SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 120, NUMBER 13
IN THIS ISSUE
LERC WINS BUDGET REPRIEVE U of O’s president held
firm on cuts, but lawmakers came up with a patch | Page 7
GROCERY WORKERS AUTHORIZE STRIKE Strike votes
continue in Oregon and SW Washington | Page 8
Meeting Notices p.4
Unionization elections p.8
PORTLAND, OREGON
JULY 5, 2019
UNION ORGANIZING
OREGON LEGISLATURE
Psychiatric nurses unionize
2019 at the Oregon Capitol
Lawmakers passed paid family
leave and boosted school budgets,
but also cut public worker com-
pensation and punted on climate.
UNITY AT UNITY: Union supporters Amer Filipovic, Tracie Henry, Haley Choi, and Jeff Ferrier gathered out-
side Unity Center for Behavioral Health after registered nurses there voted overwhelmingly to unionize.
A unit of 202 registered
nurses at Unity Center for
Behavioral Health voted
overwhelmingly to join Ore-
gon Nurses Association
(ONA) in ballots counted
June 19. The tally was 128 in
favor and 25 opposed.
Unity Center is Portland’s
only 24-hour psychiatric
emergency facility. It’s oper-
ated by Legacy Health Sys-
tems as a joint venture with
several other health net-
works.
ONA supporters say they
want a union in part to create
a safer environment for pa-
tients and staff. Since it
opened in 2017, Unity Cen-
ter has faced multiple inves-
tigations over violations of
safety rules.
By Don McIntosh
Union members might have
thought Oregon’s 2019 legislative
session would be a pivotal year
for working people, thanks to a
historic Democratic supermajority
in both chambers. It didn’t work
out that way. In the session that
ended June 30, Democratic law-
makers passed an important paid
family and medical leave bill, and
enacted a $1 billion corporate tax
to shore up school funding, but
also cut public employee compen-
sation to shore up public pension
finances and let several priority
union proposals die with no vote.
Meanwhile, Republican state
senators learned first-hand the
value of the strike, walking out
not once but twice in a semi-suc-
cessful ploy (depriving the body
of the needed 2/3 quorum) to get
concessions from leaders of the
Democratic majority.
“The PERS vote makes every-
thing else taste like ash your in
mouth,” said Joe Baessler, a vet-
eran Oregon AFSCME lobbyist.
Public employee unions like AF-
SCME that had just worked to
elect Democrats weren’t brought
to the table when decisions were
being made about changes to
PERS, which included a cut in
current worker compensation. “It
was also tense the whole time,
with bad feelings all around,”
Baessler said.
“I don’t think labor was appre-
ciated this session,” said UFCW
Local 555 Secretary-Treasurer
Jeff Anderson. Two bills that
were priorities for Local 555 were
“shut out” without explanation,
Anderson said, perhaps traded
away in negotiations the union
wasn’t part of.
In a statement after it ended,
Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom
Chamberlain said while the session
contained both wins and losses for
working people and unions, “the
betrayal of cutting the hard-earned
retirement security of public work-
ers is simply unacceptable.”
WHAT PASSED, WHAT FAILED: PAGE 7
AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch: Rich CEOs get richer, unlike the rest of us
WASHINGTON, D.C.—In
2018, CEOs of S&P 500 com-
panies received, on average,
$14.5 million—a $500,000 in-
crease from the previous year,
according to the latest AFL-CIO
Executive Paywatch report, re-
leased June 25. Compare that to
the average rank-and-file
worker, who received barely
more than a $1,000 raise, bring-
ing total take-home pay in 2018
to $39,888. The S&P 500 is an
index of 500 of the largest pub-
licly traded U.S. firms.
“The average CEO earns 287
times what an average employee
earns,” said AFL-CIO Secretary-
Treasurer Liz Shuler. “This dis-
parity represents a fundamental
problem with our economy: Pro-
ductivity and corporate profits
are through the roof, but wages
for working people are flat—and
THE 10 HIGHEST-PAID OREGON CEOs
THE 10 HIGHEST-PAID WASHINGTON CEOs
NIKE, Inc. Mark Parker $9,467,460
Schnitzer Steel IndustriesTamara Lundgren $9,088,535
FLIR Systems, Inc. James Cannon $7,959,846
Greenbrier Cos. William Furman $7,473,644
Lithia Motors Bryan DeBoer $5,464,394
Northwest Natural David Anderson $3,629,634
Umpqua Holdings Corp. Cort O'Haver $3,551,514
Columbia SportswearTimothy Boyle $3,304,203
Electro Scientific Industries, Inc. Michael Burger $3,221,383
Portland General Electric Maria Pope $3,216,062
T-Mobile John Legere $66,538,206
Microsoft Satya Nadella $25,843,263
Seattle Genetics Clay Siegall $18,107,037
Funko Brian Mariotti $16,395,614
Fortive Corp. James Lico $13,720,993
Starbucks Kevin Johnson $13,382,480
Zillow Group Spencer Rascoff $12,863,822
Monolithic Power Systems Michael Hsing $11,715,714
Weyerhaeuser Co. Doyle Simons $11,191,321
PACCAR, Inc. Ronald Armstrong $9,929,242
staying flat.”
What’s worse, as Shuler
pointed out: While rich execu-
tives rake it in, these corpora-
tions and their executives are
paying less and less in taxes to
support the public services and
infrastructure that their compa-
nies rely upon to make their
profits.
“The recent tax cut only
made things worse by widening
the gap between the 1% and the
rest of us,” Shuler said. “The
corporate income tax rate was
reduced from 35% to 21%, and
60 of the largest U.S. companies
paid nothing in federal income
taxes last year—despite being
profitable. In other words, Ama-
zon users pay more for a Prime
membership than Amazon paid
in federal income taxes last
year.”
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE REPORT
■ $14.5 million S&P 500 CEOs’
average 2018 compensation.
■ 287 to 1 The average S&P 500
CEO-to-worker pay ratio.
■ $5.2 million Increase in the
average S&P 500 CEO’s pay over the
past 10 years.
■ $7,858 Increase in the average
U.S. rank-and-file worker’s pay over
the past 10 years.
■ $93 billion Decrease in corporate
income taxes following the passage
of the 2017 GOP tax cut.
■ $0 Federal income taxes paid by
60 of the largest U.S. companies in
2018, including Amazon and Delta
Airlines.
View the full report, including
state-by-state data, at aflcio.org/
paywatch/highest-paid-ceos