Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (July 7, 2017)
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | WORKERS RIGHTS Oregon Supreme Court hears TriMet case The public transit agency wants to keep union negotiations closed to the public Attorneys for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 and TriMet faced off in front of the Oregon Supreme Court June 14 in a legal dispute over whether the public has the right to ob- serve public-sector labor nego- tiations. Oregon law seems pretty clear about it: “Labor ne- gotiations shall be conducted in open meetings unless negotia- tors for both sides request that negotiations be conducted in ex- ecutive session,” says ORS 192.660 (3). Normally, that’s moot be- cause both sides prefer to bar- gain in private, seeing that as more likely to result in agree- ment. But in 2012, Local 757 decided to let the public in. TriMet sued and asked the court to agree that its bargaining sessions aren’t subject to Ore- gon’s Public Meetings Law — because the law defines “meet- ing” as “the convening of a gov- erning body for which a quorum is required in order to make a decision or deliberate toward a decision,” — and TriMet never set a quorum requirement for its eight-member bargaining team. ...Oregon will be first state to curb schedule abuses From Page 1 can PUBLIc EMPLOYEE UnIOnS LEt thE PUBLIc OBSErvE BargaIn- Ing? Absolutely, Aruna Masih, attorney for ATU Local 757, told the court. When TriMet attorney Keith Garza restated that argument June 14, Oregon Supreme Court justices seemed skeptical. “Essentially that interpreta- tion creates a situation where the public body can completely control whether or not the nego- tiations are open depending on who they have doing the nego- tiating,” said Justice Meagan Flynn. “I have to confess: I don’t fol- low your argument,” Justice Jack Landau told Garza. “Sub-section 3 says labor negotiations shall be conducted in open meetings … What the bargaining team is do- ing, is it labor negotiations?” “Yes,” Garza replied. “Okay, so whatever the team is doing, it has to be accom- plished in an open meeting … What am I missing?” Local 757’s attorney, Aruna Masih of the Bennett Hartman firm, argued that text, context, and legislative history all support ATU’s interpretation of the statute. “We believe based on the context that the Legislature made clear there were very spe- cial rules they intended to apply to labor negotiations in general,” Masih told the court. Masih says it’s impossible to know how a court will rule. The court is expected to issue a de- cision later this year. —DM July 7, 2017 | PAGE 3 Then Local 555 and the Ore- gon Working Families Party prepared to take the issue to voters in 2018 via ballot meas- ure. “As the bill was heading South in the Senate, we were heading to the polls, and that’s what brought the other parties back to the table,” said Local 555 Secretary-Trea- surer Jeff Anderson. It helped that a law pre-empting city- level action was about to ex- pire, and UFCW was also prepared to push scheduling ordinances in Portland, Eu- gene, Ashland and Corvallis. Facing a farther-reaching bal- lot initiative and the prospect of a patchwork of local ordi- nances, business groups got on board with a compromise fair scheduling bill, and brought Republicans along. Sponsors credited Senate President Peter Courtney (D- Salem) for engineering the compromise. To win majority support, the bill was amended significantly. The bill origi- nally had provisions that ap- plied to all employers, and its strictest provisions applied to retail, hospitality and food-ser- vice establishments with 100 or more employees nation- wide — including a require- ment to offer additional hours to existing employees before hiring new employees or sub- contractors. Passage of Oregon’s “Fair Workweek” law adds momen- tum to similar efforts else- where. San Francisco’s “Retail Workers Bill of Rights” was the first such legislation to pass, in 2014, followed by Seattle in 2016, and New York City in May 2017. UNIONIZATION ] MAY-JUNE 2017 The following are Oregon and Southwest Washington workplaces where workers have decided whether to be represented by a union. The thumbs-up symbol means workers will be union- represented. Thumbs-down means they’ll be on their own. “Decert” means a decertification election, where union-represented workers voted whether to remain union. The information comes from the National Labor Relations Board and the Oregon Employment Relations Board. Union election results Employer (Location) Union Rogue Valley Sewer Servcs. (Central Point) Teamsters Local 223 Yes-No = DECERT 19-6 ^ 21-2 ^ 2-3 % 24-0 ^ ■ 25 employees; a majority voted against decertification PeaceHealth Sacred Heart (Springfield) Oregon Nurses Association ■ 38 registered nurse care managers Raymond Thomas James Coon Providence St. Vincent (Portland) Operating Engineers Local 701 ■ 5 painters, carpenters, and fire safety employees Trillium Charter School (Portland) Oregon School Employees Assn. ■ 33 teachers, secretaries, cooks, custodians, bookkeepers, and guards Cynthia Newton Melissa Haggerty Chris Frost Sydney Montanaro Get your disability application done right, right from the beginning. We help folks from the start. 820 SW Second Ave., Suite 200, Portland, OR 97204 Scott Sell Chris Thomas www.tcnf.legal Three Js Distributing (Clackamas) Teamsters Local 206 32-56 % ■ 96 drivers, mechanics, warehouse workers, janitors University of Oregon (Eugene) U of O Police Association 16-0 ■ 21 campus police officers (formerly in SEIU 503, chose to form a stand-alone union.) Department of Public Safety Standards & Training (Salem) 38-33-0 ■ 100 classified employees (3-way election: Ore. Pub. Safety Assn. vs. AFSCME 3955 vs. no union)
