SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 119, NUMBER 5
IN THIS ISSUE
NURSES HAIL NEW TUALITY CONTRACT: Nurses will
get breaks without leaving patients unattended. | Page 6
BILL THREATENS UNION RIGHTS FOR INDIAN
CASINO WORKERS: And Schrader voted for it. | Page 8
Meeting notices p. 4
How to become a PCP p. 3
PORTLAND, OREGON
MARCH 2, 2018
NATIONAL
WORKERS RIGHTS
U.S. Supreme Court
hears the Janus case
Burgerville fires more union workers
Janus v AFSCME, about public
sector union fees, is the biggest
union case in a generation.
U.S. Supreme Court justice Neil
Gorsuch, President Trump’s ap-
pointee, is expected to be the de-
ciding vote in the pivotal union
case Janus v AFSCME. But dur-
ing oral arguments in the case
on Feb. 26, Gorsuch gave no
sign which side he’ll take. He
asked no questions, made little
eye contact with attorneys, and
often rested his chin in his
hands. It’s pretty clear where the
rest of the nine will land: As-
suming they continue to hold
the positions they held in a
deadlocked nearly-identical
case last year, the other four Re-
publican-appointed justices will
side with Janus, and the four
Democratic-appointed justices
will side with AFSCME.
In Janus v AFSCME, the Na-
tional Right to Work Legal De-
fense Foundation is arguing —
on behalf of Illinois state worker
Mark Janus — that any require-
ment that public sector workers
contribute to a union’s costs of
representing them is an uncon-
stitutional infringement of First
When Michelle Ceballos picketed in protest of the firing of her co-workers,
she didn’t imagine she’d be fired herself two weeks later. But Ceballos be-
lieves in the union movement and says she has no regrets.
more appears to be a scorched-
earth campaign by Burgerville
of firing pro-union workers.
Supporters of the union say the
company has fired as many as
seven union supporters since
the campaign began in April
2016. The pattern has been to
fire otherwise exemplary work-
ers for what appear like trivial
pretexts: an unpaid-for bagel or
dollop of soft serve ice cream.
In Ceballos’ case, it was an un-
accounted-for chicken patty.
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COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
Vigor shipyard workers
vote to authorize strike
For the second time in 40 days,
shipyard workers in Portland
and the Puget Sound voted
down a contract proposal from
Vigor Marine. The Feb. 23 vote
was also a strike authorization:
The rules were that if a two-
thirds’ majority rejected the of-
fer, the bargaining committee
would be given the authority to
take workers out on strike.
Workers voted to reject the offer
by 80 percent.
“The members are tired of
being disrespected,” said Pat
Christensen, president of the
Metal Trades Council of Port-
land and Vicinity, and a union
rep for Plumbers and Fitters Lo-
cal 290.
The second rejected offer was
nearly identical to the one work-
ers rejected Jan. 15 by an over-
whelming margin. Vigor sweet-
By Don McIntosh
The ink was barely dry on our
Feb. 16 print edition when we
learned that one of the young
workers pictured in our front
page story about the Burg-
erville strike and boycott had
been terminated.
On a picket line Feb. 1 out-
side the Burgerville’s Northeast
MLK Jr. Boulevard store,
Burgerville employee Michelle
Ceballos talked to the Labor
Press and other news media
about why she and her co-
workers were taking part in a
three-day strike. Plain-spoken
and open-hearted, she came
across as a sincere and articu-
late advocate for the Burg-
erville Workers Union, and
showed courage in taking part
in a strike. Two weeks later, on
Valentines Day, she was fired.
Ceballos may be the latest
casualty of what more and
ened the second offer by adding
back the option for workers to
pay extra to get a richer (90-10)
health plan, an option that’s in
the current collective bargaining
agreement but which Vigor had
proposed to end.
But for union workers, the
key sticking point was continu-
ation of a “rolling 40” overtime
policy in which the work week
begins whenever the employer
determines. Workers used to be
paid overtime for weekend
work prior to the master agree-
ment that’s currently in force.
Vigor has refused union calls to
restore that policy in bargaining
thus far.
“We don’t look for a strike,”
Christensen said, “but members
have told us they’ve had enough
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A VIEW FROM THE DRIVER SEAT
What’s it like to spend the day behind the steer-
ing wheel of a bus? Since 2012, a TriMet bus
driver who writes under the pen name Deke N.
Blue (a hat tip to the Steely Dan song “Deacon
Blues”) has tried to answer that question in a
blog called “From the Driver Side.” Now he’s col-
lected those blog posts in a book entitled, “Just
Drive: Life in the Bus Lane.” A member of Amal-
gamated Transit Union Local 757, “Deke” has
blogged about driving since he was hired by
TriMet in 2012. The Labor Press spoke with him
recently by phone.
Why do you use a pseudonym? What my
employer doesn’t know can’t hurt me. At some
points in the blog I have lambasted them for
what they do to us.
What most surprised you about the job of
bus operator? The physicality. It’s very hard
on the body. There’s a lot of repetitive motion
injury. You brake the bus between 700 and 900
times a shift.
There seems to be a perception that riding
public transit is unsafe. Is there any basis
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