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April 6, 2018 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
...New contract at Vigor shipyards
From Page 1
toward addressing what had
been a key sticking point for
many workers: The need to
work on the weekend without
getting premium pay for it. Un-
der the new agreement, the
clock starts ticking at midnight
Sunday, and any hours employ-
ees work after that — or are
scheduled to work — count to-
ward the 40-hour threshold at
which point time-and-a-half
overtime pay begins. That
means if workers are sent home
or kept home for things like in-
clement weather, they’ll now
get credit for the hours they
were expecting to work. When
ships are in, work commonly
goes on around the clock, so the
change means that workers will
be more likely to get overtime
pay on weekends.
Workers from all unions will
enroll in Laborers trust
For Metal Trades Council work-
ers at the Portland shipyard, the
new contract also implements a
truly original solution to hold
the line on health care costs.
The Portland shipyard work-
ers have been getting health in-
surance through an employer-
sponsored health plan, but costs
have been going up consider-
ably. Vigor is currently paying
$7.72 an hour for the coverage.
Starting July 1, 2018, the
Metal Trades Council of Port-
land & Vicinity workers will all
be enrolled in the multi-em-
ployer Oregon Laborers-Em-
ployers Health and Welfare Trust
— even though most are not
members of the Laborers union.
Trustees for the Laborers health
plan approved the change, which
would also benefit its approxi-
mately 2,000 existing members
by increasing their purchasing
power.
“We cracked the door open
on something that’s non-tradi-
tional,” said Portland Metal
Trades Council president and
chief negotiator Pat Christensen.
The Laborers health trust of-
fers Kaiser and Regence options
at higher benefit levels than the
Portland Metal Trades workers
are currently getting, and at
lower cost — currently $6.32 an
hour. Vigor will continue paying
WORKERS RIGHTS
ATU v TriMet: 5-year legal case starts
over after state Supreme Court ruling
Does Amalgamated Transit
Union (ATU) Local 757 have
the right to let the public ob-
serve its contract negotiations
with TriMet? Normally, both
sides in a union contract nego-
tiation prefer to meet in pri-
vate, to avoid grandstanding
and be more likely to make a
deal. But in 2012, leaders of
Local 757 got so fed up with
the bellicose behind-the-scenes
posture of TriMet negotiators,
they wanted the media and the
public to see it.
And Oregon law seemed
pretty clearly to give them that
right: “Labor negotiations shall
be conducted in open meetings
unless negotiators for both
sides request that negotiations
be conducted in executive ses-
sion,” says ORS 192.660 (3).
But lawyers and judges have
their own way of seeing things.
TriMet sued, asking a state cir-
cuit court to declare that they
could keep the meeting closed,
with an argument only a man-
agement lawyer could love:
Because TriMet’s bargaining
team had no quorum require-
ment to make decisions, there-
fore its collective bargaining
sessions with the union were
not “meetings” for purposes of
the Public Meetings Law, and
because they weren’t meetings,
they weren’t subject to the nor-
mal prohibition on meeting in
private. State circuit court
judge Leslie Roberts ruled in
favor of TriMet without a trial,
but ATU appealed, and the Ap-
peals Court sided with ATU.
TriMet appealed the Appeals
Court ruling, so the Oregon
Supreme Court heard the case
last June. On Feb. 15, the Ore-
gon Supreme Court reached a
decision, partially disagreeing
with both sides, and ordering
the circuit court to give the
case the trial or hearing it never
got.
TriMet, a public transit
agency, has spent a bundle to
keep the public out of its meet-
ings so far. As of June 30,
2017, the point at which the
Supreme Court had heard the
case, TriMet had paid outside
attorney Keith Garza just under
$40,000.
its current contribution of $7.72
an hour, and the $1.40 an hour
difference will at first pay the
costs of transitioning into the
Laborers Trust. Once those are
paid, by about January 2019, the
$1.40 will be paid into newly-
established retirement annuity
accounts for workers. Then,
over the life of the contract, any
premium increases from the La-
borers trust would come out of
that $1.40 contribution, so that
workers won’t need to divert
any of their wage increases to-
ward health premiums. Workers
will also see their deductibles
drop from $750 a year under the
employer plan to $200 in the
Laborers trust.
At the Puget Sound ship-
yards, where workers weren’t in
the company-sponsored plan,
Vigor will continue to make
contributions to each union’s
multi-employer health fund.
Under the new agreement,
Vigor will also continue to con-
tribute to union pension trusts,
and the contract commits it to
pay 20 percent of all mandated
pension contribution increases
at trusts that are trying to make
up for losses in the 2008 finan-
cial market downturn. The con-
tract does permit Vigor to bar-
gain to leave any of the pension
plans, in the event that they are
headed for insolvency, and un-
der certain specified conditions.
Leaving would require that
Vigor pay enough to ensure that
the trust can keep pension prom-
ises for all its employees, a lump
sum known as “withdrawal lia-
bility.”
Also under the new contract,
all new hires will be enrolled by
default in a 401(k) tax-deferred
retirement savings plan in which
they contribute 4 percent of their
gross pay, and Vigor matches
that amount. Incumbent workers
can participate on the same
terms by opting in.
The new agreement runs
through Nov. 30, 2021. The
Metal Trades Council did not
disclose the contract vote tally,
except to say that it was ap-
proved by a majority. Bargain-
ing team members from all the
participating unions were rec-
ommending a yes vote.
Christensen, who is a busi-
ness agent for Plumbers and Fit-
ters Local 290, called the con-
tract a big win, and said it
wasn’t easy to pull off until
Vigor saw that members weren’t
ready to accept the previous of-
fers.
The master agreement was
bargained jointly by the unions
of the Metal Trades Council of
Portland & Vicinity and the
Puget Sound Metal Trades
Council, with the involvement
of the Metal Trades Department
of the national AFL-CIO.
Members of the United
Brotherhood of Carpenters at
the shipyards bargain separately
because that union isn’t affili-
ated with the AFL-CIO.
At the Portland shipyard, the
Metal Trades workforce in-
cludes members of Boilermak-
ers Local 104, Insulators Local
36, IBEW Local 48, Laborers
Local 737, Machinists District
Lodge W24, Operating Engi-
neers Local 701, Painters Dis-
trict Council 5, Plumbers and
Fitters Local 290, Sheet Metal
Workers Local 16, and Team-
sters Local 162.
—Don McIntosh