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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (July 17, 2020)
SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900 NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS VOLUME 121, NUMBER 14 IN THIS ISSUE GREEN JOBS, BUT NOT FOR YOU Renewable energy work is going to nonunion out-of-state firms. | Page 2 FURLOUGHED WORKERS TIGHTEN BELTS Workshare benefits have been slow to arrive. | Page 3 Meeting Notices p.4 Broadway Corridor impasse p.8 PORTLAND, OREGON JULY 17, 2020 YES MEANS NO? A worker tried to erase a mistaken mark in the ‘no’ box. The NLRB, led by three man- agement lawyers appointed by Donald Trump, used it to reverse a union election win. AN ONLINE UNION GUIDE TO WASHINGTON’S AUG. 4 PRIMARY nwlaborpress.org/WashingtonPrimary2020 Beating the odds, free public preschool ballot initiative turns in signatures Now the union-backed measure faces a competing measure and a business-backed legal challenge. The decision is the latest by Trump appointees on the NLRB. Photo courtesy of Universal Preschool Now By Don McIntosh They did it. In just five weeks, a union-backed grassroots campaign gathered 32,356 sig- natures on a ballot initiative to provide universal publicly- funded preschool for three- and four-year-olds in Multnomah County. That’s roughly one out of every 15 registered voters in Multnomah County, and nearly 10,000 more than the 22,686 valid signatures needed to qualify for the ballot. More than 500 volunteers con- tributed to the signature gather- ing effort, and the campaign re- ceived over 2,000 single-signer petitions. The Universal Preschool Now (UP Now) campaign turned in signatures July 6, and the county has until Aug. 5 to validate signatures and deter- mine if the measure qualifies for the Nov. 3, 2020, ballot. UP Now was led by chief pe- titioners Suzanne Cohen, presi- Smudge on a union ballot costs 800 Providence workers their union MASK ON, PETITIONS OUT In just five weeks — and in the midst of a pandemic — hundreds of volunteers gathered signatures to get the Uni- versal Preschool initiative on the ballot in Multnomah County in Novem- ber. One of them was Sunnyside Elementary School third grade teacher Tiffany Koyama Lane, a member of Portland Association of Teachers, who set up a white board to collect signatures at Laurelhurst Park. dent of Portland Association of Teachers (PAT); Will Layng, di- rector of Portland Jobs with Jus- tice; and Sahar Muranovic, president of the Oregon chapter of the National Organization of Women. The campaign was en- dorsed by more than 30 groups, including at least 10 labor or- ganizations: Northwest Oregon Labor Council, PAT, Reynolds Education Association, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555, AFSCME Local 88, International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Communi- cations Workers of America Lo- cal 7901, Portland State Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (PSU- Turn to Page 6 Congress to debate further COVID relief A months-long impasse in Con- gress over a next round of COVID relief is threatening workers, businesses, state and local governments, and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Though unemployment de- clined to 11.1% in June, 12 mil- lion Americans who lost their jobs since March remain out of work, and the $600-a-week en- hanced unemployment insur- ance benefit that Congress passed in March is set to expire July 31. State and local govern- ments are reeling from current and projected revenue losses, and have laid off almost 2 mil- lion public employees. And USPS is slated to run out of funds in September, endanger- ing the jobs of 600,000 workers. Led by Democrats, the U.S. House passed a $3 trillion sec- ond-phase relief bill in a 208-to- 199 vote on May 15. Known as the HEROES Act, it would ex- tend the enhanced unemploy- ment benefit to January, provide almost $1 trillion in federal aid for states and cities, send out a second round of $1,200 stimu- lus checks for most Americans, provide $25 billion to keep the Postal Service going through the end of 2020, and order OSHA to mandate that busi- nesses protect workers against COVID-19. But leaders of the 53-47 Re- publican majority in the U.S. Senate adopted a wait-and-see approach, in case the epidemic faded and the economy bounced back. Up to now, Senate Major- By Don McIntosh Back in February 2019, we re- ported on a razor-thin union election in which over 800 hos- pital support workers at Provi- dence Portland Medical Center won a union by just one vote. Now we have to update it: This May, Service Employees Inter- national Union (SEIU) Local 49’s election victory was over- turned by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, D.C. Federal law says the NLRB’s purpose is “to encourage collec- tive bargaining.” The agency ex- ists to prosecute violations of private-sector workers’ union rights and hold elections to de- termine if workers want union representation. But in the last few years, led by Trump ap- pointees, the NLRB has steadily ity Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) has refused to al- low a vote on the HEROES Act, or to support any alternative bill. But this week, McConnell said a new round of negotiations will begin next week. Republican leaders want a new stimulus bill to include a provision relieving businesses of legal responsibility for pro- tecting workers and customers against the spread of the coron- avirus. The forthcoming GOP bill will reportedly cost around $1.3 trillion and will include aid for businesses and hospitals, and financial incentives to en- reversed labor rights reforms of the Obama era and ruled against unions whenever it could find justification. In this case, it came down to whether a single ballot should be counted as “yes” or “no.” By any measure, the union vote at Providence Portland hospital was tight when the election was held Dec. 12 and 13, 2018. In the first tally, the result was 374 for unionizing and 376 against, a union loss. But that didn’t count three voided ballots and 44 other bal- lots that had been set aside be- cause of legal challenges over whether those workers were el- igible to be in the union. When the challenges were resolved, the result was 384-383, a one- vote win for workers who wanted union recognition. Then Providence appealed, Turn to Page 8 courage schools to reopen. But McConnell has said he opposes extending the enhanced unem- ployment benefit. Democrats oppose the liabil- ity provision and the financial pressure on schools to reopen, and are calling for $1 trillion in state and local funding alone. For a new stimulus to be- come law, Democratic and Re- publican leaders will have to come to some agreement. The national AFL-CIO began running TV and social media ads in Kentucky July 14, calling on McConnell to allow a vote on the HEROES Act.
