NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS |
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
TriMet talks off to rough start
TriMet and Amalgamated Tran-
sit Union (ATU) Local 757 met
Oct. 10 to begin negotiating a
new union contract covering
close to 3,000 TriMet employ-
ees. It didn’t go well.
“TriMet showed up with a
proposal filled with takeaway
after takeaway,” the union bar-
gaining team reported in a letter
to members.
Among its proposals, TriMet
wants to get rid of its bus and
light rail maintenance mechanic
training programs. For TriMet
cleaners, that program is seen as
a pathway to a skilled occupa-
tion and a living wage career.
“We have over 150 service
workers that were promised
when they came in that they
would get to go into the pro-
gram,” Local 757 President
Shirley Block told the Labor
Press. “Now they want to scrap
the program?”
TriMet also wants to stipulate
that future electric and hybrid
buses won’t necessarily be
maintained by union members
like the agency’s current diesel
buses are. Instead, when TriMet
decides to order significant
numbers of new buses, it would
meet with the union to discuss
whether maintenance should be
in-house.
TriMet didn’t come prepared
with any economic proposal,
but it did propose to extend the
probationary period for new em-
ployees to 180 days (from 120).
Local 757 is proposing 5%
annual wage increases, and
wants TriMet to return to paying
100% of the cost of health insur-
ance (Workers began paying at
least 5% in 2014.)
This will be the first time the
TriMet bargaining team is led
by new labor relations director
Kimberly Sewell under new
general manager Doug Kelsey.
Their predecessors Randy Sted-
man and Neil McFarlane
presided over an era of acrimo-
nious labor relations from 2011
to 2018.
The two sides were next
scheduled to meet Oct. 31, after
this issue went to press.
The current union agreement
expires Nov. 30, 2019. If the
two sides fail to reach agree-
ment, an arbitrator would pick
one side’s final offers, under an
Oregon law that bars public
transit workers from striking.
Uber advisory board convenes
Seventeen months after Uber
and Lyft drivers rallied outside
Portland City Hall, they turned
out in numbers for the first meet-
ing of a new driver-led advisory
committee Oct. 10. The nine-
member committee will come
up with suggestions for new reg-
ulations that Portland City Coun-
cil could pass in order to im-
prove conditions for drivers and
the riding public. At the first
meeting, members elected two
labor figures to lead the commit-
tee: driver Duane Hanson, an ac-
tor and longtime officer of the
Portland chapter of SAG-AF-
TRA, will be chair; and Oregon
AFL-CIO organizer Alma Raya
will be vice chair.
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November 1, 2019 | PAGE 3