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June 19, 2020 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
(International Standard Serial Number 0894-444X)
Established in 1900 in Portland, Oregon as a voice of the la-
bor movement. Published on a semi-monthly basis on the
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CORRECTIONS
DCTU Machinists are in Lodge
1005.In an article about negotiated
furloughs at the City of Portland in our
June 5 issue, when listing the unions
that make up the District Council of
Trade Unions at the City of Portland, we
wrongly said city Machinists were in
Lodge 63. They’re in Lodge 1005.
Those Local 701 members were at
Legacy Good Sam, not OHSU! In a
photo spread on union-branded face
masks, a caption incorrectly identified a
crew of Operating Engineers, saying
they worked at OHSU, when in fact they
work at Legacy Good Samaritan Hospi-
tal. We’d like to apologize to the entire
crew for that embarrassing screw-up.
...Broadway Corridor
From Page 1
Prosper Portland agreed to
designate the Healthy Communi-
ties Coalition as its negotiating
partner to hash out the terms of
the CBA. Since formal talks
started last summer, coalition rep-
resentatives have met more than
18 times with Prosper Portland
officials and representatives of
the developer, Continuum Part-
ners. Continuum, based in Den-
ver, was selected by Prosper Port-
land’s board in a unanimous April
2018 vote to serve as the agency’s
“master development partner” for
the Broadway Corridor project.
The exact details of Prosper Port-
land’s relationship with Contin-
uum are a little murky, but basi-
cally Continuum gets the
exclusive right to buy and de-
velop the massive USPS site at
fair market value in exchange for
committing to the CBA and serv-
ing as an uncompensated master
plan adviser to Prosper Portland
before the work begins. Prosper
Portland will cover the costs of
demolition of the existing build-
ings and installation of roads, wa-
ter and sewer connections. In Jan-
uary, Prosper Portland also hired
Continuum at $70,000 a month to
serve as an owner’s agent over-
seeing demolition and site prep.
The Healthy Communities
Coalition wants the CBA to result
in good union jobs for local resi-
dents — both during the building
phase and when the development
is complete. The coalition also
wants enforceable targets for the
participation of women and mi-
norities in construction, both as
apprentice and journey-level
workers and as contractors. And
it wants the work to be done by
“responsible contractors,” which
the coalition defines as compa-
nies that provide full family
health benefits, that are enrolled
in state-certified apprenticeship
programs, and that don’t have a
record of violating labor and
workplace safety laws.
Prosper Portland initially
aimed to complete the CBA ne-
gotiations by April 2019, then
June, then December, then Feb-
ruary 2020. It’s now June 2020,
and the first site prep work is set
to begin in July. At its June 10
meeting, Prosper Portland ap-
proved a $1.3 million contract
with McDonald Excavating, Inc.
for demolition and soil remedia-
tion of a vehicle maintenance fa-
cility on the north side of the
property, and a $4.4 million con-
tract with O’Neill Walsh to build
a temporary post office on the
ground floor of an existing park-
ing structure so that demolition
can begin on the main structure.
Both firms are union-signatory.
But there’s still no CBA.
For months, Coalition mem-
bers have been reluctant to go
public about their difficulty get-
ting an acceptable CBA, not
wanting to alienate their negotiat-
ing partners while there’s some
hope of a deal.
“It appears that we really have
reached a stuck place,” says
Healthy Communities Coalition
spokesperson Lisa Hubbard.
“We’re pretty frustrated, to say
the least, with where things are.”
Coalition leaders are drafting a
letter to Mayor Ted Wheeler and
City Council, which they’ll send
in the coming weeks, asking
them to intervene in negotiations.
Continuum did not respond by
press time to messages left by the
Labor Press. But individuals with
direct or indirect knowledge of
the talks describe several sticking
points. Continuum is balking at
requiring construction contractors
to provide full family health ben-
efits. There’s also been resistance
to having community groups
oversee compliance with the tar-
gets for women minority and ap-
prentice participation. That com-
munity oversight has been part of
every other CBA on other recent
City projects, says Operating En-
gineers Local 701 Field Repre-
sentative Nate Stokes.
“We need to have oversight to
make sure contractors are doing
what they say they’re going to
do,” Stokes said. “To make sure
we’re getting the numbers for
women, minority and appren-
tices, we need to have some sort
of accountability.”
Coalition members also want
Continuum to sign a Project La-
bor Agreement (PLA) commit-
ting to use union labor. They say
Continuum doesn’t want to do
that until it selects a general con-
tractor, but Continuum did pledge
to negotiate a PLA at that point.
Continuum is also reportedly
raising objections to paying the
prevailing wage for construction
work. That took coalition nego-
tiators by surprise given that
Prosper Portland’s November
2017 description of the project—
which Continuum based its bid
on—said “construction work on
the site is subject to Oregon Bu-
reau of Labor and Industry
(BOLI) prevailing wage rates.”
Prosper Portland Executive
Director Kimberly Branam says
that wording was potentially
confusing, because only some
parts of the project are actually
subject to a legal requirement to
pay prevailing wage. Oregon’s
prevailing wage law applies to
public construction projects and
to public-private partnerships
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