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April 7, 2017 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
NORTHWEST
...Portland managers want end to union-crafted CBA
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Paula
the resulting disparity has per-
sisted even after formal dis-
crimination became illegal.
Burch calls it the “FBI system”
because people tend to find out
about construction apprentice-
ship opportunities from fathers,
brothers, and inlaws. Mean-
while, it can be very hard for
contractors without experience,
or pools of capital, to break into
the construction industry.
Advocates for years have
pressed the City to take action
in order to stop inadvertently
perpetuating the disparity.
That’s the purpose of the CBA,
which was crafted in collabora-
tion with city officials by the
Metropolitan Alliance for
Workforce Equity (MAWE), a
coalition initiated by the Pacific
Northwest Regional Council of
Carpenters and Operating En-
gineers Local 701. The 23-page
model CBA they developed,
which was endorsed by the Co-
lumbia Pacific Building and
Construction Trades Council,
was modeled to an extent on
the project labor agreement that
was used on the Edith Green
Wendell Wyatt federal building
With involvement and support from several union apprenticeship programs,
Constructing Hope, a pre-apprenticeship training program, helps prepare
ex-offenders for careers in the building trades, and a second chance in life.
Above, the group’s board congratulates graduates at a March 23 ceremony
at the Carpenters Training Center in Northeast Portland.
retrofit project. In their 2012
resolution, the City Council
committed to use some version
of the model CBA on all proj-
ects over $15 million.
From a union perspective,
the CBA worked for a number
of reasons. It set specific nu-
meric goals to increase partici-
pation of women and minori-
ties as apprentices and journey-
workers in every craft specialty.
Because unions were signatory
to the agreement, they had legal
grounds to dispatch women and
minority workers to contractors
so they could meet their work-
force participation goals. Union
representatives also took part in
an oversight committee —
along with representatives from
labor, management, and com-
munity groups — to make sure,
in real time, that targets were
being met. The CBA had real
enforcement provisions as
well: Contractors who failed to
make good faith efforts to em-
ploy women and minorities
could be made to pay liqui-
dated damages of $500 per day
per occurrence. And a fund
equal to 1 percent of hard con-
struction costs paid for “techni-
cal assistance” for women- and
minority-owned contractors
and grants to three state-regis-
tered pre-apprenticeship train-
ing programs (Oregon Trades-
women, Constructing Hope,
and Portland Youthbuilders)
which recruit and prepare
women and minorities for ca-
reers in the building trades.
The CBA was employed on
two Water Bureau construction
projects — construction of the
Kelly Butte Reservoir and the
new Interstate Maintenance Fa-
cility. Both were completed us-
ing union workers, under
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