SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 120, NUMBER 21
IN THIS ISSUE
ATU-TRIMET NEGOTIATIONS OFF TO ROUGH START
The agency wants to eliminate apprenticeship | Page 3
UNION-MADE PIZZA Scottie’s Pizza in Southeast
Portland has recognized a union for workers. | Page 7
Meeting Notices p.4
New leadership at CWA 7901 p.7
PORTLAND, OREGON
Workers strike at Burgerville
By Don McIntosh
Members of Burgerville Work-
ers Union waged a four-day
strike Oct. 23-27 at four Port-
land Burgerville restaurants to
protest a company wage pro-
posal they said would keep
them in poverty. The two sides
have been meeting since June
2018 to negotiate a first union
contract for workers at loca-
tions that have voted to union-
ize. If they ever reach agree-
ment, it would be the first union
contract with an American fast
food chain.
The strike was called after
the company publicly an-
nounced that it will raise wages
for all workers by $1 an hour on
Dec. 31 and set $13.50 as the
new base pay level at all stores,
union or nonunion. That sounds
GM strikers win big gains
Union supporters marched Oct. 25 outside the 82nd & Glisan Burgerville.
more meaningful than it is:
Washington’s minimum wage
will rise to $13.50 on Jan. 1,
and Oregon’s Portland-area
minimum wage will rise to
$13.25 on July 1.
Union bargaining team
member Mark Medina, who
works at the SE 92nd and Pow-
ell location, says the union
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After 40 days on the picket line,
the longest nationwide strike
against General Motors in
nearly 50 years ended Oct. 25
when members of United Auto
Workers (UAW) voted by 57%
to ratify a new four-year con-
tract. The new agreement means
an $11,000 ratification bonus for
about 48,000 workers at 55 fac-
tories and parts centers.
It also phases out a two-tier
system that UAW agreed to in
2007, in which new hires were
paid lower wages and would
never reach the same wage as
more senior workers. About a
third of the workforce is now in
that lower-paid tier. By the end
of the new contract, they’ll
reach a new top wage of $32 an
hour, the same as the more sen-
ior workers.
The contract also provides
4% lump-sum bonuses in the
years 1 and 3, and 3% wage in-
creases in years 2 and 4. It re-
moves a $12,000 cap on the
profit-sharing formula, which
gives $1,000 to every worker for
each $1 billion GM earns in
North American pretax profit.
And it converts more than 900
temporary workers to regular
employees in January.
The deal is not without union
concessions. It allows GM to
close three factories and one
parts depot. But GM dropped a
demand for concessions on
health care: Workers will con-
tinue to pay 3% of the cost.
Workers were motivated to
strike in part because GM was
being tight-fisted with workers
at a time of record profits.
UNION ORGANIZING
Labor in the thick
of the debate over
Medicare For All
By Don McIntosh
It was 74 years ago that President Harry Truman
first proposed a program of government-spon-
sored universal health insurance. Twenty years
late,r a part-way version of the idea became law
when President Lyndon Johnson signed the
Medicare Act in 1965. Today, Medicare covers
60 million seniors and disabled Americans, and
momentum has never been greater to expand it
to all Americans as originally intended.
“We’re calling this magic moment in the
movement for Medicare for All,” says Mark
Dudzic, national coordinator for the group Labor
Campaign for Single Payer. “We don’t want to
blow it.”
Dudzic — who served 18 years as union pres-
ident at a New Jersey metal refinery — has spent
the last decade-plus advocating for universal
health care. He and as many as 300 other ac-
tivists from around the country held a strategy
meeting in Portland Oct. 18-20. Dudzic says
public opinion has shifted decisively since
Bernie Sanders made Medicare For All a center-
piece of his 2016 presidential campaign. Polls
have shown as many as 70% of Americans favor
the idea. A Medicare For All bill sponsored by
Seattle Democratic Congresswoman Pramila
Jayapal has 118 co-sponsors and has had three
committee hearings. A similar bill sponsored by
NOVEMBER 1, 2019
Physicians-in-training
unionize at OHSU
The union-backed coalition Health Care for All Oregon
kicked off a national activist conference on Medicare for
All with an Oct. 18 rally at Pioneer Square in Portland.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has 14 co-
sponsors. And unions representing a majority of
organized workers have endorsed national
Medicare For All legislation, Dudzic says.
But prominent opponents have been pushing
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By Don McIntosh
About 830 doctors are about to
unionize at Oregon Health and
Science University (OHSU).
On Oct. 15, Oregon AF-
SCME turned in union authori-
zation cards signed by a major-
ity of the group. The union will
become official after the Oregon
Employment Relations Board
checks the cards against a list
provided by the university.
The new unit consists of
medical interns, residents and
fellows, known collectively as
“house officers” within their
profession. Having earned doc-
toral degrees, house officers
treat patients under the supervi-
sion of “attending physicians.”
It’s the final stage of their train-
ing before they become licensed
to practice medicine as a physi-
cian. In their first year, house of-
ficers are known as interns, and
in subsequent years they’re
known as residents. Fellows are
those who’ve completed a resi-
dency and are continuing train-
ing in a subspecialty.
OHSU house officer Justine
Hum, for example, is near the
end of a three-year fellowship in
gastroenterology after a three-
year residency in internal medi-
cine. Hum, 32, says she feels
lucky to be in the program and
finds OHSU a fantastic place to
work.
“But anything can be im-
proved,” Hum said. “Residents
work really heard, and having
more benefits and protections
can only make us a stronger pro-
gram.”
House officers are typically
the first doctors a patient sees.
They examine a patient and
make a recommendation about
treatment to the attending physi-
cian.
But they work for salaries far
below that of a licensed physi-
cian; $60,000 a year is typical,
and they may be carrying
$200,000 in medical school
debt. House officers also work
legendarily long hours: Up to 80
hours a week, with shifts that
can last 24 hours.
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