cents on the dollar after that up to 10 percent. The contract runs through April 2019. It provides annual wage increases of 1.5 percent, retroactive to the June 1, 2016, expiration of the previous union contract. Wages at the roof tile plant currently range from $16.50 to $25.96 an hour.
