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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 16, 2018)
NorTHWEST LAbor prESS | November 16, 2018 | pAgE 3 UNIoN orgANIZINg multnomah county opposes on-call/temp union effort Temporary and on-call employ- ees of Multnomah County want to join the same bargaining unit as their coworkers who are repre- sented by AFSCME Local 88 — but the normally union-friendly County leadership is standing in the way. On Nov. 8, a delegation of county employees showed up during the public comment por- tion of a County Commission meeting to ask the chair and com- missioners to recognize tempo- rary and on-call workers as part of the union. They got no re- sponse from Chair Deborah Kafoury or the three commission- ers present. [Commissioner Loretta Smith was absent.] Oregon AFSCME organizer Eben Pullman says the tempo- rary/on-call group fluctuates from 200 to 300 workers, depending on the season. They’re in depart- ments all over the county such as the library, the animal shelter, cor- rections, and social service and election offices. They’re used to fill in for regular employees who are absent or on leave, or when county departments need to tem- porarily staff up. They do the same work as permanent year- round employees, but with lower pay, none of the benefits, no job security or path to permanent sta- tus, and no union representation. Raymond Thomas Cynthia Newton Melissa Haggerty 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. The information comes from the National Labor Relations Board and the Oregon Employment Relations Board. Union election results Employer (Location) Union Sydney Montanaro Chris Thomas 13-7 ^ ■ 22 bus operators Food Services of America (Woodburn) Teamsters Local 324 3-2 ^ ■ 5 quality control employees columbia river vetErinary Specialists (Vancouver) ILWU Local 5 55-1 ^ ■ 70 veterinary technicians, housekeepers, receptionists, and support staff cascadia behavioral Healthcare (Portland) Oregon AFSCME 43-23 ^ ■ 82 non-professional employees at four clinics cascadia behavioral Healthcare (Portland) Oregon AFSCME TAKING THEIR CASE TO THE MULTNOMAH COUNTY COMMISSION: From left, on-call youth librarian Jane Corry, on-call library assistant Lauren McKinsey, former temp aging and disability specialist David Gruber, and for- mer on-call bridge tender Kristian Williams. All want Multnomah County to admit temporary and on-call workers into the ranks of the county’s regular AFSCME-represented bargaining unit. Hoping to use collective bar- gaining to improve their condi- tions, a majority of the workers signed union authorization cards in early 2017 seeking to join Lo- cal 88’s existing county bargain- ing unit. Under Oregon law that should be all that’s needed to unionize. But the Multnomah County human resources depart- ment challenged the filing, saying the on-call workers were casual workers, that the temporary workers lacked a reasonable ex- pectation of continued employ- If a defective product causes your work injury you may be able to sue the manufacturer for damages in a products liability claim. 820 SW Second Ave., Suite 200, Portland, OR 97204 Scott Sell Yes-No mTrWestern/cc rider (St. Helens) ATU Local 757 James Coon Chris Frost UNIoNIZATIoN ] SEp-ocT 2018 www.tcnf.legal ment, and that both groups lacked a “community of interest” with the AFSCME unit employees. An administrative law judge ruled in favor of the County, but the union appealed, and in April, the Oregon Employment Rela- tions Board ordered that another hearing be held to determine whether the on-call workers have a “community of interest” with their permanent counter- parts. The hearing is scheduled for Jan. 8, 2019. —Don McIntosh 71-34 ^ ■ 137 professional employees at four clinics operations management International (Gresham) OE Local 701 11-0 ^ ■ 11 wastewater equipment operators, mechanics, lab analysts and utility workers Unionization by majority signup Employer (Location) Union redmond Fire and rescue (Redmond) IAFF Local 3650 ■ 4 firefighter chiefs Workers vote to unionize at cascadia behavioral Healthcare About 270 mental health and addiction recovery workers at non-profit Cascadia Behav- ioral Healthcare unionized with Oregon AFSCME in a series of elections held in Oc- tober and November. The newly unionized workers staff a mobile mental health crisis response team and five outpatient clinics in Portland and Milwaukie, Oregon. Cas- cadia is the area’s largest be- havioral health provider, but workers say low pay and heavy case loads contribute to high turnover. Mathias Quackenbush, for example, manages a case load of 70 clients as a counselor and case manager, and earns $44,500 a year in a position that requires a masters degree in social work. He says burnout is high and turnover is rampant: When he arrived, one client told him he’d seen three clinicians in a year. Workers hope with a union to improve conditions and have more of a say in client care. The union campaign has been under way for two years, and is part of United We Heal, a union-initiated effort to raise standards industry-wide. Cascadia managers didn’t welcome the union. They held multiple anti-union meetings, Coworkers are calling for the rein- statement of union supporter Da- neen Pray, who was fired for an in- advertent infraction after 17 years at Cascadia. and may have even fired one union supporter unlawfully, ac- cording to charges filed by AF- SCME. Daneen Pray, a 17-year employee, sent a picture of her workload to a union organizer and was fired Sept. 17 because the image contained a patient’s name. To generate that pretext, an AFSCME spokesperson says, Cascadia managers had installed a camera and were surveilling Pray. But workers weren’t intimidated. When it came time to vote, the union won by big margins: 71 to 34, 43 to 23, and 32 to 0.
