SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 120, NUMBER 12
IN THIS ISSUE
NEW LEADERSHIP AT PAINTERS DISTRICT COUNCIL
Glaziers business rep Todd Springer wins election. | Page 3
BETRAYAL ON PERS It was Democrats who voted to
cut Oregon public worker retirement accounts. | Page 6
Meeting Notices p.4
Local labor honors p.8
PORTLAND, OREGON
JUNE 21, 2019
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
RETIREMENT
Union to OHSU: Health workers need sick days
U.S. House committee passes bill to
rescue failing union pension plans
By Don McIntosh
As an early signal that they’re
unwilling to make concessions in
their next union contract, over
1,000 AFSCME Local 328
members and supporters rallied
June 13 outside the offices of ex-
ecutives at Oregon Health and
Science University (OHSU). As
a publicly owned hospital, uni-
versity and research institution,
OHSU is thriving, but in bargain-
ing with AFSCME Local 328,
management is proposing mea-
ger raises, takeaways on health
insurance, and a new paid-time-
off policy that would incentivize
employees to work while sick.
Ultrasound technologist
Kasey Zimmer-Stucky, a mem-
ber of the AFSCME Local 328
bargaining team, said it’s been
“disheartening” to see OHSU
seeking to shift costs onto em-
ployees.
Local 328 represents close to
7,000 workers at OHSU, in over
300 job classifications.
They want raises: In contract
The Butch-Lewis Act would
lend money to pension plans to
give them a chance to recover.
“I chose to work at OHSU nine years ago because I believe in the mission to
improve the health and wellbeing of Oregonians,” said AFSCME Local 328
member Kasey Zimmer-Stucky at a June 13 union rally outside OHSU’s
Mackenzie Hall. “I love my job. I love my co-workers. I love my patients. I’m
proud of the work that we do. The fair contract that we’re asking for shows
us that OHSU cares the same about building up its patients and employees
as it does about building up their shiny city on Marquam Hill.”
negotiations, Local 328 is calling
for a two-year contract with
raises of 5% and 4%.
Members also want to be
treated with respect, something
they say HR director Hollie
Hemenway failed to do at a re-
cent bargaining forum. Just be-
Turn to Page 5
The U.S. House Education and
Labor Committee approved a
bill June 11 that would rescue
failing multi-employer pension
plans. H.R. 397, also known as
the Butch Lewis Act, passed
the committee by a 26-18 vote
along party lines, with all De-
mocrats voting in favor and all
Republicans against.
If it ends up passing the full
House and the Senate, the
measure would help the 100 or
so union-sponsored multi-em-
ployer plans that are headed for
insolvency, by giving them 30-
year low-interest federal loans
to shore up their assets. H.R.
397 is backed by the AFL-CIO
and numerous unions.
It’s estimated that about 1
million union workers, retirees
and their dependents are in
plans that are headed toward
insolvency because of the fi-
nancial crash of 2008. Con-
gress bailed out the banks back
then, but has up to now been
reluctant to provide any help to
the roughly one in 10 union
pension funds that were sent
into a tailspin by the crash.
“The hard-working and tax-
paying American workers
whose retirement income se-
curity is at risk have not forgot-
ten the 2008 record-setting
federal rescue that provided
hundreds of billions of dollars
to troubled financial firms,”
AFL-CIO legislative director
Bill Samuel told the House
committee. “These workers
are no less worthy … Indeed,
unlike those entities, they
played no part in creating the
crisis at hand; throughout the
years, they sacrificed wage in-
creases in favor of contribu-
tions to their pension plan.”
Little Big Burger, hoping to squash Little Big Union, calls for election
By Don McIntosh
In its zeal to stomp out a union
campaign among some of its
workers, Portland-based fast food
chain Little Big Burger got clever
last month. Through an attorney
at Bullard Law, Little Big Burger
on May 24 asked the National
Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
to hold a union election at all 13
of its stores in Oregon.
It’s very rare for U.S. employ-
ers to ask for union elections.
That happened in only 50 cases
last year, compared to 1,597
union elections that were peti-
tioned for by private sector
unions or workers. When an em-
ployer calls for a union election,
it’s almost always because they
think an existing union has lost
majority support. If the union
election proves that, the employer
isn’t legally obligated to deal with
the union any more.
In Little Big Burger’s case, the
call for union elections is a gam-
Ashley Reyes, center, spoke to the Labor Press at the March 16 launch of Little
Big Union. On May 3, she and a coworker were fired for taking part in an im-
promptu walkout to protest unsafe work conditions.
ble that the union idea hasn’t had
time to gain support at many
stores. Little Big Union only just
announced its formation on
March 16, and has been most ac-
tive at the company’s Northwest
23rd Avenue location in Portland.
Little Big Burger is owned by
Chanticleer Holdings, a publicly
traded restaurant giant that owns
Hooters and three other chains.
Little Big Union is affiliated with
the Portland chapter of Industrial
Workers of the World, a grass-
roots independent union with no
staff and few resources. So when
workers learned their employer
had requested a union election,
they were unprepared and unfa-
miliar with the process. Noah
Warner of the McKanna Bishop
Joffe labor law firm stepped up to
represent them pro bono, and
won terms favorable to the union.
Little Big Burger had proposed
a near-immediate in-person elec-
tion, to be held in person at three
suburban stores, with workers at
all 12 Portland-area locations plus
a store in Eugene taking part. But
NLRB regional director Ron
Hooks agreed with the union that
a mail ballot would be more ap-
propriate: Some Little Big Burger
stores are too small to have a pri-
vate polling area, and to hold a
vote at only some stores would
place a significant burden on
those not employed at those loca-
tions, Hooks ruled. And Eugene,
113 miles away, is out.
Ballots will be mailed July 1,
and will be counted July 23.
Besides jumping the gun on a
union election, Little Big Burger
has also taken action against
union supporters. On May 3, it
fired union supporters Ashley
Reyes and Jules Jones and sus-
pended Bradley Meyers, after the
three took part in a brief strike to
protest unsafe conditions. The
workers walked out during a din-
ner rush after a chronically
clogged drain turned the kitchen
area into a slip hazard zone.
Three workers had already
slipped and been injured at the
same location in previous
months. The workers wrote down
their demands for a safe work
space and pledged to uncondi-
tionally return at closing time, but
were dismissed when they re-
turned.
Little Big Burger also fired
Lily Aguilar, a union supporter at
its Northeast Alberta location.
To protest the firings, Little
Big Union picketed outside the
stores, and filed charges with the
NLRB. It also filed a safety com-
plaint with the Oregon-Occupa-
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