PAGE 8 | June 16, 2017 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
Portland rejected union solution to reduce time 911 callers spend on hold
AFSCME Local 189 said a sizable
pay raise would help recruit and
retain staff, but an arbitrator
picked the City counterproposal.
By Don McIntosh
If you call 911 in Portland, ex-
pect to wait on hold for 23 sec-
onds before speaking to a dis-
patcher. That’s according to a
damning June 7 report by the
City of Portland’s ombudsman’s
office. The report says managers
knowingly reported inaccurate
wait time numbers to City
Council. The goal of the City’s
Bureau of Emergency Commu-
nications (BOEC) is to answer
90 percent of its calls within 20
seconds, but the report says
BOEC is answering only 67.8
percent of calls in that time. And
BOEC is aiming low: The na-
tional standard is for 90 percent
of calls to be answered within
10 seconds — BOEC answers
only 29.6 percent of its calls in
10 seconds.
AFSCME Local 189-2 and its
members at BOEC have been
sounding the alarm about call
wait times for years. Both union
and management agree the fail-
ure is caused by a severe staffing
shortage. BOEC has been bud-
geted for up to 120 positions, but
has been able to fill — and keep
— only about 80. The short-
staffing is resulting in lots of
overtime. Last year there were
enough overtime hours to fill 10
full-time positions. And the
overtime, especially short-notice
forced overtime, is causing
workers to quit. That’s a vicious
cycle, in which BOEC is unable
to retain enough of the workers
that it hires and trains to dent the
short-staffing. Fully 70 percent
of new hires leave or are let go
within their first two years.
What could break the cycle?
In contract bargaining last year,
Local 189-2 proposed a 10 per-
cent pay increase over three
years to help attract and retain
more dispatchers, solving the
overtime crisis. [Pay at the time
started at $21.70 an hour for
trainees and topped $36 for sen-
ior dispatchers.] But BOEC
management said no, arguing
that higher pay would mean
BOEC could afford fewer dis-
patchers. BOEC counter-offered
with a combination of longevity
pay and overtime bonuses. The
two sides were unable to reach
agreement, so the dispute went
to binding arbitration.
Under Oregon law, public
safety employees like 911 oper-
ators can’t strike. Instead, if
union and employer reach im-
passe, they submit their final
contract offers to a mutually-
agreed-on arbitrator. The arbi-
trator has to pick one side’s
whole package, and can’t pick
and choose the best parts of each
offer.
The union’s 10 percent pay
increase proposal was in addi-
tion to inflation-based cost-of-
living increases. The union also
proposed that workers earn dou-
ble time for all overtime sched-
uled with less than 24-hours’ no-
tice, to discourage that practice.
And it proposed that workers be
allowed to refuse forced over-
time twice every six months. Fi-
nally, the union proposed new
pay premiums for shift work —
a 4 percent premium for night
shift and 3 percent for swing
shift.
The employer proposal came
at the overtime problem a differ-
ent way: a new longevity pay
step of 2 percent after nine years
of service, and $500 and $1,000
bonuses for working 75 and 150
hours of overtime respectively
in a calendar year. Management
agreed with the union’s proposal
of a 4 percent night shift pay
premium, but proposed 2 per-
cent for swing shift. And it pro-
posed to allow workers one
overtime refusal every six
months, plus another for each
eight instances of forced over-
time.
In January, arbitrator Paul
Roose toured the 911 facility
and held five days of hearings.
On April 26, he issued a binding
decision — in favor of manage-
ment’s proposal. Explaining his
decision, Roose wrote that the
union offer would go further
than the employer’s, in some ar-
eas, to address the retention
problems, and he credited the
union for “an eloquently and
forcefully stated theory that the
entire industry underpays its dis-
patchers.” But he faulted the
union for being unable to cite
even one example of a compa-
rable 911 call center that had im-
proved retention by increasing
base pay. Most surveyed ex-
BOEC employees had cited
stress and overtime — not inad-
equate pay and benefits — as
the reasons they left, Roose
wrote. And in the hearings, the
City had even argued that
“cliques, bullying, and hazing
— not money” caused dispatch-
ers to leave BOEC. Roose found
that BOEC’s employees are
paid above market, on every
measure.
The arbitrator’s ruling means
members are stuck with a three-
year contract they didn’t agree
to. It runs through June 30,
2019.
“We were not in concession-
ary bargaining, so it’s still a
gain,” says Oregon AFSCME
negotiator Rob Wheaton. “But
we don’t think it’s going to be
enough to help with staffing
problems.”
ONLINE EXTRA
Read the City ombudsman’s report at
http://bit.ly/2s9r0nl and the arbitra-
tor’s decision at http://bit.ly/2r742Nz