Page 13
Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, OR Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Bill would again allow public nonstriking workers staffing, safety discussion
By SCOTT JORGENSEN
IVN Staff Writer
Under current Oregon
law, public employees pro-
hibited from striking cannot
include staffing and safety
issues under collective bar-
gaining agreements.
But proposed legislation
would change that.
Co-sponsored by Sen.
Floyd Polanski (D-Eugene)
and Sen. Kate Brown (D-
Portland), Senate Bill 400
has passed the Senate and is
heading for the House,
where Democrats hold a
narrow majority.
Co-sponsor sees
level playing field
Prozanski said that SB
400 would “re-level the
playing field” between un-
ionized employees and man-
agement during contract
negotiations.
“We expect, when we
have a crisis or an emer-
gency, to have a firefighter
or a police officer at our
doorstep to help us,” Pro-
zanski said. “It only seems
fair to allow these individu-
als to be able to discuss at
the bargaining table issues
pertaining to their safety and
ability to do their job.”
SB 400 is facing oppo-
sition, primarily from the
Association of Oregon
Counties (AOC) and League
of Oregon Cities (LOC).
AOC Policy Consultant
Maria Keltner said that the
bill may present “roll-up
costs hidden to the general
public” and passed on to
local governments.
“This expands the scope
of interest arbitration and
expands exposure, and I
would call it an unfunded
mandate,” Keltner said. “It
takes more budget control
away from local officials.”
LOC Interim Legisla-
tive Director Steve Bryant
said he sees such legislation
as being unnecessary.
“I don’t think there’s a
compelling case of actual
evidence to suggest that local
governments have been inat-
tentive to safety issues being
brought to the bargaining
table or otherwise,” he said.
“In fact, we find ourselves in
conversations with local
government officials, and
safety is really job one.
“We’re confused as to
why the unions feel they
need the ability to make
safety issues mandatory and
subject to bargaining,” Bry-
ant said.
Existing Oregon stat-
utes pertaining to the ability
of nonstrikable workers’ to
bargain over safety and
staffing issues were estab-
lished in 1995 under Senate
Bill 750. Prior to that, Pro-
zanski said, those issues
could be discussed during
bargaining.
History of situation
harkens to 1995
“What happened in
1995 was a reform that re-
wrote the collective bargain-
ing laws and basically just
took away this ability to
have those discussed at the
bargaining table and made
them explicitly permissive,”
Prozanski said.
“Explicitly permissive”
means that such issues can
be discussed, but only if
management allows it.
“If they say ‘no,’ that’s
the end of it, period,” Pro-
zanski said. “It shifted the
balance and allowed the
employer to be unilateral in
determining whether or not
there could be any discus-
sion at collective bargaining
around safety or staffing
issues.”
Decisions to be made
through arbitrator
Under SB 400, if an
agreement cannot be
reached between manage-
ment and union representa-
tives regarding staffing and
safety issues, an interest
arbitrator would be assigned
to break the deadlock.
“The decision is then to
select the management pro-
posal, the whole package, or
the union proposal of the
package,” Keltner said.
“That becomes the collec-
tive bargaining agreement.”
Prozanski said that no
part of SB 400 forces coun-
ties to incur additional costs.
“It doesn’t say one
penny has to be paid be-
cause of this bill,” he noted.
“All it says is they shall be
required to discuss, at a bar-
gaining table, these issues.
Nothing is going to require
them to adopt anything that
the labor association brings
forward.”
But Keltner said that the
proposed law could have a
“broader impact” on how
county officials make criti-
cal staffing decisions.
“In those public safety
areas, most anything can be
worded in a way that it has a
staffing or safety potential
impact on workload or
safety,” Keltner said. “We
see it as really opening up
large areas, particularly in
staffing areas that have been
really the core of manage-
ment responsibility and man-
agement decision-making.”
Prozanski said that the
ability of local governments
to afford additional employ-
ees already is considered
under collective bargaining
laws, and that none of that
would change under SB 400.
The public interest
cited as paramount
“What’s current is,
there’s a formula,” Prozan-
ski said. “First is what is in
the public interest. That’s
the top (of the) criteria. If
the arbitrator is able to make
his or her decision based on
that alone, that will be the
deciding point. If not, then
(there are) another six or
seven components they have
to consider.
Saving family land-based business workshop goal
Few challenges faced
by family forestland owners,
farmers, wine-makers, and
other land-based family
businesses are more impor-
tant than the issue of passing
the business and its support-
ing land base on to the fol-
lowing generation.
Many small land own-
ers want to preserve their
family lands, but don’t
know how to involve family
members in ownership and
operation of their small
land-based businesses.
A workshop addressing
the subject will be held
April 16 from 8 a.m. to
noon at the Oregon State
University Extension Audi-
torium in Central Point at
569 Hanley Road.
There is a fee which
includes refreshments and a
copy of the workbook, “Ties
to the Land: Your Family
Forest Heritage,” a $45
value.
For more data, or to
register, phone (800) 859-
7609 or 737-3326 or visit
familybusinessonline.org/
p r o g r a m s /
workshop_calendar.aspx or.
For planning purposes, reg-
istration is requested by
April 12.
“One of the most im-
portant ones,” he said, “is
whether or not the govern-
ment unit can even pay for
it, or if they have the re-
sources to pay for what’s
being required and bar-
gained for, with the under-
standing that the arbitrator
shall take into consideration
the other obligations of the
government unit.”
Of primary concern to
AOC is the fact that under
SB 400, arbitrators would be
able to use one contract as a
“comparator,” Keltner said.
That comparator could then
be used as the basis for all
future contract negotiations,
eventually driving up costs
for county and city govern-
ments throughout the state.
“When the interest arbi-
trator puts that language into
one contract, that contract
then is used as a comparator
for other contracts. So it has
a ripple effect in terms of
that proposal ending up in
many other contracts,” Kelt-
ner said.
“In the past, we’ve seen
that with salary increases,
comparing one county to a
comparator county’s salary,
it ratchets up any time
there’s an increase, whether
an agreement is on the bar-
gaining table or the interest
arbitrator puts it into the
contract.”
Long-tern effects said
‘not catastrophic’
Prozanski said that the
bill’s long-term effects will
not be as catastrophic as its
opponents have claimed.
“I’ve heard from man-
agement that the sky is go-
ing to fall and all this stuff,”
he said. “The reality is, it
didn’t fall prior to 1995
when they had the obliga-
tion to bargain a lot of the
issues that now would be
returned to bargaining.
“If it was so bad,” Pro-
zanski said, “then why
hasn’t management come
forward with all these sto-
ries pre-1995 showing for a
fact that these are detrimen-
tal things?”
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