SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 119, NUMBER 7
IN THIS ISSUE
AT REED COLLEGE, STUDENTS ARE UNIONIZING
The new local union could be America’s youngest. | Page 3
UNIONIZED FAST FOOD? Burgerville Workers Union
has filed for a union election at 92nd & Powell | Page 8
Meeting notices p. 6
In Memoriam: Glenn Shuck p. 10
PORTLAND, OREGON
APRIL 6, 2018
STRIKE!
Could the red-state teacher
walkouts herald a return of
the long-forgotten strike?
Strike averted at Vigor shipyards
New four-year contract raises
wages $4.35 an hour and puts
all Portland union members in
low-cost Laborers health plan
Shipyard workers in Portland
and the Puget Sound voted to
ratify a new four-year multi-
union contract with Vigor Ma-
rine on March 28, after previ-
ously turning down two
contract offers and authorizing
a strike. That’s after Vigor
made significant improvements
to its previous contract offer at
a March 12 bargaining session
attended by a federal mediator.
The new master agreement
covers workers in 10 interna-
tional unions at shipyards in
Portland, Seattle and Port An-
geles, Washington that are
owned by subsidiaries of Vigor
Industrial LLC. Currently the
shipyards employ about 700
union members under Metal
Trades Council master agree-
ments, but the numbers can
swell by several hundred when
bigger ship maintenance jobs
come in.
The new agreement raises
wages $4.35 an hour across the
board: $1.05 upon ratification,
followed by another $1.05 on
Dec. 1, 2018; $1.10 on Dec. 1,
2019; and $1.15 on Dec. 1,
2020.
It also goes some distance
By Don McIntosh
Are we witnessing the begin-
ning of a strike wave? On
April 2, school teachers in
Oklahoma walked off the job
statewide, shutting down 200
school districts and gathering
30,000 strong outside the
state Capitol. The strike
came after a decade in which
Republican state lawmakers
cut school funding dramati-
cally, even as they reduced
taxes on top income earners
and oil and gas firms. On the
same day, teachers in Ken-
tucky gathered at the state
Capitol, furious about a law
that cuts teacher pension
benefits. Most of the Ken-
tucky teachers were off for
spring break, but teachers
walked out and closed 20
school districts where school
was scheduled. The Okla-
homa and Kentucky strikes
came the week after teachers
in Arizona held a mass
demonstration to demand a
20 percent pay increase and
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By Don McIntosh
Twenty-two local unions an-
nounced late in the day March
26 that they’re quitting the
Coalition of Kaiser Permanente
Unions (CKPU) and won’t take
part in the nation-wide bargain-
ing that was scheduled to begin
March 27 in Oakland, Califor-
nia.
The exit removes 45,000
union members from the coali-
tion, with 70,700 members of
13 locals remaining.
The decision comes after
months of tensions between
many of the Coalition’s smaller
unions and its largest union,
46,000-member SEIU United
Healthcare West (SEIU-
UHW). SEIU-UHW wanted to
have more say over Coalition
decision-making, and on its
own began to pursue a more
confrontational strategy.
The unions leaving CKPU
announced the formation of a
new alliance “in the spirit of the
original coalition and labor-
Photo by Jodi Barschow, courtesy of OFNHP
Kaiser union coalition splits in two
In the respiratory therapy department at Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Center,
OFNHP members put on their union’s “patient defender” buttons as part
of a March 27 day of action in advance of contract negotiations.
management partnership.”
Dubbed the Alliance of Health
Care Unions, it will be directed
by Peter diCicco, a former
president of the AFL-CIO’s In-
dustrial Union Department
who helped found the original
Kaiser union coalition.
“We want to get back to a
place of mutual respect, part-
nership, and consensus deci-
sion making,” says registered
nurse Adrienne Enghouse,
president of Oregon Federation
of Nurses and Healthcare Pro-
fessionals (OFNHP, AFT Local
5017), one of the departing
unions. OFNHP represents
3,400 Kaiser RNs, dental hy-
gienists, medical technicians
and health care professionals in
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School bus drivers gathered March 23 outside a union contract bargaining
session to make their voices heard by the Portland Public Schools negotia-
tors. Among the chants: “We demand respect! Are you listening?”
Portland Public Schools
bus drivers are speaking up
School bus drivers who transport
students with disabilities and spe-
cial needs are beginning to won-
der what it’s going to take to get
a new union contract with Port-
land Public Schools. The unit of
107 drivers and dispatchers has
been working for nine months
under the terms of a contract that
expired June 30, 2017.
They’ve been turning up at
School Board meetings, and on
March 23 even paraded with
signs and chants outside the final
regular bargaining session —
held at the offices of their union,
Amalgamated Transit Union Lo-
cal 757.
Fair pay in high-cost Portland
is the key issue. Teamster-repre-
sented truck drivers employed by
the district to transport food start
at $21.32 an hour and rise to
$23.69 after six months. But
school bus drivers employed by
the district to transport special
needs students start at $16.25 an
hour and reach the top rate
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