SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 118, NUMBER 13
IN THIS ISSUE
FARMWORKERS SIGN FIRST UNION CONTRACT:
$15 an hour means Driscoll’s boycott is over | Page 2
ATU V. TRIMET AT OREGON SUPREME COURT:The
transit agency wants bargaining closed to public | Page 3
Meeting notices p.6
New life for I-5 bridge? p. 10
PORTLAND, OREGON
JULY 7, 2017
WORKERS RIGHTS
Fair Work Week
Oregon will be the first state to curb schedule abuses
By Don McIntosh
Oregon just became the first state
in the nation to crack down on
abusive scheduling practices that
have become increasingly com-
mon at some large retail and food
service chains.
Senate Bill 828 applies to re-
tail, hotel, and food service estab-
lishments that have 500 or more
employees worldwide. It passed
the Oregon Senate 23 to 6 on
June 22 and the Oregon House
46 to 13 June 29, and is expected
to be signed by the governor. It
will require the employers to
give two weeks’ notice of work
schedules, to pay for last-minute
employer-requested schedule
changes, and to separate shifts by
at least 10 hours. The bill pre-
empts local governments from
passing their own scheduling re-
quirements. It will take effect
July 1, 2018, with its penalty pro-
visions taking effect Jan. 1, 2019.
“This is an acute problem we
are trying to solve,” said State
Rep. Ann Lininger (D-Lake Os-
wego) on the House Floor, “and
one that’s getting worse as busi-
nesses move to adopt scheduling
software that allows them to
make changes to workers' sched-
ules with less and less advance
notice.”
The bill was the top legislative
priority for the state’s largest pri-
vate sector union, United Food
and Commercial Workers Local
555. For a time, it looked like it
would stall in the Oregon Senate.
WORKER SAFETY
Ross Island Bridge paint contractor
fined $189,000 for violations that
led to near-fatal accident
FAIR WORK WEEK, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER: UFCW Local 555 was prepared
to go to the ballot with an initiative, and began gathering signatures June
3, led by chief petitioner Jeff Anderson, above. In the end, Oregon lawmak-
ers stepped up to pass legislation that will rein in scheduling abuses at
large retail, hospitality and food service employers.
“This is not the Seattle law. This is an
Oregon law, in the tradition of Oregon
being a leader in addressing issues that
are prevalent in the workforce.”
— Jeff Anderson, secretary-treasurer of
UFCW Local 555, at a June 27 hearing
of the House Rules Committee
“The bill before you today is an exam-
ple of what happens when we stop
trying to beat the other person and
start working toward solution.”
OSHA levies its biggest fine in
more than five years, saying con-
tractor Abhe & Svoboda know-
ingly put workers at risk.
By Don McIntosh
Four months after a painter on
the Ross Island Bridge fell 37
feet and landed on his own son,
the state’s accident investigation
is complete. Oregon Occupa-
tional Health and Safety Admin-
istration (OR-OSHA) found
rampant safety violations on the
bridge repainting project, which
is overseen by the Oregon De-
partment of Transportation
(ODOT). And it’s issuing
$189,000 in fines against non-
union Minnesota-based bridge
painting contractor Abhe & Svo-
boda. That’s the largest fine Ore-
gon OSHA has issued since at
least 2012. According to OR-
OSHA, Abhe & Svoboda know-
ingly and repeatedly exposed its
workers to injury and death. OR-
OSHA Administrator Michael
Wood used his discretion to seek
the maximum penalties in the
case, “in order to provide a suf-
ficient incentive” for “this large
and well-resourced employer” to
change its approach to safety.
According to the OSHA re-
port, at 8:15 a.m. Feb. 8, 2017,
Marco Dion Lilly, a sandblaster
and painter, was working on a
scaffold suspended from the un-
derside of the Ross Island
Bridge — using a compressed
air hose to blow down dust,
Turn to Page 9
— Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney
(D-Salem), at a June 14 hearing
of the Senate Rules Committee
Turn to Page 3
Under SB 828, large retail, hotel,
and food service employers must:
■ Provide new hires with a written good
faith estimate of their work schedule.
■ Post work schedules at least 7 days in
advance (14 days after July 1, 2020).
■ Provide at least 10 hours between
work shifts (unless the employee
consents to work otherwise, in which
case they earn time-and-a-half for
hours worked less than 10 hours after
the previous shift).
■ Compensate employees for schedule
changes: An extra hour of pay for each
time more than 30 minutes is added
to a shift, or the date or start time of a
shift is changed with no loss of hours,
or an additional work or on-call shift is
added; and an extra half an hour of
pay for each scheduled hour that an
employee doesn’t end up working
because the employer cancels a shift or
changes the start or end time of a
shift.
■ Pay half-time for each hour that an
employee is on-call but isn’t called in
to work.
Employers aren’t required to pay for
schedule changes that employees initiate.
And they can maintain a standby list of
employees willing to work extra hours on
short notice in case of unanticipated
customer needs or employee absences.
The blue arrow points to the ladder access hole through which Abhe & Svo-
boda painter Marco Lilly fell 37’ on Feb. 8. (Image courtesy Oregon OSHA)