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.