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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (March 15, 2019)
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | March 15, 2019 | PAGE 7 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING UNIONIZATION ] JAN-FEB 2019 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. Thumbs-down means they’ll be on their own. “Decert” means a decertification election, where union-represented workers voted whether to remain union. The information comes from the National Labor Relations Board and the Oregon Employment Relations Board. Union election results Employer (Location) Union Yes-No United Way Columbia-Willamette (Portland) CWA Local 7901 12-14 % ■ 32 campaign staff employees Student Transportation Inc. (Sandy) Teamsters Local 206 DECERT 24-23 ^ ■ 51 school bus drivers Providence Portland Medical Center (Portland) SEIU Local 49 383-382 ^ ■ 838 non-professional support workers, including cooks, housekeepers, and CNAs ATI Cast Products (Albany) United Steelworkers 285-179 % ■ 498 production and maintenance employees Peacehealth St. John Medical Center (Longview) SEIU Local 49 10-1 ^ A picket line of union dentists A group of dentists spent their lunch hour on a picket line Feb. 27 — to let members of the pub- lic know they want a fair con- tract. Last spring, 28 dentists em- ployed at seven Multnomah County clinics voted to join Ore- gon AFSCME after the county increased their patient load 20 percent in 2017 — to about 22 patients a day — without giving them any say in the matter, or any increase in compensation. Union and management have been negotiating since late Au- gust, but they’ve had a hard time reaching agreement on a first Raymond Thomas Cynthia Newton Melissa Haggerty contract. Pay is a key sticking point. Oregon AFSCME rep Eben Pullman says dentists working at Multnomah County Health De- partment are underpaid com- pared to other dentists locally. The job requires a doctoral de- gree in dental medicine or dental surgery, but their starting pay is just over $100,000, and annual pay tops out at $161,000, com- pared to top pay of $220,000 for dentists at the Veterans Admin- istration, $193,000 in the state corrections system, $175,000 at the non-profit Virginia Garcia clinic network, and $170,000 for James Coon Chris Frost Sydney Montanaro When you’re unable to work full time anymore, we're here to help with benefits. 820 SW Second Ave., Suite 200, Portland, OR 97204 Scott Sell Chris Thomas www.tcnf.legal dentists at Clackamas County. Dentists also want a standard union grievance and arbitration process so that dentists can de- fend themselves in cases of dis- cipline; county managers instead want to create a kind of discipli- nary panel made up of dentists, a proposal the union thinks could be unworkable. On Feb. 12, a delegation pre- sented a petition to Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury signed by a majority of the den- tists, and explained their position to her directly. The two sides will next meet to bargain on April 1. ■ 11 communications operators Unionization by majority signup Employer (Location) Union Oregon Health & Science University (Portland) Oregon AFSCME ■ 251 graduate students seeking PhD degrees who receive stipends Lane Transit District (Eugene) Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 ■ 8 fare inspectors and public safety officers Oregon Dept. of Geology and Mineral Industries (Portland) SEIU Local 503 ■ 30 employees ...County looks at union neutrality for contractors From Page 1 ments” was struck down by a federal district court in 2005 be- cause of a 1959 Supreme Court decision that says certain kinds of local labor laws are pre- empted by the National Labor Relations Act. A “union-neutrality” ordi- nance could prove to be one of several reforms aimed at improv- ing Multnomah County services. In 2017, the county hired the non-profit Human Services Re- search Institute to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of county-funded mental health and addiction services. The group published its findings last June in a 130-page report that validated what Oregon AFSCME had been saying for years: Low pay and heavy caseloads at county mental health service providers are making it hard for them to re- cruit and retain staff, resulting in high turnover and lower quality services. In fact, those conditions have spurred workers at several non- profits to unionize. At Volunteers of America Oregon, 70 workers at two addiction treatment cen- ters unionized in 2016, and then battled for 18 months to get a first contract. And at Cascadia Behavioral Health, 270 mental health and addiction recovery workers at five outpatient clinics unionized last October and No- vember despite an active anti- union campaign by manage- ment. Oregon AFSCME appealed to county commissioners last sum- mer for help, and found they were sympathetic. “I don’t think it’s news to any- body that the workforce in both mental health and substance abuse is overworked and under- paid,” said Renee Huizinga, pol- icy director for Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Meieran. “There are systemic things driving that, and one of those is the reimbursement rate.” Huizinga said increasing the rate at which providers are reim- bursed for behavioral health services is a top state legislative priority for the county this year. Meanwhile, a neutrality ordi- nance is on its way. Multnomah County spokesperson Julie Sul- livan-Springhetti said it’s taking longer than expected to develop because county managers are contending with leadership changes, a workplace investiga- tion, and new computer soft- ware.
