NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS |
August 6, 2021 | PAGE 3
Legacy: Synching expirations adds union power
From Page 1
laBor Helps sponsor covid-19 vaccine clinics. The North-
west Oregon Labor Council (NOLC) and the Oregon Health Authority
sponsored a series of free COVID-19 vaccine clinics organized by the
Professional Business Development Group (PBDG). The clinics were held
in Salem, Tualatin, and Northeast Portland from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. over
three Saturdays in July. The last clinic was set up July 24 at Laborers Lo-
cal 737’s facility in Northeast Portland. At all three locations union mem-
bers from a dozen locals and staff from NOLC and Labor’s Community
Service Agency volunteered to set up, tear down, and help out at the
clinics. Vaccinations — a choice of Pfizer or J&J — were administered
by pharmacists from Safeway and Albertson’s. In the photo above, a rep-
resentative from the Oregon Health Authority advertises the free clinic
on busy 181st Avenue. In the photo below, Anjanet Banuelos-Bolanos,
Jani Turner, and Lori Baumann, all members of Laborers Local 737, greet
customers. Those coming in for vaccines got lunch and a raffle ticket for
prizes that included a PlayStation 5, iPad, Occulus VR set and more.
PBDG is a nonprofit construction trade association that supports BIPOC
and women-owned firms. Over the three weeks the group delivered
28 shots.
HAPPENINGS
IBEW 48 golf tournament to benefit sick fund
IBEW Local 48 will hold its an-
nual golf tournament Aug. 22.
The tournament raises money
for the Local 48 sick fund,
which helps members who are
in serious financial difficulty
due to illness or injury, who’ve
been off work at least 30 days
and aren’t getting financial as-
sistance from other sources.
This tournament is open to
IBEW Local 48 members as
well as to nonmembers, includ-
ing family, pensioners, contrac-
tors, vendors and sponsors.
It’s not necessary to sign up
an entire team. You can register
as an individual or indicate a
preferred group (in the "Group
Members" field below).
Due to COVID-19 there
won’t be a registration table or
gathering at the end of the tour-
nament. Boxed lunches will be
provided upon departure there
will be a virtual raffle at a later
date.
■ When: Sunday, Aug. 22, tee times
assigned at a later date
■ Where: Glendoveer Golf Course, 14015
NE Glisan St., Portland
■ Cost: $100 per person
■ Info/tickets: ibew48.com/Golf
from $15.20.
Housekeepers at Emanuel are
also celebrating a side agreement
that will restore their 8-hour
workday. Their hours were cut at
the beginning of the pandemic to
7.5 hours per day, a roughly
$5,000-a-year cut to their pay.
The five-year length of the
agreements is unusually long by
union standards. Unions tend to
prefer more frequent opportuni-
ties to win improvements, while
employers tend to prefer the
greater predictability of longer
agreements.
Mike Morrison, assistant di-
rector of SEIU Local 49’s
Healthcare Division, said Local
49 agreed to the five-year dura-
tion in exchange for Legacy
agreeing to synchronize the ex-
piration dates of the two con-
tracts. The previous contract at
Good Samaritan expired June
30, 2021, while the one cover-
ing Emanuel, Randall, and
Unity had expired a year earlier.
Having the contracts expire the
same day will maximize union
leverage in the future because a
strike would leave Legacy un-
able to transfer patients to the
non-striking hospital.
“Leaving these negotiations
with a joint expiration date was
the most important thing we
“Leaving these negotia-
tions with a joint expira-
tion date was the most
important thing we
could do right now.”
— Mike Morrison,
SEIU 49 healthcare division
could do right now,” Morrison
said. “Our members said, ‘We
are stronger if we’re together.’
And that’s not a tagline; that’s
the reality, and they made that an
absolute priority.”
To demonstrate resolve, Local
49 organized strike votes to take
place at Good Sam, Emanuel,
Randall and Unity simultane-
ously. Members picketed outside
Emanuel once, and outside
Unity twice. Inside, they took
part in coordinated “union
sticker” days and wore “ready to
strike” bracelets. After a legally
required 10-day strike notice,
they were set to walk off July 15.
“I feel like nobody wants to
strike unless they really, really
have to,” said Sunita Patel, a
housekeeper at Legacy Emanuel
and member of the Local 49 ne-
gotiating team. “We love to
work where we work, and we
care about our patients. Nobody
wants to neglect them.”
It wasn’t easy to get an ac-
ceptable agreement out of
Legacy, which has a decades-old
history of hostility to unions.
Legacy’s anti-union history
In 2005, SEIU had to strike for
a day before reaching a deal at
Emanuel, and in 2017, members
came close to a strike before a
settlement was reached. This
time, Legacy stopped deducting
union dues from members’ pay-
checks during bargaining.
At least the hospital support
workers have a union. Nurses
don’t, for the most part. In the
mid-2000s, Legacy defeated a
four-year effort to unionize
among registered nurses. Today
Legacy remains the only major
Portland-area hospital chain
where nurses are non-union.
At Legacy’s Unity Center,
nurses joined Oregon Nurses As-
sociation in 2019, but they still
don’t have a first union contract
two years later. The only Legacy
facility where union-represented
nurses have a contract is its hos-
pital in Silverton, Oregon.
While it spent the last year ne-
gotiating to keep down house-
keeper wages, Legacy paid its
CEO Kathryn Correia over $1.5
million in 2019, the most recent
year for which the tax-exempt
nonprofit’s IRS returns are pub-
licly available.