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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 5, 2021)
SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900 NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS VOLUME 122, NUMBER 21 IN THIS ISSUE COMIC BOOK WORKERS UNIONIZE Workers at the Portland company want to join CWA. | Page 2 KAISER PERMANENTE IN STANDOFF WITH UNIONS Strike authorizations spread to four states. | Page 3 Meeting Notices p.4 Unionization elections p.3 PORTLAND, OREGON NOVEMBER 5, 2021 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IBEW 48: $9 in raises, and an end to marijuana testing By Don McIntosh Members of International Broth- erhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 48 approved a new two-year collective bargain- ing agreement Oct. 27 that in- creases compensation $9 an hour. It covers inside wiremen employed by contractors in the Oregon Columbia chapter of National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA). That’s about 3,900 Local 48 members, plus any travelers from other IBEW locals working in Local 48’s jurisdiction. The two increases of $4.50 (about 5.5%) will take effect Jan. 1, 2022 and Jan. 1, 2023, and members will decide before then how to allocate them between wages and benefits. The current package is $50.35 an hour in wages and $31.48 in benefits. The agreement also makes changes to the Electrical Indus- try Drug Free Workplace Pro- gram, the impact of which will be felt throughout Oregon and Washington in seven IBEW lo- cals and four NECA chapters. The program, established jointly by labor and management in 1990, provides drug testing and substance abuse treatment to workers and managers both, as a non-punitive way to maintain a safe workplace. But under the new inside wire agreement, the program will sus- pend random drug tests through 2023, and permanently end drug testing for marijuana—until a test for impairment can be devel- oped. The problem has been that no test for marijuana can deter- mine if a person is presently un- der the influence; a positive test shows only that cannabis was used days or weeks prior. Marijuana has been legal for adult recreational use since 2015 in Oregon and since 2012 in Washington. Local 48 business manager Garth Bachman says bargaining surveys showed the issue was one of several priorities for members. The existing policy of random drug tests for marijuana has also made it more challeng- ing to recruit and retain new members and apprentices. Drug tests for other drugs can still be required after accidents or on reasonable suspicion of on- the-job intoxication. And tests for marijuana can still be re- quired at the request of individ- ual project owners, as is cur- rently the case at Intel, data centers, and federal government projects. The new agreement runs through Dec. 31, 2023. for streaming. IATSE’s previous contract levied penalties whenever meal breaks were missed or delayed, but studios in- creasingly paid the penalties and denied the breaks, while also imposing mandatory overtime that in some cases risked work- ers’ health and safety. The new contract escalates penalties for missed or delayed meals, guarantees at least 10 hours between shifts, and requires at least 54 hours off after members work five consecutive days in a week. The second big issue was an end to lower wages on streaming productions like Amazon, Netflix, and Apple TV, a conces- sion IATSE agreed to when streaming was new and experimental. Wages have been plant. At an Oct. 30 meeting at- tended by about three-fourths of members, the agreement was well-received, Panian says, and a big majority voted to ratify. For a production assembly worker in Lodge 1005, the in- creases will raise the top wage (which they reach after five years) from $28.05 an hour to $32.05 by the end of the con- tract term, while the typical Teamster wage will rise from 26.32 to $30.32. Turn to Page 5 Turn to Page 6 as much as 6% lower in streaming, depend- ing on the specialty. The new agreement brings streaming productions with budgets over $20 million close to parity with regu- lar productions. –DM Daimler Machinists: $4 raise plus essential worker bonus By Don McIntosh Members of four unions at the Daimler Trucks North America truck plant in Portland’s Swan Island Industrial District have ratified new five-year collective bargaining agreements. The new contracts will raise wages $4 an hour, among other im- provements, and hold the line on employee health insurance costs. The agreements cover close to 700 workers: 460 members of Machinists Lodge 1005, 120 members of Team- sters Local 305, 70 members of Sign Painters & Paint Makers Local 1094, and 20 members of Service Employees Local 49. Workers under all four new agreements get an immediate $1.20 an hour raise, followed by annual raises of $0.70, $0.70, $0.80, and $0.60. The raises total $4 an hour, and work out to roughly 3% a year depending on the starting point. Daimler is also front-loading the union wage progression scales with larger early raises in order to give newer hires greater incentive to stick around. And Daimler agreed to a union proposal for an “essen- tial worker” bonus of up to $2,500 as a way to thank work- ers who kept the plant running through the coronavirus pan- demic. The new agreements maintain the status quo on health benefits. That means no increase in medical costs for members for the next five years. The new agreements run through Oct. 30, 2026. Negotiations were led by Machinists rep Dwain Panian, a 32-year employee of the truck At non-profit county contractors, union-busting is about to get a little harder. By Don McIntosh The Oct. 21 vote was unani- mous: Multnomah County com- missioners want their non-profit contractors to respect workers’ rights to join a union. The reso- lution they passed 5-0 affirms support for a “labor harmony” initiative by Chair Deborah Kafoury’s office that will begin with preschool and mental health and drug treatment providers, and could expand to others later. Details are still to be worked out, but basically the resolution says non-profits that are awarded contracts in those two sectors will have to enter into la- bor harmony agreements with a union — most likely Oregon AFSCME, which represents hundreds of mental health and drug treatment workers locally, or possibly International Long- shore and Warehouse Union Local 5, which represents sev- eral preschool providers. Repre- sentatives of both unions were invited to speak at a hearing prior to the vote. Staff in Kafoury’s office have been working on the policy with county attorneys since 2017, when Oregon AFSCME made a report to commissioners about its United We Heal campaign. United We Heal is an effort to unionize behavioral health workers in order to improve workplace standards and im- prove the quality of care. Right now, wages are low and turnover is high in that sector. But Oregon AFSCME has sev- eral times faced vigorous anti- union campaigns by manage- ment at county-funded non- profits where workers tried to unionize. Brandy Fishback, a union supporter at Central City Con- cern’s Blackburn Center de- IATSE: Hollywood strike on hold What promised to be the biggest-ever strike in film and television production is on hold as IATSE 60,000 members vote on a ten- tative agreement with the Alliance of Mo- tion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The three-year deal—an- nounced on Oct. 16, two days before the strike was set to begin—provides for 3% annual raises and makes progress on union concerns. Extreme overwork and violations of workers’ rights to breaks were the biggest issues motivating members’ willingness to strike. Studios have been scrambling to produce new content, after the pandemic put many productions behind schedule, and also to meet a growing audience appetite Multnomah County votes for labor harmony