NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | May 17, 2019 | PAGE 7
UNION ORGANIZING
UNIONIZATION ] MAR-APR 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. The information comes from the
National Labor Relations Board and the Oregon Employment Relations Board.
Union election results
Employer (Location) Union
Yes-No
Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center (Portland) SEIU Local 49 2-3
%
■ 6 communications operators
Ore. Child Development Coalition (Wilsonville) LiUNA Local 737 61-56 ^
■ 132 preschool teachers and support staff in Mulino, Silverton, Brooks, and Woodburn
Burgerville (Portland) Burgerville Workers Union
15-9
^
14-7
^
■ 28 crew members employed at 8218 NE Glisan St.
Burgerville (Portland) Burgerville Workers Union
■ 37 crew members employed at 1135 NE Martin Luther King Blvd.
Laborers Local 737 leaders Ben Guzman (left) and Zach Culver (right) celebrate with union supporters after a suc-
cessful union campaign at non-profit child care centers in Marion and Clackamas counties.
Four migrant day care
centers join Laborers 737
About 130 workers at four non-
profit child care centers in Mar-
ion and Clackamas counties ex-
pect to begin contract bargain-
ing later this month, after voting
61 to 56 to unionize with Labor-
ers Local 737 on March 20.
The taxpayer-funded centers
are run by the non-profit Oregon
Child Development Coalition
(OCDC). OCDC provides early
childhood education to about
4,000 children of migrant farm
workers at 24 locations in 13
Oregon counties.
Workers at several OCDC fa-
cilities have been union-repre-
sented since 2008, when they
were members of what was then
Laborers Local 320. At OCDC’s
Gresham location, workers
voted out the union in 2012, and
so did workers at the Silverton
and Woodburn facilities in
2013.
The Laborers union has con-
tinued to represent workers at
OCDC centers in Cornelius in
Washington County.
The recent union vote brings
the Silverton and Woodburn fa-
cilities back into the union,
along with OCDC day care cen-
ters in Brooks and Mulino.
Workers at OCDC child care
centers in Klamath Falls, Chilo-
quin, and Malin, Oregon voted
to join AFSCME in 2015.
“This is a group of brave
women and men,” Local 737 or-
ganizer Ben Guzman said.
“They do this work and do it
well, and they want to be repre-
sented.”
Psych nurses want union
At Unity Center for Behavioral
Health in Northeast Portland,
more than 170 out of the 215
registered nurses have signed
cards seeking to join Oregon
Nurses Association. Unity Cen-
ter is a 24-hour psychiatric
emergency room and behavioral
health center. It’s operated by
Legacy Health System as a joint
venture with several other local
health networks.
Nurses Jeff Ferrier and Sher-
rie Neff told the Labor Press
they and their co-workers want
a union so they can have more
say in decision making and a
safer environment for patients
and staff. Since it opened in
2017, Unity Center has faced
multiple investigations over vi-
olations of safety rules.
Veterans nursing home workers re-run union election
A nursing home for veterans is
heading for a second union elec-
tion after management labor vi-
olations tainted the first one.
The facility, located in
Lebanon, Oregon, is run by non-
profit Veterans Care Centers of
Oregon. United Steelworkers of
America (USW) represents
about 170 workers at a veterans
nursing home in The Dalles,
Oregon, that is run by the same
group.
USW District 12 staff repre-
sentative Jim Kilborn says more
than 60 percent of the Lebanon
nursing home’s 215 workers
had signed union authorization
cards as of Feb. 7, when USW
asked the National Labor Rela-
tions Board (NLRB) to hold a
union election.
But when the election was
held on March 4, the tally was
58 to 59: USW lost by one vote.
Kilborn says some union sup-
porters didn’t cast ballots be-
cause managers were loitering
near the balloting area. And that
tactic was the culmination of a
series of coercive statements
and actions by nursing home
managers.
Three pro-union workers
were given formal warnings for
passing out union literature in
the parking lot and in the break
room, and sending pro-union
text messages. Managers also
told employees not to talk about
the union while working. One
worker — told to leave for talk-
ing about the union — was fol-
lowed out of the building.
Managers also said there
would be no union, and that a
union wouldn’t be able to help.
All of those things violated
federal labor law, USW
charged. The NLRB agreed.
The NLRB also objected to em-
ployee handbook policies that
prohibited workers from distrib-
uting union literature, and
barred workers from being on
the premises when off the clock.
To settle the charges with the
NLRB, Veterans Care Centers
of Oregon agreed to revise its
handbook, rescind the discipline
of the three workers, and coop-
erate on a new election.
It’s scheduled for May 20.
The proposed collective bar-
gaining unit includes registered
nurses, certified nurse assistants,
licensed practical nurses, med-
ical records clerks, activities co-
ordinators, barbers, and mainte-
nance and transportation work-
ers.
Meanwhile, workers at the
nursing home in The Dalles ex-
pect to vote soon on a tentative
three-year agreement that will
raise wages 15 percent. For the
first time, the agreement also in-
cludes union security — a re-
quirement that all represented
workers pay union dues.
Unionization by majority signup
Employer (Location) Union
Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying
(Salem) SEIU Local 503
■ 13 non-supervisory employees
JOBS
Pharmaceutical-labor coalition
releases jobs report
The biopharmaceutical industry
helped drive over $190 million
in private infrastructure invest-
ment in Oregon from 2012-
2017, resulting in more than
97,000 hours of work for union
building trades workers — ac-
cording to a new report commis-
sioned by a coalition of unions
and pharmaceutical companies
The report was released May
2 at the United Association of
Plumbers and Fitters Local 290
facility in Tualatin. It looked at
major projects of $5 million or
more in 11 states at any point be-
tween 2012 and 2017. All told,
249 projects were identified,
which required at least 15.6 mil-
lion labor hours by union work-
ers, and yielded at least $454
million in wages and tens of mil-
lions of dollars for union health
insurance and pension benefits.
Oregon projects included a
$125 million Genentech plant
expansion in Hillsboro; $60 mil-
lion at two expansion projects
for Bend Research Inc. in Bend;
and $5.7 million in renovation
work at Patheon/ Thermo Fisher
Scientific in Bend. The report
estimated at least 97,000 hours
logged by union workers in 14
trades, resulting in at least $2.9
million in union wages.
The report also identified
eight construction projects in
Washington that required
323,250 hours of work, generat-
ing $10 million in earnings for
union workers.
“The life sciences sector has
been a source of significant op-
portunities for union construc-
tion workers in Oregon for many
years,” said Robert Camarillo,
executive secretary of the Ore-
gon State Building Trades Coun-
cil. “The sophisticated and tech-
nical nature of the work to build
biopharmaceutical facilities re-
quires the type of highly-skilled
labor that union craft workers in
Oregon are accustomed to.”
Other speakers at the press
announcement were Columbia
Pacific Building Trades Council
Executive Secretary Willy My-
ers. Local 290 Business Man-
ager Lou Christian, and Genen-
tech lobbyist Tim Layton.
The study was produced by
the Institute for Construction
Economic Research (ICERES)
at the request of the Pharmaceu-
tical Industry Labor-Manage-
ment Association (PILMA).
PILMA is a coalition of labor or-
ganizations and pharmaceutical
companies that touts the value of
union labor and issues joint
statements on national legisla-
tion affecting the pharmaceutical
industry. ICERES is a network
of academic researchers who
study the impact of prevailing
wage laws and construction
unions in the economy. Data for
the study were provided by In-
dustrial Information Resources,
a consulting firm specializing in
market data on power, energy,
and industrial infrastructure
projects in the United States.