NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS |
Multnomah County drops workload
language in new ambulance contract
NATIONAL
Trump Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh
has a long history of anti-worker rulings
On July 9, Donald Trump an-
nounced his nominee to replace
the retiring Justice Anthony
Kennedy on the U.S. Supreme
Court: D.C. Appeals Court judge
Brett Kavanaugh, Kennedy’s
former clerk. The reaction of top
labor leaders was swift and un-
happy: Kavanaugh is known in
Washington, D.C., as a highly
partisan judicial figure with a
history of one-sided rulings in
favor of corporations — and
against the rights of workers.
“Judge Kavanaugh has a dan-
gerous track record of protecting
the privileges of the wealthy and
powerful at the expense of
working people,” said AFL-CIO
President Richard Trumka.
Kavanaugh worked in the
1990s on the Starr Commission
investigating Bill Clinton. He
later advised the George W.
Bush campaign in the 2000
Florida recount, served as White
House Staff Secretary, and was
appointed by Bush to the United
States Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit.
Since he began that job in 2006,
he’s had a remarkable run as a
pro-corporate judge.
EXAMPLES OF BRETT KAVANAUGH’S JUDICIAL DECISIONS
■ SeaWorld v Perez In 2010, a killer
whale attacked and killed trainer Dawn
Brancheau in front of hundreds of Sea
World spectators. It was the third
employee the whale had killed. OSHA
found that SeaWorld had violated its
duty as an employer to provide a safe
work environment, issued a $70,000 fine,
and ordered the company to physically
separate trainers from whales. Sea World
appealed, and lost 2-1. Kavanaugh was
the one. “When should we as a society
paternalistically decide that the
participants in these sports and
entertainment activities must be
protected from themselves – that the
risk of significant physical injury is simply
too great even for eager and willing
participants?” Kavanaugh wrote. [That
totally misses the point of the law that
created OSHA, which puts the duty on
the employer to create a safe workplace,
not on the employees to choose whether
they want to risk death.]
■ Southern New England Telephone
Co. v. National Labor Relations
Board (NLRB) Kavanaugh wrote a
majority opinion allowing the employer
to prohibit workers from wearing pro-
union t-shirts when dealing with
customers.
July 20, 2018 | PAGE 7
■ AFGE v. Gates Kavanaugh wrote the
majority opinion allowing the Defense
Department to temporarily abolish
collective bargaining among its 700,000
civilian workers. The union and its allies
later persuaded Congress to reverse that.
■ Agri Processor Co. Inc. v. NLRB
Kavanaugh argued in a minority opinion
that a Brooklyn kosher meat plant didn’t
have to bargain with the UFCW because a
critical number of pro-union employees
were undocumented immigrants. That
ignored a 1984 Supreme Court ruling that
said workers have the right to unionize
regardless of their immigration status.
■ Venetian Casino Resort LLC v. NLRB
The NLRB said the Venetian casino violated
workers rights when it asked police to cite
workers for trespass during a peaceful (and
permitted) protest in the public right of
way. Kavanaugh said the casino had a First
Amendment right to call the cops.
■ Miller v. Clinton Kavanaugh argued that
the U.S. State Department could fire an
employee because he turned 65.
■ UFCW 540 v. NLRB After 10 meat
cutters in Jacksonville, Texas, voted to form
the first union at a Walmart, the company
closed its meat operations in 180 stores
and switched to pre-packaged meats.
Kavanaugh said Walmart didn’t have to
bargain with the meat cutters because
they no longer constituted an appropriate
bargaining unit.
■ Verizon New England v. NLRB
Kavanaugh said Verizon could prohibit
workers from displaying pro-CWA signs in
their cars parked on Verizon’s property and
in view of the public, because their union
contract had waived their right to picket.
■ NLRB v CNN In 2003, CNN hired a
nonunion in-house workforce to replace
about 200 unionized employees of a
contractor at its D.C. and New York
bureaus. NABET-CWA had represented
those camera and studio operators since
the 1980s even when CNN switched
which contractor employed them several
times. The National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB) found that CNN refused to meet
with the union, and discriminated against
the union members in hiring, and ordered
backpay and benefits to all TVS technicians
who either lost their jobs or received
reduced wages. CNN appealed, but the
D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the
damages. Kavanaugh, in a dissenting
opinion, said he didn’t see discrimination
because CNN had hired about 100 of the
former contractor’s employees; and
therefore he thought CNN shouldn’t have
to pay damages.
The Multnomah County Board
of Commissioners voted June
28 to approve a new emergency
service contract with American
Medical Response (AMR) that
eliminates language protecting
paramedics’ workload levels.
The action was strongly op-
posed by the Teamsters Union
and AMR paramedics and emer-
gency medical technicians.
The deleted language is re-
ferred to as a UHU, or “unit hour
utilization.” It is how emergency
service companies measure
workload levels. The language
has been in AMR contracts at
Multnomah County since 2005.
Teamsters Local 223 Busi-
ness Rep Dave Tully asked
commissioners to reject the con-
tract, send it back to AMR, and
have the UHU put back in.
Commissioner Loretta Smith
made a motion to put the UHU
language back in the contract,
but it failed to get a second.
In the end, commissioners ap-
proved the new contract 4-to-1.
Smith was the lone no vote.
The Teamsters Union is cur-
rently in negotiations with AMR
on a new collective bargaining
agreement. The previous con-
tract expired June 30, but has
been extended to Aug. 24. The
sides are scheduled to meet
again Aug. 20-21 with help from
a federal mediator. Issues re-
maining are wages, health ben-
efits, and pension. Tully said
UHUs are not a mandatory sub-
ject of bargaining and AMR will
not discuss it.
Meanwhile, a strike authori-
zation vote takes place the week
of July 23-26. Ballots will be
counted July 26.