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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (May 3, 2019)
PAGE 4 | May 3, 2019 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS UNION ORGANIZING Refugee nonprofit won’t be union-neutral IRCO rejects AFSCME’s play-nice request and fires a union supporter By Don McIntosh Immigrant & Refugee Commu- nity Organization (IRCO) — the non-profit hub of Portland-area efforts to resettle refugees — isn’t going to make it easy for its employees to unionize. After months of meetings with work- ers interested in unionizing, staff at Oregon AFSCME approached IRCO management with a re- quest that the group stay neutral toward employee union efforts. Executive director Lee Po Cha declined, and hired management- side labor law firm Bullard Law. IRCO employs around 200 full-time and part-time staff, plus hundreds more “casual” employ- ees like interpreters. Funded pri- marily by government grants, the organization assists refugees in a myriad of ways, from English language classes to after-school programs, job placement, and help with food, rent and utilities. Last year a small group of em- ployees started talking with Ore- gon AFSCME, meeting at coffee shops and later at the union’s Portland hall. Sahar Yarjani Muranovic, now a union-backed candidate run- ning unopposed for David Dou- glas School Board, was one of them. She worked at IRCO as a volunteer and training coordina- tor — until December 10, when she quit and sent a three-page let- IRCO union supporter Olivia Katbi- Smith at a March 16 union rally for workers at Little Big Burger. ter to management explaining why. Among the reasons she cited: Immigrants and people of color make up most of the staff, but earn less than native-born white staff for the same work, and have a slower track to pro- motion. Muranovic’s exit moved oth- ers to speak out. Dozens signed a petition to management. Dated Dec. 13, it accuses supervisors broadly of abusive practices and “microaggressions” and de- scribes IRCO as a racially hostile environment. The petition calls for an outside “diversity, equity and inclusion” audit and asks management to be transparent about how IRCO is complying with a new state law requiring equal pay for comparable work. IRCO employee Olivia Katbi- Smith — who in her off hours is the volunteer co-chair of the Portland chapter of Democratic Socialists of America — had publicly spoken out in support of other union campaigns. She signed the petition. After the petition, IRCO man- agers changed, says Katbi-Smith says: They started visiting work- ers for one-on-one “check-ins.” One manager took employees out to lunch and spoke against the union. For three years, Katbi-Smith had worked part-time at IRCO as a fundraising development as- sistant. Now, in an April 3 email, her manager said IRCO had de- cided to make her position full- time, and gave her one day to de- cide whether to take it, with termination if she declined. When Katbi-Smith said she wouldn’t give up her second job — coaching track at Parkrose High School — IRCO termi- nated her, just weeks before a May 2 fundraising gala she was to have helped put on. “So I’m confused,” Katbi- Smith wrote back in an incredu- lous email. “You’d be terminat- ing me if I’m unable to work 40 hours because you’re ... short staffed?” In charges filed on her behalf with the National Labor Rela- tions Board, AFSCME alleges her termination was anti-union retaliation, in violation of federal labor law.
