SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 118, NUMBER 12
IN THIS ISSUE
DISTRICT COUNCIL OF TRADE UNIONS Drawn-out
bargaining at City of Portland. | Page 2
OREGON LEGISLATURE So much to do. And just three
weeks to go. | Page 6
Meeting Notices p.4 Apprentice grads & contest p.5
PORTLAND, OREGON
JUNE 16, 2017
A ballot initiative campaign to end abusive scheduling launched June 3 at
the headquarters of the Oregon Working Families Party. Within a day, the
campaign had half of the signatures it needs to get to the next phase.
Labor may go to the Oregon ballot
on tax reform and workers rights
Oregon Can’t Wait
About 500 Oregonians gathered at the Oregon Capi-
tol June 6 for a union-organized rally to deliver the
message: Oregon can’t wait to invest in schools and
services — and the time to make big corporations
pay their fair share in taxes is now. “Big business as-
sociations have been clear that they want to see the
budget balanced on the backs of working people in
Oregon through cuts to retirement plans, health-
care, layoffs in our public schools and universities,
and cuts to services for seniors and people with dis-
abilities,” SEIU 503 President Steve Demarest told ral-
lygoers. Prominent at the rally in their union T-shirts
were members and staff of United Food and Com-
mercial Workers Local 555, American Federation of
Teachers-Oregon, and Service Employees Interna-
tional Union Local 503.
Unions react to the MAX killings
One of the murdered Good
Samaritans was a union member
at the City of Portland.
By Don McIntosh
The May 26 attacks on the MAX
light rail train hit close to home
for many local union members.
Jeremy Christian, an ex-con
and self-described political ni-
hilist, got on a westbound train at
Lloyd Center at about 4:30 Fri-
day and immediately targeted
two African-American girls, one
of them wearing a hijab, with a
loud and frightening racist rant.
Three men stepped up to defend
the girls and were stabbed in the
neck by Christian. Micah David-
Cole Fletcher survived. Taliesin
Myrddin Namkai-Meche and
Rick Best died of their wounds.
Best was a well-liked member
of the COPPEA chapter of Pro-
fessional & Technical Employees
(PTE) Local 17 at the City of
Portland. An army veteran and a
father of four, he had been a tech-
At the Hollywood Transit Center, an impromptu memorial was erected to the
victims of the May 26 attack on the MAX light rail.
nician at the city’s Bureau of De-
velopment Services since 2015.
Local 17 posted a tribute to
Rick on its website, and asked
members to contribute to a Go-
FundMe page to fund scholar-
ships for Best’s children: Erik,
Isaac, David, and Tramanh. The
union also wrote a check to cover
COBRA payments for June so
Best’s family can maintain health
insurance it was getting through
the City. Portland City Council is
working on ordinance to pay the
COBRA payments for three
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Oregon’s biggest unions have
begun the groundwork for ballot
measures aimed at the 2018 bal-
lot — in case the Democratic-
led Oregon Legislature doesn’t
deliver. Lawmakers have just
weeks remaining in the 2017
legislative session, and several
key labor priorities — including
major tax reform and a curb to
abusive workplace scheduling
practices — have failed to win
passage so far.
United Food and Commercial
Workers (UFCW) Local 555 is
backing a pair of prospective
initiatives that would legislate a
“Fair Work Week.”
Oregon AFSCME and Serv-
ice Employees International
Union (SEIU) Local 503 are
backing initiatives to make cor-
porations disclose how much
they pay in state income tax.
And Oregon Education Asso-
ciation (OEA) is behind a pair of
initiatives to increase revenue
and direct it to schools.
Local 555 Secretary-Treasurer
Jeff Anderson, chief petitioner on
the Fair Work Week initiatives,
says that to win one of those bal-
lot measures would consume the
union’s entire political budget for
the 2018 election cycle, leaving
little or nothing available to sup-
port candidates for office. But
Local 555 is prepared to make
that choice if legislators don’t
come through, Anderson said,
because ending schedule abuses
is the union’s top legislative pri-
ority.
Under Oregon law, ballot ini-
tiative campaigns must first sub-
mit 1,000 valid signatures be-
fore the state attorney general’s
office determines what ballot ti-
tle and description voters will
see alongside the initiative. That
wording can make a big differ-
ence in how well an initiative
does at election time, so it’s usu-
ally a contested process that can
take six months to complete.
That means initiative campaigns
that are starting now can expect
to be approved for general cir-
culation by about January 2018,
giving them about six months to
gather the signatures they’ll
need to get on the November
2018 ballot.
Here are each of the initiative
petitions in greater detail.
IP 23: Fair Work Week I
Employers would have to pay to cancel or
reduce shifts at the last minute: at least four
hours pay, or the scheduled work shift (if it’s
shorter than four hours), any time a worker
gets less than 24-hours notice that a shift has
been cancelled or reduced. Also, state laws
that prevent local governments from passing
ordinances on work schedules or sick leave
would be repealed. Chief petitioner: UFCW
Local 555 Secretary-Treasurer Jeff Anderson
IP 24: Fair Work Week II
Same as Fair Work Week I, but in addition,
retail, hospitality and food service
establishments with 50 or more employees
in Oregon would face a number of
requirements. They would have to provide
employees a written good faith estimate of
their work schedule at time of hire. They’d
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