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.